THE POPE SAYS! And then what?

Last month I gave a lecture on women in the church, and promptly incited a vigorous rebuttal. My conservative (female) critic offered correction and admonition for my fundamental error. "Who are you to set yourself up as an individual in opposition to the pope and the authentic magisterium?" The lady did not hurl the dreadful words "cafeteria Catholic" my way, but the implication was there.

No, no, I protested (dangerous word), I am a convinced Roman Catholic. I believe in the one, holy, apostolic church inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit to reveal God's truth through the ages. Indeed, I am a convert and fully appreciate our communion. Alas, however, my critic was also a convert, and took a very firm line. Many ultraconservatives I've met in my travels applaud and celebrate the moral certainty given to them by their Catholicism. From their point of view the great thing about being a Catholic in a confusing and deteriorating world is that you have an infallible guide to truth. Some papal fundamentalists talk as though the last act of conscience that a Catholic ever has to make is to submit mind and will to the pope and to church authority.

But how can you deny, I reply, trying to be a good dialogue partner, that the church has changed its teachings over the centuries? Suppose the church authorities say it is morally permissible to confine Jews to ghettos, enslave blacks and Indians, burn heretics, join Hitler's army, or kill women and children in free-fire zones? Will it be enough when we meet the Lord to claim that "the pope made us do it"? (Actually, if someone sincerely believed he was doing the right thing lighting Joan of Arc's fire, he is probably in heaven with the rest of the dead-wrong, dutiful Inquisitors, but I don't like to concede this point in argument.)

Recently, my understanding, if not my arguing ability, has been sharpened by reading John E. Thiel's book, Senses of Tradition: Continuity and Development in Catholic Faith (Oxford University Press, 2000). Catholics, Thiel claims, do not collapse tradition into Scripture and so must grant that tradition has its own integrity as a source of revelation. Tradition in its plain literal sense includes all the formal written decrees of councils, encyclicals, etc., but also all of the practices that are handed down in the church. In addition, there are three other senses or ways to interpret a complex tradition--just as there are different senses of Scripture. Today, Catholics have no problem accepting that there can exist more than one literal interpretation of a scriptural text: Scripture can be read in an allegorical, mystical, or moral sense that complements the plain meaning of the inspired texts. In much the same way tradition can be interpreted in more than its plain literal sense.

Thiel points to three more dynamic senses of tradition. One is a development-in-continuity sense, as doctrines change while being appropriated anew by each generation. (This constant re-appropriation seems to give meaning to the wonderful term "neo-past.") But two other senses of tradition provide for more radical reform and renewal. One sense is what Thiel calls dramatic development which includes discontinuity, reversals, even extinctions. Like the dinosaurs, some firmly entrenched teachings have vanished. Since Vatican II, doctrines barring the exercise of religious liberty or declarations of no salvation outside the church are gone, if not forgotten. Another more intriguing dimension of tradition leading to renewal is an incipient, anticipatory sense of development, in which new insights begin to emerge among some marginal minority and point where the universal church is going. Only time can tell whether something novel, local, and contested will become part of the universal consensus. Wellsprings of feminist, liberation, or ecological theology may be anticipating the church's future direction.

I find the affirmation of a dynamic plural movement of the Holy Spirit through time and culture to be true to the Gospels and to the chaos and complexity of history. A certain disorder accompanies creative change. While all interpretations of tradition yearn for the Spirit's one truth in a whole coherent network, Christians should not pretend to possess some narrow, false, Platonic ideal. This side of the eschaton the Spirit pours forth living waters, filled with novelty. The present challenge is to make wise discernments. After all, the canons become canonical and constant by the lived assent of the Spirit working within the faithful. When lack of assent begins to appear, it may not indicate heresy or apostasy, but herald dramatic development. Christian truth is not an inert lump deposit, but a rich multithematic symphony played out through time. More is coming. More can be expected. Trust the One who makes all things new, sometimes known as She Who Is.