The cat is on the mat. God is in heaven.

This is going to be one of those 'not quite sure where I'm going on this' ones...

I was flipping through Mark Atherton's Teach Yourself Old English yesterday (don't ask!) when I came across the catchily title Old English poem, Maxims II. (Modern English translation here.) The bit that attracted my attention was this:

A king must be in the hall, bestowing rings

A bear belongs on the heath, old and awe-inspiring. 

A river from the hills must flow flood-gray.

An army must be united, a troop of triumph-tough men. 

Honor must be in an earl; morals, in a man. 

In this world, the woods must bloom with blossoms. 

An embankment must stand green on earth. 

God must be in heaven, judger of deeds. 

A door is necessary for a hall, the wide mouth of the building.

And so on...

Now the point that struck me was that God and his place (heaven) is simply dropped into a long list of things in their own appropriate place: God is just (unselfconsciously) part of a list of things. 

This is (we are told) rank heresy. Perhaps more importantly, it is the sort of thing that a lot of post-modernist theology needs to save us from: that supreme Devil, the modernist heresy. To quote Phillip Blond:

..a world where an account of nature can be given independently of an account of God is for theology a wholly idolatrous domain. Furthermore, this situation appears thoroughly analogous to that of Duns Scotus, who first initiated the thinking that held that an account of God's presence in nature required a prior account of an ontology without God. 

(from the introduction to Post-Secular Philosophy, p.40).

Now, I don't think it will be a surprise to regular readers of this blog that I am rather unsympathetic to Blond's position. (At least to the extent that I can understand it.) The mention of Scotus allows me to link to The Smithy's Radical Orthodoxy and the Underpants Gnomes which is always worth a recommendation. But the general point that Blond is making here is that bad Scotus started the bad modernist habit of setting up a science of Being that then found God within it, rather than doing the proper thing of putting God first and then analysing Being as dependent on him. In case this all sounds a little abstract, the cash value of such a critique appears to be that Christians shouldn't be ashamed of using a thoroughly theological language in the critique of the world, rather than trying to use a secularized language in which God is bracketed out and then (if at all) slotted in as an afterthought.

Which -bad secularized modernist trait- is precisely what seems to be happening in Maxims II. (Eleventh century.) 

Now, of course, this is hardly a knock out blow to Radical Orthodoxy et al. For a start, it's clear that, seeing God as just one more thing in the world is an error: God ain't just a nicer Thor. (See this post for more.) So there is something more that needs to be said to the reader of Maxims II to clear up any misunderstandings that might have resulted. And of course it's perfectly possible that this or that document -although produced in a Christian society- may prove idolatrous or just mistaken. Moreover, even if this 'idolatrous' aspect were found in a poem preceding Scotus, that wouldn't prove that as a matter of philosophy or theology (call it 'abstract university thinking' if you will) it wasn't Scotus (or perhaps Suarez or Wolff or whoever) who started the whole business of secularization there, even if a tendency can be noted elsewhere even earlier.

But. But. When I read in the excellent Artur Rosman's blog (and let me give him a permanent recommendation: he's well worth reading regularly for his engagement with the deeper regions of modern Catholic thought) that the post modern slides into the pre-modern, I can't help think back to the Saxon with his bears and his shield and his rings -and his God. I understand the Saxon's world view. I understand Plato's worldview when he slots God into the Timaeus as one of the three things which make the universe. Is it adequate? No, of course, not: neither on simply philosophical grounds (does anyone think -atheist or theist- that Plato said the last word?) let alone Christian, theological ones.

But when I turn to much post modern theology, I find I have little idea what's happening. (I remember picking up Post-Secular Philosophy back in 1998, flipping through it and putting it back in disgust at the verbiage. I have read much of it since then, but re-reading parts of the introduction just now frankly revived that nausea.) I recognize the rhythms and vocabulary of Lacan or Derrida or Butler, and worry that (quite a lot of the time) there is an existential secularization implicit in the methodology: that rather than referring one's judgments to the Church, one refers the Church to (almost invariably) non-Catholic thinkers. And, in the concrete, that results in an endorsement of same sex partnerships by Blond and his non-Catholicism, whilst (in the case of Tina Beattie) it results in, well, all sorts of (let's say) feminist dissent.

I started by saying I wasn't sure where I was going with this. Well, let's conclude with where I think I've wound up. I don't know what a pre-modern or a modern view is, let alone a post modern view, certainly when it comes to ontology. The idea that there is some great rupture between how (eg) Plato thinks and how we should think is, I suspect, nonsense. The idea that some hapless theologian like Scotus or Occam or Suarez, by a mere slip of the concept, made the modern world is also nonsense. The (pre-modern) Weltanschauung of the Maxims II is more recognizable to me than Phillip Blond's.

And so to finish, let's have that oh-so-famous account from Bede of Edwin's conversion. It is, of course, pre-modern, and therefore completely incomprehensible to the modern understanding of rationality and a Lebenswelt where the Christian God is bracketed out:

This present life of men on earth, in comparison to the time that is unknown to us, is as if you sit with your ealdormen and theigns in the wintertime, and the fire is kindled and the hall warmed, and it should rain and snow and storm outside. There should come a sparrow and it swiftly through-flies that house, comes in through one door and out the other departs. But watch.  In the time that he is inside he is not touched by the storms of winter; but that is the blink of an eye, and the least interval, and he immediately from the winter, into the winter returns. Thus then men’s lives appear as a brief interval; what should there precede, or what should follow after, we do not know. Therefore if this new lore should bring us anything more certain and more suitable, it is worthy that we should follow it.

(Translated by A. L. Reynolds here. With amendments.)

I am so modern, I'm pre-modern.

