Sarah Mullally as the Archbishop of Canterbury

On January 28, 2026, Sarah Mullally became the first woman to occupy the seat of the archbishop of Canterbury, which is the spiritual leader of the Church of England under its governor, the British King (or Queen) and of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes the Episcopal Church. The King (or Queen) being above the archbishop in the Church of England is in line with Thomas Hobbes’ seventeenth-century theory that the sovereign should be in charge of church and state lest civil war break out (again). Just as a British king is a man and a queen is a woman, so too, as of 2026, the Archbishop of Canterbury could be a man or a woman. This of course set the Anglicans even further off from the Roman Catholic Church, where only men can be priests and bishops, including that of Rome (i.e., the Pope). I contend that the intransigence on this point is due to a logical error involving a category mistake just for added fun.

The Confirmation of Election service out of which Mullaly became the Archbishop of Canterbury “marks a milestone for the Church of England, which ordained its first female priests in 1994 and its first female bishop in 2015.”[1] That was not long before 2026, so progressives in that Church had reason to be astounded as the swiftness of the change. In no small measure, the relative progressive stance of King Charles after his conservative mother, Queen Elizabeth, enabled the first woman to occupy the position in just a decade after the first woman was made a bishop in the Church of England. The tremendous change in the societal role of woman in the West since the early 1970s and the effect of this change on how all of Jesus’s disciples being men in the Gospels has been perceived differently can also be said to be factors in Mulally’s confirmation as the archbishop. Seeing in the contemporary world that women are perfectly capable of leading large organizations and even governments, Christians would be more likely to view the all-male discipleship in the Gospels as reflecting the societal context of Jesus or the writers of the Gospels and thus as not bearing for the contemporary world. Additionally, the point that just because Jesus selects only men in the Gospels doesn’t in itself mean that only men could be disciples could back up the historical-context argument.

Nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus say that only men can be disciples; were that line in the stories, then adjusting to the modern context would be more difficult from a theological standpoint. One of the problems with the notion of scripture is that everything in it must be taken as truth, so distinguishing, for example, between Paul’s personal opinion on women as leaders and a theological point that women should not be leaders in the Church is unfortunately difficult to do, if not utterly forbidden. That Paul’s stance on female leaders is so obviously his opinion, likely reflective of the world in which he lived, raises the thornier problem of including letters written to churches as part of scripture. Once a document has been declared to be scriptural, separating the wheat from the chaff becomes very difficult if not impossible from a theological standpoint. This is reflected in the opposition to Mullally’s appointment.

“Gafcon, a global organization of conservative Anglicans, says Mullally’s appointment is divisive because a majority of the Anglican Communion still believes only men should be bishops.”[2] In the Gospels, however, Jesus does not say, “Only men should be bishops,” and that he chooses only men is descriptive rather than normative. Hume’s naturalist fallacy holds that you can’t get normativity from a statement that is only descriptive. In other words, you can’t get “ought” out of “is”; something more is needed to say that what is, should be. If, for example, Jesus is to say, “only men should be my disciples” in the Gospels, the readers would expect a justification to also be stated as to why only men should be in the religious role. If there is a theological justification, readers would naturally expect Jesus to state it.

These problems aside, that the Roman Catholic Church had come to recognize Mary Magdalene as the Apostle to the Apostles may undercut that sect’s insistence that only men can (and should) be priests and bishops, especially since the discovery of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene in which she occupies a significant place in Jesus’s ministry. So perhaps more stunning than the swift change in the Church of England in the appointment of Mullally is the utter stubbornness of social-religious conservatives in that Church as well as in the Church of Rome.

Moreover, that matters given scant if any attention in the Gospels (hence excluding Paul’s personal letters to his congregations) have been so easily blown out of proportion many centuries after the Gospels were written, such as homosexuality, gender and the priesthood, and even abortion, demonstrates the vulnerability of the human mind’s self-check mechanism in the domain of religion (and politics). Religion loses its core element of transcendence and is instead so easily filled with personal ideology, in which is none other than self-love as self-idolatry. Rather than having compassion for “thy enemies,” ideological worship of oneself belies Jesus’s message in the Gospels on how to enter the Kingdom of God. Ironically, compassion even to the marginalized is in line with Paul’s dictum not to cause one’s brother (or sister) to stumble.

