Deadening the Intellectual Life of the Church

I’ve been thinking a lot about whether in fact we do suffer from an environment in which the intellectual life of the Church is deadened, what the specific nature of that deadening is, and what we might do about it. It’s a tricky question because I think it’s hard for Americans to think that their freedom to express themselves is impaired in any way, yet I think there’s something to it.

A recent Commonweal Blog post talks about this issue:

“How many of us know priests and lay people, active in parishes and dioceses, who compromise their core beliefs so as to carry on the good work they are doing within church structures? Whether the issue is eucharistic inclusivity, option for the poor, a thinking laity, married clergy, women’s ordination, homosexuality, contraception, our Church fosters a culture of keeping quiet so as to keep going. Sometimes the pressure from above is overt, but we are all subject to that subtlest form of institutional intimidation which everyone registers without it having to be articulated. We watch the few who persist in standing against it being marginalised or pushed out altogether; their whole lives can be taken apart. Many, both young and lifelong churchgoers, can no longer accept it and are walking away. Meanwhile those who slip into capitulating to it progressively deform their spiritual integrity. Of course, the Protestant tradition and secular society have long picked up the tenor of hypocrisy about Catholicism. After Vatican II, though, many of us felt we were on the way to being freed from it. But the volume now seems to be ratcheting up again. How can we commit to the Church we love without dancing to this particular tune?”
Letter in The Tablet, 3 January 2009

Tags: intellectual freedom