Aesop in one of his fables (see inset) tells the story of a miller, his son and their ass. Nothing the miller or his son did could satisfy people whom they met as they went on their way through a fair, and through trying to please everybody they lost their ass which fell into a river and was drowned.
Countless people down the last 2,000 years have treated the Catholic Church as they treated the miller and his son. Never pleased by what she taught or did, they demand something different.
When she reminds the faithful that hell exists, she is accused by some critics both within and without the Church, of being cruel and heartless, and of encouraging neuroses and complexes. When she encourages prayers for the dead, and teaches that there is an intermediate place or state traditionally called 'Purgatory' between hell and heaven, she is accused of being 'unscriptural'.
When she says that all who are saved are only saved because of the merits of Christ dispensed through the Church (directly or indirectly) she is accused of being elitist and paternalistic. When she refuses to consign the non-baptized or non-Christians to hell, she is accused of being 'soft' and too accommodating towards non-Christians.
When she refuses to guarantee that all who say they 'love' Jesus, and who claim to 'accept Jesus as their Lord and saviour' are saved, she is accused by fundamentalist Protestants of denying the efficacy of the saving death of Jesus. And when she stresses that God is mercifully aware of our mixed-up motives and confused reasoning, and therefore gives those of us who are not thoroughly evil a chance to expiate our sins, she is accused of falsifying Scripture (despite Our Lord's that there are some sins that can be forgiven after death: see Matthew 12, 32.)
If some of the saints are specific in their description of the pains of purgatory the Church is accused of forcing believers to 'live and die in fear of spending an unknown number of years in the pain and anguish of that place called purgatory.' (Loraine Boettner, Roman Catholicism, p.220) As she has made no official statement on the nature and intensity of suffering and purgatory, she is accused of cunning and duplicity.
Unlike the miller and his son, however, the Catholic Church has always known when to draw the line.
The Modern Denial of Purgatory
Purgatory is just one among many Catholic doctrines that were first denied by early Protestant churches in the 16th century. It came under attack then on the grounds that it was 'unscriptural' but principally it seems, because it went against Luther's doctrine of salvation by faith alone.
In fact, Luther never denied this Catholic doctrine. However, according to the Book of Common Prayer of the Anglican Church, and Article xxii of the Thirty Nine Articles, to which all Anglican clergy must theoretically still subscribe, 'The Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory ...is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon the warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.'
An anti-Catholic work by Seventh Day Adventist writer Ellen Gould White goes so far as to describe it as 'an invention of paganism which Rome named Purgatory and employed to terrify the credulous and superstitious multitudes'. (The Great Controversy, p.53)
Loraine Boettner, an anti-Catholic populariser of fringe beliefs typically among American fundamentalists, sums up the stock fundamentalist position when he contrasts the death of a Catholic, allegedly dying in fear and terror at the thought of purgatory and the uncertainty of salvation, with the death of a Protestant which he describes as a 'promotion to glory-land,' a 'coronation. He has gone to heaven to be with Christ." (p.233)
Presumably Mr Boettner believes that all Protestants possess to the fullness 'that holiness, without which no once can see the Lord' (Hebrews, 12, 14). This is utterly foreign to the teaching of the early Church, as we shall see. It is also foreign, today, to main-stream Protestant ideas on salvation.
The Catholic Church has always taken a cautious view of human nature, especially of its tendency to kid itself about how good or bad it is, holding, to use the words of the English poet John Dryden (1630-1700 A.D.), that our Lord has mercifully made provision for
'. . . spirits of a middle sort, Too black for heaven and yet too white for hell, Who just dropped half-way down, nor lower fell.'
In what is universally acknowledged to be one of the greatest Christian poems, and one of the greatest works of literature, The Divine Comedy, Dante (1265-1321) faithfully reflects the traditional Catholic teaching on Purgatory, and offers valuable insights into what Dorothy Sayers describes as the 'baffling complexity of human motives' when he places Guido Montefaltro in hell.
Purgatory is concerned with answering the question: what is the 'good' that our heart really desires? Guido Montefaltro died, complacently believing that absolution without contrition would earn him his 'coronation'. He languishes eternally in hell, because only there does he face reality: the fact that he never really wanted God in his life; and therefore was incapable of holding him in death.
Buoncone da Montefaltro, Guido's son, on the other hand, died without absolution from a priest, but with the name of Mary on his lips, and he discovers in Purgatory that despite his errors, inconstancies and the pressures of his environment, he never really wanted anything but God.
To read 'popular' treatises on religion produced principally by the American anti-Catholic gutterpress (a thesis is waiting to be written on the connection between being well-heeled, well-spoken, and middle-class Americans and a hater of Catholicism) one would get the impression that Purgatory, along with other Catholic teachings on fasting, penance, prayers for the dead, reverence for the saints, especially for Mary, the mother of Jesus, were rejected by the reformers because of their desire for a 'pure' and 'undefiled' bible religion.
The well-known sixteenth century 'reformer' Martin Butzer, originally a Dominican, a contemporary of Luther, and invited by the first Protestant archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer, to teach theology at Cambridge, presents a different picture of the motives at work.
