Author Archives: chalcedon451

Unclean lips: Sunday reflection

10 Sunday Feb 2019

Posted by in Bible, Faith, Reading the BIble

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Isaiah 6:1-8; 1 Cor 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

Isaiah, like SS, Peter and Paul, knows he is not worthy. “Who, me Lord?” Paul is the “least” of the Apostles, while Peter is sceptical of Jesus’ advice to go back out and cast his nets in the deep. He knew himself to be a “sinful man.” And of course he was right.

Despite Jesus’ trust in him, when he was most needed in Gethsemane he was asleep, and later he lied about even knowing Jesus. In a conscious echo of that first calling, Jesus once more advises Peter about his fishing, and it is that which makes him realise to whom he is speaking. Thrice the Lord asks Peter if he loves him, and thrice Peter affirms it; ransomed, healed, restored forgiven, the Apostle is charged with the care of the sheep. He no longer protests he is not worthy. Why is that?

It is certainly not because Peter feels any more worthy than he had had the beginning; indeed if anything Peter knew he had not lived up to the promises he had made. The contrast here with Judas Iscariot is worth noting.

Peter and Judas both betrayed Christ. Judas despaired of the evil deed he had done and, in despair, hanged himself. He could not forgive himself and he did not believe that forgiveness could be had. His pride told him that there was no remedy for his sin; so he destroyed himself, throwing back to God the gift he had been given. He had not been there when Jesus had prayed to the Father for forgiveness for those who “knew not what they do.” Not had Peter. But there was a critical difference.

Peter, like Isaiah and Paul, had the humility not to let his own pride come between him and forgiveness. We have all sinned, not one of us has reached perfection. How easy it is to hide and evade, and even lie, when we have gone wrong and done bad things and then, when we are found out, to despair. It is as though by going to the very depth of despair we make some sort of amend. But that is to judge as men do, and as with Judas, it can be to put a barrier up to the actions of God’s grace.

There is one odd thing about love; you cannot ever deserve it. Even at the secular, physical level, one cannot make the object of one’s love, love you. One can hope that by paying attention to the beloved, one might receive favourable notice, but one cannot compel or deserve love. Love, like God’s grace, is uncovenanted. God’s love is freely available to us; we did not love Him first, He loved us from the beginning.

Christ came to show us what love will do. He died for us, though we are sinners. A man might die for his family or his friends, or even for a cause. But few if any of us die for our enemies, let along for those whom we do not know. Christ did that because He is God, and we see in His atoning sacrifice a glimpse of the Glory of God; for me He did that?

Peter faced the music, so did Isaiah. Sometimes when we have gone wrong, it is easier ti run away, to take the blames, to become the sacrificial lamb. How much harder it is to face the music and to carry on living.

We are not told what Peter did after the crucifixion, just that he ended up back where he had begun, working the family fishing boats, a sadder if not a wiser man. Perhaps he reflected that it would have been better for all if Jesus had listened to him when he had said he was a sinful man? But, of course, Jesus had listened. He who, alone, knows the devices and desires of our own hearts, knew that Peter had the ability to grow spiritually, if only he would learn humility. Well, that he did.

Peter remained, like us, deeply flawed. He thought that it would be fine to eat non-kosher with Gentiles and did not see why the Jewish dietary laws should apply to all followers of Jesus. But when James and the Church in Jerusalem took a dim view of that, Peter backed away and supported them. It was left to Paul to call Peter out and contradict him. Peter let that happen. He had indeed learnt humility, if not always wisdom.

We are all of us sinners. The moment one stops knowing that, then the way os open to all sorts of sins which come from pride. But today’s Bible passages remind us  that sin can have its own pride, and that if our guilt makes us think we are beyond redemption and God’s love, then we need to think again. We have unclean lips and we are a stiff-necked and sinful people. But God loves us, and if we will but receive the message His Son brought to us about love, then all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

The Modern Age in arms?

09 Saturday Feb 2019

Posted by in Faith

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Near the beginning of the Sword of Honour trilogy, Evelyn Waugh allows his main protagonist (it will hardly do to call him a ‘hero,’) Guy Crouchback, a moment of epiphany when the news of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is revealed: ”The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms.” Suddenly the world is the way the Crouchback, the scion of an ancient Catholic family, needs it to be. The moral complexities, the ambiguities attendant on everyday life, the shabby little compromises, all these were swept away – there was a righteous cause once more.

