Prof. Eamon Duffy is best known to traditionalists as the author of a series of extraordinary scholarly works centering on the last years of medieval Catholicism in England. Someone acquainted only with these works might assume the author is an iconoclastic (in the best sense of the word) conservative. However, when Prof. Duffy leaves his beloved 16th century and becomes a commentator on contemporary church affairs he takes on a quite different persona – one more familiar across the Atlantic – that of a defender of the progressive Catholic establishment. This is the role he undertakes in his recent piece for the Irish Times: “‘Man of the Sacristy’ walks in the Shadow of John Paul II”. Article Now the views set forth in this article are by no means original or limited to Prof. Duffy – they are undoubtedly widely shared in Catholic religious orders, bureaucracies and even the episcopate. That is why a more detailed response is required.
Amid some very sensible opening observations on the current scene, Duffy takes up one theme dear to the news media and asks himself how the pope received an invitation to a state visit, as if this were an entirely unexpected and extraordinary action. He speculates that the invitation of former prime minister Gordon Brown: “ is likely to have sprung from a recognition of the pope’s standing as leader of the world’s largest religious collective, encompassing more than a billion people, most of them in the developing world. He is aware too of the church’s unique role as a powerful international pressure group for human rights and development issues and the world’s largest humanitarian agency.” From the context it seems that Professor Duffy agrees with this perception. Is there any wonder that young people – and many others not young at all – are deserting a religious body with such a self-understanding?
Duffy asserts that “John Paul II was manifestly a giant on the world stage, his life story one of titanic struggle against 20th century Europe’s two great tyrannies.” “By contrast, Pope Benedict is an altogether smaller figure.” Admittedly, John Paul II’s “social and moral views elicited no more enthusiasm from the secular world than those of Joseph Ratzinger” and Duffy makes clear that John Paul’s achievement was purely one of politics, personality and media. Indeed, Prof. Duffy’s intended praise could be read as an indictment of the previous pontiff. And Duffy makes no mention at all of the sexual and financial scandals that have shaken the church for years now – most calling into question in one away or other John Paul II’s governing of the Church .
Although Duffy grants that Benedict is “probably more intelligent and certainly a better theologian than his predecessor” he is allegedly also “more anxious” and “maladroit” in attempts to promote his “views.” The language the author employs is revealing; like the previously mentioned “views” of John Paul II, the “views” of Pope Benedict would appear to be no more than the opinions of one individual, which other Catholics may reject or accept at their discretion. Pope Benedict is “less willing to engage with [the] culture.” But what does “engage,” this favorite meaningless word of current church speak, exactly mean? Especially in regard to a pope who has dialogued with numerous intellectuals of contemporary culture and who has personally initiated a renewed confrontation with art, music and beauty in the Church. One fears that, to Duffy, “engaging” the culture is synonymous with “agreeing with” or “conforming to” it.
Duffy continues with questionable and tendentious observations on the actions of the current pontiff. Duffy opines that “an ongoing Vatican campaign” to downplay the “novel” dimensions of
Vatican II and to “emphasize continuities with the attitudes and ideas of the age of Pius XII, appears to have his support.” That’s a strange formulation, as Pope Benedict launched the whole movement himself with his address on the “hermeneutic of continuity” against the will of many (almost all?) of those in the Vatican. The Pope’s decision “in the teeth of opposition of most of the world’s bishops” to permit the free use of the “old, unreformed Latin mass” is part of the same tendency, asserts Duffy. The unspoken assumption here is that if, allegedly, “most of the world’s bishops” oppose a policy a pope should not go against their will. Finally, by describing the lifting of the excommunication of the SSPX bishops as “conciliatory gestures to the holocaust denying lefebvrist rebel bishop Richard Williamson” Duffy adopts as his own the worst rhetoric of the secular media.
As a historian of the Popes, Duffy should rather be asking himself this: why did the “giant” John Paul II utterly fail an imparting any direction to the church over many years, while the “academic” Benedict has launched one concrete legislative initiative after another: regarding the Anglican church, the Latin mass, the SSPX, the Orthodox church etc, – all in the face on monumental opposition from the Catholic church establishment?
According to Duffy, it is “remarkable” that Benedict will be beatifying Cardinal Newman; since Newman was a “liberal” in terms of church politics “whose vision of a healthy church was in many respects the antithesis of Pope Benedict’s.” That Newman had well-founded reservations towards the some of the policies of the ultramontane papacy does not at all make him a “liberal” in church politics at that time or now. And there is absolutely no harmony between Newman’s views and those of 21st century Catholic dissent. To insinuate that Pope Benedict’s ideals and methods of church government are those of Pius IX is the exact opposite of reality; indeed, Benedict’s regime has been characterized by an often excessive solicitude for the views and status of the clerical bureaucracies both at the national level and at the Vatican itself. Benedict has deliberately refrained from “imposing” his policies (like Summorum Pontificum) on the unwilling – preferring to let truth emerge on its own from local initiatives.
We agree with Prof. Duffy that “labels can be deceptive.” But surely it is questionable to assert the “ecumenical” aspect of Newman when some of the specific incidents which launched Newman on his journey to Catholicism resemble the policies of the post-conciliar church? And to say that Newman ”changed churches halfway through his life” betrays a view of the church that makes incomprehensible the drawn-out and tragic personal struggle of conversion described in Newman’s autobiography.
Duffy, in conclusion, admonishes Benedict to “concentrate not on denunciation” (letting us draw the conclusion that that is what Benedict otherwise would likely do) but to commend Christianity by its inherent “hopefulness and humanity.” These seem odd criteria for a religion. Is Duffy not advocating the continuation of the religion of the 1960’s – all love and joy, without penance, suffering, asceticism and the cross? Certainly that vision of Christianity has disastrously failed over the last 45 years to inspire the populations of Western Europe. Benedict, however, has shown he has his own ideas for revitalizing Christianity in Europe. I am sure the next few days will be revealing.
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