Can there he unity among humankind? (Is there salvation outside the Catholic Church?) 

Humankind seems to be in the process of destroying itself. We are one species, it would seem, yet unlike most animals we kill our own kind at a prodigious rate.  Some anthropologists suggest that we do so because there are many varieties of humans whom we don't recognize as humans like ourselves.  In other creatures recognition of conspecifics is programmed into the nervous system.  Humans have to learn to recognize another as a fellow.  Apparently we are not very good at learning. 

One need only read the record of the bloody thirty years since the end of the worst war in human history to know that scientific progress has not eliminated mass murder.  The list of killers is endless: Hindus and Muslims at the time of the partition of British India, Communists (usually non-Moslem) and non-Communists in Indonesia, Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka (Ceylon), light-skinned Muslims and dark-skinned Muslims in Bangladesh, Kurds and Iraqi in the Middle East, Arabs and blacks in the Sudan, lbo and Yoruba in Nigeria, Tutsi and Tutu in Ruanda–Urundi, Arab and Jew in Palestine (both Semitic peoples, be it noted), Turk and Greek on Cyprus, Protestant, and Catholic in Ulster.  These conflicts represent perhaps twenty million people killed, and most of them never make the front pages of our newspapers.  One need not go back very far to find six million Jews and twelve million Russians killed by the Nazis, several million Armenians killed by the Turks, and between two and three million Irish permitted to die by starvation by the British during the various famines of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

Black and white in the United States; French and English in Canada; Great Russians and the lesser nationalities in the Soviet Union; Han Chinese and Tibetans in China; Scottish, Welsh, and English in the island of Britain; Basque and Spanish; Norman, Breton, and Provencal in France, Fleming and Walloon in Belgium; Indian and native in the Fiji Islands; Indian and black in some Caribbean countries; white, black, and Indian in South Africa–the list of tense situations and possible flash points could go on almost indefinitely. 

Nice people, these humans. 

Yet we can get along well enough with each other as individuals.  The "some of my best friends are . . ." line is now taken to be a mark of the bigot, but even the bigot has to acknowledge the universal human experience of fellow feeling toward those who are technically our sworn enemies.  In his remarkable interviews with "middle Americans," Robert Coles quotes long paragraphs of what sounds like the most blatant racism from a white policeman, but then the interview ended with the officer saying, ". . . but I don't blame them.  If I were black, I'd do the same thing." 

It is a most astonishing thing to discover that someone we are supposed to hate has the same hopes, the same fears, the same aspirations for himself and his family that we do.  He is not supposed to be that way at all.  A white woman who has learned to be afraid of a black neighborhood is astonished to discover that black women are every bit as much afraid of the same neighborhood.  A Christian who is brought up to believe that Jews have no morals is astonished when a Jewish colleague agonizes over moral decisions.  A Protestant and a Catholic in Ulster discover to their amazement that they are both delighted when an Ulster team beats a south of Ireland team in a rugby match.  A professor is astonished when he discovers that beneath the inarticulate language of a cab driver is a very sophisticated view of human nature. 

In these revelatory experiences we discover to our astonishment that the stranger is in fact a brother, and we exclaim in surprise, "Why they're just like us!" Such fellow feeling does not end conflict, and merely getting to know others is not a solution to national or international problems.  But the revelation of fellow feeling does tell us that humankind was meant to live together in peace and harmony, and that something has gone terribly wrong in our relationships with one another.  We want peace and reconciliation, but we do not seem able to find them. 

Jesus worked almost entirely with Jews.  Yet there was an obvious universalism in his message.  If God was giving himself to humankind, there could obviously be no limitations imposed on the extent of that gift.  If in Jesus humanity was to be re-created, as it had been created in the first Adam, then the conflicts which separated the various kinds of humans were to be eliminated as part of this new creation.  The kingdom of God was for the whole world. 

In the account we have of the ecstatic experience of Pentecost (part of the whole Easter interlude in the lives of the followers of  Jesus), it became clear that the differences which separated humankind were to be no barrier to the Gospel.  The Parthians and the Medes, the Cappadocians and the Elamites, all heard the preaching of the apostles, but each in their own language.  Whatever the precise nature of that event historically, it surely came to mean for the early Christians that the Good News was for everyone and would know no obstacles of language or nationality.  Later, after the followers of  Jesus had painfully clarified how this insight would apply to the case of relationships between Jew and Gentile within their number, St. Paul could claim, "Neither Jew nor Gentile, neither Greek nor Roman, neither male nor female but all one in Christ  Jesus." 

