Gordon Linney It was interesting to hear Fr Brian D’Arcy in conversation recently with Joe Duffy on the RTÉ programme Spirit Level. In the course of the discussion, reference was made to difficulties he had had with church authorities because of his public speaking and writing. He clearly found the experience painful and suggested it might have adversely affected his health. He explained: “When you get to a crisis in your life you have to face yourself and face your own integrity and you have to have integrity as a human being about what you believe and what you don’t believe. I believed sincerely that what I was saying then was trying to get the church to enter the modern world and not to be living in a vacuum . . . My utter conviction as a priest and as a Christian is this; that we must try and make the mercy of God present in situations where God’s mercy is needed”.
Questioning plays an important part in the development of religious understanding. The Bible tells of many dissenting voices, a tradition that continues in the life of the church to this day – William Tyndale and others who made the scriptures available to all and troubled kings and bishops alike; Galileo, who questioned bad science and faced the Inquisition as a result; William Wilberforce, who opposed slavery and was seen as a threat by commercial and religious interests. And in our own time there was the subtle disowning of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who gave his life for his faith but clearly made conservative elements in the church feel uncomfortable.
Tomorrow’s readings include this passage from Isaiah: ‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour...” When Jesus read this passage centuries later in the synagogue at Nazareth and suggested that this new dispensation was not confined to the Jews but applied to all people, he was threatened and chased out of town. It makes uncomfortable reading to this day both for individuals and institutional churches because we don’t easily surrender prejudices that have become principles and we certainly don’t like change.
Yet that is precisely what the Christian life demands. This is neatly expressed in the words of Jesus when he called Peter to follow him: “Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas’ (which means Peter)”. This for Peter would be a process of “becoming” with many setbacks along the way.
Hans Küng explains: “A fundamental transformation is expected: something like a new birth of a man himself, which can be understood only by one who actively takes part in it. It is therefore a transformation which does not come about merely through progress in right thinking for the sake of right action . . . or through the education of a man who is fundamentally good . . . nor is it a transformation through enlightenment. According to Jesus a fundamental transformation is achieved through a man’s surrender to God’s will.”
When tension arises between church authorities and dissenting groups or individuals, we are often witnessing that necessary tension between the voice of the prophet and the voice of authority. And we need both. All through church history there have been occasions when the institutional church has lost its way and even become the very contradiction of what it is supposed to be; it sees its future in the past and needs its prophets to point it to the future. We don’t have to agree with everything Brian D’Arcy says or thinks but it is important that we are prepared to listen with respect and even learn. Tomorrow’s Gospel reading reminds us that “there was a man sent from God whose name was John” and millions have been sent since. The name is not important; being sent by God is.