Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain! Catholic History and the Emerald City Protocol

reformation21 ^ | April 2012 | Carl Trueman

[Gamecock]

Full Title: Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain! Roman Catholic History and the Emerald City Protocol

In the field of Reformation studies, Professor Brad Gregory is somebody for whom I have immense respect.  Those outside the discipline of history are possibly unaware of the ravages which postmodernism brought in its wake, making all narratives negotiable and fuelling a rise in interest in all manner of trivia and marginal weirdness.  Dr. Gregory is trained in both philosophy and history and has done much to place the self-understanding of human agents back at the centre of historical analysis.  Thus, for those of us interested in the Reformation, he has also played an important role in placing religion back into the discussion.  For that, I and many others owe him a great debt of gratitude.

I therefore find myself in the odd and uncomfortable position of writing a very critical review of his latest book, The Unintended Reformation (Belknap Harvard, 2011). The book itself is undoubtedly well-written and deeply learned, with nearly a third of the text devoted to endnotes.  It is brilliant in its scope and execution, addressing issues of philosophy, politics and economics.  Anyone wanting a panoramic view of the individuals, the institutions and the forces which shaped early modern Europe should read this work. Yet for all of its brilliance, the book does not demonstrate its central thesis, that Protestantism must shoulder most of the responsibility for the various things which Dr. Gregory dislikes about modern Western society, from its exaltation of the scientific paradigm to its consumerism to its secular view of knowledge and even to global warming. I am sympathetic with many of Dr. Gregory's gripes about the world of today; but in naming Protestantism as the primary culprit he engages in a rather arbitrary blame game.

Dr. Gregory's book contains arguments about both metaphysics and what we might call empirical social realities. On the grounds that debates about metaphysics, like games of chess, can be great fun for the participants but less than thrilling for the spectators, I will post my thoughts on that aspect of the book in a separate blog entry. In this article, I will focus on the Papacy, persecution and the role of the printing press.  This piece is more of a medieval jousting tournament than a chess game and will, I trust, provide the audience with better spectator sport.

One final preliminary comment: I am confident that my previous writings on Roman Catholicism and Roman Catholics indicate that I am no reincarnation of a nineteenth century 'No popery!' rabble-rouser. I have always tried to write with respect and forbearance on such matters, to the extent that I have even been berated at times by other, hotter sorts of Protestants for being too pacific. In what follows, however, I am deliberately combative.  This is not because I wish to show disrespect to Dr. Gregory or to his Church or to his beliefs; but he has set the tone by writing a very combative book. I like that. I like writers who believe and care about the big questions of life. But here is the rub: those who write in such a way must allow those who respond to them to believe with equal passion in their chosen cause and to care about it deeply and thus to be equally combative in their rejoinders.

A key part of the book's argument is the apparent anarchy created by the Protestant emphasis on the perspicuity of scripture. In this, Dr. Gregory stands with his Notre Dame colleague, Christian Smith, as seeing this as perhaps the single weakest point of Protestantism. He also rejects any attempt to restrict Protestantism to the major confessional traditions (Reformed, Anglican and Lutheran) as he argues that such a restriction would create an artificial delimitation of Protestant diversity. Instead, he insists on also including those groups which scholars typically call radical reformers (essentially all other non-Roman Christian sects which have their origins in the turn to scripture of the Reformation). This creates a very diverse and indeed chaotic picture of Protestantism such that no unifying doctrinal synthesis is possible as a means of categorizing the whole.  

I wonder if I am alone in finding the more stridently confident comments of some Roman Catholics over the issue of perspicuity to be somewhat tiresome and rather overblown. Perspicuity was, after all, a response to a position that had proved to be a failure: the Papacy.  Thus, to criticize it while proposing nothing better than a return to that which had proved so inadequate is scarcely a compelling argument.

Yes, it is true that Protestant interpretive diversity is an empirical fact; but when it comes to selectivity in historical reading as a means of creating a false impression of stability, Roman Catholic approaches to the Papacy provide some excellent examples of such fallacious method.  The ability to ignore or simply dismiss as irrelevant the empirical facts of papal history is quite an impressive feat of historical and theological selectivity. Thus, as all sides need to face empirical facts and the challenges they raise, here are a few we might want to consider, along with what seem to me (as a Protestant outsider) to be the usual Roman Catholic responses:

Empirical fact: The Papacy as an authoritative institution was not there in the early centuries. 

