On Very Belatedly Hearing About Richard McBrien's Passing Into Eternity

Even when I was at my most estranged from the Catholic Church, I made it a point to read Fr. Richard McBrien's column in my mother's Church World, the now, sadly, defunct Maine Catholic weekly newspaper.  I had somehow missed that Richard McBrien died last January.   Though I know him mostly from his many columns, he was an important Catholic theologian who also wrote some very good books about Catholic history - .  In his Times obituary was this description.

“No Catholic theologian in the United States has made a larger contribution to the reception of Vatican II than Richard McBrien did,” the Rev. Charles E. Curran, a professor of human values at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said in an interview on Tuesday.

For those who aren't familiar with him or vaguely remember him, here's another passage from the obituary.

“At his peak in the 1980s and ’90s,” The National Catholic Reporter said in its obituary, “it is arguable that McBrien had a higher media profile than anyone in the Catholic Church other than Pope John Paul II. He was the ideal interview: knowledgeable, able to express complex ideas in digestible sound bites, and utterly unafraid of controversy.”

That fearlessness manifested itself in his outspoken support for the ordination of women as priests, the repeal of obligatory celibacy and the acceptance of birth control; his defiance of the papal doctrine of infallibility; and his willingness to publicly confront the crisis of pedophilia in the priesthood. (He called for the resignation of Cardinal Bernard F. Law of Boston shortly after it was revealed in 2001 that he had kept abusive priests working in parishes. Cardinal Law stepped down in December 2002.)

That he was able to retain his post at Notre Dame University, outmaneuvering his many critics among wealthy Catholics and the clique of right wing, anti-pastoral Vatican insiders during the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI who pushed out and silenced other theologians, such as Charles Curran,  is an indication of how smart and politically astute he was.

Father McBrien was never formally rebuked for his forthrightness, but since the 1990s, a number of diocesan newspapers had dropped his column. The Committee on Doctrine of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, reviewing his book “Catholicism” in 1996, complained that it made “inaccurate or at least misleading” statements that allowed or stimulated readers “to make a choice” about the virgin birth of Jesus, homosexuality, women’s ordination and other doctrines.

Father McBrien had anticipated that criticism. “There is only one Christian faith,” he wrote, “but there have been literally thousands of beliefs held and transmitted at one time or another” — some of which endured, while others “have receded beyond the range of vision or even of collective memory.”

I think he generally knew more about the Catholic Church and its history than his critics.  If their suspicion that he would be able to answer them out of that history and out of tradition protected him would be interesting to know.

He was also very insightful about American culture and its relationship with the Catholic tradition.  I don't have many of his columns saved but here is one I saved from the October 13, 1994 Church World, one in which he uses a number of terms, "individualism" "counterculture" in ways that show how the connotation of words can mask their less than honest use.

Individualism In American Culture 

One of the regular complaints of Catholic counterculturalists is that American society is permeated with individualism. While the counterculturalists' criticism may be generally sound, their understanding of individualism is not. It's too limited.

For Catholic counterculturalists, the Church is commendably countercultural when it opposes the ordination of women, because the culture unduly exalts the rights, dignity, and equality of women.

The Church is courageously countercultural when it opposes contraception, because the culture glorifies sexual permissiveness without the responsibility of parenthood.

The Church is defiantly countercultural when it opposes optional celibacy for its priests, because the culture favors sensual gratification over sacrifice.

The Church is bravely countercultural when it reaffirms its teachings on homosexuality, divorce, and abortion, because the culture separates sexuality from marriage, commitment, and the generation of human life.

Catholic counterculturalists tend to place such cultural tendencies under the umbrella of individualism. In their view, our culture is saying to us, "Do your own thing." But the countercultural Church says in sharp retort, "Be faithful to God's commandments, even when it hurts, because there is a higher good than the good of the individual."

Let us grant, for the sake of argument only, that each of the preceding examples (women's rights, sexual freedom, diversity of lifestyles, and so forth) is a manifestation of an excessive individualism in American culture, that each is in some way at odds with God's will, and that each, therefore, has to be resisted and opposed by the Church. 

But at least two questions are begged: Is there no more to individualism than its sexual and reproductive aspects? In taking their stand against individualism, have Catholic counterculturalists missed other socially harmful manifestations of it? 

A recent survey, conducted by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press (The New York Times, September 21, 1994), suggests that the American public has become less compassionate about the problems of the poor and minorities, and more "angry and self-absorbed." 

The study discloses a remarkable change in the attitudes of Americans on race and social welfare and a growing resentment against immigrants. Indeed, for the first time in the seven years of the Times-Mirror surveys, a majority of whites (51 percent) say now that equal rights have been pushed too far. Just two years ago, only 42 percent expressed that view. 

In 1992, 54 percent of whites thought that there had not been much real improvement in the situation of African-Americans. Two years later, that number has fallen to 44 percent. 

A similar decline has occurred in the matter of public support for social welfare. In 1992, 69 percent of those surveyed said it was the responsibility of government to take care of people who cannot take care of themselves. That number has also fallen in 1994 to 57 percent.

A spirit of individualism moves many Americans to oppose any version of health care reform that involves a raise in their taxes, even if the reform would make it possible for millions of uninsured citizens to have some form of health insurance.

A spirit of individualism moves many Americans to oppose any form of gun control, lest it infringe upon their personal right to maintain their own arsenal, even if the absence of gun control will cost thousands of innocent lives.

A spirit of individualism moves many Americans to oppose any restrictions whatever on their right to smoke cigarettes in public places, even if smoking raises healthcare costs and the price of products for everyone, and even if smoking is harmful to those who don't smoke, especially young children and those with breathing difficulties.

A spirit of individualism moves many Americans to oppose any tax-supported efforts to prevent crime by improving housing, education, and recreational facilities, even if the failure to do so would pose continued danger and harm to those who are economically trapped in high-crime areas.

A spirit of individualism moves many well-to-do Americans to oppose any change whatever in the Social Security system, even if they have no need for the income it provides and if millions of others would be left without resources should the system go bankrupt.

The examples could be multiplied. One has only to look at the social encyclicals of Pope John Paul II or the 1986 pastoral letter of the U.S. Catholic bishops to find many others.

Why is it, then, that Catholic counterculturalists are so limited in their own listing of examples of individualism? Why are their examples almost exclusively drawn from issues related to human sexuality and human reproduction?

Counterculturalists tend also to be politically conservative (or neo-conservative). Would that have anything to do with it?

If the Catholic Church is to be authentically countercultural, should it not be truly catholic in what it decides to oppose in the culture, regardless of political interests?

One would surely think so.

Many of Richard McBrien's columns can still be read at his website.   This most recent one, Year of the Nuns is a good place to start and work back in time.   There is no more genuine part of the Catholic tradition than economic justice and social justice.  I'll have more on that in the future.


Update:  Thinking about the changes in polling numbers Richard McBrien included in his column, I wonder if the decisive change in those might be due to the rise of 24-hour cabloid news in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War, which was CNN's great leap forward.   The Cabloids have had a steadily corrosive effect on American politics, promoting primarily the Republican right and libertarian stands in line with, first, Ted Turner's preferences and then the preferences of other rich owners.