news of crisis in the RC church, from LifeSite News

It's getting serious for those folks...
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinio...e-reconciled-with-the-crisis-we-see-around-us

"Given the dramatic division amongst those who call themselves Catholics, it is clear that we are faced with an enormous problem. The problem is that this division in the profession of faith amongst persons claiming to be Catholic appears to contradict the Church’s own teaching."

 

Paul's letter to the Galatians should guide us. Galatians 1:6-10: "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ."

 

As remiss as I am to defend the Roman Catholic church, S. D. Wright's argument seems quite shallow. Don't get me wrong, if they want to expel all the people in the Personal Ordinariate in the blind pursuit of Catholic unity, and send them back to the welcoming arms of the Anglican Communion I have no problems with that.

That being said, I'll unpack the faulty argument anyway, because I think unpacking this claim has applications in testing similar tensions around disunity in the Anglican Church - which I'm sure we'll all agree given modern developments around women's ordination and gay marriage is in a state of greater disunity than the Roman Catholic Church is in because of Pope Francis's reforms.

No church, or any other association of man so broad in belief, can ever exist with a singular, cohesive opinion amongst all its membership. Putting the burden on the RC church that it is in a state of crisis if there is ever any internal disparate opinion is absurd, and goes against the entire history of the RC church - all the way through to the early church which was very divided in belief. The divisions that do exist in the RC church, as they are manifested, hardly seems to meet the criteria of disunity as outlined in the article itself. The article quotes Rhodes (1870), whom I'm unfamiliar with but I quite like this definition of disunity anyway, as follows:

Though they may be utter strangers to each other in the flesh, and divided in temporal position as far as men can be divided from their fellow-men, there will be found one and the self-same faith, one and the self-same rule of morals, the self-same sacraments, and the self-same belief respecting those sacraments; there will be found but one mind, one heart, and one voice, as regards all the doctrines and commandments of the Church. This is unity, and it is divine; it is no mere human coincidence or contrivance. The finger of God is here, reversing the confusion of Babel.​

And so through that claim we have a test for disunity:

1. Do Roman Catholics share the same faith?
   Yes, of course - that being a faith in one God; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
   
2. Do Roman Catholics share the same doctrines and commandments?
   Yes, of course. If they didn't they would call themselves something else. By labelling themselves Catholics and attending Roman Catholic Mass they are signalling that shared belief. Of course we can debate how many practicing Roman Catholics actually hold true to every one of those doctrines, but having unpious members of your church does not mean your church is not unified. It only lacks unity if those members were to begin advocating that those doctrines are invalid or unnecessary (e.g. if a sect of Roman Catholics began rejecting the doctrine of Papal Supremacy). No such division exists, and I would argue if one was to arise those people in division would stop calling themselves Roman Catholics - as the Anglican Church did.
   
3. Do Roman Catholics practice the same sacraments?
   Yes, of course - that is self evident in their Roman Catholic baptism, their choice to attend Roman Catholic Mass over the mass of other churches, their Roman Catholic weddings as opposed to other forms of weddings, and so on.
   
4. Do Roman Catholics share the same belief in those sacraments?
   This is harder to test, and Wright does some work in proving this breach by citing polls on Catholic belief about transubstantiation - that is near 70% of Catholics don't believe in transubstantion, with a whopping 37% even saying they know their opinion is in opposition to RC teaching. Joyous gloating that the holy spirit guides even Roman Catholics to the truth regarding the Eucharist aside, I still don't think that unpious followers is evidence of disunity. There is no public movement within the Roman Catholic church to alter the Eucharist, so I'm not convinced the consensus indicated in the poll is evidence of disunity. The matter of transubstantion took the Early and then Western church around 1200 years to rule upon, and I would argue there was no disunity in that 1200 years. The disunity came some 200-300 years later, reaching a zenith with Luther kicking off the Protestant reformation. In that light the disunity is only manifested when that lack of shared belief takes a specific form. Absent there being a sect of Roman Catholics demanding a change in the liturgy around Mass, or denying Confirmation as a sacrament or something to that effect it seems there is no disunity from a lack of shared belief.
   
