Back to New Perspectives
Main Page
These are EXCERPTS ONLY. To
get the full story every three months,
please
subscribe to New
Perspectives for only $14 per year!
Spring 2000
Proloquium
Welcome to the second issue of New
Perspectives: The Church in the Post-Modern World.
The Most Reverend Francis Facione, Presiding Bishop
of the journal's publisher -- the Old Roman
Catholic Church in North America -- and I were
gratified by the overwhelmingly positive response
to the Winter 2000 launch issue. We wish to thank
all who contributed to it in content and guided it
in a philosophy that balances reverence of
orthodoxy with receptiveness to reasoned change. We
continue that philosophy in this, the Spring 2000
issue, with columns and features that celebrate
traditional Catholicism while provoking a better
understanding of what, exactly, it is and how both
the left and the right are endangering it. We
variously term this endangerment "Crisis in the
Church", and as in our launch issue, which focused
on the crisis of Christian disunity, we feature in
this issue another critical challenge confronting
the Church: the question of authority.
In an interview
Bishop Facione and I conducted last September,
Roman Catholic author and scholar Father Anthony R.
Kosnik of Marygrove College gave his perspective of
papal authority, how John
Paul II has exercised it -- not always for the
better -- and how it must be rearticulated in the
interests of Church unity and Christian
reunification. (See, "The Question of Papal
Authority: Will the next
pope restore full collegiality? Can he afford not
to?" p. 14.) As Old Roman Catholics, we recognize
the Bishop of Rome as the head of the Church. But,
along with many in the Roman
and Orthodox Churches, we also call for a
return to the historic collegial model of rule in
which the pope recognized the authority of the
bishops in local matters and governed in
consultation with them.
Indeed, until the mid-19th century papal
pronouncements were considered infallible only when
the pope spoke in council with the bishops. It is a
restoration of these historic
understandings of papal authority and
infalliblity that we encourage in the interest of
bridging long-standing divides between the various
Catholic bodies and Rome. Father Kosnik's remarks
clearly articulate the
urgent need to do so. In keeping with a balanced
perspective, our own Father Charles P. Wolff issues
a caution against excessive liberalization of
authority in a timely article,
"Obedience: The Forgotten Vow" ( p. 8).
In the second of
our two features, Part II of "Conversations With
Father" (p.10), Bishop Facione allows us a rare,
intimate glimpse of his life as Presiding Bishop of
the Old Roman Catholic
Church -- both the best and worst aspects of
his job. He also speaks candidly (the only way he
speaks!) about his hope of greater
"interdependence" among the disparate bodies within
the Old Catholic movement.
Moreover, in his regular column, Deus Caritas
(p.3), he calls on all Catholics to set aside
internecine quarrels and unite in combating growing
anti-Catholic bigotry,
particularly the most virile forms
promulgated in the ranks of Christian
fundamentalism. Every concerned Catholic will want
to read his commentary and that of our inimitable
Bishop Raphael J. Adams, who
in The Last Word (p. 25), recounts the "trauma" of
growing up Catholic in Baptist country.
My personal message to all Christians is "Wake
up!" While we're busy squabbling with one another,
the freedom of religion that we take for granted is
under attack by secularists and
eroding at an alarming rate. But according
to Kenneth R. Craycraft, Jr., author of the 1999
Spence Publishing release, The American Myth of
Religious Freedom (Bookshelf, p. 20), that freedom
may not really exist. Further, Craycraft makes an
astonishing but compelling argument that the
Founding Fathers never intended that it should.
Only a few years in existence,
Spence Publishing of Dallas,
Texas has consistently brought the work of
original, provocative, and decidedly non-PC
thinkers to the discussion of culture and religion,
and this particular offering is no
exception. It's a tough but must-read for
orthodox Christians who, too readily assuming that
this nation's founding philosophy and legal
institutions are on their side, unknowingly comply
in perpetuating a myth that marginalizes them. (See
also: Notes from the PMZ p. 23). As Saint Catherine
of Siena reminded us (Secrets of the saints, p.
18), truth -- God's Truth -- is our
salvation.
Speaking of truth, Bishop Patrick H. King asks,
"Are We Truly An Easter People?" (p.6), and
challenges us to legitimate our claim to that title
through soul-strengthening spiritual
exercise that lasts not just
through Lent but all year long. And golfers, you'll
love his Tiger Woods analogies!
Lastly, I'd like to thank all those readers who
have affirmed New Perspectives with subscriptions.
We hope many of you will attend our fall symposium
in Louisville, Kentucky: "The
Church in Crisis". We've lined up an
exciting roster of speakers with differing
perspectives who will ensure a day of lively debate
and discussion. For more information, see the form
on the inside front cover, or call (502)
368-0871. --
Valerie
Kane
|
