Detailed TABLE OF CONTENTS
Innovative Catholicism and the Human Condition by Jane Anderson (Routledge, New York 2016)
Chapter one – THE RESEARCH PROJECT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book considers how Innovative Catholics consider divergent foundational concepts used to describe and understand the human condition. It analysis how progressive Catholics approach and move on from using the conventional notion of the “collective person”, as implied or indicated in the rhetorics of recent Popes, to one that is more individuated. The book also considers how Innovative Catholics use hybridising processes to revise identities, moralities and structures. In the Church, strong identities, a fixed morality and autocratic structures are enforced to secure the “collective person” to community and hierarchy. In Western society, identity is individuated and thus weak, morality is constituted in the right of the individual to act autonomously, and these freedoms are enshrined in democracy. The book also examines how Innovative Catholics navigate a middle path between religious and social expectations to produce an alternative approach to boundary making.
Read chapter 1 here
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Chapter 2. RECONCEPTUALIZING THE PERSON
This chapter explains the survey of the development of “person” in Western society as a background to the contemporary contest between religion and secular society over how the human condition is to be apprehended and lived. Innovative Catholics, however, find themselves caught in the middle of these two understandings of the human condition, pressuring them to reconcile these polarised views by producing a hybridised concept of the human person. Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) offered Innovative Catholics, such as Val, then a young woman, an emotionally exuberant experience in ritualised reenactments of the Pentecost. The introduction of psychospiritual knowledges has made it possible for Innovative Catholics to move away from predetermined roles to self-understanding as a prerequisite for development or achievement. The way in which Popes John Paul and Benedict located the concept of person in a strongly bounded communitarian we proved difficult for Innovative Catholics as young adults.
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Chapter three – REVISING THE SELF
Innovative Catholics, who in finding themselves marginalised, commonly experience grief and isolation; they feel deeply the dissonance between their espoused values and those of the hierarchical Church. Innovative Catholics have been expected by society to create nuclear families constituted in revised notions of partnership and parenthood. The priority which Innovative Catholics give to compassion also has a consequence in their scrutiny of the emphasis on individual autonomy in secular society. Innovative Catholics were inspired by the Second Vatican Council to exercise their consciences when making decisions about their lives. Their recourse to tools of critical thinking and new social arrangements made it difficult for Popes John Paul and Benedict to restore in Innovative Catholics a belief in the value of the collective person. In prioritising these concepts, they can scrutinise the ideal of absolute truth and reposition it as a product of mutual relationship.
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Chapter four – UPDATING IDENTITY
The formation of a traditional Catholic identity in Australia had its early beginnings in the religious convictions of Irish convicts. An Irish Catholic identity was hard-won during early settlement. When Irish Catholics were eventually allowed to practice their religion, the British placed them under the jurisdiction of a Catholic bishop who was English. A traditional Catholic identity was forged in sectarianism. This polarizing force was an early feature of Australian society and reflected the political animosity between the British and Irish. The largely Anglo-Protestant majority, who aligned themselves with the British Empire, questioned the loyalty of Catholics who were of Irish descent. Pope John Paul made the restoration of a traditional Catholic identity evident especially in the way he favoured conservative believers. The papal policy of restoring a traditional Catholic identity became more pervasive with the increasing numbers of appointments of conservative bishops and priests who were encouraged and supported by conservative laity.
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Chapter five – MODERNIZING MORALITY
Innovative Catholics seek to produce codes of conduct that communicate principles for living, but the task is not easy. They are faced with the dilemma of resolving two contradictory approaches to moral behaviour, which are respectively produced by the hierarchical Church and secular society. The reforms to classical social morality also inspired many Innovative Catholics to give specialised service to the poor, the marginalised and victims of injustice. Innovative Catholics recognised within the council documents a contemporary social morality which they were keen to promote and practise. When Innovative Catholics criticise classical sexual morality, they argue that it inhibits Church and society from benefitting from the breadth of attributes an individual self has or can develop. Innovative Catholics consider a person’s gender and sexual orientation and often their sexual status to be secondary to their ability to minister. In short, a classical morality is looked upon as having a deleterious effect on mission and service.
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Chapter six – ADAPTING GOVERNANCE
The current tension between recent Popes and Innovative Catholics as to how the Church should be governed is illustrated by the way they respectively interpret biblical sources. Innovative Catholics like Pat, Sophie and Catherine extend their ideas about identity and morality in a revision of the governance of the hierarchical Church. From the anti-structural position, Innovative Catholics produce exploratory discourse, a prime example of which is articulated in A Democratic Church (2008) written by Max Charlesworth, to explore how the Church might integrate democratic elements. Through the anti-structural positions and in their rudimentary communities, Innovative Catholics advance democratic discourse, thus rejecting the assertions of Popes John Paul and Benedict that religion must be administered autocratically. In laying claim to democratic arrangements, Innovative Catholics represent the early Christian community as a progressive Jewish movement that took form in small communities with local administrations and a network of itinerant apostles.
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Chapter seven – RECONFIGURING RITUAL
The Eucharist-as-sacrifice has a religious and social purpose in ordering Catholics in a community and hierarchy, as is symbolised in the following arrangement and process. At the Second Vatican Council, revision was given to the Mass by the Council Fathers, who adopted a theology of Church as community based on sources from the New Testament. The modification put an emphasis on the rituals of the early Christian communities which hosted Eucharistic or thanksgiving meals. Popes John Paul and Benedict were intent on maintaining the pre-eminence of the Eucharistic sacrifice to shore up communal distinctions and hierarchical rankings. Innovative Catholics, however, found it increasingly difficult to conform to this ritual which was oriented to maintaining the collective person. The Council Fathers from English-speaking countries also set up the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) to translate Latin texts to facilitate the conciliar demand for “full, conscious, and active participation”.
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Chapter eight– SCRUTINIZING WORLDVIEWS
Innovative Catholics have inherited competing worldviews, arising from the earlier struggle between the Church and the Enlightenment. Innovative Catholics remain concerned that scientistic belief might prevent encounters with the unknown and perhaps unprovable eventualities. Innovative Catholics find a second source in the historical and, seemingly, truthful accounts of Jesus of Nazareth, which have been produced by some modern biblical scholars. The difficulties which Innovative Catholics encounter around the problems of the intelligibility of God were broached to an extent by the Second Vatican Council. Innovative Catholics now find themselves sandwiched between a secular movement with its anti-religious message and the hierarchical Church determined to retain a classical religious worldview. An analysis of the ethnographic data indicates that the most favoured image of God produced by Innovative Catholics is that of presence. Innovative Catholics maintain a conviction that there is more to life than what is presented by classical and rational or scientific worldviews.
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Chapter 9 – CONCLUSION
Innovative Catholics have since revised their understanding of the human condition, having moved on from the idea of the collective person to one that has greater but not complete resemblance to that of the modern citizen and which has been conceptualised in this work as a relational person. Innovative Catholics contend that the Church should welcome progressive ideas and practices, believing that much is to be gained, as has been evidenced in secular society. Habermas promotes the idea that problems in secular society might be remedied by religious concepts, but Innovative Catholics indicate that this position overlooks the effect of reciprocity. They are aware that the Second Vatican Council made some moves to incorporate a modicum of democratic attitudes and actions but that these were undermined by the autocratic preferences of Popes John Paul and Benedict. Innovative Catholics argue that the Church should advance democratising arrangements, not only for its own sake but also for society at large.
| Ch 1 WHY?! |
Ch 4 Identity | Ch 5 Morality |
Ch 6 Governance |