5. Do Roman Catholics share the same rule of morals?
   And herein is the obvious point of attack. By the strictest possible interpretation the Roman church is not unified on questions of morality, but the church has never been in complete unity on issues of morality at any point in history - see for example the intense disagreement on the morality of human desire and impulse, and its products (e.g. sex) between Augustine and Pelagius (obviously before Pelagius was excommunicated for different reasons). Given Rhodes made this claim in light of his opinion that the Roman Catholic church was unified, such a strict burden cannot be the burden a church must meet to be unified. Rather I would interpret this rule, without having read any other part of Rhodes' work, as being "the same rule of morals as explictly outlined in scripture". It seems a bit cheap, and a very Anglican reading of a Catholic's argument, but this allows us to exclude secular questions of morality that are impossible to have religious unity on (e.g. Marxist ethics on the ownership of property) and also reconcile that Christians have always had different views on the morality of some things possibly implied but not explicitly detailed by scripture such as the morality of chastity and celibacy, or the morality of violent penance (e.g. self-flaggelation). The test becomes the exclusive question on if the church is unified on opinion with respect to morality proscribed in scripture. Here the test is murky for Anglicans as some do claim that certain modern positions are rebuked by scripture (no comment on if that's right or not), but I'm not convinced that Francis's reforms can be fairly defined as in contradiction with the plain reading of scripture. On that basis, we cannot define the Roman Catholic Church as in crisis.

Anyway, now that I've done all of that I've sort of changed my mind on the value of applying a similar test to the Anglican Church. A focus on such a definition of unity seems like an uneccessary distraction, but I've already invested the time so I may as well post it.

 

There is a point of difference here that needs to be underlined. I would argue that many Roman Catholics have begun to define the third Person of the Trinity as a 'she'. I've seen this even among those high up in the hierarchy. While not a first-order disagreement like a denial of the Holy Ghost, it nevertheless admits to a second-order difference of understanding in the nature of the Trinity itself.

This, plus the moral differences, and a chaos in sacramental understandings, shows me that there's a substantial qualitative disunity in the Roman church, on all conceivable levels. Just about the only thing uniting them is the putative label of members of the Roman Church (regardless of understandings and doctrines they actually hold). And that label is as strong as the paper-thin label uniting us with the Episcopalians; namely, it is little more than air. The Episcopal Church is part of a different type of community, arguably not even a church anymore, properly speaking. And so Rome increasingly (although not yet universally) is coming to a point where they would not be plausibly identified as a church anymore, but (like the Episcopal Church), rather something else entirely.

 

This is novel to me. Do you have anywhere I can look at, or any RC bishops/cardinals I can look into that describe the Holy Spirit as feminine?

 

The discussion of the reference to the Holy Spirit in the feminine, may indeed reflect the Hebrew case gender of rhua which is feminine. That, of course, does not outright determine the matter. However given that in Genesis 1 which begins with the Spirit of God brooding over the waters, we find the creation of humanity you find 'So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."

Article 1 of the Thirty Nine Articles tells us: "There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." The phrase 'without body parts or passions' should let us move the discussion of the divine above gender.

Enemy of Apathy
She sits like a bird, brooding on the waters, Hovering on the chaos of the world’s first day;
She sighs and she sings, mothering creation, Waiting to give birth to all the Word will say.

She wings over earth, resting where she wishes, Lighting close at hand or soaring through the skies;
She nests in the womb, welcoming each wonder, Nourishing potential hidden to our eyes.

She dances in fire, startling her spectators, Waking tongues of ecstasy where dumbness reigned;
She weans and inspires all whose hearts are open, Nor can she be captured, silenced or restrained.

For she is the Spirit, one with God in essence, Gifted by the Saviour in eternal love;
She is the key opening the scriptures, Enemy of apathy and heavenly dove.​

The hymn Enemy of Apathy, by John Bell and Graham Maule, suggests that it is not simply Roman Catholics who have embraced un understanding of the divine which has a sense of gender inclusivity, rather than a purely patriarchal concept.

