Of Horses, Rockets and "Faith's Predicament"

The frustration of Church and the chagrin of people are about old-era expectations and new-age imagination. Christianity may awaken to the Christian mission of love when it recognizes the disjunction between Dominion Theology and Liberation Theology. Medieval engines don't work in space-age vehicles.

A Model-T Ford engine is as unworkable in a rocket-ship as Scholasticism is in vernacular science - this states about as bluntly as possible the disjunction between Vatican I Ecclesiology and Vatican II Ecclesiology. The vehicles of Trent and Vatican I are horse-driven while the vehicles of Vatican II require electric power.

"Faith's Predicament", Christianity's predicament, cannot be resolved until it is understood in its starkest terms. In the evolving universe, the energy (function) of every form is apt to the form. Dysfunction (failure) occurs with the mismatch of energy/ function and structure/ form. Evolution changes forms and functions; when they match, they are sustainable, when they don't match, they disintegrate.

Roman Catholicism is bedeviled by fixation in the static energy (Neo-Scholasticism) of the 2000 year-old Static Worldview. As vehicles (forms) evolve, so does (must) the energy. With respect to theology, spirituality is its energy "ad intra" (Vatican II, "Lumen gentium"), and with respect to functioning in the real world, ecclesiology is Church "ad extra" (Vatican II, "Gaudium et spes"). The "within energy" has to be apt for the "without function" if Church is to be effective and sustainable.

Neo-Scholasticism today is a horse-powered engine fitted in a rocket-ready structure. The rocket will never get off the ground until it is fitted with an apt engine. While modern Church may travel by car, a mismatched and inept engine is clumsy and unworkable. VaticanII recognized the problem of Church dysfunction "ad intra" and "ad extra", and urgently stated the need for new "analysis and synthesis" and upgrade of engines (spirituality). [Const. IV, Gaudium et spes, Intro. No.5]

The clumsy, out-dated engines of monarchy are unworkable in Third Millennium culture. The energy/ structure mismatch of the monarchical model (in Church) continues to trash the delicate structures of personal conscience and the elemental bonds of communal cohesion.

The trust bonding of personal conscience is the cohesive power of interpersonal relationships. Cultural divisions and corruptions of classes based on belief, gender, race, ethnicity and status frustrate communal cohesion and sustainable culture. The faith culture of classicism is passé; it is politically and religiously unworkable - and so are despotic bishops, remnants of classicism.