In last week’s homily, which was based on the story of Thomas, we reflected on the positive value of doubt, the importance of asking questions and the danger of too much certainty when it comes to matters of faith. In its extreme form, I suggested, certainty breeds fanaticism, intolerance and fundamentalism, three of the great scourges of our day, and in its more common form it breeds rigidity and inflexibility in the way we think which makes it much more difficult for us to embrace change or open ourselves up to new insights. I remember so well how, as he was preparing to set off for Rome for the Second Vatican Council, Archbishop Dwyer of Birmingham met with the priests of his diocese and solemnly assured them that, contrary to rumours going around at the time, there was not the slightest chance that the Mass would be changed into English. I think, too, of the great French theologian, Henri de Lubac, who, in his nineties, was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II as a belated recognition of a whole generation of brilliant men who, by their research in the fields of Scripture, liturgy and the history of the Church had laid the foundations of the Council, but who for most of their lives had been sidelined and even condemned by Rome. One wag, commenting at the time on the reluctance of people in Scotland to accept the Council, said that the problem was that Vatican II was answering questions people in Scotland weren’t asking.
And yet my own experience is that people in Scotland today are, at last, asking all kinds of questions. There was a very powerful and positive response to what I said last week. One contributor to the website said that he had waited fifty years to hear it, and this did not in the least surprise me. I have heard so many other people say the same kind of thing over the years, and one of the reasons, I believe, why so many people have stopped going to Church is that, as their doubts and questions have surfaced, they have not been dealt with in a positive and constructive way. Often they have remained unspoken and so have festered away inside. Instead of being exposed to the light where they can become the place where faith deepens and grows, they have remained hidden, until suddenly one day, someone who had quietly turned up at Mass every week for years, stops coming and is not seen again. And for all I know there could be some of you here very close to taking that same step. And it’s all so sad and so unnecessary.
Contrary to what people think, you see, virtually everything about the Church is open to question and has already changed many times over the centuries. One of the biggest misunderstandings I have encountered in people during my years as a priest is the completely mistaken idea that, from the time of Jesus right up to the 1960s, things had remained the same until Pope John called the Vatican Council which then changed everything. Change is never ending in the Church and one of the things I hope we will do after the summer is offer a course in Church History which will help us understand this better. There are things which, even if he is unlikely to do so, the Pope could change tomorrow at the stroke of a pen: like the Church’s marriage laws of the rule about priestly celibacy. And even in matters of dogma, like the Trinity, Transubstantiation or the Virgin Birth, the Church never claims to have explained these fully or said the last word on them. There is always room for new insights, and so, by definition, there are always questions to be asked. And hidden in this week’s Gospel we have an example of this.
As the passage begins, Peter says that he is going fishing. To which the others reply, ‘We’ll come with you.’ Even in this little incident it is obvious that Peter had leadership qualities and it seems not unreasonable to suggest that it was this which led Jesus to appoint him as leader of the group. But although he is their leader, it is not Peter who, as the story goes on, recognizes Jesus on the shore. The one who does that is John, the youngest member of the group. And in this we can see a reflection of a creative tension which has gone on in the Church since the very beginning, the tension between what we might call the institutional Church – the Pope, the Bishops, the clergy and so on – and the more prophetic or charismatic elements in the Church, represented by John, a mere boy. It has always been the job of the leaders to lead, but, especially in times of crisis over the centuries, those who have recognized Jesus first have not always been the leaders – I love that sentence in Mark’s Gospel where it says that Jesus appeared last of all to the eleven – but very often those with no power or status in the Church. Some became saints, but in their lifetime they were often on the margins of the Church. And, of course, as with all the Resurrection stories, many were women, which brings us to one of the burning issues of our day.
At the beginning of his reign, at a time when he had great hopes for unity with the Orthodox and Anglican Churches by the year 2000, Pope John Paul II spoke about a time when the Pope would play a very different role from the one he has played in recent history. The Pope as we know him is product of the nineteenth century and has not always acted the way he does today. John Paul, rather paradoxically, given his own very dominant style, envisaged the day when the papacy would be less autocratic and more obviously serve the world and the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time said that he himself could imagine such a Pope as leader of a united Church. But, of course, it did not happen at that time.
But could it be happening now? The scandal of sexual abuse has put the papacy under the most severe scrutiny and it would not be an exaggeration to say that it will never be the same again. Many have argued that this whole scandal would never have happened had the institutional authority not been so dominant and the prophetic tradition more influential: and in particular, if women had been more involved. And so could the whole tragic story of child abuse come, in time, to be seen as the catalyst for the latest in a long line of changes for the better in the Church.
I, for one, certainly hope so.
BIDDING PRAYERS
We begin today by praying for Pope Benedict and for all who hold positions of leadership or authority in the Church at this difficult moment in its history. Every crisis is an opportunity for development and growth and we ask God to pour into those who lead us at this time the grace and wisdom they need to grasp the moment and respond in an open and faith-filled way the movement of God in everything that is happening, trusting always in the God who, in time, turns all things to good.........Lord hear us
And we ask God to give us that same courage and wisdom here in this parish. We ask, in particular for the courage we need to face up to and deal with the doubts and questions which surface from deep within us, a process which has been accelerated in many by the current scandal surrounding child sexual abuse. If these are dealt with in positive and healthy ways, they can be the beginning of deeper and more adult faith and we ask God to show us how to do this both as individuals and as a community........Lord hear us
The Church lives and breathes in history. We exist in history, are influenced by history and have helped shape history for the last two thousand years. In the mystery of the Incarnation, God, in Jesus, became part of our history and is forever more tied in with all that happens in the world, for good or for ill. And so we pray that the Church history course which, God willing, we will run in the parish next year will help us understand this and so see the events of our own time in perspective...........Lord hear us
There has always been a more or less healthy and creative tension in the Church between those who exercise leadership and authority and those exercise a more free and unpredictable prophetic ministry. It has always been the role of the prophet to challenge authority and call it to account when it wandered – as it has often done – from the way marked out by Jesus in the Gospel, and we ask God to continue to raise up many men and women who will continue this prophetic ministry in our own day.........Lord hear us
At the very heart of the prophetic ministry in the Church is the answer Peter and the other apostles give to the High Priest in today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. ‘Obedience to God’ they tell him. ‘comes before obedience to men.’ As people of faith, we are called, as the martyrs of the early Church did, to live by and speak up for the values of the Gospel even when the world thinks we are mad and we pray for the courage to do that in the context of the times we are living through.........Lord hear us
In recent years, many women have walked away from a Church where, as they see it, they are neither valued nor welcome. And even among those who remain there is often a deep sense of anger or frustration at the way they are treated. And yet it was women who cared for Jesus out of their own resources. It was women who stayed at the foot of the cross. It was a woman who was first to meet the risen Jesus. And so we ask God to show the Church how to value women today and use their many gifts.....Lord hear us
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