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Project on Disjunctions between
Church and People
Report on
June 8-9, 2013 meeting, Vienna, Austria
This project was initiated under the title: Faith in a
Secular Age in a dialogue of Cardinal Francis George and
Charles Taylor. This was followed by two volumes now in the
process of publication: one on transhumanism or the hope via
the sciences to achieve human fulfillment and the other on
the role of religion in the public life. It is now the third
dimension concerning the role of culture in religion that is
experiencing the greatest development.
With the crisis of credibility of
the Church and the loss of participants an effort has been
undertaken to understand and respond to four growing
disjunctions between Church and people traced out by Charles
Taylor and José Casanova: (1) the departure of “seekers”
from Church practice; (2) the mode of exercising the Church
magisterium; (3) the content of its moral teaching and
historicity; and (4) plural spiritualities. These were taken
up as problematics in a prior meeting at the IMW in Vienna,
published as Church
and People: Disjunctions in a Secular Age, eds. Charles
Taylor, Jose Casanova and George F. McLean (Washington,
D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy,
2012 and available in full text on www.crvp.org as
series VIII volume 1 under publications).
To respond to this complex of issues a set of teams,
developed especially in North America met in Washington,
D.C. in December 2-3, 2012. Subsequently a set of teams
formed in most Western and Central European countries met in
Vienna 8-9, 2013 to compare their individual plans, sketched
out in a 100 page booklet.
This strategy of working in teams responds to the emerging
recognition in our global age of the significance of
cultures or ways of life which shape the corporate
perception and response of the different peoples to their
deepest issues of meaning and their most consistent and
passionate aspirations. This integrating realm of human
awareness in which the multiple religious spiritualitities
play a central role had been marginalized in the modern
search for clear and distinct ideas and the resulting
specialization into separate academic disciplines.
But more recent experience suggests that these specialized
disciplines are not sufficient. Despite our best piecemeal
and specialized efforts the fundamental issues of peace,
harmony and progress, whether within or between nations,
remain. These call for dialogue or human interchange to
delve more deeply into one’s culture so as to understand
human issues more fully and direct appropriate responses.
The competencies for such work are present in the
universities but arranged in terms of specialized (and
isolating) departments and further sub-specializations
within departments. There is need then for the formation of
teams in order to proceed dialogically so as to go beyond
what they could accomplish by themselves. Here the intent
would be to reengage the integrating and holistic religious
meaning now not as descending top-down but as the emergent
work of the spirit from the hearts and souls of the people.
Physically this is feasible if the teams are formed in
intellectual centers where the members can meet on a regular
basis without interrupting their academic schedule or facing
costs of travels, room and board.
But if this work in teams brings out the distinctive insight
of its people and their culture or way of life then for our
global age it will be important for teams in the various
cultures or civilizations to be able to work on analogous
issues and be in communication with each other. This was the
special achievement of the meeting in Vienna as it brought
together representatives of teams from most of the Western,
Central and Eastern European countries each with their
distinctive but related culture and intersecting on the
analogous realms of the four disjunctions.
To come upon this set of representatives of the 16 teams
from this region was not unlike encountering a multifaceted
diamond whose every face reflected the work of the Spirit in
its own special way and when expertly crafted could
constitute a brilliantly complementary harmony. Jose
Casanova may have best expressed the surprise and enthusiasm
generated by the meeting. When we sat down to strategize for
the future, his first words were that he may never have
experienced such a combination of serious scholarship and
pastoral engagement emerging from the multiple experiences
of their peoples.
If the first (the seekers) and the fourth (plural
spiritaulities) disjunctions concerned directly the people
while the second (magisterium) and third (the content of its
moral teaching) concerned rather the institution then the
pattern of choices in relation to the four disjunctions was
itself instructive. The North American teams self-deployed
more evenly to all four disjunctions. The European teams
however avoided almost entirely the second and third or more
institutionally oriented issues and began almost univocally
on the first disjunction of seekers and dwellers with major
attention to the modes of spirituality being pursued. This
may echo what has been broadly suggested, namely, that the
process of secularization is more advanced in Europe. If so
its experience both of the issues and of the responses may
be especially indicative for the future and reveal how the
religious resources stored in the cultural traditions can be
transformed and pointed forward in a dynamic manner for
constructing paths into the future (see appendix).