Within two years, Crouchback’s hopes were dashed. As he struggled back to Egypt from the wreckage of a doomed attempt to save Crete, the news came of the German invasion of Russia:

“He was back after less than two years’ pilgrimage in a Holy Land of illusion in the old ambiguous world, where priests were spies and gallant friends proved traitors and his country was led blundering into dishonour.”

The “Crusade” moment may have brought peace and clarity to Crouchback, but in the real world from which he was escaping, it led his country close to invasion and defeat. By June 1940 Britain and her Empire stood alone against a Continent divided between German and Russia. Had it not been for the invasion of Russia, it is hard to see how Britain, even with American help (had that come) could have won the war.  It was the very event Crouchback so deplored which brought the downfall of the evil of Nazism. But it resulted in the triumph of Communism and its dominance in Eastern Europe for half a century, and its pernicious influence remained a global threat into recent times.

The lesson is clear. What we were brought up to believe, that the good guys win because they are the good guys, and however great the odds against them are, they can be surmounted. That is not true.

We can, if we like, comfort ourselves with the thought that as Christians we can survive in some pure bubble of like-minded Christians, but that is not only a delusion, it is in itself a betrayal of the Great Commission. Jesus did not say “Go thou and take the Benedict option” – we have an imperative duty to share the good news. We live and exist in a world which is not as we would want it to be; but we always have.

One constant feature of human thinking is to posit the existence of a golden age. It happened just before we came to consciousness. So, in one version of this, there was a time of tight, faithful Catholic communities, when the age-old Mass ruled, priests were diligent and pious, and all was well with the world; then came Vatican II and the world began to go to hell in a handcart. Put so baldly it is clearly nonsense, unless one posits (as its proponents do) a Satanic conspiracy to destroy the Church. Had that golden age existed, then its inhabitants would surely have been able to have resisted?

We cannot, as Christians, retreat from the public square and try to keep ourselves pure. We are bound to stay and bear witness amidst the messiness and brokenness which are the inevitable concomitants of what we believe about the human condition. Do we find those things in our own Church? Of course we do, why would we not? The temptation at such times is to think oneself a better Catholic than those we think are less orthodox than us; that too is part of our own brokenness. It is unsure that people are saved by their orthodoxy; it is certain that our own uncharitableness and want of love will have a bad effect on us.

That should not be read as meaning belief does not matter; it does. But it does mean that we need to get things in order. That we disagree with our fellow Catholics is natural. That we express it in terms which imply that we are entitled to consider them as agents of Satan is to elect ourselves to a position that can be held only by God. We cannot judge as He can.

Christians have a duty to engage in the public square. If I were to make a complaint, it would be that we have been too willing to to speak about the moral components of our faith to the world whilst not emphasising its roots in Christ. We believe in loving each other because we are one in Christ, which is the same reason that we engage in good works, in education and in politics. We witness in what we do and say. What, to one, is righteous zeal is, to another, an act of bigoted self-righteousness. It was and always will be so until her comes again in Glory.

Crouchback’s experience is that of the world. There is a clarity in the enemy being clear, but if within our own self there is a satisfaction in that because it makes our live easier, that is not necessarily the road that God intends us to take. God is love and the world is as it is. That expresses the task before us. To believe both parts of that sentence, and the make the world a better place for our work and witness.

 

God and Mammon

08 Friday Feb 2019

Posted by in Abortion, Education, Faith

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The parallels between the world into which Christianity was born and this world are obvious; the major difference is the legacy of the Faith, and the witness still borne to it.

The Roman world recognised no sacred nature inhering in being human: abortion; infanticide; slavery and a material view of life were the norm.  As we move away from our inheritance, it is not surprising to see some of those things reappear. What we want from our life is the only standard by which we judge; as long as it does not go against the Law of the land, we can have it. “Justice” redefines itself as “what is legal” and “what the State allows.” As we have developed the concept of “human rights” around the same principles, it follows that my right to choose trumps some intangible “right to life.” If necessary we can use the flexibility of language to aid us here. You might congratulate a woman on her forthcoming baby, and the shops have cards to that effect; but medically a foetus is a clump of cells that can be removed if the bearer of the lump of cells so wishes.

So Mammon wins out. We can, as Christians rightly lament the plight of those who do not have food, shelter or safety, and we can work for their good, knowing it coincides with the good of the wider society. Nice though the fantasy of charitable giving providing for all the needs of the needy, in practice if the State does nothing then some people starve. What is wrong with the mega-rich in our Society is not that they earn too much, it is that they pay too little in tax. We have obligations as members of a State, and those do not come free. So, for all its imperfections, the British National Health Service ensures that no one is driven to bankruptcy as a result of being sick, nor are they denied the best help because they cannot afford it.

