Thoughts and Excerpts: Receiving the Council by Ladislas Orsy, Post 1, Intro
If you want to understand why it’s theologically and morally indefensible for the church to maintain it’s current highly centalized and authoritarian structures of authority, this is the book for you. It describes specific actions taken by the popes and the Roman Curia since the end of the Vatican Council and how these actions have moved the Church in the opposite direction of where it needs to go if it is to really understand and implement (or as Orsy says, receive) the Council.
Ladislas Orsy, S.J., is a theologian and canon lawyer who is on the faculty at Georgetown Law and was formerly a professor of canon law at the Catholic University of America.
He talks about the theological understanding of the Church as a communion and how operationally everything should flow from that. He explains how the current structure of episcopal conferences compromises the proper communion of bishops (and why this goes against tradition and is theologically invalid), how a recent canon law excludes the laity from governance of the church (and why this goes against tradition and is theologically invalid), how canon law should be received and the underlying theology of this reception, and how development of canon law has been paralyzed since the Council (and why this goes against tradition and is theologically invalid). He addresses the issue of the administration of justice in the church by setting it side by side with secular legal wisdom and showing how short it falls in comparison. He then takes apart “definitive doctrine,” a new category of doctrine created by John Paul II which is not infallible but which nevertheless can’t be changed.
His precise descriptions of the events that have moved the Church towards a strangling authoritarianism in the years since the council and the misreading of traditon and flawed theology upon which they stand point the way to future reforms to undo the damage.
He says, “I wish to present my opinions as insights, proposed for debate. Nothing more, nothing less. … In probing the insights, a good step forward is to offer them to the living community: let the believers’ sense of faith judge them. let the insights become disputed questions. Disputations in the spirit of openness and charity always had a place of pride in the intellectual history of the Christian community. St. Thomas of Aquinas was a supreme master of it. He liked to preface his affirmations by contrasting questions. “Such a venerable tradition should not become extinct. After all, the entire body of the faithful has been entrusted with the fullness of the evangelical message. Hence, no one should ever be left out of the process of seeking its fuller understanding.” (p. xii)
“We need an environment where Christians are increasingly free to use their gifts of grace and wisdom and where the Holy Spirit is not hampered by our rules.” (p. xiii)
“To cling to structures and norms that were historically conditioned and that the church is leaving behind would be to opt for stagnation and demise. … Excessive attachment to the ways and means of a remote past is a deadly apostasy from the life-giving present.” (p.13)
Tags: canon law, Orsy, structures of governance
