The Church is and always will be in need of reform. Its
divine origin and the ongoing guidance of the Spirit do not rule out the
frailty and fallibility of the human element. From the Council of Jerusalem
(when Paul insisted that Gentile converts need not be circumcised in order to
be saved) through the twenty-one ecumenical councils and countless synods, the
Church throughout its history has wrestled with the need to reassess and
reform.
The late French theologian and cardinal of the Church Yves
Congar wrote years before the Second Vatican Council that every institution
(the Church included) faces the danger of turning means into ends.
"The organization and the means," Congar wrote in True and False Reform in the Church, "can become the
chief obstacle to the realization of the authentic end. This is why, as De Man
says, it is desirable to maintain the same psychological flexibility in the
application of the means as in the pursuit of the end" (Liturgical Press,
p. 136).
Congar pointed to the Church in the 16th century as an
instance of its allowing the means to overshadow the end. Martin Luther
re-awakened the Church to the need for re-assessment and reform.
As historian John O'Malley, SJ, explains in Trent: What Happened at the Council, one
part of Luther's challenge was a cry for reform of various ecclesiastical
offices and religious practices. "His grievances," O'Malley writes,
"were for the most part directed against the popes and the papal Curia,
commonly considered the root of the evils" (p. 13).
Although Pope Paul III focused on the other part of Luther's
challenge, especially, his insistence on faith alone not works as the means to
salvation, the schism might have been avoided had Church leaders addressed the
many non-dogma issues that Luther decried.
Congar recalled the analysis made by Luther's contemporary
Desiderius Erasmus who "put his finger on the real problem of Catholicism
in his time almost everywhere: the pastoral
had been overshadowed or effaced by the feudal,
the Gospel spirit by the excrescences of flamboyant piety, faith by
religion, and religion by
practices" (Congar, ibid., p. 139).
Perhaps one minor instance of mistaking means for ends in
our day is the growing concern about clerical dress. Vatican II's Presbyterorum
Ordinis (the decree on priests) described priests as "instructors of
the people in the faith." And then
offered the reminder that "very little good will be achieved by
ceremonies, however beautiful, or societies, however flourishing, if they are
not directed towards training people to reach Christian maturity" (#6).
An article in a
recent issue of National Catholic
Reporter questioned whether the
return to sashes, biretta (three-cornered hats), large crosses, amices,
maniples and special gloves and shoes is consistent with the direction set by
Jesus himself who criticized the religious leaders of his day for wearing long
fringes and broad phylacteries (cf Mt 23:5).
If the reform of the liturgy was to effect "a noble
simplicity" (Sacosanctum Concilium,
34), a corollary to that principle would apply to liturgical dress as well. Can
the cappa magna (a glorified cope
worn in procession though not in liturgy) or elaborate trains, or lacy
surplices or fur-lined hats, be consistent with "noble simplicity?"
Are any of them what Jesus had in mind?
In the NCR article the author, Dominican priest and
professor Thomas O'Meara, quoted Henry David Thoreau: "Beware of all
enterprises that require new clothes."
Are these garments helpful means to the end of reflecting and spreading the Gospel?
And church clothing is only one area of concern in
re-prioritizing the means and ends of today's Church.
In his analysis of church reform, Congar cautioned, "We
should not imagine that the ancient forms of the church are out-of-date simply
because they come from the past...I want to clarify the distinction and the
connection between what is permanently valuable and what by its nature can
become obsolete" (True and False
Reform, pp 152-53).
There are many aspects and elements of Church life that can
and perhaps need to be changed so that its end
may be more effectively promoted.
And what is true of the Church's life is also true of my
own. Sometimes I must let go of things in order to grow into the person I am to
be. I am and always will be in need of reform.
Analysis of the Church is far easier than analysis of one's
self.
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