You may find these references useful

http://www.syriacstudies.com/2016/0...e-in-early-syriac-literature-sebastian-brock/

https://www.researchgate.net/public...hristian_testimonies_and_their_interpretation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_of_the_Holy_Spirit

I don't think I have any specifically Catholic references to the matter, however I do think that there is some ancient and venerable support for the idea. It is not a matter that causes me great consternation.

 

Thanks for the response! I'm familiar with the historical use, but I thought Roman Catholic doctrine mandated the use of masculine pronouns in Latin and English.

 

Welcome among us, by the way. I am not at all sure on any mandates.

 

That phrase about body parts or passions merely reflects the philosophical principles of classical theism, namely, "Divine Simplicity" (that God is one simple thing, that he is identical with his attributes; love = wrath = justice, etc); and "Divine Impassibility" (that God does not experience emotions except in an analogical sense).

For the gender of the Holy Ghost, it's an uphill battle to resist the fact that our Lord himself referred to the holy Ghost as a he:

John 14:25: “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.


As for Catholics referring to the Holy Ghost as female, Scott Hahn wrote a book First Comes Love, proposing to refer to Him as a She.

Another source: https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-should-i-say-to-a-priest-who-refers-to-god-as-he-or-she
"Question: The priest who teaches our RCIA class refers to God as "he or she" and expresses open-mindedness about women priests. What can I say to him?"

Another: https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2019/08/09/catholicism-masculine-and-feminine/
"I myself suspect the Holy Spirit gets less attention because nobody is quite sure what pronoun to use in connection with Him/Her/It."

 

Actually John, who recorded this saying of Jesus also referred to The Holy Spirit as 'it' rather than 'he'. John 1:32 RSV.

It's interesting that I couldn't find any case of unclean spirits being referred to as 'he' or 'she' but always as 'it', so it probably is not a gender definition specifically applicable to spirits. However The Holy Spirit is not just any old spirit. The Holy Spirit is God and, as we have already discussed at length elsewhere, God is ONE God but has three distinct means of manifestation to human beings. God is Spirit, not flesh. The Trinity is God and the Trinity has no gender or perhaps both genders, (we may speculate which of those options may be so, but not know), since both male and female human beings are made in God's image and likeness, I think it perhaps more likely to be both.

It seems disrespectful to me to refer to The Holy Spirit as 'it'; purely because The Spirit of God is HOLY. It matters not to me if The Holy Spirit is referred to as 'he' or as 'she' but I prefer 'he' simply because we have scriptural presedent for such. John 14:17, John 14:25-26.

I think the term 'he' is more a term of respect though, than specifically a definition of gender. The Spirit of God 'hovering' over the waters evokes a brooding caring feminine image for me, just as does Luke 13:34-35.
.

 

The interesting thing about that is, the pronoun appears to have been added by translators.
From the KVJ+ ....
AndG2532 JohnG2491 bare record,G3140 saying,G3004 I sawG2300 theG3588 SpiritG4151 descendingG2597 fromG1537 heavenG3772 likeG5616 a dove,G4058 andG2532 it abodeG3306 uponG1909 him.G846
The Greek word correspoding to concordance # 3306 is:
menō
men'-o
A primary verb; to stay (in a given place, state, relation or expectancy): - abide, continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain, stand, tarry (for), X thine own

This word, meno, in John 1:32 does not have an adjoining pronoun of he, she, or it. The reason the translators add a pronoun in English is to provide consistent English verb tense; one does not say, 'I saw the Spirit descending and remained,' even though (for all I know) in ancient Greek this change of tense might have been okay. I did spot one English translation (Murdock) that translates this as, "descend...and rest," which does away with the need to add a pronoun.

