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Home , Duns Scotus

GERARD LOUGHLIN Disordered Bodies and the Body of Christ

In 2010, Benedict XVI visited the United Kingdom. He was only the sec- ond modern pope to do so, the first having been his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, who famously alighted from his plane to kiss the tarmac at Gatwick airport in May 1982.1 Benedict forewent such a gesture. But his was a state rather than a pastoral visit, and it was also a visit when he raised to the altars, declaring him blessed on 19 September 2010 at a public—and tele- vised—mass in Cofton Park, Rednal, a district of Newman’s adopted city of Birmingham, the city in which Newman had established an Oratory of St in 1848. In his homily Benedict placed Newman in a line of British scholar — “ , Saint Hilda, Saint Aelred, Blessed Duns Scotus”—and praised Newman’s teaching on prayer, on faith and reason, and on education, as well as commending his pastoral concern.2 But Ratzinger did not mention Newman’s writings on conscience, which is a little surprising, since Benedict had written— when he was but Cardinal Ratzinger—that Newman’s “life and work could be designated a single great commentary on the question of conscience.”3 But three months later, and Benedict did comment on Newman and con- science in his Christmas address to the .4 Benedict likened the pre- sent to that when the “Roman Empire was in decline”, a time which saw the disintegration of “key ” of law and morals and the destruction of peace and harmony between peoples. “The sun was setting over an entire world.” Much the same is happening today, with the collapse of that moral “con- sensus without which juridical and political structures cannot function.” It is in the context of this collapse—vividly evident in the rise of child pornography, sexual tourism, and the priestly abuse of minors—that Benedict recalled his “unforgettable journey to the United Kingdom”, and his earlier conviction that conscience is the great theme of Newman’s life and work.5 It may not seem surprising that Benedict has such an interest in Newman, and in Newman’s account of conscience in particular. But I want to suggest that

1 The visit of Pope John Paul II to Britain was from 28 May to 2 June 1982. 2 Cf. BENEDICT XVI, Homily, Sunday 19 September 2010, in: http://w2.vatican.va/con-ent/be- nedict-xvi/en/homilies/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20100919_beatif-newman.html; 29.03.2016. 3 J. RATZINGER, Conscience and (1991), in: IDEM, On Conscience: Two Essays, Philadel- phia/San Francisco 2007, 11–41, here: 22f. 4 Cf. BENEDICT XVI, Address on the Occasion of Christian Greetings to the Roman Curia, Mon- day 20 December 2010, in: http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/20-10/de- cember/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20101220_curia-auguri.html; 29.03.2016. 5 Cf. J. RATZINGER, Conscience and Truth, 22f.

58 GERARD LOUGHLIN

Benedict’s enthusiasm is surprising on at least two counts. The first is that New- man had a different view of conscience from Ratzinger’s own, one that led New- man to toast conscience before toasting the pope, a priority that is more subver- sive than Ratzinger acknowledges. The second reason derives from Newman’s person rather than his writing, from his own body rather than the body of his work. I will suggest that Newman’s conscience confronts Ratzinger’s attempt to order conscience, and that Newman, in his own body, contests Ratzinger’s attempt to rid the Church of those bodies by which the Body of Christ is disor- dered. One should not doubt that Ratzinger wants or wanted such troubling bodies gone. Already in 1986, in an infamous Letter to the Bishops of the Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexuals, he noted how the author of Le- viticus “excludes from the those who behave in a homosexual fashion”, how St Paul “proposes the same doctrine” and lists such people “among those who shall not enter the Kingdom of God.”6 Nor is it clear that such bodies are saved by avoiding homosexual behaviour for, as Ratzinger notes, it is the behaviour to which they are ordered, so always ordered to that which excludes them. And even if the Church refuses to see people as homo- sexual, which Ratzinger insists it does, even though it doesn’t so refuse —and doesn’t in his own writing, in the very writing in which he contradicts himself— this too would seem to be their destruction. Ratzinger’s Letter is a letter of contradiction. It deplores that “homosexual persons have been and are the of violent malice in speech or in action”, before maliciously suggesting that no one should be surprised when the intro- duction of civil rights for homosexuals results in “other distorted notions and practices” gaining ground and “irrational and violent reactions” increasing.7 The Letter suggests that such violent reactions are understandable, for the “practice of homosexuality” threatens “the lives and well- of a large number of peo- ple”, and puts the “ and rights” of the family in “jeopardy”.8 But here is not the place to rehearse such calumnies; here I merely want to suggest that Ratzinger’s disordered bodies are more like Newman’s conscience than should be comfortable for someone who beatified John Henry, and who gave the Church a day on which to feast him: October 9th. Thus I propose to talk about the body of Newman in the Body of the Church, and talk about Newman as a disordered body that can yet reorder a more funda- mental disorder that I find in Joseph Ratzinger’s ecclesiology, in his of Christ’s Body. And I do this by attending to how Ratzinger praises, and yet thereby buries, Newman’s great commentary on conscience.

6 SACRED CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH (SCDF), Letter to the Bishops of the on the Pastoral Care of Homosexuals, in: http://www.vatican.va/ro- man_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-per- sons_en.html; 29.03.2016, section 6. 7 Ibid., section 10. 8 Ibid., section 9.