Roman Catholic Church: Jewish under the skin, but acting like Muslim terrorists

October 21, 1:52 PMDC Ethical Issues ExaminerLaura Harrison McBride

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Pope Pius XII (Wiki commons)

I have altered the headline slightly; a reader pointed out that not all Muslims are terrorists, and that is so. Nor, of course, are all Roman Catholics conservative wingnuts, nor all Anglicans disaffected. However, it seems that, at the moment, only the Islamic community reacts with distress at any statement that does not qualify terrorist Muslims and all other Muslims.

There are two ways of looking at that. One might say, "Well, if all their clerics had punished the terrorists instead of some clerics urging them on, there wouldn't be a problem." And indeed, there wouldn't, because non-Muslims would see the actions of the clerics and know that the religion itself (most of it) did not wish death and destruction to those of other belief systems.

Or, one might say, "Tough. No one qualifies the statement when they speak of conservative Protestant wingnuts to mean only those conservative Protestants who kill doctors and/or think the world was invented  yesterday." That would seem to be a reasonable approach, too; why should one group be treated to kid-glove handling and not the other?

The bottom line is this: The Pope's actions left even highly placed Anglican clergy somewhat speechless. Why should this not be discussed in an attempt to either  understand it, or, if that understanding leads to it, criticized?

When the actions of the leader of a church are at odds with the liturgy of that church, then something must be questioned.

When the actions of the leader of a church are perceived to be out of step with society and decency (as was the "rehabilitation" of the Holocaust denying priests, for example), then it is reasonable to question the activity and its basis.

Indeed, unless one wishes to follow mindlessly the rules of any religious organization, then questioning is part and parcel of a search for understanding and possibly faith.

If you can handle that, read on.

If not, you can always add an ad hominem comment, which is easier than thinking about the issues raised, even if you don't like the way they were raised, and providing bona fide refutation (as a precious few, whom I thank, have done.)

 

Below, the original column:

 

It is always wonderful when people come into full communion with the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Holy Catholic Church. I welcome this news. God bless Pope Benedict XVI.”

The above is a comment on yesterday’s commentary on Pope Benedict’s rather confusing creation of an Anglican Church (sort of) within the Roman Catholic Church.

It awakened within me a knowledge I possessed, but wasn’t really cognizant of in waking moments: There are as many self-righteous wingnuts in the Roman Catholic Church as in any self-proclaimed “red state” salvation organization you can name.

Think of the hubris of that statement. It implies, indeed, that Roman Catholics are God’s chosen people, and not the Jews.

I would point out that, for all intents and purposes, Catholics are Jews. Jesus was a Jew. Jesus was not a Christian; Christianity was the invention of those who came after him. Jesus was, I repeat, a Jew.

If we follow Jesus, we follow a Jewish prophet. Amen. 

But apparently, the Roman Catholic Church (or at least some of its adherents/apologists) believes that the only spiritual place for human beings is in a construct known to them as the Mystical Body of Christ.

Let us ponder that.

The concept of the Mystical Body of Christ is not, as I imagine most of today’s Catholics believe, an age-old idea from the New Testament. Rather, it sprang from a papal encyclical issued on June 29, 1943 by Pope Pius XII. Here’s how Wikipedia describes it: “The Church is called body, because she is a living entity, she is called the body of Christ, because Christ is her Head and Founder; she is called mystical body, because she is neither a purely physical nor a purely spiritual unity, but super national.”
(You can find the same concepts here, but in a more difficult format. Note also that while the RC Church is apparently regarded as a woman, she, women are invited not to become "her" priests. Mind-boggling.)

If one wishes to call a human construct (the idea of a church) a body, one must take it symbolically. Likewise, Christ as the head and founder of that body is symbolic. No problem in either case (except that of the head of a female "body" being a male.)

But what about the idea that the Mystical Body of Christ is neither physical nor purely spiritual, but super national? That is more problematical. In short, the Roman Catholic church claims to supercede all other spiritual and religious organizations, covering humanity like a pall from which no person on earth, since the church has proclaimed its supernationality, can avoid. The comment above conveys gladness that more people will now be fully accepted within this body. But actually, it conveys more than that. By using the word wonderful, it implies that for anyone to be outside that pall (or even squirming around within it) is horrific. And that implies that ONLY that particular concept…only the mystical body of Christ…is spiritually desirable.

And that is arrogant. Extremely, ignorantly arrogant.

Believers might say, “But it is the one true church.”*

Really? In fact, the only way to make that statement is to base it on a rhetorical tautology. Example: Why is God great? Because He is God. There is no supporting information given, no proof. One could as easily say that Judaism is the one true church and it would be equally true. Or equally untrue. The fact is, however, that only the Roman Catholic Church and Islam have the arrogance to claim such a thing; enlightened religions admit of other pathways to the godhead. (Interesting that both the Roman Catholic Church and Islam have waged wars trying to prove the unprovable. But that’s another column.)

The author of the statement above is proclaiming the superiority of his belief system above all others, and doing it in a way that rewards a spiritual leader for acting in a very non-spiritual way. Would the Dalai Lama create a function for welcoming Buddhist aspirants in such a way that those aspirants would forever remain second-class in the eyes of both the Buddhist apparata and their god? I think not. Buddhism is a religion of acceptance. It is, of course, the polar opposite of Roman Catholicism, which is a religion of exclusion.

Why should not any person on earth be permitted to participate in the Eucharist, the sharing of the “body and blood of Jesus Christ,” if, indeed, that sharing is so central to salvation? Does the Catholic Church not want others to be saved? Ah. It wants only those who have proceeded through it prescribed rubric to acceptance to be saved. And it customarily allows only Roman Catholics to participate; in general, other Christian churches, including the Anglican church, permit all baptized Christians to participate, and many just require that one be human. Which is as it should be, if God is good and great and all-knowing and all-forgiving as the religionists claim.

If Pope Benedict XVI had opened wide the doors of the church to all and sundry ? to anyone who felt the desire to obtain the benefits as they saw them of participating in Roman Catholic lay rites ? then I would say that, finally, the Universal Church (as it also proclaims itself, in error) had actually become universal. (Catholic, for those who still think it is a name, like Reggie, means universal.)

Indeed, Pope Benedict XVI opened the doors only a crack; Anglican clergy are still relegated to inferior positions if they wish to retain the same conditions (being married, for instance) that they arrived with. So what door, then, is open? A married Anglican priest who is widowed after becoming RC will not be able to remarry…unless he leaves the RC fold again, and returns to Anglicanism. What kind of lunatic penance is that, exactly? Not to mention that it puts the woman into limbo; she is OK as baggage and can be brought along, but to honor the estate of marriage and the woman herself by seeking another helpmeet? Not in this man’s church. And it is, as well, a man’s church.

It remains lost upon the Roman Catholic hierarchy that women were welcomed as leaders in the early church. It remains a matter of Luddite pride that the Roman Catholic Church and many Anglicans still relegate women to second-class spiritual citizenship.

This latest foray of Pope Benedict XVI into reactionary dogma dressed up in modern language is, apparently, typical. How sad.

***

Go here for an informative article, from the Anglican point of view, on this decision of Benedict XVI. The final paragraph in the main article is most interesting, but don’t avoid the comments. This issue is almost certain to spark controversy in Trinitarian circles for a while yet, and there's lots of food for thought here.

* In its liturgy, the Anglican Communion claims to be "one holy catholic and apostolic church," but it is not using those terms to refer only to itself, as it appears Roman Catholicism does. It means, in fact, all churches, all having sprung from the activities of the apostles across the known world in early Christian times, as I understand it.