Tina Beattie, abortion and incrementalism

Professor Beattie got taken to task a little last week on her attitude to abortion as result of a blog on The Tablet site:

Few issues are as resistant to informed and reasoned debate as abortion, and any attempt to open up such a debate risks being hijacked by bitter polemicists on both sides. Yet wherever one stands on the legality and morality of abortion these are vital ethical issues. When there is such clear contradiction and denial as there is with regard to the uses and abuses of drugs like potassium chloride, it is in the public interest that such debate should be had, and that voices of reason should seek to be heard over the din of angry rhetoric. The question that will not go away is why the British public would be outraged at the use of a drug for the purposes of capital punishment, when one of our most prestigious medical organisations recommends its use for the purposes of killing a potentially viable baby.

[Mark Lambert provides a full commentary from an orthodox Catholic point of view here.]

I don't want to attack Professor Beattie here. I do think she systematically underrates the importance of Magisterial authority in the Church and, due to her perceived status as a Catholic authority, seriously misleads people on Catholic teaching. But I can think of far less engaging Catholic male theologians who don't get the same flak and, as I've said before, there is a genuine issue here about how the freedom required by academic thought remains consistent with the need for Magisterial authority.

So, putting aside her status as a Catholic thinker -and thus putting aside her use of revelation in the teaching of the Church- what do her views on abortion using natural reason without revelation show? (I was also prompted here by Caroline Farrow's post advocating the revisiting of abortion time limits as a goal for the pro-life movement with which I largely agree.)

First, I don't think -pace some commentators- that her views on abortion are either hypocritical or inconsistent. She clearly believes that personhood is the result of a 'gradual process' rather than an all or nothing event. As such, late abortions are worse than early abortions -and it is with respect to late abortions (in the blog, over 21 weeks and six days) that she is commenting.

Secondly, the precise question regarding the drug is one that is stimulating rather than conclusive: it is the sort of observation that might make someone sit up with a start and rethink their position, rather than conclusively demonstrate its wrongness. (For example, a pro-abortionist might simply acknowledge that you are using drugs to kill biologically similar things -hence the same drugs- but that one (execution) is a person and one isn't (the 'foetus').)  That's not to dismiss her point: important changes of moral position can be caused by such shocks to one's perspective. But it's certainly not a conclusive argument, indeed, it's not much of an argument at all. (But nor is it supposed to be.)

Beattie's position -that the wrongness of abortion is not absolute and that the moral value of the 'foetus' is something that develops over the period of pregnancy- is one that is held by other non-Catholic thinkers. Rosalind Hursthouse, for example, argues a similar position from the point of view of virtue ethics:

To say that the cutting-off of a human life is always a matter of some seriousness, at any stage, is not to deny the relevance of gradual foetal development. Notwithstanding the well-known point that clear  boundary lines cannot be drawn, our emotions and attitudes regarding the foetus do change as it develops, and again when it is born, and indeed further as the baby grows.

Now to note that such a position is held by thinkers who do not rely on the teaching authority of the Church is not to claim that a) their arguments even from the point of view of natural reason are correct; still less b) that the Church's view of the absolute wrongness of abortion from conception is irrational. On a), there is clearly more to say: for example, neither Hursthouse nor Beattie take much notice of the existence of a recognizable biological human individual from conception. It is entirely possible, even putting aside revelation, that their arguments could be shown to be inadequate. On b), once the authoritative declaration of the Church on the wrongness of abortion is accepted, its rationality can be defended with just as much plausibility: it can be seen to be rational, even if its initial acceptance is on faith.

So none of this should be taken as an attack on the Catholic teaching on abortion:

Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

But it does suggest that, in the foreseeable future, the absolute wrongness of all abortions may not be apparent to those operating only on natural reason unaided by revelation, even if they can see its wrongness in the case of later abortions. As I have argued before, my own understanding is that incrementalism is in principle a licit approach to legislation. If that is correct, a practical consideration is that, if Catholics in the UK are going to affect abortion legislation, they will need to ensure the co-operation of those who are not guided by revealed teaching, but solely by natural reason (perhaps, in the case of Protestants, reinforced by the imperfect guidance of scripture). As the examples of Beattie and Hurtshouse suggest, to refuse to accept a (say) a reduction in the time limits of abortion as an immediate aim, may thus be to abandon any foreseeable prospect of Catholic efforts contributing to a reduction of abortions in the UK.

The absolute wrongness of abortion is a matter of natural law. But there is absolutely no guarantee that the fullness of that natural law prohibition is accessible by natural reason alone, unaided by the revelation that is present in Magisterial teaching. Indeed, both Beattie and Hursthouse's arguments suggest that it is not so accessible, or, at the least, not easily so accessible.

Hannukkah, the Consultation on Marriage, and Tina Beattie

The Jewish festival of Hannukah starts today. The exclusion of the books of the Maccabees  by Protestants may well have resulted from sincere theological doubts about their place in the Canon, but a consequence of this act has been a downplaying of the place of revolt against governments in the life of the Church, and, more generally, of the importance of resistance to a dominant culture.

Much of the substance of the Books of the Maccabees can be reduced to a struggle to resist the imposition of a dominant, Hellenistic culture on Jews:


13 Then certain of the people were so forward herein, that they went to the king, who gave them licence to do after the ordinances of the heathen:
14 Whereupon they built a place of exercise at Jerusalem according to the customs of the heathen:
15 And made themselves uncircumcised, and forsook the holy covenant, and joined themselves to the heathen, and were sold to do mischief. (1 Maccabees 1: 13-15).

That struggle against Hellenism is analogous to the modern struggle of Catholicism against a secular culture. All sensible people in the Mediterranean world knew that to be well educated and decent, you had to be Hellenized, worship a variety of gods, join in with the homoerotic cult of the male body, and place the will of the state above that of your traditions. Equally, all sensible people now know that worshipping God is silly, that only the old fashioned think there is anything wrong with screwing around, and that vox populi, vox dei. (If there were a god of course.)

