The Church sins
In response to Matt Talbot’s recent powerful post, “Sins That Cry Out To God,” our contributor Mickey replied, “When I read about things like this, I find it very difficult to put what I feel into words.”
I agree. Matt’s post, an account of systemic abuse in Catholic schools in Ireland which could accurately be described as a form of religious terrorism, left me speechless for a number of reasons. But one feeling I had in response is the same feeling I have whenever I hear such stories: it is the overwhelming feeling that we Catholics must stop this nonsense of making the ecclesiological claim that the Church is holy, not sinful. You know what I mean: the absurd distinction between saying that the Church’s members are sinful and do sin, but that the Church could never be sinful itself because it is the “spotless Bride.”
At the Second Vatican Council, we tried to shake this idealistic (and ideological) understanding of the Church’s relationship to historical sinfulness. We didn’t quite get there, because as we know, there were ecclesiological disagreements among the Council Fathers which are still being played out today. The best we could do at the time was to imply that the Church is corporately sinful, specifically through the Council documents’ use of the image of the Church as “pilgrim,” a Church that sojourns through history, rather than simply a heavenly reality which floats above history. As a pilgrim Church “on the way” to the Kingdom, the Church must, the documents insist, undergo constant renewal. As Rahner has reminded us, if the Church as a communal reality must undergo “renewal,” the Church must then, collectively, be sinful. As Rahner wrote, “Not only every individual in the Church must truthfully and humbly confess himself [sic] a sinner, but also the Church, for she is the community of these sinners.”
As many of us are aware, we are still struggling with divergent ecclesiological visions. Among some sectors of the Church, there is a desire to deemphasize the “pilgrim” quality of the Church, to pay mere lip service to the Church’s historicity and to return to the idealized language that Vatican II tried, to some degree, to correct. And this backward ecclesiological motion is not limited to Roman Catholicism. Even in the World Council of Churches’ Faith and Order document The Nature and Mission of the Church an accommodation is made to this antiquated Roman Catholic perspective when it says:
For some, it is impossible to say “the Church sins” because they see the Church as a gift of God, sharing in God’s holiness. The Church is the spotless bride of Christ…. As such, the Church cannot sin. The gift is lived out in fragile human beings who are liable to sin, but the sins of the members of the Church are not the sins of the Church…. According to this perspective one can, and must, speak only of the sin of the members of the Church and of groups within the Church…”(The Nature and Mission of the Church: A Stage on the Way to a Common Statement, Faith and Order Paper no. 198, WCC, 2005).
Against this idealized ecclesiological revival, we must say, along with Rahner, that there is no Church apart from its members, members who are at once individuals and a collective Body. And as stories like the ones Matt relates show us — viscerally show us — we are a Body that is obviously struggling with the baggage of historical, systemic, deeply evil sinfulness. We must say, in humility, the Church sins.
The German theologian Fr. Johann Baptist Metz has said that we can no longer do theology “with our backs to Auschwitz.” The deep evil of the Holocaust, he says, must affect how we do theology and how we talk about — or don’t talk about — the Church. In his new book, Catholic theologian Tom Beaudoin says that today we can add the Church’s abuse of children to that list: we can no longer do theology or describe the Church with our backs to those the Church has abused. I think at the very least this means we can no longer say — must no longer say — the Church is “not sinful.”
Comments are closed.
In my own thinking and writing on the topic I have experimented with the language of “The Church sins in as much as”: her members, her structures, her leadership etc. I think it preserves the point that the traditional formulation is trying to make without the accompanying problems. I don’t know what others think of this.
A brief historical note. I was under the impression that it was the Orthodox who got that clause included at Faith and Order, though some Catholics would certainly agree.
“Catholic theologian Tom Beaudoin says that today we can add the Church’s abuse of children to that list: we can no longer do theology or describe the Church with our backs to those the Church has abused. I think at the very least this means we can no longer say — must no longer say — the Church is “not sinful.”
It says we all need more penace in our lifes, and thus need to do more to lift up the poor and the oppressed.
I think it preserves the point that the traditional formulation is trying to make without the accompanying problems.
I’m just not sure that the point you are referring to should be retained. If the point is that the Church is eschatologically “sinless” then, sure, we should say that, not simply “the Church is sinless” which is the traditional formulation. I think saying the latter is precisely part of the ecclesio-ideology that enables the kind of abuse Matt’s post talks about. Your way of phrasing it is much, much better, but I’m always suspicious of what we are trying to protect when we “talk around” the Church’s sinfulness. I’d rather, with Rahner, take the direct approach: there is one Church, a Church on a pilgrimage through history, a Church that is both holy and sinful.
