Pointing out clericalism as the source of the ills of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis his letter of August 2018, has certainly put its finger on the place of a necessary conversion, but, if clericalism is an evil, is it the source?
→ READ. Ten ways to get out of clericalism
Ethical behaviors, human attitudes often have their origin in the beliefs that underlie them and thus give them more weight. Could it be, then, that clericalism is only a consequence of more original presuppositions, in which case it cannot be the prerogative of the priests alone, even if the latter are their comparisons?
→ TRIBUNE. Bishop Wintzer: “In the Catholic Church too there is a need to develop checks and balances”
In Catholicism, as in any religion, what determines everything else is God, or more exactly the image we have of God. Thus, monotheism developed the image of an almighty God. However, the biblical revelation contradicts such a representation: the God of Israel does not prevent the people from exile or deportation; even the righteous know persecution. As for Christianity, it makes its faithful kneel before a humiliated and crucified man, as well as before a small child lying in a manger.
Upsetting Jesus
For a couple, a family, the arrival of a child upsets, disturbs, thus the birth of this very particular child, Jesus, the Son of God. He upsets Herod, jealous of his little power… He upsets hierarchies: the shepherds are the first in the crib. More deeply still, it upsets the idea that we have of God: a powerful God, a God who solves problems, a magical God. Philosophy has questioned itself about this power of God; the answer is given by what God says about himself: a small, fragile child who, when he becomes an adult, will remain so, until the cross.
This converts the ideas of a God who has the answer to everything, who magically solves problems. The God of Bethlehem returns to the hands of men, far from preserving themselves from their possible contact, from the effigy of the child placed in the manger to the Eucharistic body of the Risen One which is received in the hands of those who receive communion. Thus, any religious attitude that distances God from human beings, under the pretext of impurity of one or the sacredness of the other, contradicts what God shows of himself. Clericalism, because it isolates some, because it makes them beings out of ordinary humanity, chooses the God of philosophers and not that of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Respect or gratitude expressed
Of course, any relationship, with anyone, and therefore also with God, calls for respect, but this is in no way the distance required by the idol, it is rather the gratitude expressed to the one who is made infinitely close and loving. The greatest respect, due to God, due to every human being, especially if he is poor and suffering, is not vulgar or condescending familiarity, but it is what teaches to become familiar, beings who grow as they become closer to each other.
→ MAINTENANCE. “Clericalism is a component of the crisis of sexual abuse in the Church”
By lambasting the clericalism, Pope Francis can certainly denounce moral behavior, he more certainly designates ways of disguising the God of the Bible and preventing him from receiving him, preferring to substitute for him the magical God of human desires.
If God comes so close, if he makes no a priori requirement of ritual or moral purity, is there still some need for conversion? Is no path required on the part of the one, of the one who intends to become a disciple? Certainly yes, and continuously, because we constantly fall back into the temptation to conform God to our expectations, whether personal, family, clan or social. The God whom we must work to welcome will always be “the greater God” according to the words of Karl Rahner, “the God beyond God” for Paul Tillich, taking up Gregory of Nazianze. More than a prerequisite, conversion, theological and ethical, is then the consequence of a meeting that humanizes.
– .