I have absolutely no intention in indulging in the traditional sport of Beattie baiting. But taking up Tina Beattie's contribution (here) to the Vatican consultation on the family in the spirit it was explicitly offered -'to share some ideas and arguments'- and as representative of what loosely be termed 'liberal opinion', I am struck by two points in particular. Firstly, there is an emphasis on personal experience. In one way, that's fine: there is absolutely nothing wrong in explaining (for example) how incredibly difficult it is to live out the Church's teachings on the family and marriage in an environment that is either actively hostile or simply oblivious to an alternative, non-secular approach. I was particularly struck by her answer to the question:


How successful have you been in proposing a manner of praying within the family which can withstand life’s complexities and today’s culture? 

This question makes too many assumptions about the kind of Catholic life many of us experience in modern families and marriages. I pray for my family every day, but I do not pray with them because my husband is not a practising Christian and my children have all left the Church. I firmly believe that we learn our attitudes to culture and our values by example. I know families who pray together whose values I would not want to emulate, and others who do not pray together but who are inspiring in their values and lifestyles. 

Now, I have sympathy here. Although that isn't my family situation, we haven't escaped the influence of a society which is profoundly hostile to religious practice and particularly to Catholicism. (I speak of Scotland but the situation is a common one in much of Western Europe.) And let's be exact about that: I haven't escaped that influence. I have failed and I go on failing. And perhaps the worst part of that is tracing the effects of my failures on my children. My children still practise -but I don't think I've done terribly well in passing on the fullness of Catholicism. Part of experience is the experience of failure and the correct emotional response to that failure: when I look at my broken life, I feel regret and guilt. And that element of the self-critique of experience -that I get it wrong and that I am a sinner- seems to be totally lacking here. Such an attitude of critical humility seems an essential part of Christianity, and it problematizes the idea of 'experience' as a criterion of theology. In the present case, if my experience is one of brokenness, I need to experience it as brokenness and failure, rather than pretending it is evidence of a different sort of goodness. (Mightn't a shorter, more straightforward answer be here, 'pretty unsuccessful'? That would be my first response to my own situation even though, admittedly in a pretty scrappy fashion, we have succeeded in maintaining some sort of communal prayer life.)

Secondly, there is running throughout the response (and the accompanying post and linked material) a rhetoric of power. Although there is a superficial narrative about resistance to the domination of Vaticanparatchiks on behalf of an oppressed laity (eg: the linked 'Catholic Scholars Statement' talks about a previous consultation where 'only carefully hand-picked members of the laity were invited. They offered no critical voice and ignored abundant evidence...') there is an underlying narrative about the deepness of theological thought being frustrated by an authoritarian Church. The Catholic Scholars' Statement is most evident here: its very title and the litany of academic positions and institutions soothes the unwary reader into a sense that scholarship is on one side, and the '(almost) Dead White Men' of the Vatican on the other. The problem with this is that it ignores how such academic power is constructed in the modern West: you don't get academic positions without (eg) an itch to 'make it new' rather than simply hand on traditional scholarship; you don't get academic positions unless you can speak the language of secular thought, eg, the Lacan of Beattie's latest book on Aquinas or feminist ideology. Again, such reflections problematize 'experience': what I think of the world is the result of a long process of formation in a society that we know is severely damaged; and, narrowly, such experience is often elicited and articulated by a cultural elite that is itself the result of a hugely problematic formation.

Of course, such reflections can't be the final word. I know what I'd reply to them on Beattie's behalf ('what about how authority in the Church is constructed, eh?'). And the whole whirligig of academic reflection and dialectic goes on which, in itself, can be a de facto admission of the abandonment of authority: to get down and dirty with the philosophers even in defence of authority is to an extent an acceptance of the inferiority of authority to that ongoing dialectic. There is no easy answer here: the solution is neither fideistic rejection of reasoning, nor the abandonment of Magisterial teaching. Salvation is, in the end, a matter of grace, which is to say that it exceeds the description of language and human reflection. But the Maccabees remind us that, whatever that most magnificent, deep, philosophical culture of Hellenism (or even its shallower offspring, modernity) might be saying to us, sometimes our duty is much, much simpler:


1 It came to pass also, that seven brethren with their mother were taken, and compelled by the king against the law to taste swine’s flesh, and were tormented with scourges and whips.
2 But one of them that spake first said thus, What wouldest thou ask or learn of us? we are ready to die, rather than to transgress the laws of our fathers.
3 Then the king, being in a rage, commanded pans and caldrons to be made hot:
4 Which forthwith being heated, he commanded to cut out the tongue of him that spake first, and to cut off the utmost parts of his body, the rest of his brethren and his mother looking on.
5 Now when he was thus maimed in all his members, he commanded him being yet alive to be brought to the fire, and to be fried in the pan: and as the vapour of the pan was for a good space dispersed, they exhorted one another with the mother to die manfully, saying thus,
6 The Lord God looketh upon us, and in truth hath comfort in us, as Moses in his song, which witnessed to their faces, declared, saying, And he shall be comforted in his servants.
7 So when the first was dead after this number, they brought the second to make him a mocking stock: and when they had pulled off the skin of his head with the hair, they asked him, Wilt thou eat, before thou be punished throughout every member of thy body?
8 But he answered in his own language, and said, No. Wherefore he also received the next torment in order, as the former did.
9 And when he was at the last gasp, he said, Thou like a fury takest us out of this present life, but the King of the world shall raise us up, who have died for his laws, unto everlasting life.
10 After him was the third made a mocking stock: and when he was required, he put out his tongue, and that right soon, holding forth his hands manfully.
11 And said courageously, These I had from heaven; and for his laws I despise them; and from him I hope to receive them again.
12 Insomuch that the king, and they that were with him, marvelled at the young man’s courage, for that he nothing regarded the pains.
13 Now when this man was dead also, they tormented and mangled the fourth in like manner.
14 So when he was ready to die he said thus, It is good, being put to death by men, to look for hope from God to be raised up again by him: as for thee, thou shalt have no resurrection to life.
15 Afterward they brought the fifth also, and mangled him.
16 Then looked he unto the king, and said, Thou hast power over men, thou art corruptible, thou doest what thou wilt; yet think not that our nation is forsaken of God;
17 But abide a while, and behold his great power, how he will torment thee and thy seed.
18 After him also they brought the sixth, who being ready to die said, Be not deceived without cause: for we suffer these things for ourselves, having sinned against our God: therefore marvellous things are done unto us.
19 But think not thou, that takest in hand to strive against God, that thou shalt escape unpunished.
20 But the mother was marvellous above all, and worthy of honourable memory: for when she saw her seven sons slain within the space of one day, she bare it with a good courage, because of the hope that she had in the Lord. [2 Maccabees 7: 1-20]

