I know Fr. John well enough to believe he has
great respect for the way Fr. Shay spoke in that interview and for the
pragmatic views he espoused. Let me briefly relate some of the points from the
interview that Fr. John covered in his sermon. During the course of his
questioning, Gay asked Fr. Shay about various aspects of his faith. He asked
him what his image of God is. He replied that it was not the image as portrayed
by the likes of Michelangelo, for example. Rather, he expressed his image of
God as the existence of eternal goodness – the power and the force of love,
caring for and respecting each other. When asked about the Mass, he answered
that he found it a bit too ‘religioso’ in its current ritual and quite removed
from what Jesus would have experienced. He likened it more to a meal of
friendship. Asked about his thoughts on the ‘real presence’ (transubstantiation
is the technical term, or the ‘magic bits’ as a friend of mine refers to it),
he replied that he sees it more as the presence of Jesus being recreated by the
people in the congregation who believe in the spirit of his message and want to
carry on his mission. Regarding the resurrection, and Gay was quite specific on
his meaning here – the ‘bodily’ resurrection – Fr. Shay says ‘we go with
that’ but further explains that what Jesus lived and believed in – his message –
is alive because his followers decided to keep the spirit of his message alive by living according to
what he had taught them.
Now if I was being asked to offer a critique of
the programme I would say the questions were all very high level but
nonetheless relevant. Anyway, how much depth can you go to in a 25-minute interview?
Regarding the answers, I would say on matters of doctrine as professed by the Catholic Church, Fr. Shay probably did enough to avoid being branded a heretic. Not that it would bother him,
I’m sure. Where he excelled, for this viewer at least, was in offering a
different view or interpretation on several of the central tenets of the
Catholic faith.
Why did yesterday’s sermon strike such a
chord with me? Well you see, in the last few years I’ve gone through a bit of a
crisis of faith, for want of a better way of putting it. The reasons are many
and varied but suffice to say for now that I have become extremely
disillusioned (perhaps irretrievably so) with the ways of the institutional
Catholic Church. But more than that – I had started to question some of the
fundamental teachings of the church. The revelation for me yesterday was
hearing a cleric address the same questions I am struggling with but answering
them in a way that made a lot of sense to me. You might well ask why I continue
to attend Mass if I have so many questions and misgivings. I am very active in
music ministry and I find that very challenging and fulfilling. Anyway, I don’t
hold sway with the “if you don’t like the rules join another club” brigade and
as Fr. John famously encourages people “don’t throw the baby out with the
bathwater.”
So, what do I believe? What is my image of God? Well,
I don’t have one because I’m no longer sure that there is the existence of an
almighty being responsible for creating everything we see. In many ways, it
doesn’t matter whether I believe in such an existence or not. God as a being or
entity either exists or does not exist, irrespective of what I believe. Like
Fr. Shay, I believe in the existence of goodness (and evil – this was
covered in the interview also) but that these things are not outside us but within
us as part of our human nature, our human spirit. I believe that a man whom we
know as Jesus Christ walked on earth 2,000-odd years ago. He was a prophet and
a rebel in a time and a place where oppression was rife. I believe his message
was that people were not going to find a solution to their problems by worshipping false gods.
Rather, he taught them that god is love – not the sun,
the moon, the sea, money, greed, power or anything else. He called people to
use the love and the spirit within themselves to work for freedom and justice.
His notion of the kingdom of god (kingdom of love) is achieved right here
through making justice, love, concern and compassion for others the number one
priority.
I believe the Mass as we know it today is in stark contrast to the
image we have of the last supper – Jesus gathered with his friends, his
community, most likely around a wooden table and sharing whatever bread and drink
was procured from the local market. I doubt there was a bodily resurrection of
Jesus. It is far more likely that the Romans disposed of the body to avoid
creating a shrine to the rebel they had just defeated. I have a lot of empathy
with Fr. Shay’s view that the spirit of Jesus’ message lives on by the decision
of those who believed in his message to continue the work that he had started. I
believe that, unfortunately, a lot of Jesus’ message has gotten lost in a fog of
dogma, doctrine and canon law that has been developed through the ages by the
Church.
I believe that we need more people with the clarity
of vision and the courage of Fr. Shay and Fr. John, able and willing to peel
away the irrelevant paraphernalia that the Church has built up over many centuries
and which now has so much power and control vested in its structures and belief
systems that it cannot back away from them. Alas I fear such people of courage
are few and far between in the Catholic Church. Vatican-II offered us a vision
and a blueprint for the Catholic Church in the modern world and a true
recognition of the role of everyone in the Church, women and men alike, to
bring about the kingdom of love. Progress towards that vision appears to have
stalled – some might even say we are in reverse gear. Unfortunately, there are
too many Vatican men now emerging from the
seminaries and not enough Vatican-II men. And no women.
You can read more about PREDA here.
You can view Fr. Shay's interview with Gay Byrne here.