This "catholicity" of the Good News did not mean the elimination of differences.  A common language did not replace the individual languages of the Pentecostal participants; rather language differences simply did not stand in the way of the Good News.  Similarly, Paul was wise enough to know that Greeks and Romans would not forsake their cultural traditions to form some overarching compromise culture.  And he hardly expected the biological differences between man and woman to vanish.  His point was that such differences would not stand in the way of the unity of humankind in  Jesus.  Part of the gift of God to humans in  Jesus was the gift of the restoration  of unity, a gift which has to be freely accepted, of course." 

It need hardly be noted that that acceptance is far from complete. 

So for the early followers of  Jesus the "assembly of the faithful" (ecclesia or church) was in principle the whole of humanity restored to unity in  Jesus.  The writers of the second century were incredibly universalist in their orientation: anything that was good, anything that was true, anything that was beautiful was welcome in the Christian community no matter what the cultural source.  In the exuberance of the still fresh Christ experience, they were hardly ready to draw narrow and tight boundaries, and were completely unthreatened by fears of losing the uniqueness of their message.  Hence they were able to transform many pagan customs (a practice that would have horrified their Jewish predecessors). if all humans were brothers in  Jesus, whatever was good in the customs of any human could be welcome among the followers of  Jesus.  In this sense, Christianity was "catholic" from the very beginning. it was for everyone and, in principle, open to everything. 

So, then, the assembly was potentially the whole of humankind, and actually, for the moment, that segment of humankind which had heard the Good News of the Christ event was responding to it.  The actual Church was nothing more and nothing less than the band of those who had heard of the Easter event, felt the Christ experience themselves, and now intended to live the brightness of its light, giving themselves to others with the same generosity with which God had given himself to us in  Jesus. 

But the response of humans to  Jesus did not take Place either as a collection of isolated individuals or as a global mass. The assembly existed wherever the Lord's supper was celebrated.  The memory of the intimacy of the Jesus experience was far too strong for his followers ever to let the warmth and power of such small communities slip away. The Eucharist was the public celebration of and the response to Jesus.  But the Eucharist was a local event enacted where humans lived and worked.  It was a grass-roots experience.  Humankind responded to God in the same way it lived, not as isolated atoms or as a massive collectivity but rather as a collection of small local communities, united in a common faith and a common goal.  Global in its aims and vision, local in its daily life, federal in its organizational structure, the assembly offered the model by which human unity would eventually be restructured; that is, universal world vision, local autonomy, and organic structure linking the various local communities in a variegated but integrated unity. 

Those who claimed to be the followers of  Jesus have been considerably less than perfect in their fidelity to the insights which flowed from the Easter and Pentecost experiences.  They have sometimes sacrificed world vision for rigid and defensive parochialism.  They have sometimes allowed the degeneration of local communities, ceaselessly fighting among themselves and excommunicating (denying communion with) one another at the drop of a participle.  They have sometimes taken away the legitimate independence of the local assembly and tried to reshape the Church on the model of a medieval monarchy, a Renaissance absolutist state, or a modern corporation.  They have sometimes tried to impose an oppressive uniformity which denied the rightful variety of the human condition.  They have often fallen victim to internal quarreling which occupied almost all of their time and energy.  They have split apart in schism and heresy.  They have even killed one another in the name of  Jesus, who came only to reveal God's unifying love. 

They even managed to do all these things at once.  Indeed, except for killing one another, virtually all the other errors were present in New Testament times.   Jesus, it would seem, could have used better judgment in selecting his followers–both then and now. 

But acceptance of the message of Jesus, commitment to the Christ event, and the reexperience of Easter do not eliminate human freedom or change the basic structure of human personality.   Jesus has provided us with the raw material for growth, but we must then grow, however slowly and painfully.  The assembly of the followers of  Jesus is made up of people who have committed themselves to try to respond to the Good News.  They cannot commit themselves to perfection of response, at least not as long as they are weak and frail human beings.  The Church is for humans, not angels.  Its perfection is to be found, not in the virtue of its members, the wisdom of its leaders, or the elegance of its organizational structure; rather it is to be found in the person and the message of the One to whom it is attempting to respond. 

If you can find a Church that is perfect, by all means join it; but realize that, when you do, it has ceased to be perfect. 

