A Protestant Reflection on Pope's Visit

Watching Pope delivering a Mass at Westminster Cathedral I can't help being overwhelmed by the aesthetic/spiritual experience of the liturgy, especially the combination of the Choir's excellent singing together with the sound of the Orchestra, and the incredible architectural features of the largest Catholic Cathedral in England.

The events of Papal visit in Britain make me think of my attitude towards Catholicism. Coming from an atheist family, growing up in the secularized surrounding where the largest faith is Roman Catholic, and thinking as someone who has initially converted to a quite anti-Catholic form of Protestantism and has gradually become a moderate into my theologically adult life, I can only offer a highly coloured set of impressions.

While I am constantly discovering 'new' resources in Catholic tradition for my own thought and religious experience (in terms of music, architecture etc.), I am in a deep disagreement with Catholic version of Christianity. It is not just the RC stance social issues which are constantly flagged up in the media, like the simplistic rejection of women priests, gays, condoms and alike which I find troublesome. More problematic are the very basic beliefs in the authority of Roman Bishop, Roman Catholic Tradition (so clearly led by earthly powers of most oppressive kinds), the theological views on other Churches and Christians who are "extra-ecclesiam", naive metaphysical realism and a reluctance of Roman theology to incorporate the relevant insights of contemporary culture. Medieval essentialist views on human nature, cosmos and God are over and out for centuries. Christ-event, salvation and "living, moving and being in God" as real, experiential dimension of faith life today cries very loudly for different philosophical underpinnings than those offered by official Roman Catholic theology.

Of course, there are Roman Catholic thinkers who do engage with culture, science, with faith experience and God-reality in new and creative ways which rise above the traditional metaphysics to which traditional Roman Catholic Church teaching is enslaved. Charles Taylor, Tomas Halik (whom I 'discovered' quite recently, I am ashamed to say), and indeed, my superviser Mark Wynn, are among such Catholic thinkers which I really admire and learn from. But I see them, similarly as some liberal protestants, as walking on the edges of Catholic faith and expanding the very notion of Roman Catholicism.

I suppose that the main issue is still to what extent one can believe that Roman Catholic tradition contains by and large a correct, or at least a credible interpretation of God, Jesus, the Bible and the continuing manifestation and work of the Holy Spirit in the world and Universe. The British Conservative MP Anne Widdecombe has explained it very well, I think, as she was commenting the preparations for the Pope's mass in the Westminster Cathedral. She said that the crucial decision is whether you believe that the Pope really speaks the Truth when he speaks Ex Cathedra, and whether he therefore offers the proper interpretation of Christianity. Understandably, she said that this step, to accept the authority of the Pope, is the most difficult but crucial step from which everything else follows.

I am utterly unable to accept any kind of authority in theological matters in this way, "across the board", so that the interpretations and teaching will be true BECAUSE the person or organization whom I accept as authoritative teaches so. And there are simply so many reasons why not to believe that Pope has this kind of authority. So, while it is not so so hard to understand why those theologians and philosophers today who have 'always been' Roman Catholic still work inside their tradition (usually not accepting all, or many RC teachings) and in so doing actually enable its possible future development (if they are not virtually 'banned' inside the Church like Hans Kung, for ex.), it is not clear to me that honest thinking and openness for any kind of truth can be sustained, in a longer term, with a conservative, authoritarian interpretation of Christian faith offered by the official Roman Catholic teaching.