Catholic Thought discussion
Benson, Confessions of a Convert
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Chapter IV
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Would it not be a kind of sin against the Holy Ghost to turn my back on the visibly solid work of grace, in search for what might be no more than a brilliant phantom?
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Yes, that is what I was referring to when I gave that outline of Anglicanism. The inherent contradiction between the low church (Evangelical from Calvin) with the high Church Catholic.
Joseph Pearce, who has written many books and is a great scholar and I believe a convert to Catholicism from Anglicanism has often talked about how deeply Roman Catholic England was before Henry VIII. It wasn't just Catholic, it was as devout as any country. Even Henry VIII was supposed to be "defender of the faith" before he became completely egotistical. Somehow I suspect he lost his sanity. But it caused an incredible convulsion in English life from which it could only stabilize with an theologically flawed religion.
One of the great old Catholic shrines in England is that of Our Lady of Walsingham. You can read about it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lad...
I still hold out hope that the land of Catholic William Shakespeare will one day return to its proper faith. OLofW, pray for us and pray for the British people.
Protestantism is often charged with being emotionalist. Here Benson makes the same charge. Is it true?I think there is a strain in Protestantism that is emotional, but I don't think that every branch in the Protestant tradition can be described that way. Pentecostals are quite emotional. Much of praise and worship music pull on the emotions. But I don't think most Lutherns or Quakers (to pull from opposite ends of the spectrum) are any more emotional than Catholics. And, with in the Catholic tradition, there is a strain of spirituality that emphasizes the affect. In fact, I know many former Catholics who moved to Protestant churches because their services opened up a felt or emotional connection with God that they did not experience in the Catholic Church. Since both our intellect and our emotions are gifts from God, I think Ignatius of Loyola had it right when he encouraged attention to both in spirituality.
In contrast, he sees the Roman Catholic Church as a church body with all sorts of warts and wrinkles, but “Whether or no a priest was careless or slothful or even lax in his private views made no essential difference; his flock knew what was necessary for salvation and how to obtain it. The smallest Roman Catholic child knew precisely how to be reconciled to God and to receive His grace.” This is a very interesting observation, particularly today when individual authority is valued over external authority in so many circles. A couple of years ago, I attended a seminar on young adults in the church. The speaker used a baseball analogy to explain how different generations approached the question of truth. For Baby Boomers, he said it is like an umpire "There are balls and there are strikes and I call them as they are". For those of the 70s and 80s, it is "There are balls and there are strikes and I call them as I see them." And for the Millenials it is "There are balls and there are strikes and they are nothing until I call them." Although there are certainly variations in every generation, and there are certainly people drawn to the Catholic Church for its sense of truth rooted in Tradition and authority, the majority of those under the age of 40 are migrating to non-denominational congregations or those who preach a message of "God loves you", gives them a felt experience of God's care, but does not present them with many clear doctrinal statements.
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I meant to comment on this myself, though from a different angle.
In Protestantism you have a strong emphasis on spontaneous prayer. Often the "rigid" given prayers Catholics use are seen as crutches, of not being in touch with God, they are reminders of rote repetition. They dismiss Catholic prayers as purely mechanical, completely missing that the Catholic prays spontaneous prayers in addition to the ones learned by heart.
Long before my conversion I was always amazed when especially my mother-in-law would matter-of-fact state the best prayers used for any given situation. I wondered, why wasn't I taught that? Even if Protestants don't pray Marian prayers, why wasn't there an equivalent? In this sense Benson is right on target. The cradle Catholic is taught spiritual survival from childhood on. What Protestants miss is that especially in times of distress there is great comfort in praying a Hail Mary or a rosary. The familiarity of these comforts and fortifies in a transcendent way far beyond anything the mind can hobble together when one can hardly think in coherent sentences.
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Perhaps Benson is referring to Protestants not really having a St. Augustine or a St. Thomas Aquinas, and so not having the intellectual rigor. Or he could be referring to Martin Luther, who was pretty emotional in his breaking with the church, or even Henry VIII in his.
I've seen Fr. Dwight Longenecker, a fairly intellectual contemporary Catholic make the case that Catholicism of the last couple of hundred years has drifted into sentimentalism. He talks about it here but he's got other articles where he details it as well and perhaps more fully:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standing...
