Chaput at the Synod: On Diversity and Inclusion

chaput_600pxSo I choose more often than not to refrain from writing about my more Catholic moments here on Bearing Drift, mostly because (1) this is a political new media resource, (2) the bandwidth here just doesn’t lean that way, and (3) when I do post on Catholic stuff, I often get trumped (pun mostly unintended) by the media equivalent of a cat picture.

Nevertheless, this line from Philadelphia’s Archibishop Charles J. Chaput struck me, and I thought it would be nice to share.  From Creative Minority Report:

Brothers,

The Holy Father has wisely encouraged us to be both fraternal and candid in speaking our thoughts during this synod.

Just as our thoughts shape the language we use, so too the language we use shapes our thinking and the content of our discussions. Imprecise language leads to confused thinking, and that can sometimes lead to unhappy results. I want to share with you two examples that should cause us some concern, at least in the English-speaking world.

The first example is the word inclusive. We’ve heard many times that the Church should be inclusive. And if by “inclusive” we mean a Church that is patient and humble, merciful and welcoming – then all of us here will agree. But it’s very hard to include those who do not wish to be included, or insist on being included on their own terms. To put it another way: I can invite someone into my home, and I can make my home as warm and hospitable as possible. But the person outside my door must still choose to enter. If I rebuild my house to the blueprint of the visitor or stranger, my family will bear the cost, and my home will no longer be their home. The lesson is simple. We need to be a welcoming Church that offers refuge to anyone honestly seeking God. But we need to remain a Church committed to the Word of God, faithful to the wisdom of the Christian tradition, and preaching the truth of Jesus Christ.

The second example is the expression unity in diversity. The Church is “catholic” or universal. We need to honor the many differences in personality and culture that exist among the faithful. But we live in a time of intense global change, confusion and unrest. Our most urgent need is unity, and our greatest danger is fragmentation. Brothers, we need to be very cautious in devolving important disciplinary and doctrinal issues to national and regional episcopal conferences – especially when pressure in that direction is accompanied by an implicit spirit of self-assertion and resistance.

Five hundred years ago, at a moment very like our own, Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote that the unity of the Church is the single most important of her attributes. We can argue about what Erasmus actually believed, and what he intended with his writing. But we can’t argue about the consequences when the need for Church unity was ignored. In the coming days of our synod, we might fruitfully remember the importance of our unity, what that unity requires, and what disunity on matters of substance implies.

For those not following the Synod on the Family in Rome, it is a three-week leadership retreat held by the Vatican to discuss such matters as marriage, sexuality, and the role of the family in modern life.

Needless to say, for the media it has been a perfect foil for the meme that Pope Francis is some sort of liberator of left-leaning theology.  For conservatives, a sign that some bishops of the Church are more attuned to financial concerns rather than their role as shepherds of their respective flocks.

For others, the conversation about second marriages and — perhaps fleetingly — the idea of married priests in a tradition more in line with Eastern Orthodoxy remains an interesting (if almost impossible) development, one that liberal reformers are hoping to pile in with a mass revision of Catholic teaching on the legitimacy of the homosexual act and the definition of marriage and family.

Comments such as those made by Chaput are interesting indeed, if for no other reason than Chaput has been a consistent voice for an authentic Catholicism in the public square — one untainted by the political moods of the day.

Inclusivity as a form of welcome should not, in the eyes of Chaput, be an invitation to capitulation.  Nor should the idea of unity be sacrificed at the altar of a false form of inclusion.  As the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen so aptly remarked in his book Old Errors and New Labels:

Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience towards evil and a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. But what is more important than the definition is the field of its application. The important point here is this: Tolerance applies only to persons but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth but never to persons. Tolerance applies to the erring; intolerance to the error.

If the Catholic Church is to be the great hospital for sinners that it ought to be in the Franciscan tradition, rather than the great museum of saints some have permitted it to be, these three words of inclusion, unity, and toleration will be the battleground.

Otherwise, should the argument trend towards a change, one might very well argue that the Catholic Church no longer serves as a hospital for sinners, but rather — if we tolerate error, if we include error, and if we demand unity above truth — then we merely become an euthanasia ward for souls if we are never asking those within to heal, to be healed, to be forgiven, and to pursue virtue rather than accept vice.

So these are the things that come to mind when I’m not writing about politics.
Or philosophy.
Or farming.
Or games.

…c’est la vie.

Сейчас уже никто не берёт классический кредит, приходя в отделение банка. Это уже в далёком прошлом. Одним из главных достижений прогресса является возможность получать кредиты онлайн, что очень удобно и практично, а также выгодно кредиторам, так как теперь они могут ссудить деньги даже тем, у кого рядом нет филиала их организации, но есть интернет. http://credit-n.ru/zaymyi.html - это один из сайтов, где заёмщики могут заполнить заявку на получение кредита или микрозайма онлайн. Посетите его и оцените удобство взаимодействия с банками и мфо через сеть.