Читать книгу Crossing the Street - Robert R LaRochelle - Страница 5

This book begins with a series of both explanations and disclaimers. Throughout this work, I will delve into considerable detail and offer many strong opinions about the nature and state of both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. I will speak from the perspective of someone who has lived considerable portions of his life within both traditions and has assumed the responsibilities of ordained leadership within these two expressions of Christianity.

On one level, this book cannot be what it is without a considerable infusion of autobiographical detail. Simply put, to tell the entire story which I seek to tell, I cannot escape from telling my own. Having said this, while I hope the message of this book is strengthened by the personal anecdotes I share and the very nature of my own journey, I need to be clear that this is not intended to be solely an autobiographical text. It is my hope that the reader will view my own personal experiences as contributing to my observation of both the current situation involving these two great religious traditions and as complementary to what I trust will be an analysis fortified by solid research and the utilization of important sources in the areas of theology and church history in addition to significant research regarding religious attitudes and practice.

It is also important to me that the reader understands that this is not a ‘why I left the Catholic Church’ kind of a book. I say this for two reasons. First of all, as I hope I will describe in considerable depth, while I am a former Roman Catholic and while I do affirm the core of Protestantism’s contributions to Christian faith, I am NOT writing this to encourage Catholics to leave their church. Secondly, the book’s main thrust is to assert that Roman Catholics and Protestants have great gifts to offer one another, the recognition of which can strengthen both the present and future church, defined for me as those who seek to follow Jesus and live as His disciples. Thus, this book advocates a strengthened ‘ecumenical center’ in which Roman Catholics and Protestants can work and worship together, espousing to the broader world beyond all sanctuaries the significant and crucial principles of the message of Jesus of Nazareth, the one whom His followers declare to be ‘the Christ.’

While this book must of necessity contain autobiographical elements, it is nonetheless different from other books in the field, materials to which I allude in this writing and which I highly recommend for the reader’s serious review. A seminal work for me in this regard is James Kavanaugh’s A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church¹ which, as I will note in later chapters, had a profound influence on my thinking far back in my teenage years. Albert Cutié’s recent book Dilemma,² which chronicles his life growing up Catholic, preparing for, living and serving as a Catholic priest, dealing with the ‘dilemma’ created when the church’s policy on celibacy clashed with his own personal experience, and his eventual decision to leave Catholicism and become an Episcopal priest, is influential and informative to me, even as my own work has a different thrust and purpose. The autobiographical material and insights in James Carroll’s works, in particular An American Requiem³ and Practicing Catholic⁴ also provide valuable material for your consideration, as they most certainly have for mine.

In this particular work, I seek to draw upon my experience and my study to offer suggestions to Catholics and Protestants alike. It is my intention that congregational leaders and church officials will find this material useful in both advocating for and shaping courses of action. Likewise, I would be most pleased if what is contained herein might serve as a useful discussion starter among friends, spouses, partners and all of those whose lives have been influenced by their connection and affiliation with these two branches of the institutional Christian church. It is to this end that I provide discussion questions at the conclusion of each of this book’s chapters.

As we have already noted, this book has as a central focus the relationship between Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions. One might legitimately ask whether this focus is too narrow in this increasingly complex and pluralistic world of religious choices and paths. After all, within Christianity itself, the Orthodox churches form an incredible body with a magnificent history, offering tremendous resources to both Christianity and the wider world. One might wonder why we are looking solely at these two Christian groupings of Protestant and Roman Catholic as we all really need an ever more detailed understanding of and dialogue with such religious traditions as Judaism, Islam, and the great religions of the East as well as with the multiple approaches to spirituality existent both within this great vast world and right here on North American soil!

In my view, it IS crucial that serious work be done on all of those fronts. As a matter of fact, it is important to me that Protestants and Catholics alike engage in that enterprise, take it to heart and do it well. Having said that, I must also contend that the relationship between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism is an area that continues to need detailed exploration. It is a relationship that suffers from severe misunderstandings and a terribly troubled history, one that has affected many individuals in intensely personal ways. It is a relationship that must never be overlooked.

It strikes me as well that those who take Jesus seriously in his plea that ‘they may all be one’⁵ will likewise find most troubling the divisions and misunderstandings that have plagued these two great religious traditions. It is my hope that this book may contribute, in some way, to a greater appreciation of the commonality and shared mission between these two distinct approaches to the one Christian faith. Likewise, I believe that a healthy ecumenism between Protestants and Roman Catholics in turn will make a massive impact on other ecumenical, interfaith and universal spiritual dialogue in this, God’s most needy world!

