Denver Catholic

14 JUNE 27-JULY 10, 2015 | DENVER CATHOLIC I fi nd myself facing situations where I just don't know what to do. I feel like I am out of my depth, but I have responsi- bilities, and people still look to me to have an answer. What am I supposed to do? I fi nd myself in this position all of the time. There are many times when I am supposed to be the one in charge, but I am painfully aware that I am not the smartest person in the room. I know a lot of parents who feel this way as well. Do you remember when it seemed like your mom and dad had all the answers? Do you remember looking up at your teachers in school believing that they knew what they were doing? We can get the impression that, if you are going to lead, you have to fi rst know everything and be absolutely qualifi ed. We have the impression that we fi rst have to be an expert. I think that this can do more harm than good. Of course, we ought to have some pro- fi ciency before we ask others to follow us. (We might have personal examples of parents or teachers or bosses who maybe ought to have had more competence.) At the same time, there might be the impression that one has to be perfect in order to make a di• erence. This is never the case. One of the biggest traps people who are in charge fall into is believing that they have to be an expert. Because of this, they short-circuit any possibility of becoming one. It seems like once a person is hired, once they have a baby, once they gradu- ate and are out in the world, they adopt the strange notion that they have to act like they imagine an expert would act. But no one starts out an expert. We all start out as beginners. And whenever we do something new, we are back to being a beginner. Therefore, if you are the kind of person who gets asked to do new things, you are a perpetual beginner. If you are a new mom, then you are a beginner. If you now have three teenag- ers under your roof and you have never had three adolescents to deal with, you are a beginner. If you were good at your old job and got promoted, you are a beginner. What do all good beginners have in common? First, they don't pretend they are experts. Second, they know begin- ners make mistakes. When we see ourselves as beginners, we know mistakes are not a refl ection of our worth, they are merely occasions where we can learn. Perpetual begin- ners are free to make mistakes because each mistake gets them just a little closer to the goal of being a great parent, boss, leader, pastor or whatever. Third, beginners know they don't have to have all the answers, but they do need to be willing to ask questions and seek out the answers. Beginners are learners, and learn- ers ask questions. "Seek counsel from every wise man" is the advice from one father to his son (Tobit 4:18). When we pretend to have all of the answers, we automatically hamstring ourselves. We are stifl ing our chances of learning anything new, and we are constantly on the defensive. I mean, if you are the one who has all of the answers (and none of the questions) then you can't make mis- takes, can you? Author and management consul- tant Pat Lencioni has pointed out that the old saying "never let them see you sweat" is fl awed. In a talk to a large gathering of college students, he made the point of saying, "Let them see you sweat." Too many people live trying to hide behind the façade. But, he points out, if you are struggling, all of those near you can already tell. If you pretend to be an expert when you aren't, people know that you are not being genuine. Allowing the people you are leading or raising to see you struggle is helpful to them. Not only does it give you cred- ibility, but also you are implicitly giving others permission to ask questions, grow and have the freedom to fail. You are letting your children be learners. You are allowing your employees or parishioners to ask questions. You are letting those around you know that they can fail and still move forward. Finally, we can only act on the infor- mation that we know; we can't do anything with what we don't know. Too often, people limit themselves and fi nd themselves stuck worrying about "what ifs." While there is something to be said for gathering enough information to move forward, it is helpful to remem- ber that all you need is "su† cient information." We can confi dently move forward, even with only "su† cient information," because we believe in a God who loves us. As Christians, we are absolutely confi dent in an absolutely certain God even when we are absolutely unsure of ourselves. Perspectives B ack in the day (the late 1960s or thereabouts), Father Andrew Gree- ley – the model of an old-fashioned liberal Catholic – accused Father Daniel Berrigan (the beau ideal of post-concil- iar