Shedding Light on Church Teachings

by Catharine A. Henningsen [= CAH in the text]

The American Catholic Talks with Bishop Raymond A. Lucker

From The American Catholic, January/February 2001 issue

Recent books, such as Garry Wills’ Papal Sin have made much of the fact that the Catholic Church will not change its teachings because it fears giving the impression that a previous pope may have been in error. Such seems to have been the case when Paul VI issued his birth control encyclical, Humanae Vitae. Can the Catholic Church ever reverse itself? In the course of addressing the CTA national conference in November, Bishop Raymond A. Lucker mentioned that he had compiled a list of at least 65 teachings of the church that were once taught as authoritative—albeit reformable—teachings, but which have since been changed [See list below].

Given the controversies over various church teachings, such as birth control and women’s ordination, we decided to talk to Bishop Lucker about how the church arrives at what it teaches and about what’s going on in church teaching today. To keep us on track, Bishop Lucker also gave us an outline of the four levels of church teaching which comes from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith [see the box below].

Levels of Teaching (by Bishop Raymond Lucker)

CAH: There’s been a great deal of controversy over the fact that the pope’s encyclical against the ordination of women, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, was declared as a definitive teaching. Can you tell us more about that?

LUCKER: When the pope proclaimed this teaching on the ordination of women [Ordinatio Sacerdotalis] and Ratzinger said that was a definitive teaching, that would mean it was put in the second level—that is, a teaching that is so close to a revealed teaching that it must be held by all the faithful.

CAH: How did it happen that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was put on the definitive list?

LUCKER: That’s the whole issue. When Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was published, Ratzinger gave us a list of things he considered to be in the definitive column. [In his Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio Fidei, Ratzinger listed the ban on the ordination of women, the canonization of saints, the invalidity of Anglican Orders and the doctrine on euthanasia among the teachings he considered to be definitive. In that document he also stated that, “Whoever denies these truths would be in a position of rejecting a truth of Catholic doctrine and would therefore no longer be in full communion with the Catholic Church.”] What he’s saying is, these things have not been revealed, but they’re so close to being revealed and so connected to revealed teaching that we hold them to be definitive. Some theologians would question this listing. For example, I’ve come up with one that I believe could correctly be called definitive. We believe as a revealed teaching of the church that Jesus is truly present in the Holy Eucharist. We accept that from Scripture where Jesus says, “This is my body” and “This is my blood,” etc. Take our belief in Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist and you take it one step further and you say, since Jesus is present in the Eucharist then we ought to give reverence and adoration to Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist. That would be a definitive teaching—one that is so closely connected to the teaching about Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist that we would hold it as definitive.

CAH: But when you look at Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, which the church has proclaimed as a definitive teaching, there is nothing in Scripture against the ordination of women.

LUCKER: That’s right. The teaching on the ordination of women is one of the most difficult issues that we face. The Biblical scholars will say that there’s nothing in Scripture that will prove it one way or the other. Where do you prove it from then? Well, it’s basically a question of practice. We haven’t done it. Does this mean that’s the source of the doctrine? Well, the pope came up with two new reasons against ordaining women when he proclaimed Ordinatio Sacerdotalis definitive. First, he said, “Well, there were no women at the Last Supper.” But do we really know that? No. We don’t have any proof of that. Then he said that Jesus ordained the disciples at the Last Supper and there were no women there, so it was not Jesus’ intention to ordain women. Well, we can’t prove Jesus ordained anybody. Basically, the church’s argument against the ordination of women—which has been taught for at least 800 years—is that women are inferior. But we don’t believe that women are inferior anymore. There is a lack of argumentation for the teaching. And the argumentation is weak.

CAH: The church teaching which holds that women are inferior is the teaching on complementarity?

LUCKER: Yes. And complementarity—that is, the teaching that women and men are equal, but have from God different roles— is an authoritative teaching. And one that is important to John Paul II.

CAH: I see on your list of the levels of teaching that the belief that sexism is evil is a definitive teaching. How can the church teach that sexism is evil and teach complementarity at the same time? Do they not believe that complementarity is sexist?

LUCKER: We would all say that we believe in the equality of men and women— after all we are all equally created by God—but then in the same breath the teaching says BUT in the plan of God, we have men and women who complement each other and therefore have different roles and those different roles are defined by the patriarchs. In practice I believe this means inequality.

CAH: Where does the teaching about birth control fit into this discussion?

