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Books Wills searches for unifying papacy
WHY I AM A
CATHOLIC by Garry Wills Houghton Mifflin Company, 367 pages,
$26 |
REVIEWED By WILLIAM
DROEL
In the ever more specialized world of academia, the erudite Garry
Wills of Northwestern University is a refreshing figure. Hes a historian,
a political commentator and a journalist. He knows Latin and Greek. Hes
up on the arts and popular culture. Hes versed in scripture. His reach
extends into the social sciences, literature and more. Agree or disagree,
theres always something to learn from Wills.
Wills new book, an unintended sequel to his
bestselling Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit (Doubleday), contains 27
short chapters in four sections. The first section is an autobiography of sorts
-- many of the incidents previously treated in Bare Ruined Choirs
(Doubleday) and Confessions of a Conservative (Penguin Books). The
second and longest section is a concise history of the papacy. The third is a
synopsis of Vatican II and its aftermath. The fourth section is a brief yet
insightful meditation on the Apostles Creed. All along Wills leans on his
longtime favorites: St. Augustine, Cardinal John Henry Newman, and particularly
G.K. Chesterton. St. Peter is mentioned at the beginning and the end.
The publisher has accelerated the production of this book to
connect with the current scandal in North American Catholicism. Wills, however,
treats that scandal directly in only one-half of a paragraph. Instead, most of
the book argues against the top-down authority or power of the papacy.
Originally the churchs regard for the papacy of St. Peter,
Wills writes, was not meant to enshrine centralized power but to preserve unity
against schisms, particularly to offset the charismatic individualism of
the Gnostics. St. Peter was a symbolic antidote to the Gnostic claim that
Jesus Jewish background was irrelevant, that perfect people dont
make mistakes and that people who are different cannot be included in the
Christian community. It is well known, however, that many of St. Peters
successors and other supporters of the papacy were not unifiers, but instead
the cause of division in the church and in the family of God -- either through
their political decisions and alliances or, in too many cases, scandals
resulting from their personal sinfulness.
Papal power has been exercised through a combination of temporal
and spiritual tactics. Wills recalls, for example, the convoluted tactic of
papal interdicts: Priests in a region ruled by someone unfavorable to the pope
would be forbidden to administer any sacraments until the laity pressured the
ruler for change. This and other punitive tactics, like most excommunications,
seem contrary to the pastoral mission of the church [and] a usurpation of
powers not given to Peter.
Vatican II portends a great rebirth in the church and
its understanding of the papacy. But first, according to Wills, the rearguard
activity of Pope John Paul IIs administration must be thwarted. It is
here that Wills uses a few inflammatory phrases, calling John Paul IIs
Marian piety a farrago of Fatima nonsense and implying that John
Paul II is out to redefine every truth.
Wills, who has never even considered leaving the
church, is convinced that his criticisms of the papacy are good for his
own holiness and for the whole church. There is nothing in Catholicism
that says we have to suspend our common sense or honesty when faced with papal
assertions
that are dishonest, naïve or stupid on their face.
For all his criticism, Wills still believes the papacy is a blessing, a
necessity -- it is a requirement for the mystical body of Christ to remain one
body.
Even in the darkest hours of the papacy, there is more life and
light in the [Roman Catholic] church than in the groups that split off from
it.
Many Catholics, like Wills, are in dissent from some Vatican
pronouncements, yet are in no way inclined to separate themselves from the
Catholic church. In fact, there are very few schisms in contemporary
Catholicism. In this country there are a small number of Latin Mass churches
operating without sanction from a Roman Catholic bishop. In 1989 Fr. George
Stallings went his own way, heading a loose network of seven small churches in
the African American Catholic Congregation. In 1998 one parish in New York
broke away from the bishop. These isolated and faltering schisms are the
exceptions.
The majority of mature Catholics give a support that is not
uncritical or unreasoning or abject, but one that is clear-eyed and yet
loving. A person who loves the church, Wills concludes, can dissent from
many of its policies. However, he or she cannot wish to do without Peter
and still be true to the gospel, since it is Christ who made Peter the first of
the apostles, our brother with a special mission to care for us, the servant of
us servants.
William Droel is on the board of the National Center for the
Laity and the author of Full-Time Christians: the Real Challenge from
Vatican II (Twenty Third Publications).
National Catholic Reporter, August 2,
2002
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