Tuesday, May 31, 2005
The Pope, the Church, and the Mustard Seed
The question, in his own words: "Is the church really going to get smaller?"
At another point, in an interview published in 1997 in "Salt of the Earth" (Ignatius Press), he explained it this way: "Maybe we are facing a new and different kind of epoch in the church's history, where Christianity will again be characterized more by the mustard seed, where it will exist in small, seemingly insignificant groups that nonetheless live an intense struggle against evil and bring good into the world - that let God in."
The standard argument is that Pope Benedict "wants a more fervent, orthodox, evangelical church - even if it drives people away," as a New Yorker headline put it recently.
But as with much around this new pope, the whole story is complicated. He has yet to announce an overall program, having been in office just five weeks, but both critics and supporters alike say that it is unlikely that he would plan to prune back the church intentionally - or that he could.
"I don't get any sense of him wanting to purge or anything," said Christopher Ruddy, an assistant professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. "But I think he is willing to say what he thinks are hard truths, or unpopular truths."
The question is whether those hard truths - on sexuality, on the proper celebration of Mass, on standards for receiving communion - will scare off Catholics who disagree.
From its first days, the church struggled with sects and schisms and later with the Reformation, and in modern times it is torn by scores of local interests, sex scandals, and dissent on contraception and the role of women in the church.
Perhaps of more interest to Pope Benedict is that the church is also bombarded by a secular culture that he believes offers no fixed values. And the eternal question for the church remains: What do Catholics need to do and believe, in order truly to belong?
At another point, in an interview published in 1997 in "Salt of the Earth" (Ignatius Press), he explained it this way: "Maybe we are facing a new and different kind of epoch in the church's history, where Christianity will again be characterized more by the mustard seed, where it will exist in small, seemingly insignificant groups that nonetheless live an intense struggle against evil and bring good into the world - that let God in."
The standard argument is that Pope Benedict "wants a more fervent, orthodox, evangelical church - even if it drives people away," as a New Yorker headline put it recently.
But as with much around this new pope, the whole story is complicated. He has yet to announce an overall program, having been in office just five weeks, but both critics and supporters alike say that it is unlikely that he would plan to prune back the church intentionally - or that he could.
"I don't get any sense of him wanting to purge or anything," said Christopher Ruddy, an assistant professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. "But I think he is willing to say what he thinks are hard truths, or unpopular truths."
The question is whether those hard truths - on sexuality, on the proper celebration of Mass, on standards for receiving communion - will scare off Catholics who disagree.
From its first days, the church struggled with sects and schisms and later with the Reformation, and in modern times it is torn by scores of local interests, sex scandals, and dissent on contraception and the role of women in the church.
Perhaps of more interest to Pope Benedict is that the church is also bombarded by a secular culture that he believes offers no fixed values. And the eternal question for the church remains: What do Catholics need to do and believe, in order truly to belong?