Never mind.  Put together a doctrine of development whereby Christians - or at least some of them, those of whom we choose to approve in retrospect on the grounds we agree with what they say  - eventually come to see the Pope as uniquely authoritative.  

Empirical fact: The Papacy was corrupt in the later Middle Ages, building its power and status on political antics, forged documents and other similar scams. 

Ignore it, excuse it as a momentary aberration and perhaps, if pressed, even offer a quick apology. Then move swiftly on to assure everyone it is all sorted out now and start talking about John Paul II or Benedict XVI.  Whatever you do, there is no need to allow this fact to have any significance for how one understands the theory of papal power in the abstract or in the present.  

Empirical fact: The Papacy was in such a mess at the beginning of the fifteenth century that it needed a council to decide who of the multiple claimants to Peter's seat was the legitimate pope.  

Again, this was merely a momentary aberration but it has no significance for the understanding of papal authority.  After all, it was so long ago and so far away.

Empirical fact: The church failed (once again) to put its administrative, pastoral, moral and doctrinal house in order at the Fifth Lateran Council at the start of the sixteenth century.  

Forget it.  Emphasise instead the vibrant piety of the late medieval church and then blame the ungodly Protestants for their inexplicable protests and thus for the collapse of the medieval social, political and theological structure of Europe.  

Perhaps it is somewhat aggressive to pose these points in such a blunt form. Again, I intend no disrespect but am simply responding with the same forthrightness with which certain writers speak of Protestantism. The problem here is that the context for the Reformation - the failure of the papal system to reform itself, a failure in itself lethal to notions of papal power and authority - seems to have been forgotten in all of the recent aggressive attacks on scriptural perspicuity.  These are all empirical facts and they are all routinely excused, dismissed or simply ignored by Roman Catholic writers. Perspicuity was not the original problem; it was intended as the answer.   One can believe it to be an incorrect, incoherent, inadequate answer; but then one must come up with something better - not simply act as if shouting the original problem louder will make everything all right. Such an approach to history and theology is what I call the Emerald City protocol: when defending the great and powerful Oz, one must simply pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.  

Given the above empirical facts, the medieval Papacy surely has chronological priority over any of the alleged shortcomings of scriptural perspicuity in the history of abject ecclesiastical and theological disasters. To be fair, Dr. Gregory does acknowledge that 'medieval Christendom' was a failure (p. 365) but in choosing such a term he sidesteps the significance of the events of the late medieval period for papal authority. The failure of medieval Christendom was the failure of the Papacy. To say medieval Christendom failed but then to allow such a statement no real ecclesiastical significance is merely an act of throat-clearing before going after the people, the Protestants, who frankly are in the crosshairs simply because it appears one finds them and their sects distasteful. Again, to be fair, one cannot blame Roman Catholics for disliking Protestants: our very existence bears testimony to Roman Catholicism's failure. But that Roman Catholics who know their history apparently believe the Papacy now works just fine seems as arbitrary and selective a theological and historical move as any confessionally driven restriction of what is and is not legitimate Protestantism.  

As Dr. Gregory brings his narrative up to the present, I will do the same. There are things which can be conveniently ignored by North American Roman Catholic intellectuals because they take place in distant lands. Yet many of these are emblematic of contemporary Roman Catholicism in the wider world. Such, for example, are the bits of the real cross and vials of Jesus' blood which continue to be displayed in certain churches, the cult of Padre Pio and the relics of Anthony of Padua and the like (both of whom edged out Jesus and the Virgin Mary in a poll as to who was the most prayed to figure in Italian Catholicism). We Protestants may appear hopelessly confused to the latest generation of North American Roman Catholic polemicists, but at least my own little group of Presbyterian schismatics does not promote the veneration of mountebank stigmatics or the virtues of snake-oil.