If there is so much fragility, so much weakness, so much imperfection, so much corruption in the Church, then why have one at all?  As a vision of a reconstituted humanity it certainly doesn't seem to have much to offer, does it? 

The reason for a Church is simple enough: no man is an island.  We cannot live by ourselves.  We are responsible to others because of a basic human phenomenon: we need others to survive.  The isolated loner is not more than human, he is less than human; he becomes a savage, an animal hunting in the jungle by himself.  The human infant cannot survive without his parents, and he continues to need their help through the long years until he reaches physical maturity.  We need others to listen to us, to learn from, to go to for help, to talk to, to take care of, to love and to be loved by. Our personality is formed, grows, and develops through our interaction with others.  They heal us, protect us, challenge us, comfort us.  There is no worse punishment than to be cut off, ignored, sent into "Coventry" (as it was said in the English secondary schools of days gone by) or into solitary confinement.  Religion, like every other form of human behavior, is necessarily social.  We have a Church because we need help to respond to God's gift of himself, to the Good News that our wildest dreams fall short of the truth.  The Good News is too startling, too staggering, too demanding for us to be able to do anything about it by ourselves.  We need the help of others. 

The Church has all the faults of any human community in both its local and international forms. Still it is from the Church that we learn about Jesus.  Our clergy, our teachers, our parents teach us who Jesus is and what he stands for by word and by example.  If we are to experience the Christ event, if Easter is to be  reenacted in the depths of our soul, then it can only happen in the Church.  The Church is our link with the Christ event, and the link by which we  will pass our experience of that event on to those who will come after us. The Church encourages, challenges, comforts, and in its best moments inspires us.  Without it we could not be Christians. 

Catholic Christianity believes that it is the adequate and Comprehensive manifestation of the Church.  It does not after the Second Vatican Council  at any rate–deny validity or reality to other Churches and ecclesiastical bodies. 1, admits its Own faults and mistakes, and there have been many.   But it still would contend that in the universality of Its openness to the diversity of humankind, in its lineage that stretches back to apostolic times,  in its internal unity, and in its commitment to both the basic goodness of human nature and the corporate nature Of salvation, it can make a unique  claim to be the Church Of  Jesus Christ.  It Prays for d works toward the unity of all Christians with respect and affection for its brothers and sisters  in other Churches, while realizing that the time and mode of Christian unity, like the time and mode of the restoration of total human community,  lies shrouded in the mists Of the future, known only by the God who gave the gift and will eventually give its fulfillment. 

Catholic Christians are under no illusion about the mistakes their Church has made, as well as the imperfections Of which it and they have been guilty.  The Church's claim to holiness rests, not on the personal virtue of its members, though many have been virtuous and some extremely so, but rather on the holiness of the Word it preaches, the Eucharist it celebrates, and the Lord it proclaims.  Catholic Christians today, recalling the "catholic" enthusiasm of the early years, stand ready to learn from anyone–Protestant, Jew, nonbeliever–who has anything good to teach.  The protective and defensive stand which may or may not have been appropriate during the battles of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation eras has come to an end, and the assembly once again approaches the world with an open mind and an open heart. (Even though that openness has not, a mere decade after the end of the Second Vatican Council, yet permeated all the structures of the Church.) 

Jesus certainly saw that there would emerge a community of those who had followed him and who would continue to preach his message.  It would appear from our present understanding of the Scripture that he sketched the broad outlines of the principles which would animate the assembly of his followers; he left the details to those who would come after him.  But he certainly realized that there would be leaders in his community, and he gave, by his own behavior as well as by his teaching, instructions on how those leaders should act. 

The leader of a Christian community has two essential roles (and they are analogous to the role of a leader in any human community).  On the one hand he must comfort and challenge, he must stir his followers out of their complacency and resist their parochialism.  He must make them see the broader vision of the work they share with members of other communities, and he must encourage them when they are tired and weary, depressed and frustrated.  He must incarnate in his own person the goals and ideals of the community and inspire and demand, as well as renew and invigorate, his followers by the life he leads and the person he is.  He must be  transparent so that his commitment radiates out to others. 

