May 30, 2005
CONSOLIDATION, THEN GROWTH:
Pope's vision of a smaller church (Ian Fisher, 5/30/05, The New York Times)
Joseph Ratzinger, as a theologian and cardinal, returned to the question often over the years. And now that he is Pope Benedict XVI, his paper trail on the issue provokes skepticism about him among more liberal Roman Catholics. The question, in his own words: "Is the church really going to get smaller?"
At another point, in an interview published in 1997 in "Salt of the Earth," he explained it this way: "Maybe we are facing a new and different kind of epoch in the church's history, where Christianity will again be characterized more by the mustard seed, where it will exist in small, seemingly insignificant groups that nonetheless live an intense struggle against evil and bring good into the world - that let God in."
The standard argument is that Benedict "wants a more fervent, orthodox, evangelical church - even if it drives people away," as a New Yorker headline put it recently.
But, as with much around this new pope, the whole story is complicated. He has yet to announce an overall program, having been in office just five weeks, but both critics and supporters alike say that it is unlikely that he would plan to prune back the church intentionally - or that he could.
"I don't get any sense of him wanting to purge or anything," said Christopher Ruddy, an assistant professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. "But I think he is willing to say what he thinks are hard truths, or unpopular truths.
It would seem germane that the Church is losing out to more fundamentalist Protestant denominations. Stricter orthodoxy doesn't appear to drive people away in the long run. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 30, 2005 12:01 AM
Exactly! The Pope is merely responding to the arguments of liberal theologians that to be popular, the Church needs to forfeit Biblical morality. He is saying that the Church needs to be faithful, and if the consequence is shrinkage as the liberals say, that's not a problem. It's God's responsibility whether the seed falls on stony ground or fertile; but the Church must distribute the seed.
It's like John Bunyan's famous thoughts in Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, when he was in jail and threatened with hanging by a corrupt judge: he decided that he would venture all for Christ, come what may, sink or swim. The Pope is communicating a similar resolution, only the modern equivalent of "hanging" is unpopularity.
Posted by: pj at May 30, 2005 10:50 AMBut, gee, won't he lose Andrew Sullivan for good if he follows through with this tactic?
Posted by: John at May 30, 2005 11:02 AM