I've long believed that the work of the historian is particularly challenging because historians, like the rest of us, are products of the times in which they live. The challenge arises from the tendency to assume that today's crises, successes and failures, those that one has experienced first-hand, are more important and more meaningful than those of the past. In other words, achieving historical objectivity must be difficult when one is bombarded by the products of this temporal bias.
One form of this bias results from the progressive idea that humanity is moving inexorably toward some sort of earthly nirvana. This bias is reflected in the all too common opinion that all aspects of the present -- its people, their achievements, their intelligence, their ideas -- are naturally superior to all that went before. To those afflicted by this bias, any organization or individual who looks to the past for inspiration or guidance is by definition misguided. For them, the Church, and especially the Catholic Church, because of its reliance on Scripture and Tradition, is the prime offender and the greatest obstacle to achieving the progressive ideal.
Another form of this bias seems to result from the natural psychological tendency to assume that the events we personally experience are more important than the events of the past simply because we are participants. Like the old spiritual, we all want to believe that "nobody knows the trouble I've seen." Just as the "war to end all wars" did exactly the opposite and brought us the devastation of World War II.
What led me to these early morning thoughts were comments I have heard and read recently about the challenges faced by the Church today. The sexual abuse scandal, the decrease in priestly vocations, the rejection of Church teaching by so many of its members, the empty churches in Europe, the cradle of Christendom, the specter of a resurgent and aggressive Islamic movement -- all of these things and more have led some to declare the imminent demise of the Catholic Church in particular and Christianity in general.
I expect to hear such comments from secular pundits and others outside the Church since they do not share our faith or our assurance in the promises of Jesus Christ to be "with you always, until the end of the age." But I hear these same sentiments of doom and gloom from some Catholics as well, and that disturbs me.
Some are obviously weak in their faith or they would take seriously the words and promises of Jesus Christ. But most also seem to lack an awareness of what the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church has been through during the 2,000 years since that first Pentecost in Jerusalem. The Church has survived crises far worse than those of the present.
Not long ago I read a marvelous little book by Fr. Walter Brandmüller, president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Science. His book,
Light and Shadows, explodes many of the myths and outright lies surrounding the history of the Catholic Church. In light of my comments above, let me quote Fr. Brandmüller as he reviews just a few of the crises faced by the Church in its history. It's a rather lengthy quote (p. 16-17), but well worth reading, as is the entire book.
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"It cannot be said, either, that the shepherds and members of the Church have always and everywhere reacted correctly to the challenges of history. On the contrary, many mistakes have been made that subsequently became notorious. For example, was it not disastrous that Pope Clement V allowed himself to be intimidated by the demands of the French king Philip and abandoned the order of Knights Templar, who as a whole were certainly innocent, to a downfall that was in large part bloody? Entire episcopates -- today we would say bishops' conferences -- fell into heresy during the Arian crisis of the fourth and fifth centuries. In the sixteenth century the bishops of England, with the exception of St. John Fisher, followed King Henry VIII into schism out of weakness and cowardness, and similarly the French episcopate, during the conflict over the freedom of the Church from the state, stood beside Louis XIV against the pope. For almost two centuries the French bishops promoted the heresy of Jansenism. There were not many exceptions. And how did the German bishops conduct themselves during the eleventh- and twelfth-century Investiture Controversy? In 1080 a majority of the German bishops, under the influence of Emperor Henry IV, made an attempt at a synod in Brixen to depose Pope Gregory VII and to elect an antipope. Those German bishops who found themselves confronted with the religious division of the sixteenth century no doubt failed in large measure, too.
"Truly, all of this does not make for glorious pages in the ecclesiastical chronicles. In the end, therefore, we cannot place our trust in the wisdom and power of the shepherds, either. No promise was ever made to the Church that her shepherds and her faithful would be irreproachable or capable. What her Founder, the God-man Jesus Christ, did guarantee, nevertheless, is that she will continue unshakably and stand fast immovably in the truth until his return at the end of time. This means that the Church can never proclaim an error in matters of faith whenever she speaks in a form that is ultimately binding; that her sacraments always produce their characteristic effects of grace, provided that they are administered according to the Church's directions; and that her hierarchical-sacramental structure comprising the ministries of primacy, episcopacy and priesthood will always be maintained intact. Precisely thereby it is guaranteed that the graces of redemption will continue to be availalble to the people of all generations, until the Lord comes again."
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Yes, the Church has survived crises far worse than those we are experiencing today. And who but God knows what she will have to face in the future? The one thing we do know is that she will survive until the end of time. We know this because Jesus promised it.
God's peace...
And remember that glorious day when the Holy Spirit descended on those gathered in that locked upper room in Jerusalem? On that first Pentecost, Peter and the others, filled with the Spirit, went out into the streets of the city praising God and preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ to all they met. Because it was the Jewish feast of Pentecost, the city was filled with Jewish pilgrims (who were probably joined by a good number of righteous Gentiles) from throughout the Roman Empire. On that day the Apostles baptized 3,000 new Christians who would return to their cities taking their new faith and the Good News with them [Acts 2:41]. Following Jesus' command the Church began the work of making "disciples of all nations, baptizing them...teaching them..." [Mt 28:19-20] As Pope Benedict XVI has made clear, it wasn't just the local Church of Jerusalem that was born that day. It was the universal Church, the worldwide Church, the Catholic Church. And it got its start thanks to the Jews.
. Here's a video that provides an overview:
