Rethinking the family on a Catholic time scale

[rug]

Bishops’ Synod on the Family shows that changes in church doctrine require patience and humility

October 22, 2014 2:00AM ET
by Nathan Schneider @nathanairplane

When Malcolm X made a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964, he had been a Muslim for 16 years. He was the most prominent Muslim in the United States, in fact, having turned his position in the Nation of Islam into a platform for African Americans’ struggle for dignity and human rights. He thought he knew his religion pretty well — a doctrine that turned the tables on white supremacy, a basis for black power. But after arriving in Mecca, the made-in-the-U.S.A. Islam he’d known started to seem awfully small.

“There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world,” he wrote. “They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and nonwhite.”

Before this, Malcolm X’s Islam was born and bred in the context of U.S. racism. Afterward, he discovered himself to be a member of an ancient and global religion. The Nation of Islam’s teachings about white devils and black nationalism were only a small and peculiar subset in the global community of self-proclaimed Muslims.

I happen to be Catholic, not Muslim. But this month’s Synod on the Family — a meeting where leaders of the Roman Catholic Church discussed policy changes related to family life — has been a reminder that the corner of my religion I live in can seem similarly small.

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/10/roman-catholic-synodfamilypopefrancissamesexmarriage.html

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

1. After he rethought his relationship with Islam after his Hajj,

Malcolm X changed his name to Malik El-Shabazz and became a Sunni. There is considerable reason to believe that his leaving the Nation of Islam led directly to his assassination.

The article says "Self-described liberals try to revive practices and teachings that go back centuries, ones the conservatives have neglected to preserve." Let me give you an example: It used to be that bishops were chosen directly by the members of the diocese. One of the classic cases is that of Ambrose of Milan in 374. The Catholics and the Arians were deadlocked over the election of a new bishop, and it was quite obvious that rioting might break out. So Ambrose, who was the local governor, went to the cathedral to make sure things would be peaceful. Someone in the crowd cried for Ambrose to be chosen as a compromise candidate -- he was Catholic, but got along well with the Arians. Ambrose was elected by acclamation.

Unfortunately, over the years, the power to select bishops wound up in the hands of the nobility and kings. Thus, they got some rather egregious cases such as the later French foreign minister (and life-long agnostic) Charles de Talleyrand-Périgord, son of the Comte de Talleyrand-Périgord (and nephew of the Archbishop of Reimes) being made Bishop of Atun in 1789 at the age of 25. During his tenure as bishop, he visited the place exactly once, and said Mass for the second time in his life. One of the clergy present said, "It is clear that his grace does not say Mass often, but I wonder if he actually ever attends Mass." (Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIII of England's Chancellor, was Archbishop of York for 16 years, but first went to York the year before he died.) Thus, when the Pope took over selection of bishops (a gradual process starting in the 19th century and codified in the Code of Canon Law of 1917), this was seen as a reform. Now, we "liberals" would like to go back to the days when the laity of the diocese had at least a voice in the selection of bishops.