Lest this be viewed as an unabashedly progressive stance, it should be observed that feminist interpretations of the Gospels’ contents can easily replace theology with (feminist) ideology, such that the religion that results is in the very image of the feminists themselves. The same can be said of remaking Christianity according to queer theory. Such extravagances are just as damaging as reducing Christianity to opposition to abortion and homosexuality even though those two topics are not mentioned scarcely at all directly in the Gospels, and blowing one’s inferences out of proportion such that the religious text is distended beyond recognition is itself a manifestation of self-idolatrous ideology. 

I contend that were Christian sects to actually follow Jesus’s principles, conservative clergy would be oriented to serving the groups despised rather than fighting against them, and feminist and gay laity would serve conservative men in the clergy in respect to their humane needs. The last are first, and many of the first are actually last unless they put themselves after those whom they loath. Therefore, the conservative Anglican clergymen who opposed Mullally’s appointment were actually obliged as Christians to become servants of the female Archbishop of Canterbury, essentially washing her feet rather than castigating her as if being a female bishop rendered her as the Anti-Christ. Compassion for one’s detractors and those whom one dislikes does not imply agreement; rather, it is to begin the chore of expanding human nature to become a bridge of sorts to the Kingdom of God already in this world.

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1. Danica Kirka, “Sarah Mullally Confirmed as Archbishop of Canterbury, First Woman to Lead the Church of England,” APnews.com, January 28, 2026.
2. Ibid.

American religion and politics: A Propensity to Overreach

Even though they are formally separated in the U.S. under the constitutional rubric that the federal government cannot lawfully establish a religion and infringe on the free exercise of religion, religion has ventured into politics and vice versa. Valued ideals pertain to both even though the highest in religion are transcendent, meaning that they extend beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility, according to St. Denis (aka Pseudo-Dionysius) in the sixth century. So far is the political variety from such ideals as being in heaven! Yet the political sort has enjoyed a near monopoly in the world, including its public discourse. At least as 2019 was giving way to a new decade, captivation on President Trump’s tweets (i.e., brief statements made on the internet’s social media) and the process of impeaching him in the U.S. House of Representatives was strangely devoid of any religious discussion in the public square. This is all the more extraordinary because of the significant role that religion had played historically in presidential politics.

The full essay is at "American Religion and Politics."

Transcending the United Methodist Vote to Retain Prohibitions on Gay Clergy and Weddings

Delegates meeting at a special session of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church voted on February 26, 2019 to retain the denomination’s ban on gay clergy and same-sex weddings. The alternative plan would have permitted individual congregations to decide for themselves. Clearly, Methodism is not Congregationalism.  The debate was heated on both sides.[1] Transcending them, we may ask whether the heat was overblown. Pope Francis had urged his fellow Roman Catholic bishops and other clergy not to focus so much on that issue and abortion. That urging was itself controversial, which in itself can be read as confirmation that the two issues were getting too much attention and energy. Unlike the case of the Pope’s urging, the vote at the Methodists’ General Conference threatened to split that Church. Can this too be taken as an indication that the emphasis on the issue was disproportionate to its religious importance?

Just how important is homosexuality as a religious issue in Christianity? Jesus does not speak of it in the Gospels, so the issue must boil down to God’s referring to two men lying together as an abomination, which means “disliked by God.” Relatively small things are also disliked by God, including eating things that crawl on the bottom of the sea. So rather displeasing to God does not necessarily translate into a huge sin. How important is the displeasing itself, whether about something that we now take as arbitrary or important? In other words, is it really bad to do something that is displeasing to God. If a person does something that is displeasing to you, that is hardly worse than something that you hate or even detest. Even so, doing a displeasing thing is not a good thing, especially as concerns God, which is to be glorified rather than annoyed. This is perhaps what the issue hinges on in Judaism as well as Christianity, only the latter has the additional question of how much attention ought to be paid to the Old Testament prohibitions. That the issue of homosexuality, like that of abortion, easily gets heated makes it more difficult to get through these questions.