Throughout this work, the language I use will be important and thus it is crucial that, from our very beginning, I am very clear. For the most part, I will refer to Roman Catholicism as ‘Catholicism,’ though I will at times use the phrase ‘Roman Catholic.’ While doing so most certainly cuts down on the wordiness of this text, I think it is also clear that it refers to that church community which acknowledges the Bishop of Rome as its leader. In popular parlance, I am talking about ‘the Pope.’ Likewise, ‘Catholicism’ is a preferred, popular self designation for those who are part of the Roman Catholic tradition. So, while I will on many occasions, use the phrase ‘Roman Catholic,’ please understand ‘Catholic’ to be interchangeable with it!

Contemporary Protestantism is hardly a monolithic enterprise. As a matter of fact, from Protestantism’s very inception, there has been considerable diversity of thought and practice within it. The modern Protestant movement, in my view, is less divided by denomination than it is by approach, especially to theology and its understanding of the Bible. This, in turn, has implications for the ways in which Protestant congregations and denominations deal with intrachurch issues (e.g. women and homosexual clergy) and political issues. Within modern Protestantism, there are multiple approaches to these matters.

In this work, I will distinguish between ‘mainline’ or ‘mainstream’ Protestantism and what I will call ‘evangelical’ Protestant Christianity. My use of the term evangelical is intended to include those who consider themselves to be fundamentalists.⁶ I make this distinction fully cognizant of the reality that many conservative evangelicals would eschew the term fundamentalist and that many ‘mainline’ Christians consider themselves to be truly evangelical and are troubled by the fact that the word itself has been co-opted by what they would see as the ‘religious right.’⁷ In using these terms, I am intending to distinguish between those established churches which have generally been in numerical decline in the last several decades and that multiplicity of other church communities which, in many cases, are growing considerably. A very incomplete list of these ‘mainline’ churches would include (and not be limited to) the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the American Baptist Churches, the Disciples of Christ and the Presbyterian Church, USA. The more ‘evangelical’ churches would include both established denominations such as the Southern Baptists or the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (among many others) and also the plethora of independent churches or those affiliated with associations and alliances. I also distinguish between mainline churches and the growing number of ecclesial communities within the Pentecostal tradition. Likewise, there is a vibrant Emergent/Emerging Church movement which has burst onto the church scene in recent years which is marked by a unique eclecticism of practice and often theology.⁸ As we all know, much of the language can be confusing. I am the pastor of a New England church which has been called ‘Congregational’ since 1738. In 1961, we joined the larger ‘United Church of Christ,’ a church body in existence only since 1957. Not far down the road from us remain several churches who call themselves ‘Congregational,’ but also happen not to be ‘UCC.’ It would be fair to distinguish us and place us in the mainline category with the others more accurately described by the term evangelical as it is used within this context. Of course, having said all of that, I would also contend, quite vociferously, that, in the purest sense of the term, ours is an ‘evangelical church’ as well as is expressed in such a formal ritual as the ordination of our pastors.⁹ As muddled and confusing as this can be, I hope all this is helpful to you, the reader!

Likewise, I think that, as you begin this book, it would be useful if you were to get a thumbnail sketch of who I am. More will be revealed later on, especially in Chapter 3. As I have indicated, I am currently the pastor of a United Church of Christ congregation in Union, Connecticut. Parenthetically, I am a part time pastor engaged in bivocational ministry, often referred to as ‘tentmaking’ ministry.¹⁰ My current full time work is as a school counselor in a Connecticut public high school. I have worked in educational settings as either a full time teacher or counselor for thirty five years.

I was ordained in the United Church of Christ in 2002, several months after I was licensed to serve as pastor of a local church. From the day of my Baptism in January of 1953 to just before Lent in 1998, I was a Roman Catholic. While you will read a lot more about the specifics of my ecclesiastical life as you go through this book, suffice it to say that I was quite active and involved in the Catholic Church for the first forty five years of my life. Educated in Catholic elementary and prep school, I also served for nine years as an altar boy, rising to the ranks of leader of the altar boys in a convent of nuns, actually the place that served as the national headquarters of a distinguished order of religious sisters.

From there, I moved on to a Roman Catholic college (College of the Holy Cross) which was run by the Jesuit Fathers, seriously considered the Catholic priesthood but decided against it, earned a graduate degree in the area of religious education from another Jesuit school (Boston College) and then embarked upon a career teaching theology in Catholic schools, working for a while in a diocesan office traveling the state of Rhode Island, consulting with local parishes, conducting literally hundreds of youth retreats and leading dozens of workshops, and serving several Catholic parishes in the capacity of Religious Education Director and/or Youth Minister.