Properly viewed, taxation can be the State’s way of doing what is needed for those who need it most. Where we used to pay tithes to the Church, we pay taxes to Mammon. It is perhaps the uses to which Mammon puts those taxes that we might direct our objections.

As Christians we recognise we have a obligation to others. We have not gone down the route of those early Christians who held all goods in common, but taxation is the way that has been developed to ensure some money goes into a common coffer.

The Churches can and do work with the State in many of the areas mentioned: health; education; social services; welfare; all are spheres where we work together. As the State in the West has begun the process of withdrawal from areas where it was over extended, the Churches have tried to occupy some of those vacant spaces.  Anyone who had worked with a Foodbank or a community group knows that Christian make up a sizeable proportion of those who give their time and efforts freely.

We give freely; but do we give too freely? Do we mistake a common concern for a common motive and common ends? To what extent do we, as organised Christian groups do what any other interest group would do, namely promote our own agenda? If we don’t, then why not? Have we become frightened that we will be accused to doing what everyone else does – that is to work towards our own goals? Or have we convinced ourselves that the goals are then identical?

In the case of tax, it is Mammon who will decide where the money goes, but when it comes to areas where the Churches are putting in money derived from the faithful, the faithful might like to start behaving like shareholders and asking what value has been added to the goals of the Church by the investment made?

Mammon and God can work together well enough for the good of God’s people, but the latter demands that the Churches ensure that good is indeed promoted and beneficial. I doubt we do that often, and am sure we do not do it systematically. Perhaps we should try harder?

 

What is to be done?

07 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by in Education, Faith, Politics

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Lenin’s famous booklet, What is to be done? argued that the proletariat would not be radicalised simply though activities designed to secure better pay and conditions. He was right; they weren’t. By extension, one might assert that Catholics have not been converted through an emphasis on how the Church deals with social and economic problems. Indeed, it would be interesting to know how many converts came into the Church because of its social teaching? That is not to say that such teaching is not important, nor to deny the Gospel imperative to help the poor, but it is to suggest that such an emphasis lies to one side of what brings people to Christianity and to the Catholic Church.

Social and economic concerns provides a point of openness to the world, but is not solely the concern of the Churches; if we provide nothing more than what the world can provide, then why would anyone go the extra mile to join a Church?

We either provide a remedy for the spiritual ills of the world, or we are wasting our time, which would be better employed helping those many agencies whose reason for being lies in tackling such ills. We can provide a reason for a bias toward the poor, and we can, do, and should, insert a moral dimension to what might otherwise be a rather utilitarian approach to the poor. We help because they are our brothers and sisters, not because they are suitable objects for our social engineering or because helping them would be a salve to our consciences. We help them because Christ tells us we should.

All of which is to say that while we can rightly concern ourselves with some of the things that are Caesar’s. we do not speak with special authority in those realms; men and woman can do good via working in them, but they do not become more Christ-like by so doing.

A sense of brokenness haunts us. We have many names for that internal emptiness which assaults our most private moments, and we have developed a rich language of therapy to help each other, not to mention a multi-billion pound pharmaceutical industry. Yet with all of that, the problem persists and, like death, is universal.

The purpose of Christian culture is to inculturate the people of the world with the culture of the Kingdom of God, and helping others is simply part of that wider culture. The Good News is that we do not need to get what we deserve. In no way do I “deserve” salvation. I cannot earn it through right belief or orthopraxis. If I were judged by the standards even of this world, I would be lost. But I have a great advocate in Christ, who has paid the price for me.

I am saved by His sacrifice, and I am being saved by it, and at the last I hope that I shall be saved, and that in my way of living I can evidence what He has done for me. If my Faith has no fruits then it is in vain; if my deeds are not done in Him, then they will avail others, but not my eternal soul. That is why knowing Christ is so important. It lies at the heart of everything.

So, for those who have, they say found Him, I cannot and do not say they are wrong. I say only that for me, He is to be found where He said He would be found, which is in His Church. I believe that Church is the Catholic Church, and that being in Communion with Rome is the safest guarantee of that fact. But I would not and do not dare say that others who say they have found Him, and evidence that in their lives, are wrong. I can and do say that the Church is our best assurance, and the best guide against too great a dependence on our own emotionalism and intellectualism.

