Tim Drake has a great interview with Francis Beckwith in the NCRegister. He discusses his reasons why he left the Church as a teenager, why he returned, and what Catholics and evangelical Protestants can learn from each other, the value of Protestant systematics theology. It’s really the most thorough interview that’s appeared so far, and kudos to Tim for his good questions and Dr. Beckwith for his forthright answers.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was part of the first generation of Catholics who would have no memory of the Church prior to Vatican II. This also meant that I grew up, and attended Catholic schools, during a time in which well-meaning Catholic leaders were testing all sorts of innovations in the Church, many of which were deleterious to the proper formation of young people.
On the other hand, there were some very important renewal movements in the Church at the time.
The Catholic Charismatic Movement had a profound impact on me.
During my middle school years, while attending Maranatha House, a Jesus People church in downtown Vegas, I also frequented a Catholic Charismatic Bible study. Some of the folks at that Bible study were instrumental in bringing to my parents’ parish three Dominican priests who offered a week-long evening seminar on the Bible and the Christian life. I attended that seminar and was very much taken by the Dominicans’ erudition and deep spirituality, and the love of Jesus that was evident in the way they conducted themselves.
But I was also impressed with the personal warmth and commitment to Scripture that I found among charismatic Protestants with whom I had interacted at Maranatha House.
Looking back, and knowing what I know now, I believe that the Church’s weakness was presenting the renewal movements as something new and not part of the Church’s theological traditions.
For someone like me, who was interested in both the spiritual and intellectual grounding of the Christian faith, I didn’t need the “folk Mass” with cute nuns and hip priests playing “Kumbaya” with guitars, tambourines and harmonicas. And it was all badly done.
After all, we listened to the Byrds, Neil Young and Bob Dylan, and we knew the Church just couldn’t compete with them.
But that’s what the Church offered to the young people of my day: lousy pop music and a gutted Mass. If they were trying to make Catholicism unattractive to young and inquisitive Catholics, they were succeeding.
What I needed, and what many of us desired, were intelligent and winsome ambassadors for Christ who knew the intellectual basis for the Catholic faith, respected and understood the solemnity and theological truths behind the liturgy, and could explain the renewal movements in light of these.
You spent 32 years in the evangelical world. What could Catholics learn from evangelicals?
I learned plenty, and for that reason I do not believe I ceased to be an evangelical when I returned to the Church. What I ceased to be was a Protestant. For I believe, as Pope Benedict has preached, that the Church itself needs to nurture within it an evangelical spirit. There are, as we know, too many Catholics whose faith needs to be renewed and emboldened.
There is much that I learned as a Protestant evangelical that has left an indelible mark on me and formed the person I am today. For that reason, it accompanies me back to the Church.
Robert T Miller looks for some clarity:
Procuring an abortion is not the only offense punished with a latae sententiae excommunication. The others are apostasy, heresy, and schism; desecrating the consecrated eucharistic species; using force against the person of the Roman pontiff; absolving a partner in a sin against the Sixth Commandment; ordaining or being ordained a bishop without pontifical mandate; and directly violating the seal of the confessional.
When these other canons have been violated and the matter is of public importance, the Church has been reasonably quick to take note and confirm that the offenders are excommunicated lata sentential. For example, when Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre ordained several men to the episcopate without a pontifical mandate, and thus violated canon 1382, Pope John Paul II issued a motu proprio noting the excommunication, and when Fr. Marek Bozek ran a schismatic parish in St. Louis in violation of canon 1364, Archbishop Raymond Burke took similar action. This is as it should be, for such declarations serve important purposes. If Archbishop Lefebvre is excommunicated, for example, this is important information for Catholics deciding whether to participate in the activities of the sect he founded.
The Church has been very hesitant, however, to make similar declarations in connection with violations of canon 1398 against procuring abortions. The reasons for making such declarations, however, seem as strong in this case as in any other. If a Catholic legislator has incurred an excommunication latae sententiae because of how he voted on abortion legislation, presumably this is important information for Catholics deciding how to vote in the next election. If so, when a Catholic politician incurs an excommunication latae sententiae for violating canon 1398, the Catholic bishops owe the faithful a clear statement that this has occurred.
Which brings us back to the rewriting of Pope Benedict’s comments about the Mexican lawmakers. The Church’s reluctance to speak straightforwardly about whether Catholic politicians incur an excommunication latae sententiae for their actions related to abortion legislation seems to derive from a desire to avoid embroiling the Church further in the bitter controversies about abortion. If so, such considerations are misguided. The Church has embodied in canon 1398 her judgment that procuring an abortion is a crime so serious that it warrants the penalty of excommunication latae sententiae. If the Church has changed her mind about that, then canon 1398 should be amended accordingly.
Canonist Ed Peters on the same subject
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How did he become a Catholic? Father Tshering said he learned about Christianity at the school and the Jesuits influenced him. He wanted to become a Catholic, but the Jesuits had refused.
A Salesian priest, however, baptized him in 1974 when he was in the ninth grade. He recalled that his father was "very upset" about his conversion. However, no one in his community persecuted him as he belongs to a high caste. But "nobody approved of me" either, he remarked.
After becoming the first Bhutanese to earn a Master’s degree in Business Administration, he worked in some prestigious Indian firms for three years. He wanted to become a Catholic priest, but some missioners dissuaded him saying he could serve the Church better as a married layman in Bhutan.
All this changed after a chance meeting with Blessed Teresa of Kolkata during a flight in 1985. The young Bhutanese executive sat next to the founder of the Missionaries of Charity. "She convinced me that I had a religious vocation. Then nobody could stop me."
He joined the Jesuits when he was 26 and was ordained a priest in 1995. His father opposed his vocation. "Until his death, he thought it was a scandal." However, the young priest found solace in his mother. "She always supported me as long as I remain good."
Father Tshering says his faith in Christ has never wavered. However "so many dissenting voices in the Catholic Church" worry him.
At the time of his conversion, he wanted to preach the Gospel in his country. "After so much training, we get confused," he said, adding that "only Christ" remains unchanged. "It is a real challenge to be a Catholic. It is one’s basic conviction in Jesus that keeps one’s faith (alive)," he added.
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