Still, for the sake of argument let us accept the fideistic notion that the events of the later Middle Ages do not shatter the theology underlying the Papacy.  What therefore of Roman Catholic theological unity and papal authority today? That is not too rosy either, I am afraid.  The Roman Catholic Church's teaching on birth control is routinely ignored by vast swathes of the laity with absolute impunity; Roman Catholic politicians have been in the vanguard of liberalizing abortion laws and yet still been welcome at Mass and at high table with church dignitaries; leading theologians cannot agree on exactly what papal infallibility means; and there is not even consensus on the meaning and significance of Vatican II relative to previous church teaching. Such a Church is as chaotic and anarchic as anything Protestantism has thrown up. 

Further, if Dr. Gregory wants to include as part of his general concept of Protestantism any and all sixteenth century lunatics who ever claimed the Bible alone as sole authority and thence to draw conclusions about the plausibility of the perspicuity of scripture, then it seems reasonable to insist in response that discussions of Roman Catholicism include not simply the Newmans, Ratzingers and Wotjylas but also the Kungs, Rahners, Schillebeeckxs and the journalists at the National Catholic Reporter.  And why stop there?  We should also throw in the sedevacantists and Lefebvrists for good measure.  They all claim to be good Roman Catholics and find their unity around the Office of the Pope, after all. Let us not exclude them on the dubious grounds that they do not support our own preconceived conclusions of how papal authority should work.  At least Protestantism has the integrity to wear its chaotic divisions on its sleeve.

Moving on from the issue of authority, we find that Dr. Gregory also argues that religious persecution is a poisonous result of the confessionalisation of Europe into warring religious factions. Certainly, the bloodshed along confessional lines in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was terrible, but doctrinal disagreements did not begin with the Reformation. The New Testament makes it clear that serious doctrinal conflict existed within the church even during apostolic times (I hope I am allowed, for the sake of argument, to assume that the New Testament is perspicuous enough for me to state that with a degree of confidence); and the link between church and state which provided the context for bloodshed over matters of theological deviancy was established from at least the time of Priscillian in the late fourth century. It was hardly a Protestant or even a Reformation innovation.

When it comes to the empirical facts of Catholic persecution, Dr. Gregory only mentions the Inquisition twice. That is remarkably light coverage given its rather stellar track record in all that embarrassing auto da fe business. Moreover, he mentions it first only in a Reformation/post-Reformation context. Yet Roman Catholic persecution of those considered deviants was not simply or even primarily a response to Reformation Protestantism but a well-established pattern in the Middle Ages. No doubt the Spanish Jews and Muslims, the Cathars, the Albigensians, the Lollards, the Hussites and many other religious deviants living before the establishment of any Protestant state might have wished that their sufferings had received a more substantial role in the narrative and more significance in the general thesis. Sure, Protestantism broke the Roman Catholic monopoly on persecution and thus played a shameful and ignominious part in its escalation; but it did not establish the precedents, legally, culturally or practically.

Finally, the great lacuna in this book is the printing press. Dr. Gregory has, as I noted above, done brilliant work in putting self-understanding back on the historical agenda and thus of grounding the history of ideas in historical realities rather than metaphysical abstractions. The danger with this, however, is that material factors can come to be somewhat neglected. His thesis - that Protestantism shattered the unified nature and coherence of knowledge and paved the way for its secularization - does not take into account the impact of the easy availability of print. The printed book changed everything: it fuelled literacy rates and it expanded the potential for diversity of opinion. I suspect there is a very plausible alternative, or at least supplementary, narrative to the 'Protestantism shattered the unified nature and coherence of knowledge' thesis: the printing press did it because it made impossible the Church's control of the nature, range, flow and availability of knowledge.

Ironically, the printing press is one of the great success stories of pre-Reformation Catholic Europe. One might argue that it was a technological innovation and thus not particularly 'Catholic' in that sense. That is true; but for some years after it was invented it was unclear whether it would be successful enough to replace medieval book production. In fact, its success was significantly helped by the brisk fifteenth century trade in printed breviaries and missals and the indulgences produced to fund war against the Ottomans. In other words, it was the vibrancy of late medieval Catholic piety, of which Dr. Gregory makes much, that ensured the future of the printing press and thereby the shipwrecking of the old, stable forms of knowledge.