It is the task of Christian Pastors to proclaim the Good News. Healing is there for what ails us. Do we do that? Is that what people think of when the Church is mentioned? If not, then we might ask what part we play as disciples? Do we give reasons for the hope that is in us? Do we model our Faith or just preach it? If our Faith does not quicken our hearts, then what is to be done?

Catholicism in the public square

06 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by in Anti Catholic, Catholic Tradition, Church/State, Faith

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In England, and thus by extension the English-speaking world, we inherit a tradition which has been called the “Black Legend,” through which English Catholicism has also been viewed. It makes the Catholic Church the centre of anti-English activities, a cruel, intolerant organisation characterised by the Inquisition. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs  provided a foundational text here, portraying Queen Mary I as “Bloody Mary,” a theme now so ingrained as to be to some extent immoveable.

In his influential “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples,” Churchill captures this legend in his treatment of England’s history as one of struggle against the Catholic Powers of Spain and France. The implication of a special English “destiny” was one passed into the American DNA via the idea of “manifest destiny.” All good stories have a villain, and the Catholic Church makes an excellent one in this narrative.

On top of these older narratives, we have a newer one, propagated via aggressive modern secularism, which is hostile to Christianity, but particularly so to the Catholic Church. This new narrative has widened its scope beyond the old victims, who were mainly white male; women and children have been included in the charge sheet. The Church is portrayed as anti-women because of its stances on abortion and contraception; indeed there are some areas where even praising this is seen as “offensive.” It is also hostile to “LGBTI” rights. And then there is child abuse and its cover up. As ever, there would be no smoke without fire, and on the last of these issues, the Church still seems a little tone deaf in some places, and, of course, the large areas where it is not get no attention from its critics.

All of this amounts to a sustained narrative which creates difficulties being a Catholic in the public square. So how do we tell a different story without simply being accused of a biased “revisionism” for its own sake?

In the first place we need to get our history right.

If there was a time when Christianity was alien to England, it was before the invasion of the Emperor Claudius in A.D. 43. By the time of the great rupture we call the Reformation, Christianity had been in these Islands for nearly 1500 years. It did not arrive in the seventh century with St Augustine. Bede is clear that it was already here, and what is sometimes called the “Celtic” Church seems simply to have been the Christianity that was already rooted here before the early fifth century when the Romans withdrew.

England, then Wales and Scotland have a longer history of being “Catholic” than they have of being anything else. Indeed, as Cranmer, Laud and the whole Anglo-Catholic tradition exemplify, a very large section of English Christianity saw itself a a reformed Catholic Church. Beowulf, Chaucer and Shakespeare are all products of Catholic culture, as is our education system, as is our law and morality. Reasons of State made it necessary for the English and then the British State to play up the separation from Rome; but that was not the same as separating from what Christianity had given to England, and indeed, Britain.

If we could examine our history afresh and tell this story, rather than the grand narrative of Churchill, then we should make steps in a positive direction. This is not about “revisionism” for its own sake, but it is, as with “Black” and “Women’s history,” a recognition that unless the story of a neglected group is told, it is hard for us to ass that group in a proper historical context.

I would suggest that viewed from this angle, the narrative is one that unites us. The story it tells is of the way in which the Faith created a civilisation with values and norms which are still needed; created an art which still influences us; and created a culture which still matters.

It is not, and never should be, a matter of denigrating in turn those who have denigrated the Catholic Church, but rather one of emphasising the values of the Faith and their positive legacy and continuing influence. It is of saying that Catholics is not “Irish,” or “Spanish” or “other,” it is part of the English spirit. But who will tell that story, who will write that curriculum for out schools, and who will promote the attempt to correct the balance? And equally important, who will do it in a non-partisan manner which recognises that no story is wholly black or white?

I would suggest that if prominent Catholics are looking for good causes, they might do worse than work towards the creation of an Institute that might begin and promote this good work.

We have schools and universities which are world-class, but we have inherited a tradition of reserve and perhaps have so thoroughly taken on board the need to “keep our heads down,” that we have hesitated to take the lead where we are able. We would not want to be accused of being sectarian, not least by those who are.

But there is nothing sectarian in capturing again the ways in which Catholicism is part of our heritage. In 1852 Newman delivered a series of lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England which repay study. He outlined the problem and part of the solution. We are still looking for Catholics who will go forward with the task he outlined then. Shall we, in our time, say the way is too hard and the task too difficult? It was in Newman’s day. It is harder now. It will get no easier.

