Though always a message of liberation the meaning of the crucifixion today remains distorted by a medieval mistake.
‘Rather than saying that the Church has a mission, we affirm that Church ‘is’ mission.‘
Those are just two of 110 occurrences of the word ‘mission’ in the Synthesis Report of the October 2023 16th Synod of Bishops in Rome.
Nowhere is there a convincing manifesto for this mission. With the Irish national synodal synthesis of 2022 saying that ‘we are unsure about how to evangelise in the modern world‘ there is no help with that problem in the forty-one pages of the report.
So far also the two Irish bishop representatives at the synod – Brendan Leahy of Limerick and Alan McGuckian of Raphoe – are also unhelpful. All Catholic bishops are still imprisoned by a medieval theology of atonement and redemption that no missionary in Ireland today could offer as ‘Good News’?
St Anselm of Canterbury 1033-1109 CE
Originating with St Anselm of Canterbury in the late 11th century this theology proposes that the crucifixion of Jesus was demanded by the Father who sent him – to give ‘satisfaction’ for the ‘dishonour’ caused to the Father by all of our sins – by dying an excruciating death in ‘substitution’ for ourselves. (CCC 615)
This was not the theology of the early church. The very idea of ‘redemption’ derives from the ‘buying back’ of the freedom of a slave. It was to God the Father that the first Christians attributed their own liberation from fear of the judgement and condemnation of their own Roman world. The greatest power of that time had been proven powerless to overwhelm an ever-living truth – by Jesus’ Resurrection.
What exactly do Irish bishops believe: that the Father of the mission we are now to embark upon is bent upon our liberation from the source of all oppression and fear in our present world – or that he is still, as he was for St Anselm in 1098 CE – in the business of calling in debts?
This theology never even liberated any bishop. No Catholic bishop anywhere in the world is known to have warned his flock about the possibility of clerical sex abuse of children – before victims of that abuse or their families took secular legal action themselves. In December 2009 the Irish Conference of Catholic bishops named the fear that had paralysed them: of a loss of ‘reputation’ if the truth was known.
The Root of All Evil
Alain de Botton – Philosopher
An overbearing concern for ‘reputation’ now has a name – status anxiety – given in 2004 by the philosopher Alain de Botton. If our bishops cannot see this same affliction in every aspect of the evils that surround us – from manic consumerism, absurd inequality and climate change to compulsive cosmetic plastic surgery, stalking and mass shootings – and even invasive imperialism in Ukraine and violence in the Holy Land – how are we to convince anyone that Jesus has anything to do with overthrowing the power of evil? If they cannot see it also in the problem of clericalism, how are we to overcome that?
Status anxiety is essentially fear of scorn – of being ‘cast out’ – the fear that stalks our dreams. It also drives the pursuit of ‘likes’, admiration, influence, celebrity – and power. This explains the absorption of younger generations with digital media. A globalized personal ‘brand’ can now be created, via a handheld device, even by children.
Meanwhile our prisons and psychiatric hospitals and addiction centres struggle to cope with the depression, self-harm, trolling, addiction and criminality that results from the lack of status – even the shame – that the victims of the digital age must feel.
Is not status anxiety also the source of the fear that attacks would-be whistle-blowers everywhere? Is that not what Jesus was – a whistle-blower against all injustice, who stood firm – without violence – against the merciless judgement of that ancient world? Did he not name his own mission, when he said, just before his own judgement, that he had ‘overcome the world’ – the fear of that judgement? Did he not by his crucifixion and resurrection dissolve the same fear in his earliest followers, who then took up their own crosses – and changed an empire?
We Catholic Christians urgently need official recognition that the first person of the Trinity, far from being himself trapped in medieval status anxiety, is still bent – with the Son and the Holy Spirit – on rescuing us from that affliction. Until that happens the mission ahead will be ‘mission on pause’.
First published on the website of the Association of Catholic Priests of Ireland – Nov 21st 2023.
Yes the Atonement theory urgently needs to be abandoned. However a more correct notion needs to be put in place. See article “…So that sins may be forgiven.’ in The Furrow Dec 2023.
Many thanks for that referral, Hilda. Your article in the Furrow is seriously interesting, especially in its understanding of forgiveness, but I must read it again to be sure of doing it full justice.
Already I know that I will have more to say on the matter of ‘original sin’ and the Catechism’s insistence that we inherit the effects of that ‘by propagation, not imitation’ – a contention so obviously open to bafflement and misunderstanding that there too a close review is needed, under the heading of ‘mission’.
Maybe an unspoken subtext of the synodality discussions is that the Catechism overall, as it stands, is not in all respects ‘mission ready’? It is very difficult to square a theology that insists upon God as unconditionally loving and forgiving with the theology of Cur Deus Homo, clearly embedded in that same Catechism.
Having been through your Furrow article again, Hilda, I find it a convincing argument in itself against the Catechism’s contention that unless we hold to the Augustinian understanding of ‘Original Sin’ the crucifixion cannot be explained in connection with the ‘forgiveness of sins’.
I have always felt myself that St Anselm’s God the Father and the father of the prodigal son as described by Jesus were not the same, and that Anselm was at odds also with Jesus’ repeated insistence in John’s Gospel that ‘the father and I are one’. As you insist, that must obviously be the case when it comes to forgiveness.
This of course does turn the spotlight fully onto that question of ‘Original Sin’, an issue also when we try to explain the origins of evil, including human violence. That the latter may have been a consequence of our sourcing of our desires in what our neighbour possesses has strongly been argued by the school that follows René Girard, but that in turn raises a question about CCC 419 which insists that original sin is transmitted by ‘propagation not imitation’.