My point being, there are elements of emotionalism to almost everything.
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Ha! That's great Irene. Thanks.
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Right, and a rosary could be seen as an emotional response. Those strike me as more emotional, and yet what could be more rational than Thomas Aquinas. It depends on what one is looking at.
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What I see Benson addressing is the inherent fragmentation of Protestantism's theologies. By that I mean that there are holes, certain things simply not being addressed, which when probed as he did get glossed over with some fuzzy feel-good band-aid. It really doesn't matter which Protestant tradition you deal with, sooner or later you will encounter this.
In my case I don't recall (at least none come to mind right now) specific issues, but I had for a long time this general sense that there must be more to the Christian faith than that what was presented to me week after week at service. The superficiality with which faith was treated irritated me. This is why after some time I was drawn to more Catholic writings, and the internet played a huge role. I found Catholic websites where I could read up on the deeper meanings of the liturgical readings, which Lutherans for the most part follow as well. It was stuff like that moved me away from Protestantism. I recall one Advent, where on a Catholic website I first read about Mary's fiat and the ramification for salvation history. Spiritually speaking, you go from pleasant watery soup to real steak, potatoes, and dessert.
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Benson packs so much information into his narrative, I decided to pose some questions for us to ponder and anyone can comment if they wish.
Benson begins this chapter with a book he wrote, The Light Invisible. He was becoming more “interested in mystical lines of thought,” putting dogmatic aspects of the faith on a back burner for a while. In hindsight it is significant to him that the book, while overall successful, was more popular with Anglicans than Catholics. He has also developed a strong dislike to the book rooted in the realization that “for Anglicans, whose theology is fundamentally unreasonable, and amongst whom Authority is, really, non-existent, it becomes natural to place the centre of gravity rather in the Emotions.”
Protestantism is often charged with being emotionalist. Here Benson makes the same charge. Is it true?
Throughout this chapter he recounts how he was being pulled away from the church home he always knew and loved, yet the pull toward the unknown was relentless. His inner struggles were interpreted by his superiors with outward misunderstandings he needed to sort out, and to their credit, they gave him the space to do so. Yet one one sees quite clearly that there is a gap in understanding and all of this leaves him completely exhausted in body and spirit. He expresses his inner agony with these words: Doesn’t this remind us of St. Augustine’s final struggle in the garden when he heard the words of the little boy, “tolle lege” – pick up and read?
“I accepted Christianity as the Revelation of God. …as I already explained, the need of a Teaching Church to preserve and to interpret the truths of Christianity to each succeeding generation. It is only a dead religion to which written records are sufficient; a living religion must be able to adapt itself to changing environment without losing its own identity.” And later, “But in things that directly and practically affect souls – with regard to the fact of grace, its channels, the things necessary for salvation, and the rest – she must not only know her mind, but must constantly declaring it, and no less constantly silencing those who would obscure or misinterpret it.”
Benson doesn’t mince words here, does he? First, he acknowledges that there must be a final authority. Then he completely dismisses the concept of sola scriptura, the Protestant concept of Scripture alone, confirming in essence the role of Tradition. At last he touches upon the dynamic between the eternal and the temporal, the tension of remaining true to the Deposit of Faith, faithfully teaching it to each new generation no matter the interferences and lures of the prevailing zeitgeist. He confirms the Magisterium.
He has moved quite a distance away from his original understanding of the Anglican Church and presents us with these two devastating sentences, “I was an official of a church that did not seem to know her own mind even on matters directly connected with the salvation of the soul.” And, “I saw round me a Church which, even if tolerable in theory, was intolerable in practice.”
The whole raison d’être of the Church is to help souls gain salvation. What are the ramifications when a church body no longer, or was historically never set up, to fulfill this mission?
In contrast, he sees the Roman Catholic Church as a church body with all sorts of warts and wrinkles, but “Whether or no a priest was careless or slothful or even lax in his private views made no essential difference; his flock knew what was necessary for salvation and how to obtain it. The smallest Roman Catholic child knew precisely how to be reconciled to God and to receive His grace.”