A short history of the Catholic Church

Another offering from the old, now deleted, blog. This review of Kung's short history of the Catholic Church, first posted last year, generated many interesting comments. Sadly, these are now lost. My apologies.

Hans Küng is a priest and theologian who, in 1979, was stripped of his licence to teach as a Roman Catholic theologian due to his rejection of papal infallibility. A view that is backed up with solid historical narrative throughout 'The Catholic Church', his short account of the papacy from the time of Christ to John Paul II. And though he states his biases from the outset, the book is more than just polemic.

I, as a non Catholic already convinced of what he has to say, found in it a readable history of the church that, covering all major periods and themes, revealed gaps in some parts of my knowledge and filled in cracks in others. One of the most dramatic scenes Kung paints for us is the meeting between Innocent III and Francis of Assisi. The Pope in his court and Giovanni di Bernardone calling for "real discipleship of Christ in poverty and itinerant preaching in accord with the gospel".

The Church found a place for Francis and managed, by a process of 'ecclesiasticization' to take much of the challenge out of the Franciscan movement. But what, Kung asks, would have happened if Innocent III had adopted the spirit of Assisi? He recalls the key words of Francis' programme: poverty, humility, and simplicity: "Would not also a church have been possible which was a church of good news and joy, a theology orientated on the simple gospel...?"

Given the church's wealth, power, and abstract Christology, it is no wonder that, at around the same time as the Franciscan movement, popular religious feeling increasingly focused on the figure of Mary, "in particular as the helper of the little people - the oppressed and the marginalized". I wonder to what extent popular devotion towards Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara in Buddhism has the same origin in the partial rejection of Buddhology in exchange for a simpler faith?

The pressures for reform couldn't be contained for ever, and Kung discusses whether the split was inevitable and whose responsibility it was. What I hadn't appreciated before reading this account was just how remarkable Luther's re-discovery of Paul's message was. The teaching of justification by faith had been "completely distorted" by endless "shifts, obscurities, cover-ups and over-paintings", to the extent that Kung calls Luther's re-discovery "an astounding theological achievement".

We take it for granted today that the 'good news' of the New Testament is that grace is given freely and is not dependant upon works, but for sixteenth century Europe this was "a new understanding of God, human beings, the church and the sacraments... made possible by a biblical and christocentric rethinking of theology". But, of course, the balance between faith and works was discussed in the very first days of the church and is still discussed now.

And not just within Christianity. Pure Land Buddhism, like Paul's theology, says we have little hope of gaining salvation through our own efforts and must rely instead upon the grace of Amida Buddha, for which we then develop gratitude and in which we develop faith. Other Buddhisms talk of faith in Buddha-nature, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and even within the Theravadan tradition faith plays a role. How this sits alongside precepts and meditation is an ongoing debate.

And one I heard resolved perfectly, not by a Buddhist but by the Irish priest at Seoul's Anglican Cathedral, a wonderful man with a lovely sense of humour, who said: "Pray as if your salvation depends upon faith, and act as if your salvation depends upon works." Not just perfect from a personal practice point of view, but entirely in keeping with a church which, as Kung describes it, "to the present day... regards itself as the middle way between the extremes of Rome and Geneva."

Amazing, the growing appreciation I have for the Anglicanism of my background; it's certainly worth further study. And whilst Rome may have, throughout much of its history, represented an extreme, Kung finishes off by pointing out that "all over the world, even now countless Christians, communities and groups are in practice living out an authentic ecumenicity centred on the gospel - despite all the resistance in the church structures."