 

 

Across the Divide: Education and Faith

05 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Education

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It is some time since I published here, but seeing that the site is well used by others, I have kept it up and kept an eye on it. I’d like to thank Nicholas in particular for his interesting contributions.

I have had three main reasons for not writing: the first is that any controversy would be unhelpful to the greater cause I serve; the second is time; and the third is that there are enough people offering views on what is happening in the Roman Catholic Church without my adding my mite.

Though I blog pseudonymously, my identity is easily guessed. Indeed, the very week I arrived where I now work, the subject of an unflattering blog piece from me wrote to me here to protest. As I am not in the business of giving egotists attention, I filed the letter in the cylindrical receptacle in my office and decided then and there to avoid any chance of a repeat. In the interim I have been able to help my current University to improve its position in the academic world, which is a much better use of my energies and time. But the question which accompanied me here is now, perhaps because of that, more clamant. What is the place of the Church in education?

In England the Church has been involved in education for far longer than the state. About a third of the schools are Faith Schools, and whether secularists like it or not, the Churches have been, remain, and will continue to be, involved in education. Most Church schools have long waiting lists, and parents will go to great lengths to get their children into one. They must be doing something right.

At tertiary level it is a different matter. It was the need for a Faith-based University to begin to rival the performance at secondary level, which took me to where I am now. But why is the thing worth doing at all? Isn’t Faith a private matter which should be left at the door of any educational institution?

No. The idea that it should be so it, itself, a partisan position. The Churches have huge assets invested in education, and the idea that they should simply be put at the service of those who would like to use them to drive their own agenda has about it a sense of chutzpah which is almost endearing in its bare-faced cheek.

We have passed through an era when education and vocational training became synonymous; it is now widely recognised that what makes people employable are so-called soft skills – the ability to think critically, to solve complex problems, to be creative and to be able to manage people. Lest it be thought that this is special pleading on my part, this list comes from the World Trade Organization, not me. A faith-based education offers a holistic, values-based experience to its students. Anyone who wonders why that might matter to, say, a Banker, might care to ponder the root causes of the crash of 2008. The word “Credit” is from the Latin “Credo,” meaning “I believe.” But if there are no agreed and shared values, if all is relative, how can anyone’s word be their bond? It is every person for themself and the devil take the hindmost. No system of finance or, for that matter, governance, can work on that basis. The best place to lay the right foundations is in schools.

I do not say only Faith-based institutions can offer this, but I do want to suggest that they offer an explicit rationale for the values they espouse, values which still, just, lie at the heart of our civilisation

Of course, any fool can point out that religion has been a divisive force, which is why so many do, but that ignores Original Sin. There is nothing good which fallen mankind cannot put to  a bad use; that does not make it bad.

Viewed aright, the Christian ethic is one of love, and anyone who thinks that is a soft and soppy idea needs to re-read what St Paul says about love. Anyone who has seriously tried to practice that sort of love knows how very hard it is for us. But it is good for us. we are not called simply to tolerate others (a hard enough task for many nowadays) we are called to exercise self-restrain and to love them. A Society as riven and divided as the one in which we live has need of that quality. If it is not inculcated via a Faith-based route, it is unclear who else will provide it.

Our society pays a good deal of attention to physical well-being, and also increasingly to mental well-being. But if we are not careful – and we have not been as a society – these lead down a material route: if I have a healthy body and lots of “stuff” then I am fine. Yet the evidence suggests that our young people are suffering from a crisis of mental health. 

Humankind has always needed more than the material if it is to be healthy; but our impoverished materialism is what is offered, and so when our young want bread, we offer them stones. Again, those educated in a Faith-based system have other indicators of what is an is not the “good life.” Man does not live by bread alone.

The Churches in this country are sitting on a great asset, if one wants to put it bluntly, and if one does, one might add the question of what they are doing to ensure it is well-used? If the Churches do not use that asset properly, then they are poor stewards of a precious inheritance. One of the privileges of my current position is to see the ways in which the Churches are using those assets to make a difference. One might want more, one always will, but the part played by the Churches in the world of education is, on the whole, a noble one.

If Christ will not help us heal, then who else can?

We might reflect on why we have so often given the secularists so much ammunition to show that religion is a divisive affair? It is sin which divides us. If we can follow Him in questioning the lazy assumptions of the comfortable, and in helping those who most need it, then we do His work.