At root, the Methodist delegates disagreed on the importance of the abominations in Leviticus for Christians as well as the importance of “displeasing to God” in itself. Within the disagreement could also have included how much, if at all, to weigh the cultural imprint of the ancient Hebrews in the Biblical naming of specific dislikes of God. Perhaps these questions should have been debated first, so the delegates could have grasped how much basic disagreement existed. The question of whether differences on them are sufficiently important as to justify ecclesiastical separation could have debated too. To be sure, these questions are not easy, and it could be that the sheer distance between answers could justify separation. Religious interpretation by nature allows for a lot of daylight between individual or group interpretations, and people to whom religion is important are likely to find themselves investing a lot of emotional energy into that daylight.

Hence, in the history of a given religion, whether Buddhism, Judaism, or Christianity, splits and splits of the splits have been the norm. Perhaps this is natural, but it also possible that the religious person tends to go over-board in failing to restrict his or her emotions and accepting the fact that a religious institution is not going to perfectly align with any individual therein.  A loss of perspective, including emotional and cognitive, can easily go with homo religiosis—our species when it gets religious. In other words, the real problem may lie with homo sapiens (i.e., our species). The problem is that the loss of perspective flies in the face of the core religious nature of transcendence. As St. Denis of the sixth century wrote, transcendence involves going beyond the limits of human perception and cognition (and sensibility, or emotion). So if these are too intense, we can assume too little attention is being payed to valuing and experiencing transcendence, which if I am correct is the basis and distinguishing mark of religion as a unique phenomenon or domain. In theory at least, if religious transcendence is regarded as foremost, less emotional investment would go into even the basic questions discussed above. If Joseph Campbell was correct, even the masks of eternity must be transcended so as not to obstruct a person’s religious experience, whose referent-point lies inherently beyond perception, cognition, and sensibility.

For more on transcending the ethical in religion, see Spiritual Leadership in Business: Transcending the Ethical, available at Amazon. 

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1. Bill Chappell, “United Methodist Church Votes to Keep Bans on Same-Sex Weddings, LGBTQ Clergy,” NPR, February 26, 2019.

The Seminarian

A closeted gay student at an evangelical seminary is a contrast with a rather obvious clashing point, with the predicted ending being that the student is kicked out and must find or come into his own identity free of exterior constraints. Yet The Seminarian (2010) smartly avoids that road well-traveled. Instead, the screenwriter risks giving theology a prominent, and perhaps even central place in the film. The venture is at odds with the bottom-feeder mentality of Hollywood represented in the film, De-Lovely 2004), in which Cole Porter’s bisexuality occupies center-stage. Comparing these two films, irony drips off the screen as De-Lovely, which is patterned after a theatrical musical, looks down on Hollywood and yet has a common theme, while The Seminarian is a film through and through and yet takes the high road by supposing that the viewers can and will stay through some substantive theology, which transcends social issues and even the dramatic.

The full essay is at "The Seminarian."

Has American Catholicism Become Unavoidably Republican?

Putting a religious faith through a particular political ideology can be regarded as artificial because the transcendent is not limited to the confines of particular ideologies. Were it otherwise, the transcendent would not go beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility. Leaders of religious organizations should thus be particularly careful lest they inadvertently cut transcendence short. Practically speaking, that some members could feel marginalized or leave the organization altogether is a capricious cost that can be avoided. In other words, according to religious criteria, no reason would exist for such marginalization or departures. Unfortunately, religious leaders can easily dismiss this drawback out of a desire to channel the religious through their particular ideologies. I suppose this is a form of idolatry.

In the Roman Catholic Church, for instance, a liberal political ideology became associated with Cardinal Blasé Cupich of Chicago after the “started a program against gun violence and opposed Republican health care proposals on the ground that they would strip coverage for the weak and poor.”[1] Alternatively, the Cardinal could have preached against the violence that had plagued parts of the city and for helping the weak and poor. He could have gone to some of the problematic neighborhoods as well as to places where the poor received medical services—even bringing along other clergy to volunteer. Starting a program specifically oriented to guns, and voicing opposition to a political party’s proposal is to step out of the shoes of the fisherman and into the shoes of a legislator. Faithful Catholics in Chicago could legitimately have had a different stance on guns as well as on health policy at the federal level. The Cardinal’s political shoes could easily have made such Catholics uncomfortable going to church and even, particularly sadly, with their Catholic faith. A desire of a religious leader to advance particular political platforms becomes self-centered if it causes members of the religious organization to feel even just uncomfortable.