Of course, removal of the Books of the Maccabees was done for the best possible theological reasons rather than to discourage discontent with the existing order.  But Max Romeo wasn't convinced:

Stonewall, Tina Beattie and Foucault

One of the nice things about blogging is being able to articulate the serendipity of everyday encounters. So, here I am, currently working my way through a cover to cover reading of Foucault's History of Sexuality when I happen to notice one of those Stonewall bus ads (above) and then, fired up to write something about that, happen to read an excellent article by Tina Beattie on Femen and commodification of the body when I turn on the computer this morning. And I suppose you can add into that serendipitous soup, Pope Francis and his emphasis on the big picture.

OK. Bits laid out. Critically discuss.

I suspect that the 'commonsense' view of Catholicism's attitude to homosexuality is something like this. Throughout history, human beings have delighted in picking on minority groups and hurting them. Progress is a matter of getting rid of this oppression. We've done it/are doing it with racial minorities and women. Now we are doing it with gay people. The Catholics' reaction to this is simply the last gasp of an oppressive regime. It's the sort of thing that happens when an oppressive authority is challenged. Ordinary Catholics will wise up eventually even if those who have been exercising their authority in hurting gay people will probably go on lamenting their lost power for a while.

I don't expect to be able to remove such a worldview in a few lines: it is, after all, a diagnosis from an outsider point of view of a (putatively) sick institution/deluded members. You'd expect those deluded members to protest and I'm going to. But this is what -in broad terms anyway- it looks like from an alternative insider point of view. (And put roughly, it is that what and whom and how you desire matters.)

1) For a start, at least in Scotland, the Stonewall campaign is associating an opposition to same sex 'marriage' with homophobia. Again, I don't expect anyone to be convinced just by my saying it, but I'll say it nonetheless: opposition to a profound change in the procreative function of an institution that has been regularly held by the greatest minds of the West to be at the heart of society is not unreasonable and it is not homophobic.

2) But putting that aside, let's turn to the idea that we should just 'get over it'. One aspect of the 'commonsense' view of Catholicism is that it is about bashing other people: essentially, Catholic morality is about telling other people what to do. From the 'insider' point of view, however, Catholic morality rests on care: care for the welfare of self and care for the welfare of others. That this care for good is then translated into rules and orders is of secondary importance (and results from belief in a God who legislates). The key feature is care for what is good for us, both me and you.

So the idea that we should 'get over it' is odd: it depends on the idea that we should stop caring about others, or, indeed, that we should stop caring about exploring our own identities. (For example, if I am wondering whether or not I am gay, how helpful is it to be told, 'to get over it'? My care for myself entails a care for the question of what harms or benefits me. And concern for myself is not essentially different from care for others.)

3) But of course, it will be said that 'get over it' isn't a comment on the issue of care for self and others as a principle, but on the substance of what that care involves according to Catholicism. In short, 'get over it' simply means, 'stop imposing your stupid ideas about what is really good for people': it's a pragmatic suggestion to keep the terminally deluded (ie Catholics) from bothering others, not a principled comment that the sensible (ie Stonewall)  should also stop getting involved.

Catholic ideas on the good in sexuality in many ways have much more connection with pre-modern approaches than modern understandings. Foucault traces much of the modern understanding of sex to confession: the need to articulate a truth that has been repressed. (I'll ignore for now Foucault's claim that modern sexual understanding is as a consequence the child of mediaeval Catholicism and its development of auricular confession.) Such an approach can be seen in almost all the current 'commonsense' narrative on sex, homosexual or heterosexual: they (Church, parents etc) stopped us beings ourselves; now we can be truly what we are.

The Greek understanding was different. Unlike the modern schema which is about articulating the truth of our desire (ie what we really want), the Greeks

...believed that the same desire attached to anything that was desirable -boy or girl- subject to the condition that the appetite was nobler that inclined toward what was more beautiful and more honorable; but they also thought that this desire called for a particular mode of behaviour when it made a place for itself in a relationship between two male individuals. The Greeks could not imagine that a man might need a different nature -an 'other' nature- in order to love a man; but they were inclined to think that the pleasures one enjoyed in such a relationship ought to be given an ethical form different from the one that was required when it came to loving a woman. In this sort of relation, the pleasures did not reveal an alien nature in the person who experienced them; but their use demanded a special stylistics. (The Use of Pleasure, p192 (ch1, 'Erotics) part 4).)

So there are two levels here: what (whom) one loves; and what one does within that love. Most of the 'commonsense' view of Catholicism focuses on the second aspect: Catholics are obsessed with the mechanics of sex. Now, certainly, all the well known stuff about Catholic teaching in this area does indeed exist: no contraception, no genital activity between the unmarried etc. But it emerges from the first level: what and whom we love. And here, unlike the Greeks, it matters that we love women*.

