A Catholic father, an intelligent and conscientious man, was explaining why he and his wife took their daughter out of a Catholic high school: "They told the kids that the gospels weren't true."
Compare that with Pope Benedict XVI's affirmation in his best-selling book Jesus of Nazareth: "I trust the gospels." The Pope, a serious scholar who is one of the genuinely distinguished theologians of the day, judges it reasonable to believe the gospel accounts. Some religion teachers in a Catholic high school do not. Now, who do you think is right?
I was reminded of these matters by news reports about a recent talk by Dr. Daniel Finn, outgoing president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. The CTSA, for those who need reminding, is a professional association of mainly liberal Catholic academic theologians — theologians who teach in colleges and universities, that is.
Many orthodox Catholic theologians long ago departed from the CTSA, feeling themselves no longer at home in the group. That's no surprise. In the last three decades, the association has repeatedly drawn attention to itself with studies and statements dissenting from Church teaching and criticizing the Church's Magisterium.
Against that background, let me say at the start that Dr. Finn's talk was a welcome olive branch for which he deserves to be commended — up to a point. Let me also say that many Catholic schools do a fine job teaching and transmitting the faith. But there are problems, and considering these, the praise heaped on Finn's head by some progressive Catholic journalists sounded a bit like spin.
Dr. Finn, who teaches at St. John's University in Minnesota, deplored divisions in the Church caused partly by "ideological simplicities — on all sides." Urging that the CTSA stop sniping at the Vatican, he called for dialogue within the Church, and suggested "making fewer statements that defend theologians against ecclesiastical power" if that's the price of having a meaningful conversation.
This is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. In particular, it assumes that the significant problem with the theological association concerns its scrapping with Rome. But the real problem lies deeper than that.
Over the years, many conscientious Catholic parents like the father quoted above have been scandalized and dismayed by the religious formation they've encountered in the Catholic schools, colleges, and religious education programs to which they've entrusted their kids. Not infrequently, it seems, a mischievous counter-catechesis has contributed to the young people's loss of faith.
To be sure, CTSA members aren't the people who teach religion in Catholic grade and high schools and religious education programs. But there's a link. It resides in the trickle-down effects of what these (academically speaking) humbler souls may have picked up from academicians in college courses and professional publications, as well as from the CTSA's own well-publicized proclamations of dissent.
Dr. Finn's remarks were reminiscent of the fundamental problem with the Common Ground Initiative launched by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin shortly before his death in 1996. The well-intentioned Archbishop of Chicago wanted Catholic liberals and conservatives to come together in a search for consensus. But, critics pointed out, the elements of Catholic consensus — divine revelation and the authentic doctrine of the Church — are already clear.
Unfortunately, some Catholic academic theologians in their teaching have moved away from the Catholic tradition, and that's central to the problem as it now exists. Less public dissent by the CTSA would be welcome, but until that deeper reality is faced it will be only a cosmetic solution.
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