On the other hand he also has a functional role.  He is the "link person" that ties the local community (neighborhood, city, nation) to the next  larger unit in the network of communities.  He does that by speaking for the local church to the larger Church, and by speaking to the local church  for the larger Church.  He communicates to the other local churches the needs, insights, and talents of his own community.  When he speaks at  meetings of leaders he speaks for his community and not merely on his own initiative.  But he also keeps his own community in touch with the  needs and problems, opportunities and resources of other local churches and of the entire network.  When he comes home from meetings he carries  with him the obligation to speak for the whole of Christianity. 

His leadership is necessarily one of service, for the Christian tradition knows no other kind of leadership.  Linking, challenging, comforting are all  actions of service.  They are to be carried out with the same affection and respect with which  Jesus washed the feet of his followers.  Listening to  the voices within his community, he must discern those in whom the Spirit is speaking.  Such discernment is also a form  of service which must be carried on with great respect, tact, and affection. 

For many centuries a certain authoritarian and dictatorial style has crept in from the world outside and has affected the behavior of some Church  leaders.  They have acted more like secular princes (which many of them were) rather than like servants of God's people.  This style, which has lasted far too long, is beginning to wane in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council.  It hardly need be said that the defeat of an authoritarian and absolutist style of Church leadership is not yet complete. 

But it is not only the leaders of the Church who must be servants.  The Church itself is a servant Church; it must constantly strive to be a good servant.  Christianity is committed to the ultimate fulfillment of the gift of human unity which  Jesus came to bring from the heavenly Father.  It believes that love means generous giving of oneself to others; it believes that the Good News of the Christ event is most effectively shown to others by the example of generous love which reflects the love God revealed to us in  Jesus.  It must therefore manifest loving service in its own internal relationships, in its corporate (both local and collective) behavior toward the world outside, and in the concern which its members manifest in struggling against human misery.  Social concern is not a substitute for religious commitment but is an essential consequence of it. 

So, to the question of whether humankind can find unity, the mystery of the Church says that it can, but only when the insight of fellow feeling is sufficiently strong so that loving service of the stranger who is our brother begins to transform social structures.  As the community of those who believe in such love, the Church is, in principle, and should be in fact, the model and the paradigm for the new humanity. 

It is surely not much of a model or a paradigm now, but if such is the fault of the Church, the blame lies not with its vision or its word or its sacraments.  The blame lies with its members.  With us. 

THEOLOGICAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL NOTES 

1.   Many of the elements of Catholic Christianity as we now find it are historical developments. The Roman Curia,  the College of Cardinals, the Code of Canon Law, ecclesiastical celibacy, the ceremony of the papacy, for examples, are no more part of the essence of Catholic Christianity than was the Latin Mass.  They could be dropped tomorrow and the Church would still be the Church.  The critical question which must be asked about all these historical developments is whether they are conducive to the effectiveness of the Church's mission today.  The answer to that question is not always easy to find, and people of good will can disagree about it.  But while these developments are important, they are not essential and should not obscure the basic purpose of the Church. 

2.   It is often said that the Church is not a democracy.  To the extent that such a statement has any meaning at all, one could reply by saying that it is not a monarchy either.  The Church is indeed a human institution, and as such, it is roughly comparable with other human institutions; but it is not a government, and analogies with governmental forms become inappropriate when pushed too far. 

There were far more democratic procedures in the early and medieval Church than there were in the era just ending.  Bishops (including the Bishop of Rome, for example) were elected by the clergy and people of their own dioceses.  Abbots in monasteries are still elected by their monks.  Heads Of religious communities are frequently still elected by members of the community–particularly if the comunities are medieval in origin.  Two popes in late antiquity argued that any other method of selection of the local Church leader was seriously sinful.  Pope Leo I flatly laid down the rule that "he who presides over all ought to be chosen by all." John Carroll, the first American bishop, insisted that he would not serve if he were not elected by the priests of the country, because, he argued, no other manner of election would be appropriate in America.  There is considerable evidence that the Church is moving toward a drastic redemocratization of its procedures with such institutions as national conferences of bishops, diocesan pastoral councils, and parish councils.  For some this change is moving too slowly, for others too rapidly.  Persons of good will can disagree about its wisdom; there are advantages and disadvantages, as the experience of our more democratically organized Protestant brothers makes clear.  The point, however, is that there is nothing in the essential nature of the Church which precludes such change. 

3.   Even many ecumenical Protestant scholars will admit the need for a chief bishop in Christianity, a man who is the incarnation of and the spokesman for the Church.  They will disagree with Catholics about the nature and scope of such a leader's authority, though more recently the disagreement seems to be less on the principle of such leadership and more on the way it has been exercised in recent centuries.  There are, many Protestants would say, modalities of the exercise of papal authority which would be both true to Catholic doctrine and acceptable to Protestant practice. 