OK. But the objection comes: of course men should love women, But that doesn't mean that we should love them physically, does it? And that brings us to Beattie's article.

4) I'm not going to pretend that the images of naked or near naked women that Beattie refers to in her article don't attract me in some sense: they do. But nor do they attract me in a straightforward, uncomplicated way. The images in the adverts also repel: Beattie talks about 'the commodified and eroticized' images of the ads, and that's roughly it. They're being used, I'm being used and I can see the attractions of flesh and money but I'm (rightly) not easy with those attractions. The key point here is that (in some sense) I am physically attracted to those images but in some sense I am physically repelled by them: what it is to be physically attracted is not a simple matter of mechanics, but a subtle interplay of meanings and representations of good and bad.

Beattie's article is, in many ways, a well trodden path: there is a lot of feminist writing on representations of women and their bodies and the male gaze. Equally, there is a lot of Catholic writing on loving women: I'm also chugging through Dante's Divine Comedy just now, and Beatrice is about to appear: the physical attraction of Courtly Love is not distinct from the quest for the divine. From one point of view, Catholicism projects theological concerns onto the physical; from another point of view, Catholicism just recognizes the way that the attractiveness of the divine permeates the attractiveness of creation (including women).

The main point is this: physical attraction -whether from a feminist point of view or a Catholic one- is not uncomplicated and is certainly not uncomplicatedly good. To see and desire appropriately is part of what it is to be a flourishing human being: that the Greeks too recognized. But, unlike the Greeks, Catholicism puts a heavy emphasis on the desirability of women, and, also, like feminism, on how that desire should work: on what is the good male gaze.

5) Where does that leave someone who doesn't find women physically attractive? Well, certainly dysfunctional in some way. But in what way? And then there follows a complicated, very difficult process of discernment -which is just as difficult (or more difficult or less difficult -who knows? how would you measure it?) as that of someone who is attracted to women- of how one is attracted and what one is attracted to. (Is it better to be gay than it is to be someone who is attracted to commodified images of women? Again, how could you measure this?) From the Catholic point of view, disorder in our pursuit of our natural end (roughly, earthly happiness) is only to be expected and perhaps the main thing is to worry about our supernatural end (again, roughly, heaven). And then the vocabulary of gay/straight is entirely unhelpful: a straight man staring at Beattie's images and thinking, 'Whoarr! What a pair on her!' is in one sort of trouble; a man staring at Michelangelo's David and thinking that he looks like a nice lad to settle down with is in another.

What feminism and Catholicism (and the Greeks) share is a concern for what we desire and how we desire other people. Catholicism certainly teaches that it matters whether or not we (men) desire women and how we desire them. Frankly, I can't see how some such purification of our gaze is avoidable: failing to think about such issues simply avoids important questions about (eg) the imagery of Femen that Beattie is surely right to consider. Regarding sexuality purely as about the liberation of our real desire is as poor a guide to life as regarding Femen as simply about liberating women from patriarchy. It really, really is all much more complicated than that.

*I hope readers will forgive my concentrating on the male 'we': it's simply that I'm male and it makes it rather easier to think about the topic from a male perspective. Similar things, mutatis mutandis, could be said from a female perspective.

Women priests, women Hamlets?

                                             What do you mean I can't be a Bishop?

Having listened to various bien pensants fulminating against the Church of England for not immediately allowing women bishops, I can't help feeling glad to be well out of it. Apart from worrying that, should politicians really decide to override the Synod and impose 'equality', they might get a taste for it (did I really hear Frank Field on Radio 4's PM hinting that if ever the majority of Catholics wanted women priests then MPs should step in give effect to that view?), as a Scot and a Catholic, it's really not much of my business.

It's clear that the Synod decision is more about dissatisfaction with the protection offered to the minority opposed to women's ordination than it is directly about opposing women bishops. It's also clear that for any relatively straightforward Catholic like myself the matter is closed by the definitive teachings contained in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis and the CDF's responsum making clear that the impossibility of women's priestly ordination is part of the deposit of faith.

It's impossible to convince non-Christians that women can't be priests. From an outsider's point of view, it's just another job, it's just another position of power. Women have historically been excluded from such positions in other areas, and the Church just needs to catch up. But I wonder if at least some of the point of the exclusion can be caught from looking at the theatre. As yet (and who knows what fresh hell awaits my children) we do not have crowds of demonstrators demanding that Hamlet is played by a woman or that Violetta in La Traviata is sung by Bryn Terfel. With the exception of rare cases of parody or deliberate playing with gender expectations (such as Asta Nielsen above), we accept that it matters that women are played by women and men by men. (Even where the roles are swapped, it doesn't cease to matter: it's just that we're playing with what matters.)

The prime task of a priest is not to organize the church raffle or raise money for the roof: he is there to impersonate Christ, particularly in the sacrifice of the Mass:



1548 In the ecclesial service of the ordained minister, it is Christ himself who is present to his Church as Head of his Body, Shepherd of his flock, high priest of the redemptive sacrifice, Teacher of Truth. This is what the Church means by saying that the priest, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, acts in persona Christi Capitis:

It is the same priest, Christ Jesus, whose sacred person his minister truly represents. Now the minister, by reason of the sacerdotal consecration which he has received, is truly made like to the high priest and possesses the authority to act in the power and place of the person of Christ himself (virtute ac persona ipsius Christi).

Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ.

1549 Through the ordained ministry, especially that of bishops and priests, the presence of Christ as head of the Church is made visible in the midst of the community of believers.26 In the beautiful expression of St. Ignatius of Antioch, the bishop is typos tou Patros: he is like the living image of God the Father. (From the Catechism.)