The Roman Catholic Church knew the danger presented by the easy transmission of, and access to, knowledge which the printing press provided. That is why it was so assiduous in burning books in the sixteenth century and why the Index of Prohibited Books remained in place until the 1960s. I well remember being amazed when reading the autobiography of the analytic philosopher and one-time priest, Sir Anthony Kenny, that he had had to obtain special permission from the Church to read David Hume for his doctoral research in the 1950s. At the start of the twenty-first century, Rome may present herself as the friend of engaged religious intellectuals in North America but she took an embarrassingly long time even to allow her people free access to the most basic books of modern Western thought. Women in Britain had the vote, Elvis (in my humble opinion) had already done his best work and The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were starting to churn out hits before Roman Catholics were free to read David Hume without specific permission from the Church.   

Of course, Dr. Gregory knows about the Index; but he seems to see it as a response to Protestantism, not as an extension of the Church's typical manner of handling deviation from its central tenets and practices which stretched back well before the Reformation. And therein lies the ironic, tragic, perplexing flaw of this brilliant and learned book: Dr. Gregory sets out to prove that Protestantism is the source of all, or at least many, of the modern world's ills; but what he actually does is demonstrate in painstaking and compelling detail that medieval Catholicism and the Papacy with which it was inextricably bound up were ultimately inadequate to the task which they set - which they claimed! - for themselves.  Reformation Protestantism, if I can use the singular, was one response to this failure, as conciliarism had been a hundred years before.  One can dispute the adequacy of such responses; but only by an act of historical denial can one dispute the fact that it was the Papacy which failed.

Thanks to the death of medieval Christendom and to the havoc caused by the Reformation and beyond, Dr Gregory is today free to believe (or not) that Protestantism is an utter failure.  Thanks to the printing press, he is also free to express this in a public form. Thanks to the modern world which grew as a response to the failure of Roman Catholicism, he is also free to choose his own solution to the problems of modernity without fear of rack or rope. Yet, having said all that, I for one find it strange indeed that someone would choose as the solution that which was actually the problem in the first place.

[Elsie]

my $250 speaks

Oh??

The check probably hasn't cleared yet...

https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/donors

[Elsie]

well are you one of the protestants that are claiming that a protestant service has more Scripture that a Catholic Mass?

No.

This thread is titled Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain! Catholic History and the Emerald City Protocol

I'm trying so hard to do that...

[Elsie]

You do have us outnumbered a bit...

Illinois
12,882,135

Indiana
6,570,902

[Elsie]

If you are one of those then prove it otherwise I will take it that you think a Catholic Mass is the one with more Scripture.

You seem to 'take' a lot of stuff with no basis in fact.

Also; 'taking' what another person 'thinks' is MINDREADING.

[Elsie]

You may wait to respond when you have access to a real computer and keyboard. I realize that some of us on FR have jobs and must do them; while others of us just sit in mom’s basement and spout.

[daniel1212]

am not trying to make a statement on the relative merits of tradition and scripture versus sola scriptura, nope. As I mentioned several times I have been told by protestants I know well and trust who have said that there is more scripture in the Catholic Mass than in a protestant church service. at first I was shocked and thought that couldn’t be true.

Of course that couldn’t or could be true, as if a person said that, and which you did not provide an example of, then one is making such a broad statement that it defies meaningful determination due to the vast variability, esp. among non-liturgical churches.

Yet the practice among many is to expound upon a few in a long sermon.

If you really want to show RCs are being exposed to as much or more Scripture in its totality than Prots, then the stats of formal studies on Bible reading are what carry weight. As said, Catholics come in about last in Bible reading, and a RC source states that "The average Catholic does not even get to Mass weekly, less alone daily as would be needed to get just 12.7% of the Bible over the two year reading cycle." (http://catholic-resources.org/Lectionary/Statistics.htm)

My challenge is simple I am challenging specifically the protestants who raspberry my even mentioning this topic - by taking ONE specific tiny insignificant Catholic Church in the middle of nowhere and comparing it with ANY protestant Church anywhere in the US.

