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God doesn’t guarantee that the British Church will last
John Haldane
Of late there have been several press and media stories that might
lead the unwary to conclude that the Catholic Church has moved into
a position of denominational ascendancy in Britain. Even if that were
true, however, it would be imprudent for Catholics to preen themselves
over it. First, assumptions of societal advancement invite the reminder
that “the first shall come last”. Second, they serve to encourage
the view of some other Christians that Catholicism is more concerned
with its social position than with God’s word and work. Third, self-congratulation would have about it something of the character of fiddling while Rome burns, for the plain fact is that participation is declining precipitately. Never mind the issue of which denomination is doing best or worst, Catholicism is ailing.
Why is that? And what might be done to arrest this decline? The formation
and transmission of Catholic consciousness and commitment depend critically on three bases: home, school and parish. It really makes no sense
to think that if home and school are without Catholic identity then
a weekly visit to Sunday Mass can bear the load. Likewise, poverty
of liturgy and of preaching can undermine the work of good parents
and teachers. Also, diocese and religious orders are struggling with
declining numbers, and the priest has become an object of public denigration.
With parents distracted by work, and leisure now a dissociating, rather
than a bonding, force in family life it is unrealistic to think that
the faith is being nurtured in the home. Without that, however, schools
will find it difficult to inculcate habits of Catholic thought and
practice; and they themselves are subject to other demands, including
from Catholic parents preoccupied about secular success. Catholic
schools also have difficulty recruiting teachers knowledgeable about
and committed to the Catholic faith, and are now anxious that being
avowedly Catholic, in the sense of adhering to Catholic religious
and moral teachings, may incur the wrath of secular critics and public
authorities.
Where there might have been a process of mutual support and reinforcement building a whole greater than the sum of the parts, there tends to be an uncoordinated struggle, sometimes involving mutual, if unspoken, frustration and assignment of blame. It is not a happy situation and unless it is addressed directly and unblinkingly it will certainly
worsen. We have long taken assurance from the words of Matthew’s Gospel: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it”, but this concerns the
mystical institution not a human corporation, let alone any cultural
or national branch. There is nothing in Christ’s promise that guarantees
that Catholicism will not die out in Britain.
Jewish teachers have long distinguished between hope and optimism,
recognising that their own history gives limited scope for the latter,
but that their survival as people of God has rested on the former,
as a response to a divine promise first made to Abraham. We need to
develop a similar confidence in hope; but equally that should not
be an encouragement to pessimistic fatalism. The state of the Church
in Britain is not good, but it is within our power to try to improve
it. The first step towards doing so is providing an analysis of the
principal difficulties.
Here I want to identify three features of British Catholicism that
suggest a loss of faith and knowledge, and about which we each, whether
clerical or lay, need to examine our own thoughts and practices.
First, a pervasive inclination to neo-pelagianism in the form of the
belief that we have the power to save ourselves through our works.
The role of Jesus in this account is not that of securing atonement
but rather one of providing a moral example of what human beings might
aim for. Catholic teaching, by contrast, is that we are saved by grace
and that our works only bring merit to the extent that they are the
fruits of grace, which is itself a free and unmerited gift.
Second, we have become sentimentalist about matters that call for
hard, reasoned thought. Catholic moral theology was once celebrated
for its argumentative rigour which was then communicated to homiletic
and pastoral contexts by a clergy trained in its methods. No doubt
there was some dusty and introverted scholasticism amid that, but
as Chesterton once observed, we can either rely on thought that has
been thought out or on thought that has not. Today we have lost the
habit of philosophical thinking and substituted a sentimental advocacy
of causes without critically assessing their relationship to the faith
that saves.
Third, we have become accommodationist, preoccupied with means of
forestalling secular criticism, rather than engaging confidently with
it, in part by means of ingratiating ourselves with dominant groups
and classes. Time was when “conservative” Catholics craved Anglican
establishment and hoped for conversions from the upper classes of
society, with more than a few prayers being directed to the conversion
of a “royal”. Now “liberal” Catholics crave secular establishment
and hope for conversions from the political, press, or public-service
classes. We are also generally poised to assure the prevailing secular
culture that we share its approved values.
There is a connection between neo-pelagianism, sentimentalism and
accommodationism: it is that these involve the displacement of Catholic
faith and sacramental practice understood in terms of a rigorous theology
of grace and salvation, and their substitution by good works, identified
and sustained typically through emotive rhetoric, with an eye to seeking
approbation or at least minimising exposure to criticism from secular
critics of religion. This is in no way the preserve of one side of
the divided Church. The pro-life movement and those preoccupied with
opposing civil partnerships may be as much prone to substituting works
for faith as those committed to justice and peace and the environment.
The decline of Catholicism in Britain will continue until such time
as it is defended and promoted for what it is, not a social teaching
or a cultural lifestyle, but the truth that without grace we cannot
be saved, that grace comes by Christ’s salvation, and that what Christ
himself taught is that no one comes to the Father save through Him.
Serious re-education in this teaching, through home, school and parish,
would transform the condition of Catholicism in Britain and equip
it to embark on the necessary tasks of engaging the faithless, and
missioning to the unfaithful.
John Haldane is Professor of Philosophy in the University of St Andrews
and Consultor to the Pontifical Council for Culture. He is the author
of The Church and the World (Gracewing) and Seeking Meaning and Making
Sense (Imprint-Academic).
This article first appeared in the 23 May 2008 issue of The Catholic Herald and is reproduced with permission.
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