Now I fully accept that it is one thing to note that priest acts in persona Christi, another to show that it is impossible for a woman to do so. (The argument goes back and forth until settled, as it has been, by Magisterial authority.) But why is it that we find it so easy to accept that Hamlet can normally only be impersonated by a man, but so difficult to accept that Christ can only be impersonated by a man?

In fine, gender and sex matter. A male Hamlet does not convey the same set of meanings as a female Hamlet. A female priest does not convey the same set of meanings as a male one. It is of course open to theologians to argue that the set of meanings conveyed by a female priesthood are better than those conveyed by a solely male one (open, that is, unless you accept the Magisterial authority of the Papacy), just as it is possible to argue that Hamlet is better played by a woman. But what it is not possible within a Christianity that bears any recognizable relationship to the catholic tradition is to argue that it is simply a matter of equal jobs for women.

Thinking academically, thinking theologically

                                    A fellow blogger engaging in theological reflection...

Well, here's how I spent an hour or so recently...

I started off by having a look at Professor Beattie's website page on 'Debate, dialogue and dissent'.Working my way through it, I came to:

If I hold an informed view which I believe to be reasonable, which I discover that I share with others whose views I respect, which belongs within natural theology rather than revealed doctrine (i.e. it has to do with social and moral issues and not with the sacramental mysteries of the faith), and which is highly complex (as these issues usually are), in terms of evaluating its benefit or harm to human well-being and the common good, I can in good conscience differ from what the current magisterium officially teaches and what some other Catholics might believe to be true.

I bridled a little at the suggestion that revelation was confined to 'sacramental mysteries of the faith' rather than 'social and moral issues', as it went against my understanding that the Church teaches authoritatively on matter of morals as well. So having looked at the Catechism (para 1960), I was sent from there to Pius XII Humani generis which seems to back up my initial understanding that revelation acts on morals as well:

 It is for this reason that divine revelation must be considered morally necessary so that those religious and moral truths which are not of their nature beyond the reach of reason in the present condition of the human race, may be known by all mean readily with a firm certainty and with freedom from all error.

OK. So I think, 'What would my reply be to this if I were arguing Beattie's position?' And I'd go for attacking the nature of revealed authority (ie don't listen to Pius XII) and I looked down to the extract from her coming book on natural law and found:

Thomas also makes clear at the beginning of the Summa Theologiae that only the authors of the canonical Scriptures can be considered ultimate authorities with regard to divine revelation. (ST I, 1, 8). 

Hhmm, I thought, only canonical Scripture? What about the teaching authority of the Church? I think back to the rite of reception where I had to stand in front of a packed Easter Mass and declare:

I believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church teaches, believes and proclaims to be revealed by God.

So had a quick flick through the online Summa and couldn't see much about the Magisterium, so filed Aquinas' views on that away for future research. (And then thought that all this showed something about the nature of Beattie's methodology: a) an absence of reference to Papal teaching; and b) an interpretation of Thomism that has ressourcement at its heart rather than developments of Thomism subsequent to Aquinas.)

Reading on, I find in her paper:

It is worth noting that the discussion of natural law forms a relatively minor part of the Summa Theologiae and there is some debate as to how far it can be lifted out of its theological context. Thomas has only one question that deals specifically with natural law, (ST I-II, 94) and he situates that question in a wider context that addresses human law, Mosaic law and the New Law of the Gospel (ST I-II, 90-108). Western philosophy and legal theory have focused disproportionately on Thomas’s account of natural law and have elided its theological context, thereby giving rise to distorted and misleading interpretations.

Now some of that fitted in with my general understanding of Aquinas: that natural law figures unclearly in the Summa (although that doesn't quite deal with the extensive coverage of Aristotelian ethics in IaIIae) but it also reminded me of the suggestion that insufficient regard has been paid to Aquinas' philosophical Commentaries etc on Aristotle. (So to claim that Aquinas is primarily a moral theologian rather than a moral philosopher is at least in part due to ignoring precisely those works in which he acts as a philosopher.) And when she pushes on to cite Jean Porter,

However, Porter argues that scholastics were more aware than many later natural law theorists of the constructed character of social conventions and institutions, which emerge not directly in response to the promptings of nature, but through historical processes of reflection and negotiation.

I find myself thinking that much depends here on what you mean by reflection and negotiation: Aristotle, for example, would agree that it depends on reflection, but this of the phronimoi -the practically wise- on the facts of human nature rather than the sort of horsetrading she seems to envisage...

                                           -------------------------------------------------

And so on and so on. That's what academic reflection is like. You recognize threads of arguments you're familiar with and have a decided view on. You recognize hints of issues you are half familiar with and where you have to do some more research. You realize that there are alternative viewpoints, some of which are in fashion and some of which are not. You know something about some areas in great detail, and can be confident in disregarding the prevailing fashions. You know less about other areas, and may have your suspicions, but not in complete confidence. You go on. It is endless, although punctuated by the occasional need to pause in order to articulate temporary positions for teaching or publication.

There are two views of the Church at stake here. Rowan Williams in his book on Arius, talks about a Catholic view focused on apostolically ordained bishops as centres of unity, and the Academic view focused on the personality of a teacher or the ideas of a school (p.86). The CDF document. Donum veritatis on the Ecclesial Vocation of the theologian, seems quite clear in its support for the Catholic view:


 Freedom of research, which the academic community rightly holds most precious, means an openness to accepting the truth that emerges at the end of an investigation in which no element has intruded that is foreign to the methodology corresponding to the object under study.
In theology this freedom of inquiry is the hallmark of a rational discipline whose object is given by Revelation, handed on and interpreted in the Church under the authority of the Magisterium, and received by faith. These givens have the force of principles. To eliminate them would mean to cease doing theology. In order to set forth precisely the ways in which the theologian relates to the Church's teaching authority, it is appropriate now to reflect upon the role of the Magisterium in the Church (para 12). 


Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostles teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and in a particular way, to the Roman Pontiff as Pastor of the whole Church, when exercising their ordinary Magisterium, even should this not issue in an infallible definition or in a "definitive" pronouncement but in the proposal of some teaching which leads to a better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals and to moral directives derived from such teaching.

One must therefore take into account the proper character of every exercise of the Magisterium, considering the extent to which its authority is engaged. It is also to be borne in mind that all acts of the Magisterium derive from the same source, that is, from Christ who desires that His People walk in the entire truth. For this same reason, magisterial decisions in matters of discipline, even if they are not guaranteed by the charism of infallibility, are not without divine assistance and call for the adherence of the faithful. (para 17).

To the Academic view, however, reference to such authority begs the question: is authority located with the bishops (and especially the Pope) and their agents such as the CDF, or does it lie in Academic methodologies of power? If the answer is the latter, then every Catholic, however uneducated or unintelligent, is condemned to the vortex of academic reflection that I have sketched above. The Church becomes an institution for the intellectually elite, either in excluding anyone else from membership or, more likely, in teaching docility towards those who have the trappings of Academic power. If the former, it is a Church where the academy has a role in deepening our understanding, but where the basic tools of salvation are proclaimed clearly and simply by the teaching authority of those who have been entrusted with that task by the Holy Spirit.

Are Catholic philosophers more orthodox than Catholic theologians?

Reading Joseph Shaw's typically firm take on Tina Beattie reminded me of a thought that has often crossed my mind over the years. Whilst almost every modern British theologian I've come across seems to hold (shall we say) 'interesting' views on core Catholic beliefs, almost every Catholic British philosopher I've encountered seems robustly orthodox.

Now I make little claim for the statistical validity of this observation: it's just an impression. Although there are a good number of practising Catholics among academic philosophers in the UK, there aren't so many (and I know the precise views of even fewer) that they form a reliable sample. Moreover, there are certainly blamelessly orthodox theologians at work who attract less publicity simply because 'Catholic theologian agrees with Church' is going to be less interesting as a headline than 'Catholic theologian thinks Pope is wrong on everything'. But here in Scotland, it's been the philosopher John Haldane who's done much of the heavy lifting in defending the Church on (eg) same sex 'marriage'. Last week's Catholic Herald carried a letter from a former University of Edinburgh philosopher suggesting the return of the Penny Catechism (moreover in its 18th century edition!) to Catholic schools. And then you have Joseph Shaw and Thomas Pink regularly arguing for traditional, Catholic doctrine. Beyond the UK, you have Ed Feser manfully fighting for scholasticism (and Steely Dan -but, hey, nobody's perfect!), and, beyond the living, you have Elizabeth Anscombe and Ralph McInerny.

OK. Assuming that my impression is true, it's rather an odd reversal of traditional, scholastic Catholic understanding of the relationship between, in particular, moral philosophy and moral theology. In essence, philosophers think about the natural end of human beings by using natural reason, and moral theologians add the truths and sources of revelation to add certainty to moral philosophy as well as the awareness of the reality of a life after death with God. You'd expect therefore moral philosophers to be jumping around all over the place like headless chickens, and regularly needing the firm guidance of theologians to remain on track. But if anything, the position seems to be the reverse. Why?

I'll offer two suggestions -although I do so without  much confidence in their truth. Firstly, certainly as far as most UK philosophers are concerned, their background will be in non-Continental philosophy. Their academic training will be in analytic philosophy (which encourages a certain scepticism about the possibility of knowledge and an awareness of the multiplicity of possible solutions) and in Classical philosophy (which gives an awareness of the fertility of old ideas and an appreciation of the specific methodologies behind Catholic scholasticism). From the scepticism of the former, there is an appreciation of the need for Magisterial authority. From the latter, there is an appreciation of the strengths of scholasticism and, in particular, Thomism. Most modern Anglophone theologians on the other hand will either have been trained in non-Catholic theological methodologies in the UK (and so will have imbibed either the implicit anti-theism of the social sciences, or whatever liberal Protestantism is the theological plat du jour) or, outside the UK, will have imbibed Continental philosophy and thus (whatever merits it may possess) have become acclimatized to the idea that there is something wrong with the metaphysics and methodologies of scholasticism. (I suspect the key here is the indebtedness of most non-Anglophone philosophers to Heidegger: whatever else may be said about him, I find it very hard to read him (and thus his successors) as doing anything else except engage in a 'polemic with Scholasticism'. Even if that doesn't imply a rejection of theism, it does imply a rejection of traditional Catholic ways of doing theology.)

Sticking up for Tina Beattie (a bit)

Tina Beattie's been getting it in the neck again.

As regular readers of Catholic blogs will realize, Professor Beattie has become a bit of focus for orthodox Catholic anger at heterodox teachings in the modern Church. The latest wave has picked up some of her writings about the Mass and attacked her for describing it as an act of homosexual intercourse. (Here from Protect the Pope and here for the Bones' rather amusing take on it. )

Frankly, I'm pulled in two ways on this. I'm with the other orthodox bloggers in thinking it's pretty outrageous that someone who teaches heresy should be able to be described as a Catholic theologian with all the influence that carries. That's less directed at Professor Beattie (who's getting perhaps more than her fair share of the flak) than at the general run of things: there are far too many academics and literati running around with 'Catholic' as a description who seem to spend most of their time lobbing their dissenting opinions at the Church. (Many of them seem to be hanging out here.) One of the facets of the modern world is that many ordinary Catholics are well-educated in secular terms and rightly want to extend their knowledge of theology. To do that, there needs to be some sort of quality control so that they are not misled into thinking that all the smart Catholics are heretics and that any degree of intellectual sophistication is incompatible with orthodoxy. That's really down to the Bishops' exercising of their pastoral authority to lead and guide the faithful. It's not an easy task in a modern world of competing voices all claiming authority, and particularly not an easy one in a country such as the UK where most (Catholic) theologians work in non-Catholic institutions. However, easy or not, much more needs to be done to make it clear that the Church does make absolute claims to truth and there are some theological opinions, however sincerely held, which are false. (That said, such pronouncements need to explain their positions -and that's not always a straightforward thing to do to a laity often eager for novelty and impatient of judgments at odds with the familiar, secular world.)