ONE specific tiny insignificant Catholic Church is just as significant as a mass in the Vatican as the mass is standardized, though with basic types. The only difference is that your priest, which is not even what a NT pastor is called, may himself preach more like an evangelical in using more Scripture than the typical RC cleric, and maybe longer than the typical 10 minute sermon. In which case it fails to prove the typical RC mass uses more Scripture than a typical Prot service.

And which itself proves nothing, as no doubt liberal Prot services use less Scripture, but the persons contending against Rome do not use liberal Prot churches as a standard, as they are usually evangelical types.

Moreover, as expressed, the mere use of Scripture does not equate to being taught much Scripture. You RC mass repeats some of the same texts weekly, while only using maybe 17 other verses as part of a cycle.

This will not be a survey, critique or contrast of Catholic scripture versus protestant scripture it is simply to find out who has the most scripture in their Sunday service or mass.

As expressed, that commits the fallacy of grouping all non-Catholic churches as Protestant, and liberal ones as being the same as evangelical types.

While you may not agree I hope you can clearly see my intentions. If it sounds to you like I am manipulating this please be specific in your objection so it can be dealt with.

As expressed, the foundational premise of grouping all non-Catholic churches as Protestant, and comparing a standardized liturgy of one church, and in which redundant use of Scripture qualifies, to any protestant Church anywhere in the US, appears contrived and proves nothing, as one protestant service can use just a few texts and another can go thru multitudes of texts in a typical 45 min. evangcal message.

I can take you to a Fund. Baptist church where i was years ago and the pastor when thru approx 60 Scripture references on average, as i remember counting them. I doubt he has changed much. He basically preached the Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge by Torrey, which is an example of the use of Scripture in classic evangelical study.

PS my dad told me when I was very young never reject a gift. While I have not heard directly from Jim I have addressed these to him, so if he had objections I assume I would have heard about it in spades. Frankly, I think he could run contests something like these to help raise funds and awareness.

Contests can be fine, and whether evangelicals are more Bible literate and conservative than RCs would be more relevant, but before imposing on Jim's time to listen to dozens of sermons to determine a winner in a short time, you should have FReeped him about this proposal first.

[LurkingSince'98]

No.

OK so you do think a Catholic Mass has more Scripture than a protestant service - now we are getting somewhere.

AMDG

[Zionist Conspirator]

Please excuse me for horning in on this discussion, but I think everyone is missing the big picture here. It isn't so much who is exposed to the most scripture. It is who believes it.

There is no doubt that today's Catholics are much more Bible-literate than their ancestors. However, they are also much more liberal. Catholic Biblicism is thoroughly liberal and higher critical, having swallowed every lie of liberal Protestantism (ironically, in an attempt to distinguish themselves from Fundamentalist Protestants as well as to discredit the Bible as a religious guide).

What good does exposure to scripture do if one doesn't believe it? There are atheist higher critics who could run circles around almost any religious person (I should know; I was in a class taught by one), but what good does it do them? One could have a photographic memory and have the entire Bible imprinted on one's mind and still believe it's primitive nonsense (which is essentially what Catholics believe).

It's better to not read the Bible but to implicitly believe it than to read it and not believe it. The old, Biblically illiterate Catholics were infinitely preferable to today's "Biblically literate" ones.

[LurkingSince'98]

I guess anonymous donations are not posted to the totals..

Thank you for your recent contribution of $250.00 to Free Republic.

DETAIL:

Amount: $250.00
Pledge: #84,491
Method: One-time FreeRepublic Donation

On behalf of Jim Robinson and the members of Free Republic, we thank you
very much for your continued support.

Sincerely,

The Free Republic fundraising team.

I didn’t think you would be cynical... I guess I had you figured wrong.

Ad Majoram Dei Glorima

AMDG

[LurkingSince'98]

do you really sit in moms basement and ‘spout’??

go tot get some work done, have a great day and please donate to Jim, whether you are part of the contest or not.

AMDG

[LurkingSince'98]

here is no doubt that today’s Catholics are much more Bible-literate than their ancestors. However, they are also much more liberal.