'The greater part of the Protestant people seem to have embraced the gospel in order to shake off the yoke of discipline and the obligation of fasting, penance, etc which lay upon them in Popery, and to live at their pleasure enjoying their lusts and lawless appetites without control. Hence they lent a willing ear to the doctrine that we are saved by faith alone, and not by good works, having no relish for them. (De Requ. Chris.,i,4)
Butzer (who died in 1551) is almost certainly over-severe in his judgement of the neophyte Protestants, but his disillusionment with the reasons and fruits of the 'reform' of the Catholic Church, was real.
John Dryden made a similar point when he described more than one hundred years later, in 1687, the reformation se in motion by Henry VIII and carried on by his illegitimate daughter Elizabeth:
Boettner accuses Catholics, of being a sad, miserable people, who never even sing or pray about heaven! (p.234) The picture of Catholics up to Reformation as unhappy and joyless people, weighed down by fear of the confessional and of purgatory, by the obligation to attend Mass, to fast and do rigorous penance, is so at variance with the truth that were it not so often repeated by misguided antagonists, it would be utterly pointless to refute. Libraries are filled with books that give the lie to it. I refer Annals readers who have the time, to such definitive works as European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, by Ernst Curtius (Harper Torchbooks, 1963); The Dark Ages (a Protestant work) by S.R. Maitland, John Hodges, Lond, 1890; The Classical Heritage, R.R. Bolgar, Harper Torchbooks, 1964; and especially chapter five of Society and Puritanism in Pre-revolutionary England, by Christopher Hill, Panther, 1964.
[To be concluded...]
Countless people down the last 2,000 years have treated the Catholic Church as they treated the miller and his son. Never pleased by what she taught or did, they demand something different.
When she reminds the faithful that hell exists, she is accused by some critics both within and without the Church, of being cruel and heartless, and of encouraging neuroses and complexes. When she encourages prayers for the dead, and teaches that there is an intermediate place or state traditionally called 'Purgatory' between hell and heaven, she is accused of being 'unscriptural'.
A miller and His Son were driving their ass to a neighbouring fair to sell him. They had not gone far when they met with a troop of girls returning from the town, talking and laughing. "Look there!" cried one of them; "did you ever see such fools, to be trudging along the road on foot, when they might be riding!" The old Man, hearing this, quietly bade his Son get on the ass. Presently they came up to a group of old men. "There!" said one of them, "it proves what I was a-saying. Do you see that idle young rogue riding, while his old father had to walk - Get down and let the old man rest his weary limbs." Upon this the Father made his Son dismount, and got up himself. In this manner they had not proceeded far when they met a company of women and children. "Why, you lazy old fellow! cried several tongues at once, "how can you ride upon the beast, while that poor little lad there can hardly keep pace by the side of you!" The good-natured Miller stood corrected, and immediately took up his Son behind him. They had now almost reached the town. "Pray, honest friend," said a townsman, "is that ass your own?" "Yes", says the old Man. "Oh! One would not have thought so," said the other, by way you load him. Why, you two fellows are better able to carry the poor beast than (sic) he you!" "Anything to please you", said the old Man; "we can but try." So, alighting with the Son, they tied the ass's legs together, and by the help of a pole endeavoured to carry him on their shoulders over a bridge that led to the town. This was so entertaining a sight that the people ran out in crowds till the ass, not liking the noise kicked asunder the cords that bound him, and, tumbling off the pole, fell into the river.
When she says that all who are saved are only saved because of the merits of Christ dispensed through the Church (directly or indirectly) she is accused of being elitist and paternalistic. When she refuses to consign the non-baptized or non-Christians to hell, she is accused of being 'soft' and too accommodating towards non-Christians.
When she refuses to guarantee that all who say they 'love' Jesus, and who claim to 'accept Jesus as their Lord and saviour' are saved, she is accused by fundamentalist Protestants of denying the efficacy of the saving death of Jesus. And when she stresses that God is mercifully aware of our mixed-up motives and confused reasoning, and therefore gives those of us who are not thoroughly evil a chance to expiate our sins, she is accused of falsifying Scripture (despite Our Lord's that there are some sins that can be forgiven after death: see Matthew 12, 32.)
If some of the saints are specific in their description of the pains of purgatory the Church is accused of forcing believers to 'live and die in fear of spending an unknown number of years in the pain and anguish of that place called purgatory.' (Loraine Boettner, Roman Catholicism, p.220) As she has made no official statement on the nature and intensity of suffering and purgatory, she is accused of cunning and duplicity.
Unlike the miller and his son, however, the Catholic Church has always known when to draw the line.
The Modern Denial of Purgatory
Purgatory is just one among many Catholic doctrines that were first denied by early Protestant churches in the 16th century. It came under attack then on the grounds that it was 'unscriptural' but principally it seems, because it went against Luther's doctrine of salvation by faith alone.
In fact, Luther never denied this Catholic doctrine. However, according to the Book of Common Prayer of the Anglican Church, and Article xxii of the Thirty Nine Articles, to which all Anglican clergy must theoretically still subscribe, 'The Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory ...is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon the warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.'