On the other hand, the specific issue that Protect the Pope has raised is rather trickier than a straightforward teaching of heresy. In essence, it is a common theological approach (largely, I think, in the modern case originating from von Balthasar) to regard theology and sex as mutually informative: we should view sex theologically (so the Theology of the Body) and we should understand God through our embodiment, particularly through sexual differences. On the whole, I think that's rather a good thing. In particular, it restores the sexual differences between men and women to an important place in our thinking about the world: instead of seeing us as just human beings with different bits stuck on, we start to regard men and women as being equal and essentially different: broadly speaking, this is the position of the New Catholic Feminism (see here).

One particular application of this general line of thinking is in the restriction of the priesthood to men. What is just a ridiculous relic of sexism for someone who views men and women as identical becomes a consequence of the meaning of our sexual embodiment for someone who views men and women as essentially different. (Balthasar's reflections on the restriction of the priesthood to men is here. (PDF).) So the exploration of the meanings of maleness and femaleness in the Mass becomes very important theologically.

Now, Professor Beattie does exactly that. When she explores the symbolism of the Mass in this way, she find it wanting and thus uses it as an argument for women priests: in other words, when she talks of the (current) Mass as 'an orgasmic celebration of homosexual love from which the female body is excluded' (from Protect the Pope) that is a critique of how the symbolism is currently working rather than an ideal: by allowing women priests, she thinks to stop the Mass being so describable.

I should confess at this point that it was reading Beattie's God's Mother. Eve's Advocate a few years ago that a) drew my attention to von Balthasar b) eventually helped me understand why the priesthood was restricted to men; and c) made me appreciate the importance of Mary. None of those results (with the exception of c)) would be ones that Beattie would applaud, but such is the nature of academic reflection: reflections on objections and attacks are a necessary stage in the achievement of knowledge.

So here's my quandary. How do you ensure that the laity (and indeed priest and bishops!) are not misled by academics in a world where the sort of control exercisable in the past isn't physically possible, and where it's not clear that any obvious alternatives (such as warnings from Bishops) work terribly well either? On the other hand, how do you allow that genuine fluidity and openness of debate that is an essential part of theology in the academy, without allowing an imperfect (and erroneous) stage in that debate to achieve currency among the enthusiastic but half educated (and I include myself in that category)?

I really don't have much of a one stop solution here. Bishops should be clearer about articulating orthodox positions. Individuals -academics, laity, priests, religious, everyone- should reflect more on their responsibilities not to teach or believe falsehoods and how to respect the Magisterium. Perhaps the ideal is the finding of scholastically minded geniuses: the scholastic method of reviewing alternative positions before articulating and defending the orthodox conclusion allows a review and understanding of the alternatives without compromising final truth.

(As a practical interim measure, I suggest the cloning and distribution of Matthew Levering to every diocese in the UK. He's solidly orthodox but also soaked in the exploration of complex theological meanings in the Mass. (See especially his Sacrifice and Community.))

SNP membership oppose Catholic schools

                                        Sorry, girls, not much to celebrate in this survey...


One of the interesting statistics on the views of SNP members which appeared in the print edition of Scotalnd on Sunday but didn't make it to the web version is that on the attitude to Catholic schools. In response to the statement, 'Separate Catholic schools should be phased out', 36% strongly agreed and 28.4% agreed. (As some comparison, the last survey (2003) of the general Scottish population that I could find from a quick google showed only 48% against.)

I'll leave it to others to draw any conclusions they want to on implications for Independence and, in the interests of balance, point out that Alex Salmond has previously been explicit in his support for Catholic schools whilst other parties, including the Tories have previous form on this issue. But in any case it does emphasize that the retention of Catholic education is something that is likely to remain under attack and there is not exactly a reservoir of support for it in what, independence or no, is likely to be the party of government for a good while yet.

A good defence of Catholic education by Tina Beattie is here. (I know that Professor Beattie has had her run ins with the Catholic blogosphere previously and I certainly wouldn't agree with her on her understanding of (eg) authority in the Church -but credit where credit is due, she did a good job on this one.) The key issue remains our understanding of rationality and how the virtue of practical wisdom is passed on to the next generation. Secularists tend to assume that there is just one rationality, uninformed by culture and tradition. Catholics will assume that any education worth its salt will involve induction into a specific tradition of thought and rationality.

Philosophers and theologians who, roughly, can be described as 'post modern' (and I'd put Professor Beattie into this category) will tend to agree with the claim that any rationality is bound to a certain specific pattern or history. As such they will tend to agree that the idea of commitment-less universal rationality taught in non-sectarian schools is a chimera. Where they will go wrong in principle is in downplaying the Catholic claim that the intellectual tradition of Catholicism is not just one among many traditions, but the tradition which, by dint of divine guidance, is objectively the best. In practice, though, when engaging with the wider, secular society, it would be unreasonable (and certainly impractical) to expect an argument based on the objective superiority of the Catholic intellectual tradition to win much support. However, it should be possible to argue the goodness of the tradition: not that it trumps all other forms of education, but that it has a distinctive and helpful contribution to make to Scottish society. In that practical aim, the sort of post modern analysis contributed by Professor Beattie has its part to play in the process of political persuasion, even if it does not embody the fullness of the Catholic claim.