A brief historical note. I was under the impression that it was the Orthodox who got that clause included at Faith and Order, though some Catholics would certainly agree.
That would make a lot of sense. They certainly tend to share that ideal, iconic ecclesiological approach.
I agree that there is one Church that is both holy and sinful. My formulation (“sinful in as much as” . . . ) is specific about where it is sinful, so as not to occlude the holiness. You formulation (“eschatologically sinless”) is specific about the holiness so as not to occlude the sinful. I think they are complimentary, though cumbersome used in tandem. Maybe someone else has a way of saying it that captures both concerns?
All excellent points. In sum, the teaching that the Church is sinless is not a complete thought and should not be presented as, or assumed to be, a complete thought.
Liam – Yes, exactly. And even our attempts to complete the thought have been incredibly vague and hesitant, and thus, perfect for ideological use.
Michael,
You can’t imagine how much we agree herein.
Here is some Vatican II spots that help:
Lumen Gentium toward the end of Chapter I, “ The Church, however, clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and always in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal.”
In Chapter 7 of Lumen Gentium: “ The Church ..will receive it’s perfection only in the glory of heaven when will come the time of the renewal of all things (Acts 3:21)…and…“ ..for the Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real though imperfect”.
These two spots helped correct an unfortunate moment in Mystici Corporis by Pius XII. In section 66, he begins well and shows the categories in which the Church is purely holy but then when at the end of this passage, he gets to the members who sin…suddenly they are not Church…and Vatican II above was voiding that aspect of Mystici Corporis which it can do to an ordinary encyclical that does not pretend to infallibility…here is the section of Mystici Corporis that starts out fine and ends badly:
” Certainly the loving Mother is spotless in the Sacraments, by which she gives birth to and nourishes her children; in the faith which she has always preserved inviolate; in her sacred laws imposed on all; in the evangelical counsels which she recommends; in those heavenly gifts and extraordinary graces through which, with inexhaustible fecundity,[130] she generates hosts of martyrs, virgins and confessors. But it cannot be laid to her charge if some members fall, weak or wounded. . In their name she prays to God daily: “Forgive us our trespasses”; and with the brave heart of a mother she applies herself at once to the work of nursing them back to spiritual health.”
From “But it cannot be laid to her charge” onward is to void the Church of anyone but but a numinous Holy personification composed of no humans. I’m thinking 343 years straight of Italian Popes for whom “Mother” is a very touchy area and she is always holy. But they forget perhaps that Mary was perfect and no other mother was and the Church is the Bride of Christ not His Mother and as such, Ephesians says that Christ is washing her with the Word…which is a process that takes centuries as Vatican II implied above.
I agree that the holiness of the Church is eschatological, but because we have a share in the eschaton now, there is an element of that holiness in the now — which I believe leads to the validity of any discussion as to talking about the Church has holy even now. Nonetheless, it is also valid to point out that in the not-yet there is sin, and sometimes grave sin, and all of this needs reform. The Church always needs reform. The Church always needs confession (I like the way this was done by Pope John Paul II, and how the East engages this on Forgiveness Sunday).
For reasons like this I think Balthasar’s “chaste prostitute,” has some value to it, because of its paradoxical nature. How can one be a prostitute if one is chaste? How can the church be holy if it sins? The paradox shows where our ecclesiological systematic ends, and where different qualities, which might seem opposed to each other, need to be kept, both in balance. Both sides need to be accepted within history.
The problem is that this has often not been the case, and idealism has reigned supreme. No wonder many Catholics are appalled when they learn otherwise and have a crisis of faith.
“Chaste prostitute”
Well, there’s the pithy statement I was looking for. I love it when Rahner and Balthasar agree. ;)
On a more serious note, Henry’s pointing out the ‘already-not yet’ dynamic in the Church’s holiness is essential to this conversation. And some people are going to put more emphasis on the ‘chaste’ and some on the ‘prostitute’, so a little elucidation (such as Michael provides here) to ensure the correct interpretation of each term will always be in order.
Here is another well known theological voice on the topic:
Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx in this passage:
”The synchronic affirmation of the Ecclesia indefectibilis ( i.e. a church which cannot fall away from it’s basic inspiration or cannot come loose from it’s original roots) and the Ecclesia semper purificanda (the church which must always purify itself) poses serious and delicate problems….it’s indefectibility takes the historical form of a constantly renewed metanoia, renewal, self correction. It already emerges from this that this is an indefectibility not in triumphalism, but in weakness in which God’s grace triumphs. This implies that there is no indefectibility despite weakness, ie automatic indefectibility, but in and through constant renewal in faith, hope, and love. ( “Church: The Human Story of God” by Edward Schillebeeckx (Crossroads:New York,1996) p.196.