Tomas Halik looked ahead to strategize how the results of
which this combination of working teams gives promise could
be shared with the leadership team at the Vatican, and
indeed with the new spirit of encounter with the world of
diverse religious cultures for which Pope Francis calls on
every occasion. But this depends on truly deep and
penetrating encounters which begin as the interchange within
each team now in process or in formation. The breathtaking
prospect as we gathered around the table in Vienna was that
the cultures represented hold the prospect of reflecting the
work of the Holy Spirit not only in each people separately,
but cumulatively as well. The insights of each could
stimulate the others to mine more deeply and elaborate more
richly the resources of their own culture. This holds the
prospect of a world in which the distinctive identity of the
many peoples is enhanced by being related to others.
The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (RVP) on
August 4, 2013 will receive the Global Dialogue Prize (see
citation attached) for its lines of communication with the
various cultures of the world, e.g., whether Christian or
Confucian, Buddhist or Hindu, Islamic or Jewish, Eastern or
Central Asian, East or West African. In these global times
these too must be part of this encounter thereby enriching a
Church which Pope Francis has suggested may have become too
closed and self-referential for this global age.
It is an exciting prospect which we began to flesh out in an
extended exploration on June 10th. Key contacts
in the many religious cultures across the globe have already
been made by the RVP. Your ideas are invited on what global
structure and process would promote this meeting of hearts
and minds and draw out the distinctive genius of each people
in living the life of the Spirit in this newly global age.
Appendix
The plans of the teams as they take up the task
of thinking through the particular issue(s) they have chosen
to address manifest some considerable interrelations which
enable them to be mutually complementary. This is manifested
on the attached Chart on which the “X” indicates the main
disjunction being addressed and “O” indicates some of the
other disjunctions they plan to address in the process.
Yet each of these teams begins from a focus on the its own
cultural context and intends to make its proper
contribution. Hence, it can be expected that the insights
will be diverse and yet mutually suggestive. These are
potentially without limit but a few sample points can be
noted in the form of questions and simply by way of example.
1/ In some cases the Catholic context has in a country’s
past been overriding and there is danger of attempting to
restore that. Rather in the present circumstances it is
necessary to realize the condition of being a minority in
relation to a broader public consisting of other confessions
and/or of those notably secularized. What then is the
appropriate stance of a newly minority Church. Farther what
is the appropriate presentation of the gospel not as dogma
but as aiding people in their life search?
2/ Is it possible to look upon the forces of secularization
as a kenotic purification of a wounded faith and to seek
shared values in dialogue and concrete action with those
intent upon not professing any faith? Or is it possible to
have deep commitment to certain values but in a “gray zone”
as far as the relation of these values to any religious
commitment?
3/ Some might think of kenosis as a way of attenuating an
oppressive mode of Church authority and opening the way to
democratic values of critical assent. But it would be
counterproductive to see this as a way of employing
democratic values in order for the magisterium to restore
its authority. Yet this is not to leave each individual
alone to find his or her way. Instead some would suggest
that it is necessary to rebuild structured Catholic
institutions, possibly employing ideas from the pragmatism
of John Dewey. How would this be related to the theology of
the Church?
4/ It is empirically noted that the large body of
respondents situate themselves in the middle between
believers and unbelievers and that it is inappropriate to
address then as “believing but not belonging”. Rather they
might be considered as longing rather than belonging. In
this case would the exercise of the “soft power” of the
Church be more effective in attracting people to the
fullness of life? Would this point not toward restoring the
past but toward a precarious multiplicity of groups
presenting a plurality of spiritual paths, which others
might term a patchwork spirituality for a remnant Church?
5/ As the role of historicity becomes more evident it may
suggest that a major weakness has been the failure of the
Church to develop a systematic understanding of its own
agency which must bridge dogma and existence. Here is it
better to avoid being too specific in universal moral
guidance lest it inflict spiritual violence on people who
are on the move beyond atheism in a secular atmosphere.
Indeed is there a place in the world today for the role of
Christian public intellectual; for reenchantment or for a
sense of the invisible mission of grace?
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