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We must remain mindful of an important distinction re: so-called common views, does one mean a view commonly held by academics & theologians or that held by the majority of persons no matter their education. That will be in play, below. Another critical distinction is that between the Catholic hierarchy or magisterial teaching office (a/k/a Rome) versus mainstream theologians versus even what the faithful (sensus fidelium) actually believe and practice.

Perhaps the most critical distinction in play, however, is that between more progressive and more traditional believers. At the extreme, progressives have a tendency, it seems, to treat what might really be essential or core as accidental or peripheral. For their part, ultra-traditionalists have a tendency to treat what might really be accidental or peripheral as essential or core.

A question that begs, then, is what could one possibly mean by the qualifier REALLY core or peripheral. While it is true that, in addition to Scripture & Tradition, Faith & Reason, Mysticism & Experience, Catholics have another leg to our stool called the Magisterium or hierarchical teaching office, in THEORY the Magisterium is NOT structured as a TOP-DOWN reality, although IN PRACTICE, that dynamic does seem to be in effect, at least in part, because their’s is a “temporal” power of the purse and of juridical authority that very much controls the destiny of many people’s lives vis a vis their expression of and experience of church. Being less abstract: 1) women cannot be ordained 2) some priests must remain celibate 3) some politicians get visibly interdicted at the communion rail 4) some ex-priests cannot teach in a parochial school because they weren’t laicized via a formal dispensation 5) some divorced and remarried teachers, similarly, are turned away from church employment because they did not obtain a marriage annulment.

In theory though, the Magisterium is only supposed to articulate the faith and morals that it has faithfully, diligently and dutifully observed via an active listening process, whereby it has discerned, BOTTOM-UP, what has already been received through the aid of the Holy Spirit by the Faithful, the sensus fidelium. In other words, the universal church asks: What is the sense of the faithful? And the Magisterium, speaking on our behalf, should respond with what the church, broadly conceived, has properly gathered and practiced via scripture, tradition, reason and experience. Let’s just say that many of us recognize that, just like with scriptural exegesis and interpreting God’s Word, this process of interpreting the sensus fidelium and articulating its beliefs is a tad more problematical than many, including those both in the hierarchy and the laity, seem able to imagine.

What do I think is going on?

Catholic progressives, both Roman and Anglican, are more closely related hermeneutically to each other than they are to their coreligionists in their respective denominations. Same thing with our traditionalist brothers and sisters. Increasingly, I have found that progressive Roman and Anglican catholics have a GREAT deal in common with much of liberal Protestantism and the emerging church conversation(s). This is to say that we are in large agreement regarding essentials vs accidentals, core vs peripheral beliefs. I am in much more agreement with the Anglican approach to moral doctrine, church disciplines and church polity than I am with my own Roman tradition, but these are not essentials in my view, while our creeds, our sacraments, our liturgical traditions and incarnational outlooks are. Otherwise, out of personal integrity, I’d have to offer myself up in the recent prisoner swap (yes, that’s a euphemism for a recent impolitic event).

What makes one distinctly catholic?

It is not atonement theory. Most Franciscans, following Scotus, don’t buy into the notion that the incarnation was a divine initiative in response to some earthly felix culpa.

It’s not Greek metaphysics. Even the hierarchy is clear in that science and philosophy are autonomous from faith. While theological discourse will employ inculturated language in articulating beliefs, it is no more tied to this or that metaphysical concept than it is tied to a particular language. It simply translates the essentials of the faith into this or that idiom. I am heavily invested in the American pragmatist tradition (Peirce, less so James, much less so Dewey) and the best parts of our Transcendentalist tradition (Josiah Royce) and don’t do substance metaphysics or Thomism, so my (meta)metaphysical constructs are going to be nondual vis a vis a triadic semiotic. Rome doesn’t publish catechisms in this idiom, only a group of folks who belong to the John Courtney Murray Society at Berkeley find it engaging (best I can tell, anyway; I’m not an academic and I do not get around much).

I could go on dismissing what is not essential and trying to overcome stereotypes, which we have earned, but …

Essentially, the catholic outlook on created reality is radically incarnational, rejects moral depravity, sees all of creation as intrinsically good even if flawed, sees created realities mediating the God-encounter & is thus sacramental. Catholicism embraces faith and reason (fides et ratio) but rejects any conflation of science, philosophy and faith, viewing these approaches to reality as methodologically autonomous, hence rejecting fideism and scientism. Essential dogma is contained in the creeds with other stuff up for grabs, although controversy surrounds the only two so-called infallible pronouncements ever articulated, the Assumption and Immaculate Conception, which is more vs less problematical depending on how one conceives so-called “original” sin. There is the matter of the Petrine Ministry, but that, too, could be more narrowly or broadly conceived (e.g. creeping infallibilism).

