There is a trend I’ve noticed cropping up from time to time when Catholics, concerned with the state of the Church in Ireland, set about thinking of solutions and come up with a ‘silver bullet;’ that is to say, a single thing that can be done to change everything.
Often these Catholics have correctly and astutely identified a key problem and suggest good things that might be tried to overcome it. An assumption is made that there is one simple thing that can be done, or one thing more important than any other.
Take this blog post, for example, by Dom Mark Kirby, Abbot of Silverstream Priory.
Dom Kirby highlights the fact that in the wake of the same-sex marriage result, many people are suggesting various particular strategies as solutions to the Church’s decline:
The Church in Ireland finds herself in a crisis from which, not a few are saying, she will not emerge. People of goodwill are attempting to identify the root of Ireland’s spiritual pathology. Some would argue that it has to do with the cultural shift away from immutable objective values, and the consequent spiraling down into the tyranny of relativism. Others would wish for an Irish Savonarola to rouse sleepy consciences, denounce vice, and spearhead moral reform. Still others would wish for a new rising of intellectual insurgents and articulate theologians capable of appealing to reason: teachers of the true faith gifted with eloquence; orthodox catechists; zealous apologists; a new Frank Duff and a new Fulton J. Sheen.
He goes on to suggest his own solution:
I would identify a different pathology and propose a different remedy…
The vertical dimension of Catholicism has been mortally compromised by an approach to the sacred liturgy that offers no piercing through the limitations of time and space into the eternity of God and the unfading beauty of His kingdom…
“As for me and my house we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 4:15), by placing at the beginning of this glorious restoration, what the Fathers placed at the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, the liturgy, God, and adoration…
Now, I think he’s right in saying that the lacklustre state of the liturgy in the Irish Church is a major contributing factor to the exodus from the Church. If the liturgy gives the impression that not even the priests believe that what they are doing has any supernatural meaning, then what’s the point in the rest of us going?
So kudos to Dom Kirby for tackling this issue and trying to do something about it. His community in Silverstream are a blessing to Ireland, and in using him as an example of what I perceive to be an unhelpful trend I hope I don’t come across as criticising him. He’s done more for the Church in Ireland in the last few years he’s been here than I ever have. Think about supporting their work if you can! If I single out the Dom, it’s because he’s put his solution of choice in a convenient place on the internet which I can link to.
But here’s the thing. I’ve heard others suggest other pathologies, to use the Dom’s term, and cures for those pathologies, which will seemingly cure the Church in Ireland. It might be better catechesis in schools, or this or that devotion, or promoting openness to life, or…
The list goes on.
What is common to these different ideas is a leaping on a particular solution to one aspect of the crisis, perhaps in the hope of a quick fix or simple remedy.
Let’s use a metaphor. Let’s say the Church is a complex machine which has stopped working, and those who rely upon the machine are standing around, each pointing to a different part of it that seems to be broken and saying: ‘There, that one, if we just replace that one it’ll be working like new in no time!’
Allow me to demonstrate using another of my incredibly artistic marker diagrams:
Now you know that I am not an engineer.
If we just replace that red cog, then the others will get to work in no time, right?
The problem with this approach is that the focus is too narrow. It ignores all of the other problems impacting on each other.
We think of the Church’s problems as being like the diagram above, but really we’re looking at a different situation:
The problem isn’t that one aspect of the Church’s approach is off-kilter, and fixing that one thing will solve everything. The problem is that everything is broken. It’s the liturgy, but it’s not just the liturgy. It’s catechesis, but not just catechesis. It’s lack of a proper focus on the Sacraments, but not just lack of such a focus. It’s clericalism, and anti-clericalism, but not just clericalism and anti-clericalism. It’s the abuse crisis, but not just the abuse crisis.
We’re not looking at isolated problems; we’re looking at a total systemic failure with very, very deep roots.
We can see this in the wide range of problems we face.
Any approach we take has to take into account ALL of the factors, all of the broken parts, all of the systemic problems, and deal with them together. Whatever our strategy is, it has to deal with all of the problems as parts of a greater whole.
There are no magic bullets.
Thankfully, there is Providence, and He’s not going to abandon us. We just need to prayerfully reflect on what we can do to cooperate with Him, and get to work.
By Grace and Banners Fallen 