By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
During lunch a few months ago with my friends the Utah Trappist monks, we discussed how the Catholic Church had changed during their long lifetimes. After the discussion, I grew curious about how frequently the Church changes. It happens a lot more often than many of us realize.
In fact, it started right away, with Saint Paul the Apostle. Paul was a Jew from Asia Minor who lived at the same time as—but never met—Jesus. Paul was a tentmaker, but also a Pharisee who actively persecuted Christians. After a dramatic personal conversion on the road to Damascus, he wrote almost half of the New Testament books and spread Christianity beyond Jewish circles.
At the time Paul started his ministry, to follow Jesus and be Christian meant to be Jewish too. Early Christians observed the Jewish religious practices of their day. Paul believed Christ came for all, and so he took the radical step of preaching to non-Jews, arguing that through Jesus, God extended salvation to them too. For Paul, salvation depended not on following traditional Jewish rites, but rather on belief in Christ.
This was a major change, and it occurred before the Church was even 50 years old. More change lay just ahead. For a couple hundred years, the dominant power of the day—the Romans—had persecuted Christians. In the fourth century, however, the Roman Emperor Constantine initiated procedures that tolerated Christians. These concessions encouraged prominent Romans to join the Church.
Soon, the empire’s official religion was Christianity. The emperor eventually converted too. This transition from persecuted sect to established church was another major change, one that created its own set of problems. For example, it was the Emperor Constantine—not spiritual leaders—who presided over important events like the Council of Nicea.
Arguably, this era of church-as-state survived in one form or another until the demise of the Papal States in the nineteenth century. The Papal States were territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct rule of the pope. Popes ruled like kings, maneuvered like politicians, and led armies in military battles.
The emerging Kingdom of Italy eventually cut the size of the pope’s empire down to the small area around the Vatican in Rome. The 1929 Lateran treaty recognized Vatican City as an independent city-state ruled by the pope. The Italian government also provided some financial compensation for the loss of the Papal States. Popes stopped wearing kingly crowns at their investiture, but only beginning in 1978 with John Paul I.
One important change, responding to excesses and abuses that flowed from the established church-state, was the monastic movement. In the third and fourth centuries, Christians moved to the desert for a life devoted to prayer, penance, and self-denial rather than to the aggregation of wealth and combined clerical/secular power. In the year 516, St. Benedict organized the monastic life into a written set of rules that focused on ora et labora or prayer and work.
There were many other changes, of course, within the Church during the thousand-plus years when popes ruled as kings. The Church first explicitly prohibited priests from marrying during the Lateran councils of 1123 and 1139. In the 1500s, responding to Martin Luther and the Reformation, the Church implemented disciplinary reforms to deal with clergy corruption, regulated priesthood education, and forbade nepotism in church office appointments. In 1633, the Church condemned Galileo’s theory that the Earth moves around the Sun but about 350 years later, the Church finally admitted Galileo was right.
In the thirteenth century, St. Francis of Assisi initiated one of the most significant of the church’s changes. My friend and book editor Jon Sweeney describes it well in his 2014 book, When Saint Francis Saved the Church. According to Jon, Francis looked for faith “beyond the walls of a church, unlike most people of his era,” and his style of living that faith “rocked the Church of his day” and changed the world.
Jon notes several Franciscan innovations: (1) Francis cultivated a personal friendship with God and creation; (2) Francis embraced poverty and reached out to the disadvantaged and non-believers; (3) he promoted a spirituality for all people, not just for monks, nuns, or clergy; (4) Francis brought love and joy to his daily work and colleagues; and (5) he taught that death is not something to be feared.
And then there is the great change which many Catholics today—including my friends the Utah monks—have experienced directly, the Second Vatican Council. In 1962, newly-elected Pope (and now Saint) John XXIII gathered clerical leaders, theologians, and other thinkers in Rome to address the relationship between the Catholic Church and the modern world. John said he wanted to “open the windows and let in the fresh air.”
The Second Vatican Council outlined significant changes to church liturgy and governance, as well as to how the Catholic Church saw itself vis-a-vis other religions. I came of age after the council ended, and thus did not know the Church of before. I do remember, however, that my mother—who saw both—once commented on how much she enjoyed hearing (and understanding) the Mass in English. When she grew up, it was always in Latin.
Many of the Utah monks I know joined a pre-Vatican II abbey but spent most of their lives in a monastery much changed by Vatican II. They told me that without the changes, they and my family likely would never have been able to interact and become friends. For the most part, the monks thought such changes were for the better.
One practice several monks said they did not miss was the “Chapter of Faults.” According to encyclopedia.com, this was “a meeting of the members of a religious community, held at an appointed time and place (usually the chapter house or room), at which those members guilty of some transgression of the rule publicly confess their faults.” One Utah monk said it was well-intentioned, to help community members live better lives. Still, the Utah monks I know were not too sad when it ended.
A statue of Mary from the old Huntsville monastery makes my point. Built in France over seven decades ago at another Trappist abbey, the statue stood for many years behind the main altar in the Utah monastery church. When I knew the monks beginning in the 1970s, the statue sat in the abbey courtyard. With monastery closed, the now-restored statue watches over the departed monks at rest in the abbey cemetery. (See: Statue of no Limitations and Confidence Restored) Same statue; many changes.
I hear many of my dear Catholic friends today express fear or concern about change or possible change. Yet, the history of the Church really is a history of change. Some of it was good, and some of it was not, but change has been a constant. It’s a theme I address in my new book Monastery Mornings.
In the book, I wrote how many years ago, while studying theology at the University of Notre Dame, I took a one-year-long Catholic Church history course, covering 2,000 years in just two semesters. We studied the good and bad. This ranged from miracles to murders, from saints to sinners, charity to corruption, and inspirations to inquisitions. It was discouraging at times.
Yet, despite all the turmoil caused by the imperfect humans running the Church, a basic perfect truth, a goodness, and a light survived. The essence of the Church’s message prevailed during this tumultuous history of change, despite the best efforts of some to corrupt or destroy it.
That enduring essence is the Sermon on the Mount, proclaiming that blessed are the peacemakers, and the merciful, and those who hunger and thirst for justice.
It is the soothing words of love and comfort found in the Twenty-third Psalm.
It is the Gospel words of Jesus commanding us to love one another and do unto others as we would have them do unto us.
It is St. Paul reminding us in a letter that love is patient and kind, and endures all things, and that of the core virtues of faith, hope, and love, the greatest of these is love.
The Catholic Church is at its best, and overcomes its darkest hours of uncertainty, when it returns and remains firmly anchored to this core message of love. That’s one thing that never changes.
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (found here), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, was published by Paraclete Press (more information here) in August 2021.
