This is an inaugural post in a new series I’m calling “the Way in the wild.” The basic idea is to take a brief look at some current event in the Church and/or the culture in light of “the Way of heaven and earth” as I’ve presented it in my first book—that is, that (1) our greatest dilemmas are dilemmas between heaven and earth; (2) the resolution of these dilemmas is only in Christ, who is the Way of heaven and earth; and (3) the fullness of the Way is in the Catholic Church, which is defined by the “both/and” principle. My hope is that readers will come to appreciate this framework as a powerful hermeneutical tool—first, for recognizing these dilemmas for what they are, and second, as Larry Chapp aptly put it in our interview, for “negotiating” them.
Over the weekend, a headline from The New York Times almost immediately caught my attention: “As Cardinals Prepare to Elect a Pope, One Motto Is ‘Unity.’ That’s Divisive.” I am neither interested in nor trained for the fraught world of papal prognostication or Vatican realpolitik. Prayer—for Pope Francis, for the cardinal electors, and for the future pope—should be the Church’s primary task right now; beyond that, a certain naïveté about or even indifference to Rome’s machinations, rooted in a childlike trust in the Holy Spirit’s guardianship of Mother Church, seems like a safe bet. I have even less interest in monitoring and correcting the secular media’s narrative on the forthcoming conclave, which will always be half-baked and filtered through the narrow lens of American politics.
But what I hope to point out is how certain dilemmas of heaven and earth frame this debate that appears to be taking shape—and how the Way of heaven and earth can show us the way out of them.
Jason Horowitz’s piece, in sum, presents an emerging struggle of ideas unfolding presently in the college of cardinals as they gather in Rome: on the one side, a cry for “unity” represented by more “conservative” cardinals like Gerhard Ludwig Müller, and on the other, a call for “diversity” represented by more “liberal” cardinals like Michael Czerny. Müller, who has been critical of Francis, is quoted as saying that the cardinals need to “look for the unification of the church,” and that it is “necessary to speak about the division of the church today”; Czerny, a Jesuit closely in line with Francis, counters that while this “sounds really good,” unity is “the wrong track for the conclave” and not a “priority issue.”
At this point, Catholics tend to object that this sort of conservative-liberal categorization of the Church is unhelpful—and generally they’re right, insofar as its teachings and leaders are treated as isolated ideas or groups. The Catholic Church is not an ideology or an organization; it’s the Body of Christ. Nevertheless, it would be naïve not to admit certain tendencies and conflicts within this Body; indeed, this is the whole drama of the very paradox in question—namely, the Church’s unity-in-diversity.
So—assuming the accuracy of Horowitz’s reporting—what do we have? In short, two parallel dilemmas: conservative vs. liberal, and unity vs. diversity. The conservative side is oriented toward order—structure, stability, stasis; the liberal side is oriented toward openness—fluidity, flexibility, flux. The former has honed in on “unity” (Catholics coming together as one with uniformity, predictability, etc.) as the organizing principle for a future pontificate; the latter has honed in on “diversity” (Catholics unfurling as many with plurality, innovation, etc.).
Both of these dilemmas, I would argue, are heaven-earth dilemmas. Conservative order corresponds to a spiritual instinct to organize and discipline reality from the top down, while liberal openness corresponds to a physical instinct to embrace and mingle with reality from the bottom up. Likewise, “the one” corresponds, in the history of Western philosophy, to a divine realm of spirit beyond (or “beneath”) the world, while “the many” corresponds to our human experience of material objects. (For more on these, see chapters 7 and 15 in my book: “Being: The One or the Many” and “Society: Order or Openness.”) Thus, the call of the “conservative” cardinals for unity and the call of the “liberal” cardinals for diversity is a pull between the heavenly and the earthly.
Again, if we were talking about isolated ideological “camps,” we might find ourselves caught on the horns of a dilemma here. But all of these cardinals together profess the same Catholic faith, which follows the Way of heaven and earth inaugurated by the Incarnation (Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:20) and consummated through him in the new creation (1 Cor. 15:28; Rev. 21:1–8). Heaven and earth come together in Catholicism.