In 1989, I was ordained to the Permanent Diaconate in the Catholic Church and served as a member of the clergy (oftentimes people do not realize that Catholics consider clergy to be bishops, priests and deacons)¹¹ on a parish staff from 1989 to that day in 1998 when I decided that I needed to move out of the Catholic Church and search for where I might worship and potentially serve in my future.

In the interest of straightforward disclosure, I must say that when I ultimately decided to join a Protestant church, according to Roman Catholic canon law, I was automatically excommunicated from the Catholic Church, a penalty about which I had been warned when I notified my Catholic Archbishop’s office at the time of my departure.¹² The word excommunication is a scary one to many of us raised as Catholics. It is also a word terribly misused and misunderstood. As a matter of fact, it is a sad reality that there are a lot of Catholics living day to day and thinking they are excommunicated when in fact they are not.¹³ In my case, I most assuredly am. I often like to tell people that I had made my intentions known to the Archbishop’s office that I was considering leaving the Catholic Church. I then received a letter saying, in essence, that if I did that, I wouldn’t be a Catholic any more. I made that decision; hence, the automatic excommunication. The next few months and years in my spiritual journey led me to where I am today, joyfully serving as a minister in the United Church of Christ.

As I have said, this is the brief sketch. Later on in the book, I will do my best to describe the relevance of my own personal journey to the central thrust of this book. Suffice it to say for now that my experience as a clergyman, in the UCC, coupled with my deeply rooted Catholic upbringing and experience as a clergyman there, has strengthened my conviction that Catholics and Protestants really need to work together and to take the time to more completely understand each other. Not only that, but they must also make the effort to come to a fuller appreciation of themselves, their history, the theologies operative within their traditions and the pluralism of their own churches’ practices that so often catch them as a considerable surprise!

It is my hope that Chapter One will make my intentions clear and that this book’s title will become self explanatory as well. In this chapter, I explore in great detail what it means to ‘live within one’s own house,’ of either Catholic or Protestant tradition. I seek to lay out the misunderstandings we so often have of the ‘other’ and argue against a monolithic reading either of one’s own or of another religious tradition. Chapter Two, entitled,‘So, What’s the Difference?’, attempts to clarify the significant distinguishing characteristics of Catholicism and Protestantism.

Chapter Three serves as the ‘bridge chapter’ of this book as I attempt to connect the many details of my own long religious journey (It gets long when one gets old!!) with the central issues we are examining in this book. In Chapter Four, through the use of research data, interviews and significant written material, I go into greater detail regarding the diversity of both Catholicism and Protestantism. Utilizing significant insights from the work of several writers, I encourage us to consider both Catholic and Protestant ‘imaginations’ and ‘instincts.’

Chapters Five and Six are dedicated to acknowledging and affirming the spiritual gifts that Catholics and Protestants have to offer each other. These chapters lay the foundation for the central point for which I argue in Chapter Seven i.e. that there is an ‘ecumenical center’ within Catholicism and Protestantism, a center that must be nourished and nurtured, for the sake of the message of Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus our common Christ!

Chapter Eight moves into specific practical strategies that can be employed on the personal level, within local churches and in broader institutional settings, as well as in more informal ways. Following this pragmatic exploration, my concluding chapter, entitled ‘It Is Time To Cross The Street,’ reiterates the case for the crucial significance of the entire enterprise advocated in this book!

As I will repeat in other places, it is my intention that this book will be a resource for discussion among individuals and within churches. Likewise, I would love to hear from you, the readers of this work.¹⁴ I want to know how it connects with your own personal experience as Protestants and Catholics and, for you, who have not been raised in either tradition, I would be greatly interested in whether you see it as helpful in explaining and perhaps helping to bridge what is arguably one of Christianity’s truly ‘great divides.’

Before we move on, a final disclaimer or perhaps set of disclaimers is in order: In offering this material to you, I make the unashamed, unabashed claim that I present myself to you as one who freely stands in the tradition of the Reformation. In other words, I call myself a Protestant. In doing so, I am not suggesting to the reader, as I say earlier in this introduction, that if you are not currently a Protestant, then perhaps you should become one too. While I have freely chosen to leave the Catholic Church in which I was raised and now worship and serve within the Protestant expression of Christianity, it is not my intention to proselytize other Catholics into becoming Protestants. As a matter of fact, in my work as a Protestant clergyperson, there have been several times when I have counseled Catholics, angry with or feeling alienated from their church, that they do not appear to be ready to make the move out of their church and thus they should not, at least not at this time!