Across the UK the Churches can work together more closely to ensure that there is real diversity in our society – a diversity which includes respect for the part the Churches play in that society. We are not rooted in the shallow soil of Enlightenment assumptions about the perfectibility of humankind, but rather in the insight St Paul offers in Romans 7, which tells us that each of us is the problem. However hard we will the good, we do the bad. Our Faith grounds us in the humility that comes from that, and the fact that the only answer to our fallen nature is Christ.

In a world where “leaders” are expected to be those who always succeed, our Faith reminds us that failure is inevitable, and that what matters is how we use that experience and to whom we dedicate it. The divide in our society, and within us, is to be bridged only by that insight.

 

Pharisees & Popes

25 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Faith, Pope

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Bolivian President Evo Morales (L) exchanges gifts with Pope Francis during a meeting at Quemado presidential palace in La Paz on July 8, 2015. Pope Francis, the first Latin American pontiff, arrived in Bolivia on the second leg of a three-nation tour of the continent’s poorest countries, where he has been acclaimed by huge crowds. AFP PHOTO/JUAN CARLOS USNAYO

“Three months ago, in a country, in a city, a mother wanted to baptize her newly born son, but she was married civilly to a divorced man. The priest said, ‘Yes, yes. Baptize the baby. But your husband is divorced, so he cannot be present at the ceremony.’ This is happening today. The Pharisees, or Doctors of the Law, are not people of the past, even today there are many of them. That is why we shepherds need prayers.”

Thus Pope Francis at Santa Marta last October.

As presented in the Gospels, the Pharisees were men who cared so much for the letter of the Law that the Spirit of it passed them by; one feels they were the spiritual predecessors of modern Health & Safety experts. Jesus was clear about the importance of not binding the people with extra burdens. Any priest who acted in the manner described by the Pope, should have recognised that his actions were not going to contribute to family stability, or even, perhaps, to the bringing of the cild to baptism. It is hard to know quite what the priest thought he was achieving.

In such circumstances, the ‘rigorism’ condemned by the Pope, seems to stand rightly condemned.

But then when, as last February, the Pope takes the line that rigorism includes priests who tell divorced people that they can remarry, he seems, to many of us, the ignore what the Lord Jesus says in Mark 10:1-12. To accuse any priest who upholds that teaching as a ‘Pharisee’ seems to take the word to that point of uselessness occupied by a word like ‘fascist;’ anyone of whom one disapproves, falls automatically into that category. It is a word for the polemicist, not the apologist.

No Catholic can cavalierly dismiss the insistence on dogma as pharisaism. The Laws of the Church derive from the teachings of Jesus. Yes, and of course, how easy it would have been to have been able to do as the original Pharisees could, and allow divorce on certain grounds; but Jesus was clear on this. We can, as many churches have, choose to caveat His words, and effectively allow divorce; but try as we might, we cannot pretend we are abiding by His words.

All of this is by way of prelude to Fr Thomas Weinandy’s thought-provoking article in In the National Catholic Register. A member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission, Fr Weinandy spoke on the theme of the four marks of the Church: “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.” All of these were, he said, at risk, not least from the confusion created by the Holy See itself.

This is a theme we have considered here recently. There is certainly a place of robust discussion and deep questioning, and even for the sort of contrarianism which can make a seminar or lecture go with a swing, but it seems an unlikely role for the holder of the See of St Peter, not least in an age of instant communication. An septuagenarian who, by his own admission, does not read social media, may, perhaps, have an imperfect understanding of how his words are received by millions who do not spend their time in theological controversy. Fr Weinandy has a better understanding, and that gives him cause for concern.

In spite of all the controversy following Vatican II, there was never any doubt over where Blessed Paul VI, St John Paul II and Benedict XVI stood regarding the Church’s “doctrine, morals, and liturgical practice.” But, Fr Weinandy

“Such is not the case, in many significant ways, within the present pontificate of Pope Francis,” Father Weinandy continued. Praising the Pope for his personal holiness and his concern for the young and the marginalised, he goes on to observe:

that “at times” the Holy Father appears to identify himself “not as the promoter of unity but as the agent of division,” and that his desire to — in the Pope’s own words — “make a mess” in the belief that a greater unifying good will emerge, is a cause for great concern.

By doing nothing to calm the doctrinal division and moral discord within the Church caused by some of his own ambiguity, the Pope, Fr Weinandy suggests, may have transgressed has transgressed the foundational mark of the Church – “her oneness.”

