Well-known theologican Fr. Aidan Nichols, OP, who has written about Pope Benedict’s theological starting points and methodology, has interesting things to say to his countrymen.
Let’s have a look at this article from The Catholic Herald, which I am really starting to enjoy.
My emphases and comments.
Convert England to Catholicism, says papal ally
One of Britain’s leading theologians has broken ranks with the ecumenical establishment by calling for Catholics to convert non-Catholics.
Fr Aidan Nichols, the English theologian most closely associated with the thinking of Benedict XVI, has appealed for England to be “re-made” as a Catholic country. [HUZZAH!]
He set out his radical and comprehensive programme for Catholic renewal in a new book entitled The Realm: An Unfashionable Essay on the Conversion of England, published by Family Publications.
In his preface he says that Catholic Christianity should be put forward “not as an occupation for individuals in their solitude but as a form for the public life of society in its overall integrity”.
He admits that the conversion of England is “an absolutely colossal agenda”, adding: “It can only be brought into being, so far as it depends on us to do so, by a coordinated strategy for recreating a full-blooded catholicity with the power to… transform a culture in all its principal dimensions. [Remember: I use the image of a "Marshall Plan" which Pope Benedict is putting into effect. What Nichols is talking about is the next phase. First, liturgy… identity… reinvigorating the Church ad intra. Then, the ad extra phase begins in earnest, but from a position of real strength. And that is also when the open war on the Church will being in earnest, friends.]
“That is what ‘the mission to convert’ and ‘the conversion of England’ mean to me.”
His comments will be seen as an implicit criticism of the direction of the Church in England and Wales. [D’ya think?] He points to “flagship” Catholic institutions which have “suffered shipwreck through secularisation”.The Second Vatican Council, he argued, did not replace mission with dialogue. Instead it drew attention to respectful dialogue and an understanding of other faiths as a necessary condition of missionary work.
Fr Nichols, a Dominican friar, argues that the disappearance of other Christian and non-Christian religions would not necessarily be “a Bad Thing”, since the Catholic faith contains all the elements of truth, goodness and beauty that are present in other forms of Christianity and faith traditions. [Remember the CDF document that made distinctions about which religious communities were real "Churches"?]
He argues that Catholicism was crucial in the formation of England and suggests that the Church is well suited to remaking a “not terribly impressive culture” dominated by “supermarkets and sport”. [Ouch.]
English Catholicism is fit for the challenge, he explains, because it is a “pot-pourri” of recusant families, Anglican converts and Irish, Polish and Filipino immigrants. He says the example of the original Anglo-Saxon conversion of England showed that only a mixture of “indigenous and exogenous elements” can successfully transform a whole society. [Sounds like the Catholic Church. Was it James Joyce who, about the Church said, "Here comes everyone!"?]
Fr Aidan Nichols’s plan for renewal:
Firmer doctrine in our teaching and preaching [Go back before Vatican II.]
Re-enchant the liturgy [The tip of the spear.]
Recover the insights of metaphysics [Be smart again.]
Renew Christian political thought [Be active in the public square.]
Revive family life [Stop spitting in God’s face.]
Resacralise art and architecture [Use God’s "grandchild" well.]
Put a new emphasis on monastic life [Support in prayer for the active.]
Strengthen pro-life rhetoric [See above.]
Recover a Catholic reading of the Bible [Second to none!]Fr Nichols identifies a number of strategies he believes the Church ought to implement to draw England back to the faith.
He argues for the renewal of Christian political thought beyond merely a concern for the poor. Indeed, he suggests that religious apathy is partly a product of Christianity’s removal from the political sphere. [In particular Catholic Christianity. As I have been writing repeatedly, if the Church does not have a strong identity, it is easier to drive the Church from the public square. Great damage is therefore done to the Church and society, at the very nexus between the Church and the world where the Church, and not the world, must have logical priority, when self-proclaimed Catholics (politicians especially) go all wobbly and sell out in front of the world’s assessing eyes.]
A “re-enchantment” of the liturgy is also needed, he says, since liturgy forms the imagination and is crucial in “getting others to grasp the inwardness of Catholic Christianity”. He cites Cardinal John Henry Newman’s prediction that belief fails where “the imagination is against us”.
Fr Nichols also stresses the need to “recover lost ground” in the intellectual argument for faith. [That’s for sure. At the same time, many Anglicans are coming to the Church because it is the Catholic Church where real intellectual work is getting done today.]
He argues there should be a “revival of doctrine” in catechetics and preaching, and a recovery of metaphysics to give people a “coherent and deep philosophy of the created order”. [In other words: homiletics has to be smarter, which means that we MUST break the strangle-hold many powerbrokers in the Church have over the paradigm of the priest in the parish, that is, the priest preeminently as "nice guy", who must not make too many distinctions or ask people to think too much.]
He proposes a stronger defence of the unborn and a recovery of the Catholic reading of the Bible – “a reading of Scripture in the same spirit as that in which it was written, rather than in the light of academic fashion”. He also calls for the “revivification” of the family through the re-union of domestic and work life. [Pope Benedict in his Jesus of Nazareth was driving that this. A Catholic reading is not a protestant reading, or a modernist reading, or a secularist-literary reading, or a scientists reading. A Catholic reading embraces many tools, but it is far more than those things.]
Fr Michael Seed, the ecumenical adviser to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, said he was “grateful” for the arguments put forward in the book. “While respecting the other faith traditions in England, anything that encourages lapsed Christians to embrace their Christian faith will help to make England a richer country and will help them personally in their spiritual journey,” he said. [Ehem… I think the point is that lapsed Catholics should come back to the Catholic Church. And since England is, I believe, a lapsed Catholic country, England should come back to the Catholic Church, as should everyone else. Or am I getting Nichols wrong?]
Fr Nichols, who entered the Dominican order in 1970, is the John Paul II Memorial Visiting Lecturer at Oxford University, the university’s first Catholic theology lectureship since the Reformation.
He has published over 30 books, including the authoritative study in English of the theology of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now the Pope.
He is known to be admired by the Pontiff and both men strongly support the eastward celebration of Mass and emphasise the importance of welcoming disaffected Anglicans into the Church.
Fr Nichols is also regarded as a potential candidate to become the next Archbishop of Westminster. [So is Fr. Tim Finigan! o{];¬) ]
This was interesting. I think I need this book.
What a contrast to Fr. Richard McBrien!
Sort of like matter and anti-matter.