 

ἐκεῖνος • (ekeînos) (Epic, Attic, Koine)

1. (demonstrative) that
   1. (of place, to indicate something farther from the speaker) there
   2. (of time, to indicate something farther in the past)
      1. (to indicate something previously mentioned)
      2. (in contrast to οὗτος (hoûtos)) the former
   3. (of someone or something famous or infamous)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ἐκεῖνος

And a second resource.

https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G1565&t=KJV

I have specifically avoided getting into this argument. There seems to me to be some support for masculinity, femininity, and neutrality. I have observed in the current climate their is a strong voice promoting the feminine understanding of the Holy Spirit in order to promote various causes politic in the Church, including the dismantling of the Patriarchal sub context of the story of faith.

In terms of the Christian Faith I don't see any great need to ascribe gender to the divine. The complexity for us is when we are talking about our relationship with God, so in a sense the ascription of personhood, is meaningful, and personhood suggests gender lest we fall into abstraction. The point is it is the relationship that matters, not the divine gender. This was the point I was hinting at when I referred us back to the creation of humankind in the Genesis 1 account.

 

It seems pretty simple. As Anglicans we look to scripture and we look to tradition after scripture. The early church always refereed to any person of the Trinity in the masculine and so should we. Scripture refers to God the Father, and Jesus the Son so it flows naturally that the Holy Spirit is also a male.

 

I am not sure that it is always simple, however I take the point and have argued it before, that we rely on Scripture in the context of tradition and reason.

This of course is not so convincing when you provide a blanket statement. Basil the Great, in his work On the Holy Spirit seems very careful to avoid using any pronouns for the Holy Spirit.

I don't follow this line of argument. It reminds me of Dave Hughes (Australian Comedian) who argued 'Of course God is a man, after all God is a boys name.'

Perhaps the big question here might be, Why does the gender of the Holy Spirit matter?

 

I have no doubt in my mind at all that a number of the Church Fathers used the masculine pronoun as a matter of course in discussing the Holy Spirit. You made the claim always, and I clearly referenced one significant Church Father writing specifically on the subject of the Holy Spirit who clearly seems to avoid using the masculine pronoun. I am not completely convinced that the bulk of the witness of the Fathers intend to impute gender to the Holy Spirit, even if they use the masculine pronoun.

In earlier times when we less gender obsessed, it was common enough to refer to men, when indeed we meant humankind. The classic example of this is in the Nicene Creed where the at least one translation renders it "who for us men, and for our salvation" and we all know that there is absolutely the inclusion of women in the intent. I note the ECCL text used in An Australian Prayer Book, together with Common Worship renders this 'For us and for our salvation', which I think better renders the original.

 

And John bore witness, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. NKJV (Isa.11:2, Acts 10:38)
And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. ESV.
And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. KJV.
Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. NIV.
And John testified, saying--`I have seen the Spirit coming down, as a dove, out of heaven, and it remained on him; Youngs Literal Version.
And John bare witness, saying, I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven; and it abode upon him. ASV.
Then John told about seeing the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descending from heaven and resting upon Jesus. The Living Bible.

There seems to be some disagreement among translators concerning whether the Greek says this dove looked like a male dove 'he' or just a dove 'it'.
.

 

I saw a mourning dove today. I couldn't tell its sex, and it didn't volunteer info... Yet I'm reasonably sure it wasn't an "it!"

I think we both just 'flew the coop.'

 

Nevertheless, ALL the Fathers need not be right, if they are trying to state that the Spirit of God is exclusively male. It is far more likely that since 'The Church Fathers' were all men, to a man, so to speak, they naturally would have assumed that The Holy Spirit would be at least, if not more authoritative than they themselves, so they could not have possibly even contemplated the Holy Spirit having any female attributes, since that would have rendered the Holy Spirit of God subservient and inferior to themselves, who were made, (according to their understanding of scripture), in the male image of God or in the image of a male God. I happen to think they did not intend to imply maleness by using the word 'He' when referring to The Holy Ghost. The less charitable alternative view would be that misogyny was still rife in the church having been carried over from the Judaism and Paganism from which they had been supposedly extracated through The Christian Faith, and they were still guilty of making a God in their own image.
.

 

I can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Holy Spirit is not female: the Holy Spirit doesn't nag or get bossy!