It seems hard to counter Fr Weinandy’s thesis. Does that mark him out as a ‘rigorist’? Are there not, as suggested in the opening paragraphs, times when rigor is necessary? I would suggest that Fr Weinandy’s interesting lecture is read by all with a concern for these things. I would further suggest that attempts to write him off as a Pharisee miss the point. Dogma is dogma. doctrine is doctrine, and if one does not like them, then there are plenty of alternative ecclesial communities which will accommodate those of that point of view.

Education, what is it good for?

19 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by in Church/State, Education, Faith

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One characteristic of modern, advanced countries, is that they realise that education is essential. We forget how recently this, now commonplace statement, was not the case. In the UK it was not until 1870 that there was primary and secondary schooling for all, and as late as the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth centuries, there were only half a dozen universities in the UK, and most of them dated from the Middle Ages. It was not until 1944 that the UK Government really turned its attention to secondary education. Before then, the main provider of education was the Church.

The Church, of course had a vested interest in the subject, and as, until relatively recent times, it provided the State with many of those who ran its institutions, the State was willing to support its efforts. For all the ill-informed criticisms directed at the medieval Church, there can be no doubt that it was, in effect, the Noah’s ark of classical learning.

By the mid-twentieth century, it was accepted that modern States needed a highly educated work-force. In the UK, with its clear hierarchy of class, that tended to mean that anything utilitarian, was under-valued. When the British State expanded Higher Education in the 1960s, it did so by establishing universities which, despite the hyperbole about them being ‘new’, tended to imitate the established universities. It was left to the Polytechnics to deal with the more utilitarian end of the education market, but even there, the British class system exerted its pull, and as they expanded, many of them looked to imitate the traditional providers of Higher Education.

As usual in the UK, there was much pragmatism but little discussion of first principles. The Blessed John Henry Newman had clear ideas about what a university should be for. It should be a community of scholars, and the older ones should prepare the younger ones to be people able to realise the gifts they had been given by God. His faith in Divine Providence convinced him, in a religious version of market economics, that if Universities did that, then men (and in his day women were barred from Higher Education) would find the place where they could fulfil their destiny. He understood, as all good educators do, that it was the whole person, and not just the intellect, which needed to be brought out (‘e duco’ – leading out, the Latin root of the word).

That is why education, cut off from its religious roots, is in perpetual danger. The State is always myopic. Politicians, wedded to short-termism (usually the date of the next election) will seek to make it fulfil whatever short-term need they can think of. But they need, as the Church has always done, to take account of the sort of society they want to live in. Music and the arts do not happen by accident, and a good society will want them and value them; it will also be willing to pay for them, and allow rich men and women to support them too.

Education is for life, not just for a few years in our youth. If we grasp that it is about helping each of us be the person God meant us to be, then we are at less risk from the fads and fallacies of the age.

Higher Education and the Philistine

18 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by in Education, Faith, Newman

≈ 26 Comments

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pexels-photo-356086.jpegThe UK Secretary of State for Education, Damian Hinds, wishes to see a new ‘value for money’ test applied to universities, which, he says, will see cuts to the fees charged to students doing Arts and Social Sciences subjects.

Mr Hinds, who got a First in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford, seems to think in terms of the first and third of those subjects. Mr Corbyn is offering to abolish fees, so politically the Tories need to do something to appeal to the young. One might expect a man with an Oxford First to realise that offering something for nothing is always going to trump offering something from which you have to pay; especially with anyone economically illiterate enough to believe the Labour leader. Economically, he seems to think it an easy matter to put a value on a degree. Does it lead you to a good job?

Mr Hinds was educated at a Catholic Grammar School. One presumes he did not come across the Blessed John Henry Newman’s Idea of a University there, or, indeed, elsewhere. But that he went through a Catholic education and should have come out with such a utilitarian view of the purpose of higher education is a disappointment. Managing to study Philosophy at Oxford and still having a purely instrumentalist view of higher education ought to be surprising.

But one does not need to be a philosopher to question whether Arts and Humanities subjects are of lesser value than more vocational ones. That well-known leftist Think Tank (that is joke by the way), The World Economic Forum, has articulated the qualities it thinks desirable in national leaders. Not one of the qualities, which are needed among more than just the ‘leaders’, is discipline specific. All of them require what the Minister himself seems to lack, which is the ability to take the skills one learns at university, skills such as critical thinking and empathetic understanding, and apply them to the task in hand. One hopes Mr Hinds will remember some of those skills before it is too later.