Thus, so do unity and diversity. In the Nicene Creed every Sunday, we declare, in unison, our belief in a Church that is both “one” and “catholic”—that is, both eternally inflexible in its doctrines (Jude 3) and endlessly variegated in its expressions (1 Cor. 12:4–11). This unity-in-diversity was articulated by Saint Paul and has governed the Church for two thousand years: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:12–13). Thus, all of these cardinals, both “conservative” and “liberal,” would of course embrace both unity and diversity.
We see hints of this in the article: Father Antonio Spadaro notes that there is “a lot in play” in the “very delicate balance” between unity and diversity, and that the next pope must “keep the two together.” And Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti adds that while “the lack of unity is always a disaster,” this “does not mean that everybody has to say the same thing”; there can be differences without a destructive “opposition.” It’s difficult to imagine that any of the quoted cardinals would disagree with these very Catholic ways of framing the stand-off—just as it’s difficult to imagine that they’d agree with the very un-Catholic headline that promoting “unity” is divisive. The Lord of heaven and earth himself, after all, prayed that believers might “all be one” (John 17:21).
What we see here are not distinct ideologies at war in the Church but emphases that meet in creative tension within it. Indeed, people uniquely gifted with drawing out one emphasis or the other are both necessary in order for the Body of Christ to flourish on the Way of heaven and earth. We shouldn’t shy away from these tensions—“here comes everybody” is one of the most beautiful things about being Catholic—but neither should we allow them to be framed as divisions.
Nevertheless, the question remains: What is the needful watchword now? And which group is on the right track about the next pontificate? Catholics agree in holding to the both/and—both unity and diversity as surely as both God and man, both faith and works, etc.—but where things get interesting is when and how to lay the stress on one principle or the other so that we cleave as closely as possible to the Way. (Welcome to two thousand years of Catholics arguing with each other.)
If I were in a position to offer the cardinals my two cents, the first would be this: The heavenly element in any “both/and” should always be given the primacy. Thus, order should have the primacy over openness, and unity over diversity. Why? Because without a more fundamental order, openness too easily becomes disorder, and without a more transcendent unity, diversity too easily becomes disunity. This doesn’t mean that the earthly doesn’t matter; on the contrary, it matters so much that the heavenly descends to it, embraces it, and lifts it to itself. This is the logic, the rhythm, of the Incarnation. But the frailty and mutability of the earthly is such that it can only properly take its stand—can only fully become itself—through a more basic orientation to the heavenly. We need both order and openness, both unity and diversity—can a frozen, monolithic Church creatively move through time and draw the whole world to itself?—but the former elements must come first. This also means that an “earthward” view that undercuts the heavenly is a more dangerous error than a “heavenward” view that overlooks the earthly.
The second is Saint Ignatius of Loyola’s agere contra (or “act against”) method of countering wayward inclinations. In short, when we find ourselves moving too far in one direction, we must pull in the opposite direction. This of course requires knowing that we’re off course—however slightly—in the first place, which requires careful discernment; otherwise, we might find ourselves in the unenviable position of doubling down on our mistakes when we think we’re course correcting. So we must honestly ask: To which “side” are we listing, if any? Answering this question vis-à-vis unity and diversity in the Church requires attentiveness both to divine revelation (both Scripture and Tradition) and the “signs of the times” (both inside and outside the Church). Then we can truthfully ask ourselves: Is the Church in danger of so stressing its unity that it overlooks its beautiful diversity, or is it in danger of so stressing its diversity that it undercuts its unity in truth? I can’t presume to answer this question for a fellow layperson, never mind a prince of the Church. But I think that—again, if we’re honest and attentive—a clear answer will present itself.
Excellent analysis, my friend. And a good reminder for us to focus less on the secular coverage of the upcoming conclave and more on prayer for the Cardinal electors and the Church as a whole.