Visiting a large Catholic church in my hometown outside “Chicagoland” in northern Illinois in 2013, I was amazed at how blatantly Republican the members were; they made no effort to hide their political identification, and it didn’t hurt that the bishop at the time made no secret of his political conservatism. The parish was socially conservative on political issues “down the line.” Even members who were political moderates must have felt uncomfortable there. Indeed, the parish lost considerable members. To be sure, the pastor, who would go on to become bishop of North Dakota, was extremely conservative (and reportedly not very kind). Sadly, “belligerence can acquire a theological justification,” according to Antonio Spadaro and Marcelo Figueroa writing in La Civilta Cattolica.[2]

The authors look at American evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics as having been “brought together by the same desire for religious influence in the political sphere.”[3] Looked at in the other direction, the desire includes bringing the political sphere into church. The authors warn that the “religious element should never be confused with the political one. Confusing spiritual power with temporal power means subjecting one to the other.”[4] As people of religious faith are subjected to temporal, ideological constraints—even scripts—the faith is artificially circumscribed, as is the body of Christ gathered in fellowship. In fact, the fellowship itself becomes artificially delimited.

In short, the “article warns that conservative American Catholics have strayed dangerously into the deepening political polarization in the United States.”[5] Meanshile, American Unitarian Universalist societies have also contributed to the polarization by becoming virtual liberal camps geared to political activism. I could imagine Unitarian protesters facing off against pro-life Catholic protests with only a street between them as they shout at each other in the name of religion but actually in the sphere of politics—a domain that had become polarized societally by the time Donald Trump was elected U.S. President. The willowing down to ideology brings with it a perspectival narrowness in which even shouting under ostensibly religious auspices does not register as oxymoronic—not to mention as eviscerating any religiousity.  Clearly, it makes no difference whether the ideology is liberal or conservative; the effect is the same. I would even say a presumption to moral and political infallibility also comes with the partiality that is inherent in willowing truth down to a particular ideology. No self-corrective, let alone humbling, feedback loop can operate, so the partisans armed with what they presume is religious truth are unwittingly vulnerable to going too far without realizing it. Even Christian partisans could end up killing rather than loving their enemies without any recognition that they have violated Jesus’s commandment and teachings. That even something as obvious as this could easily be missed ought to be sufficient reason to ward off the temptation to get political and judge fellow religionists accordingly. Yet with an impaired self-corrective feedback loop, resisting the temptation “after the fact” may require nothing short of a miracle.

This book may be helpful for tips on how to sidestep the political: Spiritual Leadership in Business.  See also Christianized Ethical Leadership.

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[1] Jason Horowitz, “A Vatican Shot Across the Bow for Hard-Line U.S. Catholics,” The New York Times, August 2, 2017.

[2] Antonio Spadaro and Marcelo Figueroa, “Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism: A Surprising Ecumenism,” La Civilta Cattolica.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Jason Horowitz, “A Vatican Shot Across the Bow for Hard-Line U.S. Catholics,” The New York Times, August 2, 2017.

Politically Partisan Clergy: A Cleft in the Bright Side of Faith

Citing religious liberty, President Trump signed an executive order on May 4, 2017, the National Day of Prayer, “directing the Internal Revenue Service to avoid cracking down on political activity by religious organizations.”[1] In particular, clergy could then endorse political candidates without fear that their respective churches would lose their tax-exempt status. It is a bit extreme that such status would be lost simply because a pastor mentions a preference for a political candidate or a particular public policy, for such references are not integral or central to a clergy’s message, which is religious in nature. Nevertheless, the risk of religious faith being usurped by the political merits an attentive watchfulness, at the very least.

Outwardly, religious content can unwittingly, and without notice even to the religionist oneself, give way to political agendas, especially during an election season. In fact, such agendas—in particular, the ideologies—can “rebrand” themselves into religious garb such that even the endorsement of a political candidate can be presumed to be religious in nature. When the U.S. president signed the order, for example, he said, “For too long, the federal government has used the power of the state as a weapon against people for faith, bullying and even punishing Americans for following their religious beliefs.”[2] The implication is that endorsing a candidate is such a belief. With the distended notion of religious belief comes less room for, or a proportionate decrease in the genuine article.

