Autor: Little, Joyce

Buch: The Church and the Culture War

Titel: The Church and the Culture War

Stichwort: Papst, Pasttum: Macht, Autorität; H. Arendt (Revolte gegen das Gegebene); Humanae Vitae - Feminismus, selbstgeschaffene Macht; Kirche: "Verwaltung" der Wahrheit, nicht Schaffung

Kurzinhalt: Hannah Arendt ... "The first disastrous result of man's coming of age is that modern man has come to resent everything given, even his own existence ..." They want to define for themselves what they can do with their bodies just as they want to define ...

Textausschnitt: AUTHORITY, POWER AND THE PAPACY

38a Hannah Arendt observes, "The first disastrous result of man's coming of age is that modern man has come to resent everything given, even his own existence—to resent the very fact that he is not the creator of the universe and himself. In this fundamental resentment, he refuses to see rhyme or reason in the given world. In his resentment of all laws merely given to him, he proclaims openly that everything is permitted and believes secretly that everything is possible."1 She also notes, however, that the one institution in the modern world which retains an authentic notion of authority is the Roman Catholic Church.2 This is particularly true of Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, both of whom have provoked controversy by their exercise of authority in a world no longer able to comprehend, much less accept, it: Paul VI, by his famous encyclical Humane Vitae, and John Paul II, by any number of things he has said and written. (Fs) (notabene)
38b When, in 1968, Humanae Vitae produced such controversy, the question was frequently raised as to whether we were facing a crisis of authority or a crisis of faith. Today it is obvious that it was and is both, and that both crises are rooted in a single cause—the dominance of power in the thinking of so many people today in both the Church and society. (Fs) (notabene)

38c Thus, when Pope Paul VI stated in Humanae Vitae that the teaching found there is simply a reaffirmation of the moral law and that "of such laws the Church was not the author, nor consequently can she be their arbiter; she is only their depositary and their interpreter" (18), a hue and cry went up across the land, because so many people expected the Pope to use what they perceived to be the power of his office to change Church teachings on contraception. They could no longer recognize the fact that those in authority, in the words of Ratzinger, "do not create anything but simply articulate what already exists in the Church of the Lord".3 Rejection of the authority of the Church was itself, however, rooted in a rejection of the faith for which that authority speaks. (Fs) (notabene)

39a What Humanae Vitae affirmed was the fact that something in the very nature of what it means to be a human person precludes the use of contraceptives. As Pope Paul VI put it, "If the mission of generating life is not to be exposed to the arbitrary will of man, one must necessarily recognize insurmountable limits to the possibility of man's domination over his own body and its functions; limits which no man, whether a private individual or one invested with authority, may licitly surpass" (17). The feminists were, however, already well down the path to asserting precisely that kind of domination over their own bodies which knows no such limits. That is, after all, what "reproductive freedom" is all about. (Fs) (notabene)

39b Feminists oppose both the faith of the Church and the authority of the Magisterium, and they oppose both for exactly the same reason—so that they might exercise power. They want to define for themselves what they can do with their bodies just as they want to define for themselves what it means to be Catholic. Reality, whether it has to do with morality or with authority, is something they are determined to name for themselves.4 Feminists do not understand authority, but they are only one group among many who have lost all appreciation for the meaning of the word.5 (Fs) (notabene)

40a Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Pope John Paul II, in his recent encyclical Veritatis Splendor, went to some lengths to point out the current error in thinking which would suppose that human beings have the right and the capacity to determine good and evil for themselves (35). He reminds us that man's "history of sin begins when he no longer acknowledges the Lord as his Creator and himself wishes to be the one who determines, with complete independence, what is good and what is evil. 'You will be like God, knowing good and evil' (Gen 3:5): this was the first temptation, and it is echoed in all the other temptations to which man is more easily inclined to yield as a result of the original Fall" (102). (Fs)

40b John Paul II firmly opposes those who regard truth as something created and thus controlled by us, those who would make, in his words, "freedom self-defining and a phenomenon creative of itself and its values" (46). Neither is he blind to the fact that there is only one alternative open to those no longer seeking the truth. "If one does not acknowledge transcendent truth, then the force of power takes over ..." (99). (Fs)

41a As the Pope points out, human freedom must submit to the "truth of creation" (41), a truth not of our own making but of the Creator's. By the same token, the Church does not decide the truth but simply teaches it. Quoting from Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Freedom, the Pope reminds us that the Church's "charge is to announce and teach authentically the truth which is Christ, and at the same time with her authority to declare and confirm the principles of the moral order which derive from human nature itself" (64). Citing his own earlier apostolic exhortation, Familiaris Consortio, the Pope reiterates this with respect to the Church: "As Teacher, she never tires of proclaiming the moral norm.... The Church is in no way the author or the arbiter of this norm. In obedience to the truth which is Christ ... the Church interprets the moral norm and proposes it to all peoples of good will, without concealing its demands of radicalness and perfection" (95). In other words, the Church did not create the truth and, therefore, has no power to control, master or change it. Where the truth of reality and morality is concerned, the Church has only the authority to bear witness to, represent and proclaim it. (Fs)