An Anglo Catholic priest in England makes observations about ecumenism here, and they got me thinking.
While we must work for the final goal that we may all be one in Christ, it seems obvious that before we can do much fruitful work in ecumenism, that we need further work on ecclesiology. In other words, how can we have a united church if we are not sure what the church actually is?
As a convert from Evangelical Christianity, and then Anglicanism I can affirm that one of the biggest differences in becoming Catholic is to deal with the Catholic understanding of the Church.
There are two concepts of church which both Catholics and Protestants accept, but they accept them in a totally different way. The two concepts are Catholic and Congregational. They might also be called Universal and Local or ‘Us’ and ‘Them.
Protestants focus on the Congregational, the Local and the ‘Us’ while Catholics put the Catholic, Universal and ‘Them’ first. Protestants look first to their local church, their local congregation and fellowship and think that is most important. They acknowledge that the whole Body of Christ is bigger than their local church (at least most of them do) They accept that there is a Catholic, Universal ‘Them Out There’ aspect to the Church, but they think it is invisible. The Universal Church is composed of ‘all those who have faith in Jesus Christ known to God alone.’
Because the universal church is ‘invisible’ and known to God alone, most Protestants don’t care a button about visible church unity. Their own local congregation is what matters, and they honestly don’t see a problem with the fact that there are tens of thousands of Protestant denominations. For them all the denominations are simply necessary evils. “You have to worship somewhere, so join the local church you like best.” They think it is an incredible claim that anyone would suggest that one church is ‘better’ or ‘more true’ than another, because what really matters is ‘how much you love Jesus’. The Church you go to is really an irrelevance. Consequently, Protestants are also not much concerned about ecumenism.
This is why when I lived in England after one of the tiresome weeks for prayer for Christian unity I was having lunch with the parish priest and he said in an exasperated way, “The problem with the Protestants is they think the ecumenical movement has been a great success because now we talk to one another and are nice to one another. They never wanted visible unity in the first place, and don’t think it matters. They think we’ve completed the journey and I think we’ve only just made a very tentative start.”
Catholics really do believe that the ideal of visible, historical unity is not only desirable, but possible, and not only possible, but necessary, and if it takes a very long time, well, we’ve been here a long time, and we’ll be here for a lot longer, and it is worth working on. We believe visible unity is possible because, while we focus on the Catholic, the Universal and the ‘Them’, we don’t think it is invisible. We think this Universal Church is real and historical and identifiable and that it consists in the Catholic Church, and you can find one in your local town. It is St Agatha’s or St Agnes or St Anne’s in Anytown. You can go there and kneel down and pray and light a candle, or go to confession or Mass and you are not only in touch with the Universal Church. You’re in one.
Catholics have a ‘both/and’ ecclesiology. The Church is a local congregation, but it is Catholic first, and that is what gives validity to the local congregation. The Universal Church is Local too, and Fr Hoolihan is there every Sunday preaching long homilies and celebrating the sacraments. The ‘Us’ of the local church and the ‘Them’ of the universal church are combined, and what Fr Hoolihan teaches in St Agatha’s, Anytown is the same that the Holy Father teaches in Rome (or at least it should be)
I have to admit that if I were making up an ecclesiology I would probably have come up with the Protestant version. It is more rational and sensible. It may be more rational, but it is far less like a Church.
Nice post, padre. I am a bit surprised at the conclusion, though. How is the Protestant concept more rational? Perhaps your Protestant roots are still showing. I am convinced that the Catholic account of ecclesiology is much more rational. One Church uncannily means just one church. It is the simplest account for unity I can come up with.The Protestant invisible universal church which is “really” one though concretely does not in any way appear to be is rather like the Ptolemaic account for stellar epicycles necessary to prove that the earth is the center of the universe. The more you look at it, the more you try to justify it, the less sense it makes.
Isn’t that just a great ending to your post! It sums it up so nicely,”I have to admit that if I were making up an ecclesiology I would probably have come up with the Protestant version.”It sums it up so nicely because they did just that . . . they made it up. I think it is a perfect example of man trusting his own human reasoning over God and God’s plan.This is a great post. It has helped me put some recent conversations with Protestants into perspective.
I meant ‘rational’ in an ironic way as ‘only humanly rational’You are correct that the Catholic understanding is, according to the supernatural economy more rationalI was also alluding to a conversation that C.S.Lewis quotes in his essay on women priests where Emma says to Mr Knightly that she does not think a ball very rational, and Mr Knightly says that if it were more rational it would be far less like a ball.
Thanks Father for your post. I wonder how the Anglican church fits into you ecclesiology. Is it part of the visible church or not? Is the visible church confined to those in communion with Rome? As an Anglican do I not attend church when I go to an Anglican meeting on Sundays?
http://frjeffreysteel.blogspot.com/2009/01/prelature-for-anglicans-open-discussion.html
Like Fr. J, I thoroughly enjoyed the essay right up to the conclusion which jarred me. Protestantism is rational? How?Indeed, one of the things I love about the Catholic Church is the sheer logic, the rationality, of the thing. And part of that is the rational organizational structure that reflects the idea of Authority.But no religious faith that takes something as profoundly irrational as private interpretation of the Bible seriously can be called rational.Otherwise, though, your post was spot on.
You’ve hit it pretty well, Father.The end threw me as well. The main point to remember about the “invisible church” thing is that the entire idea of an “invisible church” is a REACTION TO the FACT OF an actual Universal Church, and the need to come to terms with the biblical and historical concept of “church” when rejecting that all-too-real Church.Any approach that takes an initial stance of “you guys interpret ‘church’ that way, we intepret ‘church’ this way–we just look at it differently” is already losing focus on historical and biblical Christianity by giving equal weight to each approach. We fall immediately into the Protestant quicksand of individualized authority. What bothers Protestants is when others intrude into that area of self-rule/self-assessment (which is disguised as “relying on Christ alone”). An actual Universal Church is the complete opposite of that and it bothers them not at all to not take part in anything which in their mind hinders their individual “walk.”As Flannery O’Connor said—“It is the Catholic Church who calls you ‘separated brethren’; She who feels the awful loss.”Catholics are better off if they understand that other Christians have no such feelings. (except maybe some Orthx)