I’ve frequently encountered Fr. Dwight Longenecker’s commentaries at Crisis Magazine, but he also has a blog (“Standing on my Head”) at Patheos, in which he recently presented his list of “Ten Things That Are Killing the Family”.1
What interests me about this particular article is not so much his list of ailments but Fr. Longenecker’s conclusion, in which he suggests what the Church should do to combat the “brokenness” in its midst:
It is impossible to reverse the global, societal shifts that have taken place, and the irony is that the one thing that can help mend the brokenness is the very thing that is broken so badly–the family.
This is where the church can play a role. If we realized the brokenness we might work harder to build stronger church communities where the broken individuals of the broken family might find a welcome and a sense of belonging.
Unfortunately most of our church communities are also broken by many of the same factors that have broken the family.
Nevertheless, by being aware of the problem we can, in our own way, do the best we can to offer hospitality, reach out to those who are isolated and in need, and try to mend the broken hearts and try somehow by building what strong families we can, to show the way to true human love and unity.
Fr. Longenecker would count himself, I believe, as a “traditionalist,” and as such he is presumably unhappy with Pope Francis and with the recent Synod of Bishops which has caused such a kerfuffle in the Catholic pews. But by recommending that church communities offer “welcome and a sense of belonging” to otherwise "isolated" people suffering from their own and others’ brokenness: isn’t Fr. Dwight saying precisely what Pope Francis is saying and what the pope’s allies are promoting?
Whatever the factors which lead to brokenness (and they are always myriad, complex, and socio-cultural as much as individual), the Christian answer throughout the centuries has always been—at least in theory—the same simple but agonizingly difficult thing: unconditional love. Love is what heals; love is what recalls prodigals to the fold and a loving embrace is what keeps them there. Stigmatizing and excluding the broken—excluding, that is, sinners—is a formula for irrelevance, because everyone is broken; and such exclusion is un-Christian besides, since the Church is called not to judge but to love everyone and to let God sort them out, the sheep from the goats and the wheat from the tares.
The sainted Augustine of Hippo, centuries ago, headed a church community in northern Africa which was opposed by a rival Christian faction—the Donatists—whose claim was that it was more “pure” and therefore more legitimate than Augustine’s community. The purity in that instance had nothing to do with sexuality or with marriage; it had to do with alleged apostasy in the face of Roman persecution. The Donatists were rigorists who insisted apostates (and those baptized by them) had no place in the true Church; Augustine and his community, by contrast, believed in forgiveness and inclusion. We know which church, and which approach, prevailed--in that case, at least.2
Whatever you think of Fr. Longenecker’s diagnosis of the modern family, its ills and the causes of those ills, his prescription for healing is inarguably correct: welcome, hospitality, outreach, and an effort to lovingly mend the hearts and lives that are broken.
Maybe Pope Francis isn't such a heretic after all? Maybe, so long as the focus is on mending rather than merely denouncing the brokenness, there's no need for a Catholic schism?
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1http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/ten-things-that-are-killing-the-family#ixzz3HTmsk2rf
For what it's worth, the Ten Things That Are Killing the Family, in the order in which Fr. Longenecker presents them, are: (1) Increased mobility; (2) Increased educational standards; (3) Suburban living; (4) The loss of the living wage; (5) No-fault divorce; (6) The Pill; (7) Marriage as self-fulfillment; (8) The rise of feminism and homosexualism; (9) Poor catechesis on sexuality; and (10) Relativistic morality. Feel free to differ, to add or to subtract; I for one think that "relativistic morality" is a tired red herring, and I'd like to know why "consumer capitalism" and "the media" aren't included on this list of culprits. I'd also like to point out that the Church's "poor catechesis on sexuality" might be improved if it weren't solely the work of male celibates.
2 For more on the Donatist controversy, read James O’Donnell’s AUGUSTINE; or, if you prefer, check out the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donatism
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