Why Won’t Bishops Talk With Us?

Apart from gold medals at Olympics or heart-warming stories of a kind person’s deeds, daily news is about opposition. If somebody says something and nobody objects; no news. If there is an objection, both are interviewed by glib pundits whose stated desire is to resolve differences; if not, then to fan the flames. Be it war, rebellion, taxes, offshore banks, a national debt terrifying in its solitude, rules and regulations for and against doing business, even the word of God and whatever theology God’s word enhances, if not supports.

Examples? Syria. American Presidential Campaign. College Football. The Speeding Bullet crashing as it tried to cross the country in an hour. Condoms kill procreation. Dad hoping for pancakes and bacon for breakfast, rather than one slice of wheat toast, no butter. Homosexuals are not human. Life itself, in all its aspects is, a contest of opposites, rather than a dull, boring still picture, without using a flash. Trial lawyers do not exist as a profession unless there are at least two sides In a case. If she stood so silent with expectancy hovering on her lips, then why did she slap my face when mine got closer, lips puckered? If guns kill people, and if people kill people, isn’t it simple to go on to people with guns kill people? In movie theatres, shopping centers, churches of minor denominations from foreign countries, as Christianity out of Europe once was.

Think on Theology, as an academic discipline if you will. For centuries, I guess, it has been taught in threes: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. What comes out the other end is Theology, a/k/a doctrine, dogma, decree. God’s word for man. One problem. To get to synthesis, a theology student must listen to the professor profess on and on about thesis and antithesis, and whoopsie-doo, pull synthesis out of his magician’s top hat. Note: it is a singularity.

Theology is the only academic discipline held together in the same infallibility by which it was begun: God said so. No other college course can make that claim, not even philosophy, once the immature child growing up to be theology. Mathematics might look like it comes close, but consider the answers doctoral candidates offer to the question: What will your thesis be on?

Along the way, minds have to wander in wonder, perhaps, to be silly about it all, in the lurking question: “Where on earth did this stuff come from?” The professor smiles, knowing full well that synthesis is irrefutable, as well as infallible, because he said so, and so did his teacher. Note, he got his degree, PhD or STD in Graduate School, and it was taught by eminent holders of the same degrees. They gave him the mystery of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Those who govern his church discard thesis and antithesis and rule that synthesis is infallible. And he said “Aha!” to their “Voila!”

          That is why Rome does not allow discussion. The Magisterium is frozen still, like a lake in the high Alps or the tundra of Siberia, or the ice island continent of Antarctica. As frozen as a Roman Dicastery or the Chapel of the Little Flower downtown. Ever drop into a bishop’s chancery, unable to take your topcoat off because of the silent chill throughout the building?

A few weeks ago, daring, dauntless scientists discovered the boson nicknamed The God Particle. Yesterday, the discovery of a Galaxy Universe, creating 700 stars a day, billions and billions of light years from us, was made by another group of eager scientists, long, long gone beyond thesis, antithesis, synthesis as an educative tool. Man wants to know. Man needs to know.

How, in God’s Name, can the church’s leaders say any of the following? “This is the Magisterium. That’s it. It is infallible, because we are infallible when we do theology. There is nothing further to know. Kneel and we will give you our blessing. Oh! And by the way, shut up or get out. ” Bishops protest that they do not act this way.

But, they do, don’t they? Just ask the LCWR, or an old man like myself. I could guess that I’m way off-base on Theology, but why won’t the Church let us talk together about what could very well be the most important topic of our lives?