Nor am I interested in stopping a Protestant ‘migration’ to Catholicism. Instead, I am firmly convinced that, with respect to church affiliation, as with all important things, it is necessary that one make honest, intelligent decisions utilizing one’s conscience to the fullest extent. Believing with Paul that ‘now we see dimly as in a mirror,’¹⁵ I am likewise quite cognizant of the limitations of our own knowledge while equally confident that God has bestowed upon us the capacity to make individual decisions and judgments in the depths of our souls and respectful of the primacy of our consciences. Quite honestly, I am convinced that this belief is an integral aspect of both mainline Protestantism and the Roman Catholic tradition and is one of those areas commonly misunderstood both from outside each tradition as well as from within.¹⁶

Finally, though I will say it throughout this book, it is important that I state upfront that even in describing ‘mainline’ Protestantism in relation to the Catholic faith, one must realize that different Protestant traditions appear less closely aligned with the Catholic expression of faith. My college age son, for example, has indicated to me that on his collegiate campus, it is not unusual to see midwestern Lutherans attend Catholic Mass rather than the Protestant chapel service each Sunday. One could legitimately speculate that those Lutherans may have a comfort level with the liturgical approach of the Catholic worship experience and would perceive it as more closely aligned ritually with the Lutheran worship services they have experienced in their home congregations. Conversely, the person raised in a New England Congregational tradition might see and perceive the Catholic expression of worship differently. This reality should not lead one to conclude that the Lutheran student cited here is any less Protestant than the New England Congregationalist. In fact, he or she might have significant differences with Catholic teaching on a number of major issues and may be very comfortable identifying himself or herself as a Protestant. It is to say, however, that in looking at Protestantism, one must acknowledge the variety of expressions therein and, quite importantly, proceed to explore the points of potential ecumenical consensus.

All of this renders crucial the need for heightened theological education on the local level within all Christian churches. This would include good education concerning both one’s own tradition and one’s tradition in relation to others. This serves as a necessary antidote to a religious indifferentism that, while appearing to be open minded and ecumenical, is really not very helpful at all. It is my strong conviction that it is unfair to contend that there are ‘really no differences between Episcopalians (or Presbyterians or insert any other denomination here!!) and Roman Catholics.’ Stating that is, first of all, not true and, secondly, serves as a real impediment to the kind of necessary dialogue of which I will speak in this book. To the contrary, I strongly believe that pastors and educators, both Protestant and Catholic, have an obligation to teach their members the fullness of their own theological traditions and histories. By fullness, I mean that one also must include an exposure to the discussions, developments and dissensions found within their churches.

It is in this context that I wish to explain the footnotes you will find throughout this book. As I make specific points about certain churches and denominations, those readers familiar with the facts I explain may find my comments rather elementary and perhaps even redundant. It is important that you understand my motivation for presenting these factual notations. I want the reader to have a solid grasp of some relevant factual information that is necessary for us to engage in informed dialogue involving those individuals of varied religious traditions.

Too much local denominational education has been, in my view, apologetic in a pejorative sense of that wonderful term. All too often, the other tradition, Catholicism for Protestants and vice versa), has been presented as having basic tenets that must be repudiated. In many cases, the actual facts concerning religious teachings and practices have been misrepresented or ignored. The solution to this problem is not to minimize these historical differences, but, rather, to understand them and then, ideally, to see how those perspectives might connect with, illuminate and supplement that which has nurtured and nourished us from within our own tradition, a tradition we have an obligation to seek to understand well!

This commentary would be incomplete without acknowledging, as I have noted above, the proliferation of church communities which operate out of what has come to be known as an ‘Emerging Church’ model, also known as ‘Emergent Church,’ a model some would see as the blueprint of the church of the future. Often, these churches draw from the styles of worship utilized in a variety of worship traditions, using modalities that have been traditionally labeled either Catholic or Protestant. For a multiplicity of reasons, however, they are located within the Protestant expression of Christianity. I would suggest that those who lead such churches consider as part of their ministry an obligation to offer historical background and context to the worship practices that serve as meaningful ways of expressing their own spirituality. In doing so, the explicit connection to the wider church becomes more apparent and thus is the church strengthened in its different settings.

Fairly early on in my life, without being able to put these words I have written to any stirrings of my soul I was then experiencing, I found that, for my own spiritual growth, this in depth knowledge of a variety of religious perspectives was exactly what I needed. In the conviction that what I have learned may really be of value to you, it is to this end that this book is now written!