 A more subtle downside—one that is actually even more likely—has to do with the impact of even occasional politically-partisan statements on the still-dominant religious ethos and message. The overlay of a cross-cutting partisanship compromises the coherence in the primary partisan axis. Don’t despair; this statement needs some unpacking.

Feuerbach (1804-1872), a European philosopher, uncovered a seldom-recognized side of faith by analyzing Christianity. Within the faithful, the partisan nature of faith is obscured by the unity of the faithful. The prejudiced nature of faith—its “(d)ogmatic, exclusive, scrupulous particularly”—does not play out among the faithful, except as it cuts off part of itself as heretics.[3] Far from being universally applicable, love gives way only within the confines of the faithful. “He is not for Christ is against him; that which is not chiristian is antichristian.”[4] It would be to dishonor God to love those who dishonor God. “Hence faith has fellowship with believers only; unbelievers it rejects. It is well-disposed towards believers, but ill-disposed towards unbelievers.”[5] Even as believers actually harbor hatred toward the disbelievers—belief being presumed to be decisive to faith—they overlook their ill-will and thus that in faith itself “lies a malignant principle.”[6] Within the faithful, it does not come into play, so faith is perceived as wholly salubrious—without a back side. Keeping disbelievers at bay ensures the apparent congruence of love and faith. Yet if another sort of partisanship is introduced within a congregation—such as political partisanship—a cleft arises such that can break up the serenity of the love of faith. Put another way, introducing political disagreement disrupts the agreement that exists within the faithful. The cost in endorsing partisan causes or candidates is in terms of the original domain—that of religion. The malignant principle of faith and political anger at the opposition are one and the same; introducing a political cleft into a congregation resonates with the partisan nature of faith, yet even as the latter can remain invisible from within the confines of the faithful.

So clergy in the pulpit should think twice before lapsing into the political arena, even as mere partisan mouthpieces. In addition to the opportunity cost of foregone attention to religious matters, the offense engendered among the faithful creates a rift on the bright side of faith that detracts from it unnecessarily.

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[1] Michael D. Shear, “Trump Eases Political Activity by Religious Organizations,” The New York Times, May 4, 2017.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957), 251.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid, 252.

[6] Ibid.

On the Theology of the Eucharist: Beyond Historical Divisions

According to a survey led by a sociologist at Catholic University and published in The National Catholic Reporter, forty percent of 1,442 American Catholic adults said "you can be a good Catholic without believing that in Mass, the bread and wine really become the body and blood of Christ—a core doctrine of Catholicism.” A reporter opines that this “could reflect the decline in Mass attendance. The survey finds it’s fallen from 44% attending at least once a week in 1987 to 31% in 2011, while those who attend less than monthly rose from 26% to 47%. When asked why they don’t go to Mass more often, 40% say they are simply not very religious.”[1] What does it mean to say that someone is or is not religious? Looking back at the history of religion, a neutral party might half-joke that the adjective refers to the proclivity to spar over puerile theological distinctions as if Creation itself hung in the balance. In this essay, I illustrate how such a distinction bearing on the Eucharist (i.e., Holy Communion) can be diffused of its alleged historical significance as warranting Christian division under the taskmaster of (cognitive) uniformity as a placeholder for unity.

The Catholic doctrine of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist is called transubstantiation. It is the belief that the substance, or essence, of the bread and wine turn into the body and blood of Christ. The term “substance” can be misleading. It does not refer to what we moderns understand as chemical or physical material or matter; rather, the notion of substance here is that of Aristotle, who distinguishes it from accidents, or the qualities/attributes of something. The accidents include something’s physical or chemical material as well as other qualities. The real presence in transubstantiation is the Aristotelian notion of “substance” (or essence) applied theologically rather than metaphysically. The body and blood having a real (theologically!) presence in the Eucharist are of Christ’s post-ascension, resurrected body.

