David QuinnThe wrong kind of synodality risks the Catholic Church fracturing like Anglicanism, writes David Quinn
A big concern for many conservative or orthodox-minded Catholics during the recent Synod on the Family is that the Catholic Church might be about to go down the same road that has been trodden by Anglicanism over the last few decades and which has led to that communion almost falling apart.
In response to this fact, in September the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby announced a special meeting of Anglican primates to take place in Canterbury in January.
The Guardian newspaper reported the development as follows: “The Archbishop of Canterbury is proposing to effectively dissolve the fractious and bitterly divided worldwide Anglican communion and replace it with a much looser grouping.
“Justin Welby has summoned all the 38 leaders of the national churches of the Anglican communion to a meeting in Canterbury next January, where he will propose that the communion be reorganised as a group of churches that are all linked to Canterbury but no longer necessarily to each other.”
Theologies
The reason for this move is that the various parts of the Anglican communion now adhere to very different theologies on a whole range of issues, the most divisive of which at present concerns human sexuality.
These theologies have become so different, so at odds, that Archbishop Welby appears to want to recognise formally what has been the case informally for some years now, namely that the Anglican communion to some extent exists only in name now. The Anglican Church in Nigeria, for example, effectively froze relations with the Anglican Church in America (the Episcopal Church) after it consecrated its first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in 2003.
Developments in theology to some extent mirror developments in society itself. Anglicanism has always allowed great liturgical variety but the theological stresses and strains that have existed before now did not threaten to tear Anglicanism apart until more recently because the various constituent parts of Anglicanism agreed on essential doctrinal matters such as the divinity of Christ (some very liberal theologians and clergy aside), and on essential moral matters such as the nature of marriage and human sexuality.
A blind eye was turned to the fact that some Anglican theologians, clergy and even a bishop or two did not believe in the divinity of Christ (for instance) because the vast majority of bishops around the world did. This allowed them to remain in communion with one another.
But the Anglican Communion in the West exists in a part of the world where a radical and still developing sex revolution exists that is now attacking the very meaning of marriage and indeed our understanding of human nature itself.
In the rest of the world, however, the older understanding of marriage and human nature holds, an understanding that is, of course, rooted in the Bible and in the natural law tradition.
A blind eye cannot be turned to this division because the issue has been forced to the front by the likes of the Episcopal Church with its consecration of Gene Robinson.
A large part of the Anglican Communion (comprising most of its active members) has declared that this move is such a radical break with the Bible that they cannot remain in communion with such a Church.
The more traditional parts of the Anglican Communion will have noted the fact that since the consecration of Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church, once the most influential Christian denomination in America, has lost a further 20% of its members. This is much faster than the rate of decline of Christianity in America overall.
Anglicanism in Britain is also declining fast, with the exception of its Evangelical wing.
Indeed, what is happening to the liberal wing of Anglicanism is happening to every liberal Church in the West.
Before Pope Benedict’s visit to Germany in 2011, it was noted with much glee in parts of the media that the Catholic Church in Germany is losing many of its members. The implication was that it was losing members because the Catholic Church is out of touch with the modern age.
It was not noted that the Lutheran Church in Germany, which is about the same size as the Catholic Church in Germany, and has advanced much further down the path of theological liberalism, is losing members at a higher rate. How can this be when it has done everything possible to be ‘in touch’ with the modern age?
Some of the same tensions that are tearing Anglicanism apart were visible to some extent at the recent synod in Rome between the same parts of the world.
Some of the European bishops in particular want the Church to change its pastoral approach towards those who do not conform to traditional morality. The Africans in particular were resistant to this.
Will synodality in the Catholic Church bring it further down the Anglican path which, as we have seen, is the path to disunity?
That depends, we must suppose, on how synodality develops and what part the Pope chooses to play in the process.
Archbishop Welby noted in September: “We have no Anglican Pope. Our authority as a Church is dispersed, and is ultimately found in Scripture, properly interpreted.”
He was referring to the fact that the Pope has far more authority within the Catholic Church than the Archbishop of Canterbury does within Anglicanism.
This ought to prevent the Catholic Church fracturing to the same extent as Anglicanism. All the same, the wrong kind of synodality is surely a recipe for growing disunity within the Catholic Church.
Paradoxically, this further tearing of the unity of the Churches is being driven first and foremost by theological liberalism, once the champion of Christian unity and now its greatest threat.