As a Catholic I would change your sentence a little to say the Catholics who are more bible literate are more conservative, although some of the other Catholic population may be trending liberal.

gotta go

AMDG

[RegulatorCountry]

first, hearsay is a statement that a person of unknown provenance made regarding what another person said or did

Hearsay is repeating what someone else said with no means of verification.

fourth, I am intimately familiar with the Catholic Mass and know exactly what is said and transpires in the Mass,

Wonderful. You'll have no difficulty in posting this for comparison purposes then, I take it?

[Alex Murphy]

hearsay is a statement that a person of unknown provenance made regarding what another person said or did

Keep that definition in mind - I'm going to refer to it later in this post.

I am intimately familiar with the Catholic Mass and know exactly what is said and transpires in the Mass

Good for you. Can you prove to the rest of us, in a verifiable way, what was actually spoken in the mass you attend? Please don't give us the script of what should have been said. Please provide a verifiable transcript of what was actually said. That's what you're expecting Protestants to provide. Will you be providing it yourself?

remember I want Jim to compare what happens in ONE particular Catholic Mass in our little corner of nowhere to ANY protestant service anywhere in the US.

Has Jim agreed to judge this little contest of yours? Will Protestants get to count each time that the word "amen" is spoken as a Scripture citation? If Jim's going to judge this contest, have you submitted your own transcript of the actual mass conducted at your parish to him yet? Right now, all we have is your unverified word that there's any scripture used in the mass at your local parish. As you yourself defined rules in post #844, it can 't be trusted if it can't be verified. By the definition you yourself provided in post #876 and reproduced at the top of this post, your challenge is based entirely on HEARSAY until you can prove your own mass contained any scripture.

FWIW, I'm not pinging Jim Robinson because I happen to respect the man's attention and time. I think that this contest would be a colossal waste of his time, and I hope you didn't donate $250 to gain his attention in this little spitting contest. Either you changed your mind about Free Republic's moderation and mission in the last week, or IMO you're trying to bribe someone into applying the band-aid to your butt-hurt.

But let's assume for the moment that you are correct. Let us pretend that you've submitted your own verified transcript to Jim, we've submitted our own verified transcripts, Jim has read them all, and Jim has publicly judged that your "little Catholic Church in the middle of absolutely nowhere" conducts a mass with "more Scripture" than all of our Protestant worship services. Did all of that scripture lead your Sunday-mass-attending Catholics to vote for conservative causes and for conservative candidates in far greater numbers than our Sunday-worship-attending Protestants already vote for? How about a contest to see whose religious tradition supports a constitutional representative republic in the USA better, and can bring this country back from socialism faster?

Now there's a contest that we all could benefit from, and one that compliments Free Republic's core mission.

[editor-surveyor]

Alex, your post is well stated, but I would add just one more element:

Unless what scripture that may be presented in a service is understood, believed, and practiced, it is still just so much hot air floating up into the upper atmosphere.

I see few comments in this forum that give me confidence that much of the scriptures is understood at all.
.

[LurkingSince'98]

You’ll have no difficulty in posting this for comparison purposes then, I take it?

I wouldn’t have any difficulty except I’m working and have already posted one link on this thread.

I am not going to do your work for you - ‘Google is your friend’ until they record your conversions through your computer mic.

Present your service to Jim and we will present our Mass.

He can judge - I trust him, don’t you?

AMDG

[LurkingSince'98]

AlexM...

“How about a contest to see whose religious tradition supports a constitutional representative republic in the USA better, and can bring this country back from socialism faster?”

Hows about you donate $250 to FR and start another contest to answer that.

Till then my ante is in, yours???

AMDG

[RegulatorCountry]

You’re really relying entirely too much upon the involvement of an individual who is not even present on the thread and perhaps not even aware of the obligation you’ve thrust upon him.

Care to verify this?

[Gamecock]

You keep bringing up that you made a donation.

How does that donation make you feel?

[trisham]

It makes me feel great.

[LurkingSince'98]

feelings are for liberals

as a conservative I’d rather think..

For the Greater Glory of God