Catholic radicalism) of harboring an author- itarian streak in his politics. By which Greeley meant that, were Berrigan and his radical friends to achieve power, their aggressive sense of moral superiority would lead them to put Greeley and his liberal friends in jail. It was classic Gree- ley hyperbole, but like some of Andy's polemics, there was a grain of truth in it. The Sixties Catholic radicalism that shaped what is now self-styled "progres- sive" Catholicism did have a pronounced authoritarian streak in it, despite its disdain for traditional forms of author- ity (including Church authority). So as old-fashioned Catholic liberalism morphed into today's "progressive" Catholicism, forms of authoritarian bullying, shaming, and exclusion that would have appalled 1950s Catholic liberals – who knew what it meant to be stung by the lash of conservative clerical authoritarianism – made their way into the kitbag of contemporary progressive Catholicism. There they remain, an o• ense against the openness, tolerance, and commitment to "dialogue" for which progressive Catholicism habitu- ally pats itself on the back. The most obvious example of this involves Catholic higher education in the United States. The anti-Modernist denunciations of the early 20th-cen- tury Sodalitium Pianum damaged reputations and destroyed careers in an attempt to enforce a narrow form of Catholic intellectual life; so did the below-the-belt machinations that followed the 1950 encyclical Humani Generis. Both of these episodes are now widely and rightly acknowledged as disgraceful violations of evangelical freedom. But hasn't something similar been happening on Catholic campuses in recent decades, now that progressive Catholics (who claim to have learned the lessons of 20th-century ecclesial authoritarianism) have the whip hand? For example: It is widely known that it would be impossible for a young scholar, no matter how talented, to get a tenure-track position in the theology department of certain prestigious Cath- olic universities, if he or she had, during the course of their doctoral work, or in their early teaching and publishing, promoted Humanae Vitae as both true and prophetic. Or had defended John Paul II's declaration in Ordinatio Sacer- dotalis that the Church has no authority to admit women to the ministerial priesthood. Or had written in support of the Catechism's teaching that homo- sexual inclinations are a sign of spiritual disturbance. Or had signed any of the recent declarations in defense of mar- riage classically understood. Precisely the kind of academic closed shop that old-fashioned liberals deplored after Humani Generis is now being unblushingly enforced by pro- gressive Catholics at Fordham, Boston College, Georgetown, Seattle Univer- sity, and on many other campuses – and, as in the past, Catholic intellectual life is being crippled when it isn't being reduced to incoherence. Then there is the Catholic blogo- sphere. Authoritarian bullying and shaming are certainly not a monopoly of progressive Catholic blog-post writers; there are plenty of ignorant, ill-in- formed, graceless, and narrow-minded folk on the other end of the spectrum. But those boys and girls don't regularly congratulate themselves on their open- ness and tolerance of diversity. That the progressive Catholic blogosphere does so is almost as bad as its penchant for mis- representation and calumny. I've cited it before, but it's so pre- scient that it's worth citing again. Thomas Merton, who was no one's idea of a traditional or conservative Catholic, was nonetheless attacked by the Cath- olic Left of his day for alleged o• enses against the orthodoxies of radicalism. His response, in one of his charming "nonsense letters" to his friend and fellow-poet, Robert Lax, has a certain prophetic ring to it, read at a distance of forty-eight years: "I am truly spry and full of fun but am pursued by the vilifi cations of progressed Catholics. Mark my word man there is no uglier species on the face of the earth than progressed Catholics, mean, frivol, ungainly, inarticulate, venomous, and bursting at the seams with progress into the secular cities and Teilhardian sub- ways. The Ottavianis was bad but these are infi nitely worse. You wait and see." Progressive Catholic authoritari- anism is, one might say, an enduring problem. George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. The Catholic Di" erence GEORGE WEIGEL Father Mike Schmitz is the chaplain for Newman Catholic Campus Ministries at the University of Minnesota Duluth. fathermikeschmitz@gmail.com Ask Fr. Mike FATHER MIKE SCHMITZ Progressive Catholic authoritarianism: an enduring problem Wisdom in not knowing all the answers

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