LUCKER: Some say birth control is a definitive teaching, others that it is an authoritative teaching. Now you have some very conservative theologians—a whole bunch of them over in Rome—who claim that the teaching about birth control is definitive. Some even wanted to ratchet it up to infallible! To say, the ordinary teaching magisterium of the church for centuries has taught it this way. Almost every theologian except the very conservative ones would say that birth control is an authoritative teaching — a teaching which has been expressed by theologians and supported by the magisterium. Or let’s take the catechism of the Council of Trent. That was basically a pretty good book by the way— a wonderfully well-stated summary of the teaching of the Catholic faith in narrative form. But in that catechism it advised married couples to refrain from sexual intercourse before going to communion. In the present catechism we finally have for the first time the teaching that sexual relations between a husband and wife are good. That was the teaching of Vatican II. But then it says, quoting Pius XII, that they should exercise due moderation. It’s sort of like saying, “Keep it within bounds.” Instead of just saying, “Go for it,” there’s that negativity again. They’re saying ‘It’s okay, it’s good even, but don’t enjoy it too much. Now that’s an official teaching, so if at that time, say the 18th or 19th century, you stood up and said, “I don’t agree with that” you would have been in trouble.

CAH: How is it that we as progressives are labeled “cafeteria Catholics” by conservatives and yet many conservative groups think nothing of defying the teachings of the Second Vatican Council? Ratzinger and others think nothing, for example, of asking for a return to the Tridentine Mass. Are they not being censured simply because they’re in power?

LUCKER: Exactly. So obviously it becomes a power issue, a patriarchal issue and a political issue. When the people in Rome want to have a theological discussion on a particular topic, they will bring in theologians from around the world, but they’re all hand-picked, so they all say the same thing. They’ll say, “We consulted broadly on this issue and this is what we hear,” but really, they’re only listening to one side of the question. We give great weight to officially held positions, and we arrive at them, as I described before, through listening to the theologians, having free and open discussion of these questions and listening to the people. It’s out of all of that that you arrive at an authoritative teaching. But too often, we squelch our theologians and what happens is the whole process gets side-tracked. And it works the other way too. There are a lot of very conservative people who are really in dissent against Catholic teaching.

CAH: Like LeFebvre?

LUCKER: No, he’s really a schismatic. A heretic. I’m talking about these ultra conservatives who are the rubrics police and condemning people for holding their position, etc. Well, the fact is that their position—let’s say we’re talking about the exploitation of workers or the destruction of the earth in terms of ecological damage or their very vicious attitudes towards immigrants. Now, because they’re conservative and let’s say following the Republican line, somehow they don’t realize that they’re going against authoritative, papally proclaimed teaching. And some of the neo-conservatives are holding forth on the value of capitalism as though it were a papally approved system for the welfare of the world. Well, the pope has made some very strong, very good statements on a lot of these issues which the conservatives don’t accept. They will claim to be orthodox and yet they are going against papal teaching—which would be authoritative teaching on a lot of these issues.

CAH: What about Ex Corde Ecclesiae? [In May any theologian seeking to teach in a Catholic College or University will be required to obtain a mandatum from the local bishop.] Can you tell us a little more about that as it relates to church teaching?

LUCKER: Father Bob Nugent had a letter in the January 6th issue of The Tablet responding to all the discussions we’ve been having about Ex Corde Ecclesiae and the mandate that theologians will be required to obtain to teach. He says, “The Catholic bishops in the United States have not really drafted a “loyalty test” for Catholic theologians. As part of the implementation of the Pope’s apostolic constitution on Catholic education, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, they have simply offered a model letter for Catholic teachers, requesting a mandate in which the theologian promises to teach within the “full communion of the Catholic Church”. . . But if a bishop demands the inclusion of this phrase in any request for a mandate, serious problems will arise. Would a theologian, for example, who has personal difficulties with the definitive teaching of Ad Tuendam Fidem on the invalidity of Anglican orders therefore be judged as not teaching in “full communion” with the church? Would it be sufficient for the theologian simply to forgo any public dissent or questioning? If charged with doctrinal ambiguity, could he or she be coerced by a higher Vatican authority to manifest personal, internal adherence by signing an individually crafted profession of faith on this teaching?” And, of course, Nugent is really going for the jugular here with Ratzinger, because that’s exactly what the Vatican demanded of Father Nugent and Sister Jeannine Gramick. And that has never happened before in the church ever. The doctrine of the church has always dealt with public teaching and never with conscience.

CAH: Does church teaching change to accommodate advances in scientific and other knowledge?

LUCKER: Expressions tend to be human and they also tend to be time-conditioned or culturally conditioned. Even when you talk about divinely revealed truths we could find better words while leaving the meaning the same. For example, nowhere do you find in the New Testament the way we express the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. We say that in God there are three persons, but Jesus never talked about persons. The word person is very helpful to us though, because it expresses the understanding that each member of the Trinity has a separate identity. So, even when you are talking about divinely revealed truth, you could find better ways of expressing the same truth down the centuries. We say, for example, that Jesus is fully human, but as we have better anthropology, we are much better able to understand what being human really means. We can come to a deeper understanding and that’s the role of theology—to understand the dogmas.

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