The Spirit of Dissent

A couple of things: I was talking to a friend of mine today, a former Protestant minister, about Brother Roger’s death and also what he termed “a spirit of Protestantism in the Catholic Church” which greatly distresses him. Ken was a Pentecostal, eventually becoming a Charismatic Episcopal before coming home in 2001. After his profession of faith he had to join the Army to feed his family . . . and then 9-11 happened. He ended up serving a year in Iraq before returning to the States and separating from the Army. In any case, his spiritual journey is a fascinating, and very inspiring one to listen to and so I do every chance I get. First, about Brother Roger’s death. Ken visited the Taizé community and has been interested in it since beginning his journey to the Church. He found it an inspiration that so many Protestant ministers who joined the community ended up, sooner or later, in full communion with Rome. That, by the way, is what he believes that Brother Roger did as well. Ken is confident that Brother Roger was Catholic when he visited him in 2003. In any case, based upon his interest in Taizé he caught something that I had missed in reading the Zenit article discussing Brother Roger’s letter to the Pope. In the letter, Zenit reports that Brother Roger wrote of his desire “to come as soon as possible to Rome to meet with me [B16] and to tell me that ‘our Community of Taizé wants to go forward in communion with the Holy Father . . . ’” Ken sees in this the logical fulfillment of Taizé’s mission, in other words, the community’s full communion with the Catholic Church. He wondered if Brother Roger’s impending trip and the community’s trajectory to communion with Rome might have been the catalyst for his murder. Hmmm . . . I wonder . . . The second item is the spirit of Protestantism in the Catholic Church. There was in fact a book by the title “Spirit of Protestantism” by a Presbyterian, Robert McAfee Brown. He published it in 1961 as an attempted counter part to Karl Adam's “The Spirit of Catholicism.” He was not quite successful in his ability to codify the “spirit” in his book, by his own admission; however, there have been other attempts. A Methodist, Dr. Albert C. Knudson, in a 1944 book entitled simply “Protestantism,” insisted that “the cardinal principle of Protestantism is "the inspiration of the individual and the consequent right of private judgment," as opposed to Rome's claim to be the authoritative interpreter in religious matters” (the link provides a great summary of this topic). It seems to me that Ken has hit the nail on the head. Total self-reliance in all spiritual matters seems to be the same spirit that many dissenting Catholics adopt. This realization of course is nothing new but it does provide another perspective to consider. The difference between Protestants and dissenting Catholics is that the Reformers left the Church and current Protestants do not join Her. However, for some reason dissenting Catholics do not leave to find a tradition more in keeping with what they wish to hold. Why? There are manifold reasons, perhaps as many different reasons as there are individual dissenters. However, it seems to me that the reasons many do not leave is that the current culture better allows the dissenter to live peaceably within this discord than it did in the past. Here are some ways in which I think it does: - The relativism of our culture and its distorted sense of tolerance conspire to make any claim of absolute truth untenable to modern ears. - The radical individualism which the culture fosters (with its seeds at least partly from the Reformation) and the virtue assigned to those who seem to be in control of their destinies, together with our ingrained suspicion of authority make it quite difficult to trust anyone other than ourselves (at least in some matters since we cannot live with this suspicious attitude in our daily lives and still survive in a society). - Our fallen state and our hedonistic culture condition us with a bias against any admonitions toward self-control and self-restraint. - Finally, most Catholics are not well catechized and do not understand very well what the Church teaches or why. Thus with very little to go on most dissenters (but not all), simply follow the path of least resistance. They are catechized by the culture and respond to the rare corrections that they hear with the canards with which the culture feeds them. Other dissenters who are relatively well catechized seem able to hold their positions because they have been able to convince themselves that they know better than the Magisterium . . . the path which every heretic and dissenter has taken. What is required to solve this problem is the same that that which is required for faith itself—trust. We are born trusting and only eventually learn to distrust. Without trust a child could not learn, a society could not function, and a man cannot be saved. Trust is reasonable and it is possible because God has made us with this in built capacity. It is sin, temptation, pride, bad experiences which teach us not to trust and make it hard to overcome our resistance to trust. Grace through the Sacraments and cooperation with grace through prayer, self-mastery, and practice of the virtues is the way home to the true Spirit of Catholicism.