universally accepted. If nature – in the words of Hans Kelsen – is viewed as “an aggregate of objective data linked together in terms of cause and effect”, then indeed no ethical indi- cation of any kind can be derived from it. A positivist conception of nature as purely func- tional, as the natural sciences consider it to be, is incapable of producing any bridge to ethics and law, but once again yields only functional answers. The same also applies to reason, according to the positivist understanding that is widely held to be the only genuinely scientific one. Anything that is not verifiable or falsifiable, according to this understanding, does not belong to the realm of reason strictly under- stood. Hence ethics and religion must be assigned to the subjective field, and remain extraneous to the realm of reason in the strict sense of the word. Where positivist reason dominates the field to the exclusion of all else – and that is broadly the case in our public mindset – then the classical sources of knowl- edge for ethics and law are excluded. This is a dramatic situation which affects everyone, and on which a public debate is necessary.
T
he positivist approach to nature and reason, the positivist world view in general, is a most important dimen- sion of human knowledge and
capacity that we may in no way dispense with. But in and of itself it is not a sufficient culture corresponding to the full breadth of the human condition. Where positivist reason considers itself the only sufficient culture, and banishes all other cultural realities to the status of subcultures, it diminishes man; indeed it threatens his humanity. I say this with Europe specifically in mind, where there are concerted efforts to recognise only posi- tivism as a common culture and a common basis for law-making, reducing all the other insights and values of our culture to the level of subculture, with the result that Europe, vis-à-vis other world cultures, is left in a state of culturelessness, and, at the same time, extremist and radical movements emerge to fill the vacuum. In its self-proclaimed exclusivity, the pos- itivist reason which recognises nothing beyond mere functionality, resembles a concrete bunker with no windows, in which we our- selves provide lighting and atmospheric conditions, being no longer willing to obtain either from God’s wide world. And yet we cannot hide from ourselves the fact that even in this artificial world, we are still covertly drawing upon God’s raw materials, which we refashion into our own products. The windows must be flung open again, we must see the wide world, the sky and the earth once more and learn to make proper use of all this. The emergence of the ecological movement
in German politics since the 1970s, was and continues to be a cry for fresh air which must not be ignored, just because too much of it is seen to be irrational. Young people had come to realise that something is wrong in our rela- tionship with nature, that matter is not just raw material for us to shape at will, but that (Continued on page 14)
CATHERINE PEPINSTER
‘The infantilism of the “Father knows best” view of the world still thrives’
There is something startlingly ordinary about a parish priest. He is the man who organises the parish raffle, who calls in favours from the local builders to get the roof repaired, who stacks the chairs, who orders the new hymn books, and plays golf on his day off while keeping half an eye on the racing results.
I once went to a very grand lunch at a country house, where the guests included former Cabinet ministers, and in the midst of them was the family’s PP, dressed in a dog collar and a zip-up jumper from BHS that no Anglican cleric would be seen dead in, underneath his jacket. He didn’t need to evangelise, as we all keep being admonished nowadays that we must do; he just was. And yet such ordinary priests have
such extraordinary lives: they are there at every rite of passage, welcoming the newborn with Baptism, overseeing the sacred vows of marriage, holding the hands of the dying. Their daily Mass brings Christ into the world, over and over again. We need our priests. But we don’t just need them: we admire them. That admiration has little to do with their status: it’s the BHS jumper and the raffle and the hand that holds the frightened dying old woman’s fingers that make us admire them – it’s the gentleness and the humility. Yet for all the affection that
Catholics still feel for their priests, and their humility, there is something rather disturbing happening, a hint of them in some way growing apart from us. It is a sense I have of a return to the days of priests having a particularly elevated status. It would be foolish to ever believe that the Catholic Church has the characteristics of democracy – consultation, dialogue, accountability – but nearly 50 years on from the Second Vatican Council, one would hope that the idea of a Church where priests and people worked together and mattered equally would have deep roots. But have they turned out to be shallow? I wondered this at the Mass held
in Westminster Cathedral in mid-September to mark the first
anniversary of the Pope’s visit to Britain. It’s always noticeable at these affairs how all the best seats in the house, as it were, are given to bishops, priests and seminarians. And we tend to accept it as the norm – that the right people are at the top of the pyramid. But at this Mass, it was emphasised even more. There were no lay readers, no lay eucharistic ministers. There were no bidding prayers – not one. The only lay people who participated on the altar were those who took up the offertory gifts. It left the impression of not so much a Church as a caste system. And it’s not even a Church whose outposts have as much confidence as head office: as one visitor from Rome who attended the Cathedral Mass, said: “They have far more laity involved at Mass in St Peter’s.” One of the problems of this
version of Catholicism is that we laity encourage it. Talk to parish priests about their fruitless efforts to get the laity more involved and they will tell you how much we resist it. The infantilism of the “Father knows best” view of the world still thrives. In Austria the debate into the future of the Church is continuing with more than 10 per cent of priests involved in the movement for change called the Austrian Priests Initiative. Many of their requests involve
reforms to the priesthood, from allowing them to be married to encouraging women priests. Whether you support these calls or not, Cardinal Schönborn’s response must surely resonate: “I implore us all to get away from this fixation on the priesthood.” Perhaps that obsession increases as the number of priests in the West declines, so that those who become priests become ever more elevated as their rarity value increases.
Back here in Britain, Archbishop Vincent Nichols this week voiced support for the organisation Catholic Voices, which came to the fore during the papal visit and trained young lay people in media skills so that they could speak up for the Catholic Church to often hostile secular journalists. It worked, said Archbishop Nichols, because attractive young men and women are “far more marketable than crotchety old bishops”. Those voices of men and women,
whether young or old, attractive or not, need to be heard inside the Church too, not just speaking up for it outside its walls. Otherwise, status is in danger of meaning everything in a Church founded by one who died stripped of any status.
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