No matter how these theological and organizational problems will be resolved, Catholic Christianity is committed to two points about the papacy. (1) The pope is the presiding bishop of the Church and the unique and special leader who, under God's guidance, presides over the whole Church; and (2) the popes, as inept and even evil as some may have been, had the power, by virtue of that divine guidance, to prevent the Church from the kind of mistake which would lead it to stray completely from the message and thus destroy itself.  The importance of papal leadership and the immense impact of that leadership on the whole of  humankind was especially evident in the Years of Pope John XXIII.  If there were more popes with such skills, the theoretical questions about authority, primacy, and infallibility–while still knotty and important–might be solved with relatively less difficulty than most of us would have thought. 

HISTORICAL AND DOCTRINAL NOTE 

There has recently developed a considerable amount of agreement between Protestants and Catholics in ecumenical dialogue on the subject of the Papacy.  Both sides now agree on the preeminent role of Peter in the early Church, and the need in the Church at all times of a "Petrine function"–a role in the universal Church which promotes the unity and cooperation of all local churches.  Many Protestants are willing to admit the ancient claim of the Church of Rome to fulfill in predominant measure that function.  Catholics, on the other hand, while arguing that the role of Rome in the "Petrine function" pertains to "things of God" in the Church–and hence can be said to be of divine origin emerged very slowly in the early centuries and has been exercised in many different styles down through the years.  Furthermore, Catholics in the dialogue also say that documents and doctrines about the role of the Pope, while certainly true, will be misunderstood unless they are studied in the historical context in which they were produced.  Hence, one must not approach a doctrine about the Papacy with the concerns and interests of the present time, but rather with the concerns and interests of the men who wrote the documents laying out the doctrines.  Finally, Catholics also would say that it would be a mistake for both sides to consider that the Papal administrative style of any given time (including the present) is part of the essence of the Papal role. 

This emerging consensus does not solve all remaining problems, but it has taken the discussion far beyond the arguments which occupied so much time and energy not so long ago. 

SOCIAL THEORY NOTE 

Catholic social theory, reflecting on Catholic understanding of the revelations about the nature of human nature in the Christ event, takes a more benign view of human society than do many other social theories.  It does not think of society as an oppressive agency which forces cooperation on uncooperative and aggressive individuals.  Instead, it believes that society is the actual result of the social nature of humankind, and that the dense and intimate network of social relationships of each human exists, not to oppress the individual but to facilitate his growth.  When oppression does occur (which is not infrequently),  Catholic Christianity believes that it is the result of an abuse of social power and not its natural exercise.  Because of this respect for the web of human relationships, Particularly the most intimate and local ones, Catholic social theory is skeptical of attempts to change society through drastic, once-and-for-all techniques; and it is generally committed to organic growth which, instead of wiping the social slate clean, moves individuals and communities forward from where they are.  Furthermore, its realization of the crucial importance of the local church community leads Catholic social theory to insist on the principle of subsidarity, the idea that nothing should be done by larger and more centralized agencies which can be done equally well by smaller and more local groups. Needless to say, the Church has not always followed this principle itself in regulating and organizing its own life. 

SOCIAL ACTION NOTE 

Catholicism does not believe that specific solutions to concrete social and economic problems can be derived from the Gospel.  Individual Christians and groups of Christians can and must take stands on specific issues in light of how they see the Gospel applying to specific situations, but they must not claim unique validity for their application of principles to practice.  Even Church leaders may take stands on specific issues (though they ought to be reluctant to do so unless they are adequately informed), but they should clearly distinguish their own private positions from the teachings of the Gospel.  Finally, the Church as an organization may commit itself to one side or the other in some particularly crucial conflict, but it should do so with the full awareness that it may well be making a mistake, and that its political and social stand is much more contingent than the Gospel it preaches.  What makes Christian social action unique is not so much the specific solutions it offers (though it will incline toward maximizing personal freedom and local initiative when it is being true to its own best insights) but the style with which it is exercised.  The Christian acts with patience, serenity, flexibility, refusal to hate, eagerness to reconcile, and implacable perseverance no matter how many defeats and frustrations he suffers.

This page will be updated whenever I become aware of errors. Please, send me any "scannos" or typos you find.