An anti-Catholic work by Seventh Day Adventist writer Ellen Gould White goes so far as to describe it as 'an invention of paganism which Rome named Purgatory and employed to terrify the credulous and superstitious multitudes'. (The Great Controversy, p.53)
Loraine Boettner, an anti-Catholic populariser of fringe beliefs typically among American fundamentalists, sums up the stock fundamentalist position when he contrasts the death of a Catholic, allegedly dying in fear and terror at the thought of purgatory and the uncertainty of salvation, with the death of a Protestant which he describes as a 'promotion to glory-land,' a 'coronation. He has gone to heaven to be with Christ." (p.233)
Presumably Mr Boettner believes that all Protestants possess to the fullness 'that holiness, without which no once can see the Lord' (Hebrews, 12, 14). This is utterly foreign to the teaching of the early Church, as we shall see. It is also foreign, today, to main-stream Protestant ideas on salvation.
The Catholic Church has always taken a cautious view of human nature, especially of its tendency to kid itself about how good or bad it is, holding, to use the words of the English poet John Dryden (1630-1700 A.D.), that our Lord has mercifully made provision for
'. . . spirits of a middle sort, Too black for heaven and yet too white for hell, Who just dropped half-way down, nor lower fell.'
In what is universally acknowledged to be one of the greatest Christian poems, and one of the greatest works of literature, The Divine Comedy, Dante (1265-1321) faithfully reflects the traditional Catholic teaching on Purgatory, and offers valuable insights into what Dorothy Sayers describes as the 'baffling complexity of human motives' when he places Guido Montefaltro in hell.
Purgatory is concerned with answering the question: what is the 'good' that our heart really desires? Guido Montefaltro died, complacently believing that absolution without contrition would earn him his 'coronation'. He languishes eternally in hell, because only there does he face reality: the fact that he never really wanted God in his life; and therefore was incapable of holding him in death.
Buoncone da Montefaltro, Guido's son, on the other hand, died without absolution from a priest, but with the name of Mary on his lips, and he discovers in Purgatory that despite his errors, inconstancies and the pressures of his environment, he never really wanted anything but God.
To read 'popular' treatises on religion produced principally by the American anti-Catholic gutterpress (a thesis is waiting to be written on the connection between being well-heeled, well-spoken, and middle-class Americans and a hater of Catholicism) one would get the impression that Purgatory, along with other Catholic teachings on fasting, penance, prayers for the dead, reverence for the saints, especially for Mary, the mother of Jesus, were rejected by the reformers because of their desire for a 'pure' and 'undefiled' bible religion.
The well-known sixteenth century 'reformer' Martin Butzer, originally a Dominican, a contemporary of Luther, and invited by the first Protestant archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer, to teach theology at Cambridge, presents a different picture of the motives at work.
'The greater part of the Protestant people seem to have embraced the gospel in order to shake off the yoke of discipline and the obligation of fasting, penance, etc which lay upon them in Popery, and to live at their pleasure enjoying their lusts and lawless appetites without control. Hence they lent a willing ear to the doctrine that we are saved by faith alone, and not by good works, having no relish for them. (De Requ. Chris.,i,4)
Butzer (who died in 1551) is almost certainly over-severe in his judgement of the neophyte Protestants, but his disillusionment with the reasons and fruits of the 'reform' of the Catholic Church, was real.
John Dryden made a similar point when he described more than one hundred years later, in 1687, the reformation se in motion by Henry VIII and carried on by his illegitimate daughter Elizabeth:
'The fruit proclaims the plant; a lawless Prince
By luxury reformed incontinence
By ruins, charity; by riots abstinence.
Confessions, fasts and penance set aside;
Oh with what ease we follow such a guide!
Where souls are starved and senses gratified.
Where marriage pleasures, midnight prayer supply
And Martin bells (a melancholy cry)
Are turned to merrier notes, increase and multiply.
Religion shows a rosier coloured face;
not hattered out with drudging works of grace;
A down-hill Reformation rolls apace.
What flesh and blood would crowd and narrow gate,
Or till they wasted their pampered paunches, wait?
All could be happy at the cheapest rate.
(The Hind and the Panther, 11, 360-375)
Boettner accuses Catholics, of being a sad, miserable people, who never even sing or pray about heaven! (p.234) The picture of Catholics up to Reformation as unhappy and joyless people, weighed down by fear of the confessional and of purgatory, by the obligation to attend Mass, to fast and do rigorous penance, is so at variance with the truth that were it not so often repeated by misguided antagonists, it would be utterly pointless to refute. Libraries are filled with books that give the lie to it. I refer Annals readers who have the time, to such definitive works as European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, by Ernst Curtius (Harper Torchbooks, 1963); The Dark Ages (a Protestant work) by S.R. Maitland, John Hodges, Lond, 1890; The Classical Heritage, R.R. Bolgar, Harper Torchbooks, 1964; and especially chapter five of Society and Puritanism in Pre-revolutionary England, by Christopher Hill, Panther, 1964.
[To be concluded...]
© Annals Australia 2003