Catholics in church receive Communion. Frank Litton
Note by the Books Editor: The publication of a cheaper paperback, mass market edition of this highly praised title prompts us to reprint what our regular reviewer wrote when it was first published a few years ago, as the book will be found immensely readable and enlightening by ordinary readers, by students, and by parish groups.
The Spirit of Catholicism by Vivian Boland OP (Bloomsbury, £12.99 pb / €15.50 pb)
As somebody who spent a good part of his career teaching organisation analysis, helping students understand organisations and the problems of organising, I have wondered why we pay so little attention to the Church as an organisation, subject to the failings that attend all human attempts to organise.
We can blame the wider culture. While bookshelves are clogged with studies of leadership, techniques for motivating and manipulating staff, through mentoring and coaching, examinations of organisational structure are rare.
Systems
It is not that the problems of devising roles and the systems that coordinate and control them are unstudied. There is a substantial body of work on the subject. Our culture with its focus on the individual repels reminders of how our interdependencies constrain our agency just as they enable it.
The same bias is found when the institutional Church is disparaged and spirituality praised.
Vivian Boland, an Irish Dominican based in the Angelicum University in Rome, gives the organisational dimension its due place in this inspiring study of the Spirit of Catholicism.
An old friend, an expert in organisational analysis, instructed his students that analysis began with the question ‘what is this organisation’s racket?’ The answer directs our attention to the activities that must be put in train with systems of coordination and control if it is to succeed. There is no one master plan for organising; structures have to be tailored to match the characteristics of the activities.
For the Catholic the Church is not an organisation like a political party, trade union or charitable NGO. Certainly it has a vision it wishes to see implemented, it does have interests it seeks to defend and it engages in a wide range of charitable activities.
These are the aspects that attract the attention of the outsider. But for the believer the Church is first and foremost the source of sacraments. When we think of sacraments we think especially of the liturgical rituals of Baptism and the Eucharist. We should, however, also think of the Church as a Sacrament.
Vivian Boland recalls his confrere, Fr Herbert McCabe OP’s definition of a sacrament: “A Sacrament is a sacred sign, by which we worship God, his message is revealed to us, and his saving work accomplished in us. In the Sacrament God shows us what he does and does what he shows us.”
The Messiah comes as ‘Priest, Prophet and King’. These three ‘offices’ or as we might think of them, roles with associated tasks combine to make the Church a Sacrament.
Prophetic
The priestly brings us into God’s presence, the prophetic teaches us his word, while the Kingdom realises his authority. Each office has its own character and distinctive perspective proper to its tasks. The perspectives must be coordinated and harmonise among them, found.
This cannot be accomplished by rigid bureaucracy. While the Church is, indeed, hierarchical, it is not so in the manner of the modern bureaucracy. The organisational form called ‘the network’ is a closer fit.
St John Henry Newman places these three offices at the centre of his teaching on the Church. In his Via Media he draws a link between the priest and the consolations of belief, the prophet and reason and the kingdom and authority. Given human fallibility and sinfulness, consolation can degenerate into superstition, reason into rationalisation and authority into tyranny. All three defects have marked the Church.
Danger
There is another danger. All organisations must manoeuvre in the world about them, gaining the power and establishing the good relations that keep them in business and allow them prosper. The Church is no exception and efforts to preserve its power and secure its interests can tempt it down paths that comprise its mission. Clerical sex abuse scandals are the most obvious example.
Concern to protect the good name of its institutions took priority over the protection of the innocent, the care of victims, and the punishment of offenders. The temptations of co-option into the ruling elite while less commented upon are just as damaging. They weaken, perhaps even silence, the Church’s witness against structures of social and economic oppression.
I have concentrated on how Boland helps us account for the organisational dimension of the Church. This help comes from his theological reflections that are the heart of the book.
These are drawn, though not exclusively, from Aquinas. Dense thoughts presented in elegant and lucid prose, they give the readers much to ponder on as they are guided to deeper appreciation of the mystery of God and his embodiment in human history accomplished in his Church.