Finally, coming full circle back to the aim of this thread, there is the question of whether or not there can even be such a thing as a Christian Philosophy or a Theological Anthropology or a Religious Epistemology. And my answer, and I’m pretty sure the orthodox Catholic answer, is no. Anthropology is science. Epistemology is philosophy. Metaphysics belong to various philosophical schools.

Do people articulate anthropologies, epistemologies, metaphysics and philosophies that would be incompatible with faith? Of course, but that’s because they are doing bad anthropology, bad epistemology, bad metaphysics and bad philosophy, in ways that don’t employ philosophical rigor and can’t withstand philosophical scrutiny. Do believers articulate scientific and philosophical perspectives derived from their religious stances? Sure, but that’s because they’re doing bad science and bad philosophy. In other words, category errors are not uncommon.

From the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, yesterday, 19 November 2009:

Therefore the major question that remains is whether in the light of that depth of agreement the issues that still divide us have the same weight – issues about authority in the Church, about primacy (especially the unique position of the pope), and the relations between the local churches and the universal church in making decisions (about matters like the ordination of women, for instance).  Are they theological questions in the same sense as the bigger issues on which there is already clear agreement?  And if they are, how exactly is it that they make a difference to our basic understanding of salvation and communion?  But if they are not, why do they still stand in the way of fullervisible unity?  Can there, for example, be a model of unity as a communion of churches which have different attitudes to how the papal primacy is expressed?

The central question is whether and how we can properly tell the difference between ‘second order’ and ‘first order’ issues. When so very much agreement has been firmly established in first-order matters about the identity and mission of the Church, is it really justifiable to treat other issues as equally vital for its health and integrity?”

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Austen Ivereigh, in an article at America today, Rome offers new home to Anglican trads, writes: “Rome today has announced a legal means for disaffected Anglicans to become Roman Catholic while hanging on to their liturgies and rites.”

John L. Allen Jr., at the National Catholic Reporter, in an article entitled Vatican reveals plan to welcome disaffected Anglicans, writes: “In an unusual move, the Vatican this morning issued a joint statement from the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, and the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, attempting to calm the waters. ‘The apostolic constitution [creating the new structures] is further recognition of the substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality between the Catholic Church and the Anglican tradition,’ that statement said.”

In recent years, I wrote an essay entitled Discipline, Doctrine & Dogma – Roman & Anglican Dialogue wherein I wrote: “At times, I truly have wondered if I belonged to Rome or Canterbury, and I suspect many of you have, too, and, perhaps, still do? My short answer is: You’re already home; take a look around … In other words, for example, take a look, below, at some excerpts from the September 2007 report of the International Anglican – Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission: Growing Together in Unity and Mission: Building on 40 years of Anglican – Roman Catholic Dialogue. Does anyone see any differences in essential dogma? Are some of you not rather surprised at the extent of agreement, especially given the nature of same? Are our differences not rather located in such accidentals as matters of church discipline or in such moral teachings where Catholics can exercise legitimate choices in their moral decision-making?”

Whatever comes of the recent Apostolic Constitution, thankfully, denominations are means and not ends. And as far as distinctly ecclesial means are concerned, realities like church polity, juridical order, corporate discipline and moral doctrine are accidentals – not entirely unimportant, but – not essentials. Any consideration of such means will very much involve the cosmological thrusts of descriptive science and normative philosophy, which are clearly propositional, very much evidential and rational, ordered toward empirical, logical and practical/moral problem-solving. Strategically, we certainly want to get means right.

Contrastingly, though, religion’s distinct contribution and core competency in the marketplace of human encounters is axiological, firing up our participatory imaginations, interpretively and evaluatively, through liturgical practices, thereby transforming our existential orientations to truth, beauty and goodness into the transcendental imperatives of faith, hope and love, which, as intrinsically rewarding, are their own ends. This axiological thrust is generally noninferential and nonpropositional, very much existential, relational and contemplative, the end for which we were fashioned.

The Apostolic Constitution seems to affirm the full communion between Anglican and Roman Catholics on these paramount essentials and ends, leaving us, perhaps, with Rome’s implicit recognition and tacit admission that what remains at stake in future ecumenical dialogue are accidentals and means.

As for any Petrine ministry, if it is narrowly and properly conceived, then it need not be a stumbling block. Too broadly conceived, however, one might reasonably suspect something else is going on?

At any rate, the traditionalistic fundamentalists will continue to conflate the cosmological and axiological, to confuse means and ends and to treat accidentals as essentials. And the mystics of all of the great Traditions will continue to recognize that our solidarity is a reality to which we can awaken but not something that needs to be established — for we are One.

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