Lest one object that Jesus resurrected asks for a fish and thus has a physical dimension, it is the post-ascension resurrected body and applied theologically. In other words, the real presence is real theologically. We tend to think of “real” metaphysically as in terms of reality, and this in turn in terms of real substance as matter. We have almost lost the ability to think in terms of theological essence. I contend that the theological essence from applying the Aristotelian notion of substance (or essence) theologically to the Eucharist as real presence is virtually the same as the Reformed spiritual presence. The Lutheran consubstantiation—that the Aristotelian substance or essence applied theologically is real presence coheres with the “substance” or essence of bread and wine remaining. My point is that all three views contain a spiritual (or “real” theologically) presence, in contrast to Zwingli’s view of communion as a symbol.

To grasp Aristotle’s notion of substance and how it may apply to theological concepts, consider the following analogy. For a person to say that the house (or apartment) he or she grew up in was his or her home is to say that the “substance” or essence of the house changed to, or included, being home. It makes no sense to say that the presence of home is a material substance even though home is really present as felt. Materially, the house may be made of wood and/or brick, but this is almost beside the point. At some point after a couple moves into a physical house, it becomes home. The “substance” or essence changes (or is added to)—the difference with respect to whether the essence changes or is added to doesn’t really matter if one’s focus is on home. So what it is also still a house? My point is that home has its own sort of real presence, and it doesn’t make any sense to speak of it in terms of other domains, such as materials science. This doesn’t mean that the presence of home is any less real. Anyone who has had one's house or apartment broken into and trashed knows that the "substance/essence" or real presence of home can be wiped out in a day. The difference between the house being one's home and being the house in which one lives is unmistakeable and thus the distinction is taken as real in a certain, non-metaphysical sense. So too, the presence of the body and blood of Christ is taken as real in a spiritual or religious sense.

I suspect that real presence and spiritual presence refer essentially to the same thing, given that Christ is present “bodily” in a distinctly religious or theological sense, rather than in a metaphysical or empirical sense. The bottom line may be that for a disciple of Jesus, home is really (i.e., religious sense) present at the table. In other words, the essence is that of being home, just as Jesus feels at home going alone to pray on a mountain. Being a child of God is to be home where God is felt to be. Religious, or transcendent, experience is really present for such a person. Ultimately, I think the real presence at the Eucharist is precisely such an experience. In it, the Kingdom of God within is experienced as truly present. One is part of the body of Christ. In other words, the body that is ingested is distinctly (and delimited as) theological in nature, and thus spiritually present—and no less real (in a religious rather than metaphysical sense). Ultimately, home is felt as really present as a matter of the heart, rather than being a place or material substance that could be bottled.

If I am on the right track in tracing the distinctly spiritual real presence of the body of Christ to its roots in a distinctly religious experience, then at least some of the arguments or fighting between the Reformed, Catholic and Lutheran sects historically was based on  mere misunderstandings. Take, as another example, the doctrine of justification by faith (solo fides). The Catholic position does not deny this, or interlard works or the efficacy of the sacraments as additional requirements for justification. Rather, taking communion is part of the process of sanctification, which follows justification.

Also, the Catholic position does not maintain that the sacrifice of the Mass substitutes for Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, as one Reformed historical document claims. Indeed, Catholic priests say that their ordination enables them to share in Christ’s sacrifice, rather than substitute for it. After centuries of misunderstanding rolling over the division from generation to generation without any thought or reflection, perhaps we can finally step back and marvel: So much for the vanity that presumes human disagreements to have any real significance!

Perhaps most unfortunate of all, the sheer intransigence of apparent historical differences can block perceptual opportunities. For example, given their doctrine of spiritual presence, which at the very least is a presence in a religious sense, Reformed churches could conceivably have provide the spiritual presence of Christ in chapels to be adored under the specie of consecrated bread. The assumed spiritual presence could serve as an anchor making possible a sustained presence of intense religious or transcendent experience isolated as though a precipitate of ongoing practice. Out of such practice naturally comes a distinctly spiritual sensitivity, which in relation to other people we feel as compassion. In the context of such a religious core, theological disagreement itself is naturally relegated or sidelined as extraneous just as one does not pay so much attention to the materials of one’s house if it is also one’s home.