In his challenging book ‘The Joy of Being Wrong’ the Girardian James Alison argues that this apparent contradiction between ‘propagation’ and imitation can be resolved by considering the possibility that we humans may be genetically programmed to imitate from birth, as the fastest way to learn.
You will remember that the sequence of the ‘Fall’ as recounted in Genesis is that even prior to the eating of the ‘forbidden fruit’ Eve’s self-esteem has been upset by the temptation to ‘be as Gods’ – i.e. to want whatever Gods have that she does not. That unstable self-esteem is an ‘original frailty’ that is obviously part of her (and Adam’s) humanity – not a consequence of anything she has yet done.
That we are indeed fragile in terms of self-esteem is as true today as it ever was, so were we to speak of this ‘original frailty’ as a necessary component of our humanity, then God’s compassion and forgiveness becomes even more ‘logical’, since God has made us this way.
There is much more to this, obviously. I would strongly recommend ‘The Joy of Being Wrong’ – especially for what James Alison has to say about how the Crucifixion and Resurrection together transformed the early Christian understanding of death. That is another obvious issue for the CCC – which in CCC 1008 argues still that ‘original sin’ brought death into the world.
Thanks for directing us to your article, a ‘must read’ in my view on that particular question of divine forgiveness and the atonement.
Thanks very much for your detailed comments, Sean!- and for recommending my article. (I’ve only read them now, months after you wrote, sorry!)
Trying to understand the abstractions of propagation versus imitation is not at all appealing! I don’t believe our faith should hang on difficult concepts beyond the reach of many.
Your point about Eve’s fragile self-esteem is an interesting one!
I think relationality is the key concept when it comes to understanding sin. Sin is what breaks relations with God, others and self, and repentence and forgiveness (shared around) is what redeems it.
Thanks for recommending The Joy of Being Wrong.
I have another article, this time on Original Sin according to Teilhard de Chardin, and another one The Cosmic Christ on the all-importance of relationality as what holds the Whole of creation together. Here are the links if you would like to have a look.
http://teilharddechardinforall.com/can-original-sin-be-made-credible/
http://teilharddechardinforall.com/the-cosmic-christ/
Thanks Hilda especially for the link to the first of those articles, on Teilhard’s ‘take’ on original sin. It left me wondering what Teilhard would have made of René Girard’s clinical analysis of the role of original sin as illustrated in the Genesis allegory in the violence that still plagues us – for Girard is first of all the most convincing philosopher of violence that I have ever read.
By comparison Teilhard as you quote him is far too vague on exactly why we fall so far short of our evolutionary potential, in every generation – and on exactly why the imitation of Christ is now humankind’s best, and probably only, hope.
For me simply marvelling at the evolutionary miracle cannot be a substitute for the understanding of mimetic desire (covetousness) as Girard explains it, so Teilhard is for me way behind the curve on original sin and no real help in resolving the problem posed by the literal interpretation of Genesis as factual history.
That human evolution depends upon human learning, and that human learning is inextricably connected with the human gift for imitation – and that human imitation becomes seriously problematic when we imitate one another’s desires – this is Girard’s key insight. Without that insight we will continue to flounder – and from your account of Teilhard it seems clear that he never saw what René saw.
Thanks, Seán. I like the way Teilhard dismantles the notion of a once-off ‘fall’ and perennialises the story as true myth and not history. Putting the Fall Story into a cosmic and anthropological setting is what achieves this, and is a liberating release.
You are right to say that Teilhard did not go into the detail of sin, and never attempted any psychological analysis of it. Girard sounds fascinating and I will read him. Why we fall so short of our evolutionary potential is a good question. The ultimate evolution is into holiness, – union with the Divinity. To achieve that costs ’not less than everything’, and in particular the overcoming of our human ego, – the cause of most conflict and violence. However to move in that direction, either individually or collectively, we really need a strong faith, a bed of conviction, that the surrender of everything [our ego] is actually worth the cost.
That is why I like Teilhard so much. Faith itself has been slowly growing threadbare since the seventeenth century as our concept of the universe and our place in it has steadily and radically changed. Teilhard began the mammoth task of drawing together the new scientific knowledge and the older faith knowledge. Without this unifying vision the Christian faith floats in an unreal ‘bubble’, untethered to reality as we now know it. That could be one reason why it has far less impact today than it did in previous generations.
I think that Girard’s explanations will fit well into Teilhard’s vision and complement it very usefully.
I agree completely with your last sentence. Two very great French Catholic Christians – (although Girard spent most of his academic life in the USA). And with your identification of the human ego as the core of our problem – that part of us that seeks affirmation from others and abhors the thought of disgrace.
Briefly, Girard points to the recurrent pattern of all-against-one in the bible, which he calls ‘scapegoating’. He theorises that this is the origin of human sacrifice, and that this began to happen very soon after the emergence of homo sapiens as a means of maintaining order when clashing mimetic desire threatened the complete breakdown of a community. He would probably have seen recovered Irish bog bodies (showing evidence of ritual execution) as proof that originally ‘kings’ were scapegoats-in-waiting.
So Jesus came to reveal this also (‘Things hidden since the foundation of the world’ – 1978). Although in that work Girard was at pains to deny that the Gospel story is a story of sacrifice (because the instigators were acting out of political expediency, not performing a religious ritual) he was persuaded by an Austrian theologian (Raymund Schwager SJ) to see Jesus as bringing to a close the evolution of the idea of sacrifice in the scriptures from scapegoating to non-violent ‘self-giving’ – through Jesus’ refusal of the option of violence.
If you have ever heard a better explanation of why the Mass is ‘Holy’, please tell me. We have an article on this at https://acireland.ie/mass-holy-sacrifice/ .