Covenant of Civility?

Austen Ivereigh has an interesting article in America in which he calls for a "covenant of civility" amongst bloggers and also, I presume, he would include journalists and other commentators on the state of the Church.

I agee with him, at least in part, I often do. He also apologises for using the term "Taliban Catholics". I find that term distasteful but I think some bloggers and journalist, and commentators do tend towards the "Taliban", others are just "robust". So robust that I can't be bothered to read them, and I suspect few do.

I am less happy with Mr Ivereigh's suggestion that people should stop identifying dissent for what it is, after all the Pope himself said to our Bishops on their Ad Limina visit, "It is important to recognize dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate." Whether he meant "recognizing dissent" as being part of our Bishop's charism or something all Catholics should be involved in is matter of debate. Obviously for a Bishop to do so has more far reaching effects than a mere parish priest or a parent, they can decide whether a school or a newspaper or organisation may or may not describe themselves as Catholic.

Discerning what is authentically part of the Tradition and what dissent is, is part of Catholic life, identifying tendencies towards heresy is tool towards that discernment. Newman speaks of "magisterial intolerance" of error and falsehood, Ratzinger in Truth and Tolerance takes up the same theme. Culturally we might not be into the open confrontationalism, not for us the beard tugging of Nicea, or French walk outs or even the stern clear rebuke of a Bruskewitz or the honest refutation of a Pell. We are more into being Disgusted of Tonbridge Wells writing  letters or pamphleteering, or latterly blogging.

There are not a variety of Truths, there is only one, it is not obscured but plainly reveal as the person of Jesus Christ. St Paul tells Timothy "to call to obedience", ultimately that is a episcopal act but it is also something which belongs to all the faithful by virtue of their baptism. Speaking Truth unto Power is a Christian duty, it should part of taking up one's Cross. I think it is possible that Mr Ivereigh could be suggesting that the duty of lay and even clerical Catholics is simply to pray, pay and obey, I hope he is not. That just encourages rampant and abusive clericalism, whether it is from clergy themselves or their growing number professional catholic voices.

It was the failure to hold to account that lead to the crisis caused by cover-up following the abuse scandals, which . There are in the Church necessary tensions, Paul rebukes Peter publicly, and is happy to tell the story afterwards, yet he also seeks to be obedient and in communion with Peter in all things. If the Church in the last forty years lacks anything it is a loyal opposition. The fudging of the Masgisterium has lead to a catechetical and moral wasteland. Thank God for prophetic voices like Daphne McLeod who has demanded clear and authentic catechesis and John Smeaton who continuously points out the dangers of our anti-Life culture, and tendencies towards it in the life of the Church.

In many ways these and others are prophets, as are the various disgruntleds who follow in their wake, they are necessarily critics of bishops and clergy. They are a necessary source of scrutiny. Like John the Baptist they have a duty to make us uncomfortable. The bishops and clergy are called to hold in communion, to gather the broken and the weak, to work for conversion and consensus, to walk at a pace the flock as a whole can follow as the gently lead it onward. The role of the prophet is to be the lone voice in the desert, crying out aloud, rebuking, urging, condemning, even threatening, to point out dangers. It is often their role to be downright and uncivil, to actually get angry, even to be abusive; often of course this might well be sign of lunacy but one man's prophet is another man's nutter.