THE
P RTAL
January 2019
Page 23
Gaudium Et Dolorem
An oblique look at the crisis facing
the Catholic Church at present by Fr Simon Ellis
W
hen Newman wrote - defending one of his own sermons - that “we need a continual Ash
Wednesday”, we may feel he was writing for this moment. Faced with the unravelling clerical abuse
crisis, Catholics in this country are upping their recitation of the rosary, priests are reciting the prayer to St
Michael and others are fasting in readiness for more attacks from the media. We do indeed seem to be in a
continual Ash Wednesday.
Newman and his Anglican compatriots Keble
and Pusey were afflicted with an “undercurrent of
pessimism and gloom” (David Newsome, The Parting
of Friends), as they were inclined to stress the need for
continual penitence and sorrow for the state of the
Church. Pusey famously did not wear gloves in winter,
despite his severely chapped hands, and contemplated
taking a vow not to smile, until Keble talked him out
of it! It is worth noting that the second generation of
Tractarians (and their successors) managed to recover
the sense of joy that the first generation, burdened
with cares, found hard.
The Christian Saints show us the way here and the
martyrs – for example, Thomas More - did not go to
their deaths as grim-faced Stoics, but as jokers and
jesters, shining the light of Christ in the darkness.
Pope Benedict XIV laid down in De Servorum Dei
(1748) four marks of sainthood, the fourth being the
note of joy.
have their place, but let us personally live out the joy
of the gospel and not be weighed down. Every day is
Ash Wednesday: abuse, global warming, fake news,
extremism and a culture of death - to name a few - but
every day is also Easter, Alleluia. We are redeemed, we
are transformed, we are being glorified.
The Russian Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakov
wrote that he wished he had written what the Anglican
monk, Richard Meux Benson, wrote in 1875: “We do
not, I think, dwell as we ought to dwell on the present
glorification of our natures in our own persons, as the
members of the glorified body of Christ. It is this which
the Apostle [Paul] presses as the argument against sin”.
Many of us who joined the Ordinariate could so
easily have the accusation laid at us that we have not
understood the gravity of the situation or that we are
somehow looking down with some superiority over
the mess we see around us, but this is not the situation.
What I do know is that a turning point for me,
surprisingly, in leaving the Church of England in 2011,
was the strange realisation that I was free from the
burden of shame, guilt, anguish and confusion created
by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and Oliver Cromwell, to
name a few. I did not need to apologise for their evil
actions or even live with the consequences of what
they created or destroyed.
Joy is required at this moment. Not as some kind of
psychological therapy or an avoidance of what needs
to change in terms of culture and accountability, or
that we should avoid the issue of justice for those
afflicted and their families. No, our joy is not an
opium to immunise us against any of that. Joy is
the only attitude of the church: “My heart is fixed,
therefore I will sing” (Psalm 57.7). In C.S. Lewis’ The
So too in this situation we now find ourselves we
Screwtape Letters, the devil Screwtape encourages
flippancy, but not joy. Joy, he remarks, “is of itself cannot – and should not - try to shoulder the burden
disgusting, and a direct insult to the realism, dignity of evil acts carried out by some clerics and those who
covered up for them. They will have to answer for it on
and austerity of hell”.
judgment day. Meanwhile, the victims deserve justice.
Of course, there will continue to be appropriate
statements of sorrow. Many will remember the
This is, instead, the time for us to retain the note of
statement in 2001 - on his historic visit to Greece – that joy (not to obfuscate the need for sorrow) but because
Pope John Paul II made apologising for the Crusaders’ we are “members incorporate in the mystical body of
ransacking of Constantinople in 1204. Statements thy Son” (Divine Worship, and originally the Book of
like this can, slowly, lead to healing and reconciliation Common Prayer). We need to be just that - members
when people step back to consider the truth contained incorporate in the broken, crucified and, yes, risen and
within them. So statements of apology made by Pope ascended body of Christ, and to be joyful about that,
Francis and by Cardinal Nichols and other leaders to be holy fools for Christ.