Barrel Strength

I had the pleasure of dining with Lord Hugh of Auchentoshan the other night. Lord Hugh is an English Catholic, what they used to call a recusant; his family never saw the benefits of the Reformation and so, unlike many Irish or Scottish Catholics, their attachment to the Roman religion was to them an intensely familial tradition rather than a tribal identification. You all know dozens of Catholics; you may be one yourself. My experience has been that Catholics have a hard time accepting parts of their religious upbringing, and if I may venture this observation, the difficulty seems to arise mostly from their strong aversion to the conflation of the institution of the Church with the message of Christianity. For a protestant, these things are separate; for a Catholic, these are nearly unitary. So among my many Catholic friends maybe two or three attend Mass and take it seriously enough to argue about it, favourably or unfavourably. The proportion of protestant friends who are believers is not much higher, but they are a lot less angry with their native churches.

Since we have known each other for decades, Lord Hugh and I do not have to pretend about anything. He arrived with a couple of bottles of wine and some cheese, which is always a good sign in a guest. It means they intend to stay and have a good time. Over steak and good red wine we discussed Lord Hugh’s favourite topic, Roman Catholicism.

Now Lord Hugh of Auchentoshan reads Papal encyclicals in bed, so you might expect fireworks between him and me on matters religious. Not so. As is becoming usual with Catholics these days, I ended up defending the Pope, and he launched into a broadside against the practice of the Roman religion (Sigh).

Chapter One: He finds that there needs to be an eighth sacrament, the sacrament of ordinary life. He reads Church literature and it is 90 pages about how to be a priest and ten pages about how to be a man and wife. So the beatitude of not getting bent out of shape as husband and wife quietly determine who is the most tired and therefore who will change the baby’s diapers does not figure prominently in the Church’s book of the sacred life.

Score 1 for Lord Hugh. I am in full agreement. The sanctification of ordinary life is a vital part of all true religion.

Chapter Two: The Pope recently said Mass with his back turned away from the people. They used to do it this way all the time in Anglican and Catholic Churches; now the fashion is to stand behind the communion table and say the Mass facing the congregation. Lord Hugh saw the darkest tendencies in this act. Plus, Pope Benedict wants to return to more ancient, pre-twentieth century, musical forms. If this happened in Africa, said Lord Hugh, it would be a crime against all that beautiful African singing and dancing which accompanies the Mass.

Score 1 for the Pope – he can say Mass anyway he believes is proper, and an elevation of Church music from guitars and ragged choirs to Tallis and Byrd might improve the product. But score 1 for Lord Hugh as well because there is no point in turning to pre-twentieth century musical forms in non-European contexts.

Chapter Three: The Pope issues an encyclical which my learned friend said was entirely intellectual in content. “If you cannot express the love which is the core of the message, get out of the way; be silent”.

Score 1 for Lord Hugh, because he understands that the message is Love. But is the current Pope getting in the way of the message? Or is he merely reminding everyone that the Church stands for reason in addition to faith? Since I do not know the encyclical to which he refers, I will give the Pope a point for his firm defence of reason in the recent brouhaha with the professors and students of the Roman La Sapienza university which prevented his appearance there.

Chapter Four: The local priest has been heard to say that people need to start their own personal religion. I guess Lord Hugh had not heard of Johnny Cash’s “Your own personal Jesus.” At that point I launched into an outline of the Masonic idea that we are all building our own inward and spiritual temples.

Amidst Lord Hugh’s expressions of dissatisfaction with the current Papal regime, and the excessive orientation towards clergy, I said: “It seems to me that you Catholics have adopted a very protestant attitude towards your church. You see everything in Catholic terms and you may be entirely orthodox in your beliefs, but you maintain that you have a right to have your own attitude towards the Church.” It seems to me that this right to have your own view is the essence of the protestant point of view. If that is so, the Reformation has succeeded in the heart of Catholicity. It suggests to me that the ancient political (not religious) quarrel between catholic and protestant is essentially finished.

As to the current Pope Benedict XVI, and his predecessor John Paul II, we have reached a stage where the head of the Roman Church is reaching out over his hierarchy to speak directly to the issues of the day. Mostly they are acting as true witnesses to the message of Christ. The Pope has also lofted some soft bombs in the direction of Islam. In yet another speech Benedict asserted that the only true Churches are the ones that theoretically uphold Papal authority. And so defining the word that way, he excludes protestant churches from being “true” churches. As a protestant I really lost sleep over that. I bet you did, too. (Sounds of snoring in the pews)

The Pope is the head of the Catholic church, which is the political heir of the Roman empire, and holds fast to the rule of one man, however much he is guided and advised by his council of cardinals. As a protestant it does not concern me that the Roman Catholic Church is so constituted. If you don’t like it, start your own. Or pay less attention to the Pope.

Any particular protestant church can decline and dissolve without much loss to anyone else, for Christianity will go on. But the Pope is running a vast supertanker of a religion; he cannot afford error or innovation. It is too bad, but that is the way it is. Thus if the Church waits five hundred years or a millennium before deciding some issue, maybe it has a point.

And so it was, old friends amicably discussing religion, the Catholic excoriating the current Pope, the protestant defending him. Live long enough and you will change your mind on almost everything.