At the moment the UK’s universities stand second only to those of America as an international success story. In the last five years they have faced a revolution in the context within which they work. From a situation where they had to deal with a Government-imposed cap on the number of students they could take, and low fees, they were pushed into a free market where they could take as many students as they could get, and charge up to £9k a year (now £9.25K) to each of those students. The market worked as the market tends to. Many students went where they thought they could get the best value for that money. They based that judgment of ‘value’ on many things, but not money alone. Universities adapted with speed and agility to the new situation. But now, just as they are coming to terms with it, HMG seem determined to change the rules of the game – again.

If Mr Hinds’ views are economically reductionist, they are also regressive. Children from backgrounds where there is enough social capital to realise the value of Arts and Social Science subjects, will continue to do them, but at a reduced price; children from other backgrounds will be deterred. So, within a generation, Arts and Humanities and Social Science subjects will be the the preserve of a social elite at a few “top” universities. Let’s return to the 1930s, it was so much better then.

But above all, Hinds expresses a deeply philistine view of education. Wilde defined a philistine as one who knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Value and ‘values’ as not the same thing. What value a society of educated people able to think and make informed decisions about political and economic issues? But let’s not worry, seems to be the argument, ‘value for money’ can be defined in narrow utilitarian terms.

If, as Mr Hinds claims, he wants to continue widening access to Higher Education – a line I support, let us widen it for all subjects, not just the ones a current generation think economically useful, especially when the yardstick used is the wrong one. That a Conservative Catholic should be so confused about the value of higher education is deeply depressing.

Of your charity

17 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by in Church/State, Faith, Lent

≈ 23 Comments

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ANC

One of the things those of us with any disposable income try to do, is to give it to good causes. About once a year I review who receives what I give. There are some obvious stalwarts: my old College, which is not one of Oxford’s richest, and gave me so much, that I want to give something back to each new generation; and then a series of charities. Some of these are secular charities, but the majority are religious ones. It was, therefore, sobering, to put it mildly, to see the news about Oxfam. As my friend Neo has written elsewhere there is a very considerable iceberg underneath this tip.

That aid agency staff commit abuses seems further proof of the axiom that bad people will find a way of working with vulnerable people. We see it in every Church. This leads those with an agenda to criticise my own Church, or someone else’s church; for believers in original sin, that seems a culpably blind attitude. Some of the things described in Neo’s piece are heart-breaking. For the Director of Oxfam to say ‘it isn’t as though we murdered babies’, shows, alas, that he still fails to grasp the scale of the outrage. His detailed excuses as to why they behaved as they did once they knew the details of the scandal, shows a concern with preserving the institution at all costs. As an expert on disaster management, he should have consulted an expert in media relations on when not to bring a mechanical digger to a hole-making party.

Charities have become big business, but unlike other businesses which pay their CEOs a fortune, this business does not make anything or sell anything, it raises funds and then tries to spend them in the best way possible. It is a business that relies on reputation. The Charity sector is not coming well out of this, or indeed, other investigations, such as phone fund-raising. There is something deeply disturbing about the pattern of behaviour being revealed. I stopped one long-term donation because a phone fund-raiser aggressively tried to make me increase the amount I had given. He seemed oblivious to my argument that I gave to a number of charities and had worked out what I could afford to give to each; the result was he managed to lose his charity a regular amount, plus a legacy. Of course, he did not work with the charity, he was a professional fund-raiser paid by results. I hope he was not on a bonus.

In all this sorry story, it is good to recall some charities do work no one else would. The Aid to the Church in Need charity is one. The work it has done with the victims of ISIS/Daesh is exemplary. In places no one else goes, ANC goes. It is helping thousands of Christian who feel abandoned by the UN charities working in Jordan. £3.6 million has just been given to Iraqi Christians to help rebuild houses in the Nineveh Plain. This is something no one else would do. NGOs tend to take a relentlessly politically correct line, which in places like Jordan means that Christians are at the bottom of the list. A quarter of Iraq’s Christian have now returned to their homes. This is real charity. It is not about trying to help make the refugee camps more permanent, but about making them unnecessary. So far, £28million has been given to Christians in Iraq.

But ANC is in the Sudan, Russia, Syria, and raising the alarm wherever Christians are persecuted. At Lent we are encouraged to give of our charity. I have made my decision, and hope that, despite the scandal engulfing the ‘charity sector’, charities like ANC will continue to be supported.