The well-known author of The Changing Face of the Priesthood and other trailblazing works on reform in the Roman Catholic institution, Donald Cozzens, came to give a lecture at King's. He talked about his hopes and fears for the Francis-era Catholic Church. At the end, he gave three scenarios that may happen in the RCC now: a Catholic springtime, a C. thaw and a C. wintertime.
The springtime will take place if Francis' reforms succeed. The thaw (he thinks it is the present ongoing situation) is characterized by conservatives (reactionaries) and progressives keeping a status quo of controlled tension. The wintertime, he think, will happen if the reactionary and very right-wing elements of the church succeed to install a man after their own thinking after Francis.
He mentioned several times that Faith is trust and hope and that orthodoxy "masquerading as faith" (his words) is not genuine Faith. Of course, I say a firm "Amen" to that.
I asked a question at the Q&A time about where does the event of Vatican II enter the picture. I pressed him to comment on my reflection that if a whole ecumenical council (Vatican II with its reforming agenda) was undermined by reactionary forces in the Church, what chances does a lone figure (even though he be Pope Francis) really have?
He didn't really seriously answer this question to my satisfaction. He evaluated my remark though as "realism", however, he thinks that he (Cozzens) is more "hopeful" than I am. That doesn't really carry weight, does it? I am also hopeful. I'm just trying to insert a little realism to balance what can be an uncritical optimism.
In fact, a friend (P.M.) sent me these remarks which basically run along the same lines as my thoughts.
Cozzens comes across as a very likeable person and a skilled speaker, and I was initially impressed with the idea of a Catholic spring. I appreciated his use of Tillich and his emphasis on faith as trust and hope. But the contrast between "hopefulness" and "realism" (the basis of Cozzens' statement about you) is not helpful, for it equates hope with naïvete. And that is the last message one wants to send today. His emphasis on contemplative prayer as the means to reform the Church is, I think, more of a "pious immigration to the interior" which dodges sticky institutional problems than a recipe for reform. One key institutional problem is how bishops are appointed. Not too long ago, I read that in 1829 there were 646 Latin rite bishops, and only 22 of them were appointed directly by the pope. 555 appointments were controlled by states, and the remainder were appointed by cathedral chapters. I'm not in favor of states controlling the appointment of bishops but there has to be significant local input. The Anglican Church does a better job of choosing bishops than we do. Too many members of the curia think of the curia as a permanent fixture. Popes come and go but the curia is forever. Such curial attitudes do not fit well with a servant church of the poor.
I will have to add here that the Roman Catholic Church is still practically blind to the reality of "empire" and how it corrupts the message of Jesus. There should be a concerted effort to do "Postcolonial Thought/Analysis 101" throughout the church and particularly among the bishops for them to be aware how the reality of empire and its agenda (aka the often unconscious desire for power and--to echo Cozzens--"privilege") which is, in many significant ways, at loggerheads with the compassionate nature of God's basileia, still very much operative in the church institution, often making it a parody of what God's basileia should not be!
The burning question is, when the demon of empire is finally and significantly exorcised from the RCC, will it still recognizably remain the RCC? I'm not so sure of that. This is one of the reasons why I had to leave the RCC hierarchical structure. I thought it was structurally and significantly adverse to the basileia tou theou.
/jkk
