Liberal Prophets of Gloom

While various bloggers at St. Blog's have been addressing the issue of Prophets of Gloom, primarily those who consider themselves to be orthodox, who scream about bishops and the Vatican, I must say that being a prophet of gloom isn't limited to that one particular side of the church. Last night, I challenged myself to go and give an ear to Fr. Michael Crosby, OFM Cap. I know, I know - what was I thinking? Well, I confess I did walk in with certain expectations, but I sincerely wanted to hear his words with my own ears so that I could draw some of my own conclusions about this man. My simple conclusion today is that I would Michael Crosby is a prophet of gloom just as those who would consider themselves orthodox.

A Kairos Moment?

The theme of the talk was A Kairos Moment for the Catholic Church. Crosby started by saying that we need to reclaim the Church for Jesus Christ. He began his arguments by equating the religious environment within the Roman Catholic Church today with the Jewish environment at the time in which Jesus lived and died. In the same way that Christ challenged the oppressive, religious power structures of Judaism in his day by giving them a kairos moment, or a moment of choice, Crosby argued that Christ does the same today to the Roman Catholic Church in the aftermath of this sexual abuse crisis. While he made many points, most of which I took issue with, I only want to expound on a couple that I found to be particularly egregious.

Abusive, violent oppressor?

The point he kept pounding home was that the institutional church, by demanding that there be no discussion about women priests or, at this point, clerical celibacy, is an abusive oppressor, a purveyor of violence against women and society. Further, he claimed the arguments used by the Vatican against the ordination of women are not scripturally sound nor in communion with a trinitarian theology. For him, the teaching of the Church, that she does not have the power or authority to ordain women, is gravely sinful and not worthy of belief. Very often, Crosby would talk of fear and intimidation in speaking one's mind. Truly, he said, he speaks today with the same fear and intimidation from the Church hierarchy.

The Gnostic Christ?

He then went into his scriptural argument for women priests by attacking the scriptural argument often used against them. He stated that the common scriptural argument given - that Christ only chose male apostles - was not sound because the culture discounted women. He argued that it was illogical to regard Jesus' choice within the culture at that time as His intention for the future successors to the apostles because the argument was applying the Christ of history to the Christ of faith. Furthermore, he concluded, in persona Christi has to refer to the Christ of faith, because Christ rose from His maleness.

Hmm. I am not a scripture scholar, but relying on what I have read and know about this teaching, what he is saying reveals some flaws. While the culture did not regard women well, Crosby's whole premise is that Christ came to challenge the established, religious environment. Would not Christ's challenge have been consistent with regard to those whom He chose as apostles if He had intended for women to have this particular role within the Church? Furthermore, I dispute his delineation between the historical Jesus and the Jesus of faith. To assert that the real Jesus is some sort of sexless being that is no longer human is troubling. Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, is male. To extract a vague concept or principle that is called Jesus who was not the same Jesus who was born, lived, established His Church, appointed Apostles, died, and then rose from the dead is a Gnostic idea. It's to extract the divine Jesus from the human Jesus. You simply cannot do that.

Crosby confirmed this also when he reassured everyone that he believes that the Roman Catholic Church is the true faith in its mystical expression but not in its institutional expression. Same problem as above. He's extracting the divine Church from the human Church, which is the same thing as asserting that the divine Jesus, or the Jesus of faith, is not the same as the human Jesus. In reality, Jesus is both divine and human, and the Church is both divine and human. The Church is made up of human beings who are also sinners.

No role for women?

Crosby finally said that when we hold clericalism above Jesus Christ, we have idolatry. This is true, but I dispute his assertion that clericalism is the substance of ecclesiology today. His conclusion was that the institutional church is nothing but a sinful, patriarchal, oppressively political machine, and it has always been so ever since the early church merged with the imperial culture. It was then from the imperial cultural that it got its notions of power, sexual roles, and religious control of behavior. He warned that the Church will once again begin teaching that women are unclean and shouldn't be near the altar, and he used the recent draft from the Vatican concerning the use of altar girls as evidence.

Widespread Fundamentalism in the Curia?

He spoke quite a bit about how the institutional Church was fundamentalist with regard to its understanding of papal infallibility, even though he said he believed in papal infallibility - points which I will not address here due to length. You may email me if you wish to hear or discuss this further. But I have to say that much of what he used as evidence from the Scriptures and even from Tradition, when he did refer to Tradition, was taken out of context and sounded much like the fundamentalism he was attacking.

Breath of Fresh Air?

Toward the end, an older woman leaned over to me and ask, Wow. Isn't this a breath of fresh air? I honestly didn't know how to respond to that. If you walked out of that meeting believing everything that Crosby said, you had to have felt extreme despair, distrust, and lonliness. In other words, gloom. Furthermore, I counted maybe three young adults, including myself, which contradicted some of the assumptions many people make about the youth wanting to embrace people like Crosby. Some of you might believe that I would've found problems in whatever he said anyway. Perhaps, but I have to say that in reflecting on what he actually said further, I cannot understand how anyone could walk out of there, having believed every word he said, and not have been willing to listen and study for themselves what the Church actually taught with regard to many of these difficult issues. I am personally thankful that I have had some good teachers in my life who have helped me study Scripture and Tradition and have helped me better understand difficult issues such as this as they relate to both sources.

UPDATE:
Concerning the reservation of priestly ordination to men, here are some educational references:

Ordinatio Sacerdotalis - Apostolic Letter of Pope John Paul II
Ten Questions About the Reservation of Priestly Ordination to Men - the USCCB Committee on Doctrine

These are longer, but well worth the time:

Inter Insigniores: Declaration on the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood - Pope Paul VI and CDF
Mulieris Dignitatem: Apostolic Letter on the the Dignity and Vocation of Women - by Pope John Paul II