Who would willingly go from the warmth of a hearth into a cold room unless to pick a fight? And what does it matter anyway what the fight is about to the persons staying near the hearth? I suspect that the Catholics who view themselves as “not very religious” have simply not been shown to the hearth, even in Church; to them, it is a cold room guarded by too many control-freaks (who themselves know not the hearth). Who could blame people for resisting the cold—yet if they are given a taste of warmth would they want it? I think this depends on the person. Perhaps a church is in essence (or ought to be in practice) delimited by experiencing a distinctive warmth.

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1. Cathy L. Grossman, “Survey: U.S. Catholics’ Religious Identity Slips,” USA Today, October 25, 2011. 

Pro-Second-Vatican-Council Clergy Distrust Traditionalist Vatican Administrations: Translating Ecclesiastical Partisanship

A survey of Roman Catholic priests in 2013 conducted at Saint John’s University School of Theology Seminary suggests that priests did not like the new English translation of the Missal by a two to one margin (59% to 39%). Eighty percent of the priests who responded thought the language is “awkward and distracting.” Yet still more damning to the Vatican hierarchy are the findings that 55 percent of the priests were not confident that their views on the translation would be taken seriously. Nearly half of the priests indicated disapproval of the Holy See’s role in bringing about the new translation. Put another way, less than two in five priests approved of the Vatican’s leadership on the new Missal under Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI.  As dire as this news of distrust and liturgical disagreement may seem, the survey comes with a significant drawback that exaggerates the opposition. The devil is in the details.

The online survey attracted responses from 1,536 priests. This total represents a response rate of 42.5 percent. Although such a rate is typical of the “empirical research” studies conducted at business schools, the results from such a low rate cannot be generalized to apply to all of the Church’s priests. We cannot say that nearly 60% of Roman Catholic priests opposed the new translation, and that about half of all of the priests did not like the Vatican’s role in the process and did not trust their clerical superiors to take the priests’ concerns seriously. We cannot assume that the 42.5 percent who were motivated to respond online are just like the 56.5 percent who chose not to submit a reply. In other words, their respective reasons may differ.

Generally speaking, people who are unhappy with something may be more motivated to say something about it. Within the Catholic Church, priests critical of the new translation may tend to favor the Second Vatican Council, which allowed for less ecclesiastical distance between the clergy and the laity; traditionalist priests would be less inclined ideologically to voice even anonymous criticism of their superiors. Such priests would tend to favor the new translation’s more “literal” capturing of the original Latin, and the greater clergy-laity distance behind some of the changes in wording. For example, “with your spirit” is from the interpretation that only the priest, rather than the congregation, shares in Christ’s sacrifice in the Mass. The priest says, “Peace be with you.” Instead of the previous “And also with you,” the laity reply, “And with your spirit” because the priest’s spirit participates in Christ’s sacrifice in the liturgy. In short, the priest is no longer a “you” alongside you and you and you, but is qualitatively different—back up there where he was prior to the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s.

What is the highest point in the Catholic Mass? Who is central in it? To what extent does the language support and maintain the pivotal moment and person? (Image Source: AP)

Therefore, we would be on firmer ground interpreting the survey results as pertaining primarily to the loyal opposition to the restorative traditionalist movements of John Paul II and Benedict XVI rather than to the traditionalist priests. I suppose the most notable finding is that the loyal opposition may not be so loyal after all, considering the mistrust underlying the relatively superficial linguistic differences. Put another way, we can conclude that at least some of the more moderate priests do not trust the Holy See to be impartial at least when it comes to taking into account their opinions. If the new translation is really a Trojan Horse carrying traditionalism back into the Mass,  of course distrust would result among the pro-Vatican II contingent of the clergy.

It is in the nature of ideology to willow down to a purity of “true believers.” It is also in the nature of ideology to make use of subterfuges, or lies, in doing so. Hence distrust breeds particularly well in such a climate.

In conclusion, the news for the Vatican is both better and worse than a simple reading of the survey results indicates. The “devil is in the details,” in that the lack of faith in the Vatican by some of its own priests suggests that ideology has been alive and well under the rubric of liturgy. What we cannot say is that an overwhelming of priests did not like the new translation in 2013 or even that over a majority of all priests do not feel respected by those clerics in the Vatican hierarchy. Particularly among kindred souls as religious are wont to be, at least ideally, distrust is a silent killer that can be expected to gradually eat away the foundation to the ecclesiastical edifice that has endured for centuries.