Church 2011: The Need for a New Beginning

“The Church does not exist for its own sake. The church has the mission to announce the liberating and loving God of Jesus Christ to all people. The Church can do this only when it is itself a locus and a credible witness for the liberating good news of the Gospel. The Church’s speaking and acting, its rules and structures – its entire engagement with people within and outside the Church – is under the claim of recognizing and promoting the freedom of human beings as creatures of God. Unconditional respect for each person, respect for freedom of conscience, commitment to the law and justice, solidarity with the poor and oppressed: these are the theological foundational standards which arise from the Church’s obligation to the Gospel. Through these, love of God and neighbour are made concrete.”

This very beautiful introductory paragraph is taken from a memorandum penned and published by 144 professors teaching Catholic theology in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The number amounts to about one third of those teaching theology in those countries.

I will to-day publish long extracts from this memorandum, as I thought we could forget a little bit about the divorce debate and concentrate a bit on the Church. I do not agree with everything written in this memorandum but I think that it is a document worth discussing. I will be using the translation posted on http://www.memorandum-freiheit.de/?page_id=518

The German speaking professors took their cue from the child abuse scandals which, last year, rocked the German Church. They said that, urged on by the negative of effect of these scandals, the church should reform itself.

Their take on the relationship of church structures and society is superb.

“The renewal of church structures will succeed, not with an anxious separation from society, but only with the courage for self-criticism and the acceptance of critical impulses – including those from the outside. This is one of the lessons of the last year: the abuse crisis would not have been dealt with so decisively without the critical accompaniment of the larger public. Only through open communication can the Church win back trust. The Church will become credible only when the image it has of itself does not completely diverge from the image others have of it. We address all those who have not yet given up hope for a new beginning within the Church and are committing themselves to this. We build upon the signals of a new departure and dialogue which some bishops have given in recent months in speeches, homilies, and interviews.”

Areas for dialogue

Then they tackle a number of questions about which, they say, open must take place.

They pinpoint the following:

“1. Structures of Participation: In all areas of church life, participation of the faithful is a touchstone for the credibility of the Gospel’s message of freedom. According to the ancient legal principle “What applies to all should be decided by all,” more synodal structures are needed at all levels of the Church. The faithful should be involved in the process of appointing important office-holders (bishop, parish priest). Whatever can be decided locally should be decided there. Decisions must be transparent.

“2. Parish Community: Christian communities should be places where people share spiritual and material goods with one another. But the life of the parish community life is eroding at present. Under the pressure of the shortage of priests, ever larger administrative entities (“XXL Size” Parishes) are constructed in which neighbourliness and sense of belonging can hardly be experienced any longer. Historical identities and social networks achieved over time are given up. Priests are overburdened and burn out. The faithful stay away when they are not trusted to share responsibility and to participate in more democratic structures in the leadership of their parish communities. Ministry within the Church must serve the life of the communities – not the other way around. The Church also needs married priests and women in ordained ministry.

“3. Legal culture: The recognition of the dignity and freedom of every human person becomes evident especially when conflicts are worked out fairly and with mutual respect. Canon law deserves its name only when the faithful can truly make use of their rights. It is urgent that the protection of rights and the legal culture within the church be improved. A first step is the creation of institutional structures of an administrative justice system in the Church.

“4. Freedom of Conscience: Respect for individual conscience means placing trust in people’s ability to make decisions and carry responsibility. It is also the task of the Church to support this capability; this task must not revert to paternalism. It is especially important to take this seriously in the realm of personal life decisions and individual life styles. The Church’s esteem for marriage and for the unmarried form of life goes without saying. But this does not require the exclusion of people who responsibly live out love, faithfulness, and mutual care in same-sex partnerships or in a remarriage after divorce.

“5. Reconciliation: Solidarity with “sinners” presupposes that we take seriously the sin within our own ranks. Self-righteous moral rigourism ill befits the Church. The Church cannot preach reconciliation with God if it does not create by its own actions the conditions for reconciliation with those whom the Church has wronged: by violence, by withholding law, by turning the biblical message of freedom into a rigorous morality without mercy.

“6. Worship: The liturgy lives from the active participation of all the faithful. Contemporary experiences and forms of expression must have their place in it. The Eucharist and other celebrations of the sacraments must not become frozen in traditionalism. Cultural diversity enriches liturgical life; this is not compatible with a tendency toward centralized uniformity. Only when the celebration of faith takes account of concrete life situations will the Church’s message reach people.”

Conclusion

The openness evidenced in the attitude of the German theologians is in stark contrars with the close-minded attitude of many Maltese Catholics. The close-minded attitude is generally the result of free of what is new, or lack of theological formation, or lack of faith in the victorious presence of the Spirit of the Lord in human history. These limitations are parallel with a crippling model of a church preoccupied with itself. “Christian women and men are compelled by the Gospel to look to the future with courage, and walk on water as Peter did, spurred by the word of Jesus: ‘Why do you have fear? Is your faith so weak?’”