We can locate this trajectory in the context of three motifs that dominated the pontificate of John Paul II: First, the Mercy of God which takes a primacy without eliminating the tension with justice, truth, holiness, wrath and even retribution. Second, his personalism which honors the dignity of the person and so privileges psychology and anthropology. Lastly, his clear focus on the person of Jesus that assured this incorporation was consonant with Tradition. Consider seven examples:
1. The 12 steps of AA is a specific therapeutic that comes straight out of evangelical Christianity with its sense of powerlessness (sin), dependence on a higher power (God), moral inventory (confession), amends (penance), and sponsorship (obedience). Here is the therapeutic in service of an ethos of commitment and purpose and a world remaining enchanted and open to transcendence.
2. Catholic practice of confession is entirely different from what it was 75 years ago due to the positive influence of the therapeutic. Example: masturbation in the old order was straightforwardly a deliberate mortal sin meriting eternal damnation. By contrast, the Catholic Catechism maintains the doctrine of its intrinsic disorder but goes on to consider psychological conditions (anxiety, compulsion, etc.) which mitigate the accountability. So, the objective moral order is upheld even as absolution is granted, normally in a spirit of gentleness and compassion. Whereas Wilhem Reich insisted that the practice of prayer and masturbation were absolutely incompatible, upholding the binary of condemnation versus indulgence, a distinct dynamic occurs before a Presence who is merciful holiness and compassionate purity
3. Similarly, in its treatment of homosexuality the Catholic Catechism clearly uphold the fruitful-unitive meaning of sex but equally firmly affirms the dignity of the person. The act is disordered, not the person. This is a simple, basic distinction that eludes many. Even Cardinal Joseph Tobin in a radio interview said the the Church may have to change its teaching that "the homosexual is disordered." This is a grave misstatement of our faith and, to my knowledge, has not been retracted. Additionally we see Courage, a support group in which the same-sex attracted support each other in chastity. In a different vein, "reparative therapy", popular in Catholic circles, offers attention to psychological wounds that are associated in some (not all) cases with the attraction. This is distinct from "conversion therapy" in that it is NOT an attempt to change sexual direction, but is often placed in the same category and "cancelled" by a gay militance intolerant of talk of "repair."
4. "Healing of memories" (popular in the charismatic renewal of the 70s under the leadership of Ruth Carter Stapleton) is a practice of imaginative prayer whereby painful/traumatic memories are recalled and reprocessed in the presence of Jesus. It is a merge of the evangelical with the therapeutic in a healing intimacy with Jesus Christ.
5. "Deliverance from evil spirits" similarly out of the charismatic renewal, especially as practiced by Neal Lozano, also entails a psycholgical review of childhood, parental and family relationshis, troubling/traumatic memories as well as the identification of obsessive, compulsive, intrusive psychic disturbances. It practices the actual casting out of evil spirits (literally understood) out of baptismal intimacy with Jesus and the gentle-but-powerful action of the Holy Spirit. Here again we find incorporation of the therapeutic into a perspective that is explicitly, unapologetically supernatural.
6. The Neocathecumenal Way, another lay renewal movement, offers a fascinating, extraordinary practice: the scrutiny. Retrieving the intense, prolonged catechumenate of the early Chruch, the spiritual guide (in this case, the catechist who is non-professional, as in the practices of healing of memories and casting out of spirits as well as the 12 steps) leads the disciple in a life review of wounds, disabilities, sins, and compulsions in the context of faith and prayer. After conversation and scrutiny, the disciple is given a concrete, often demanding, task to perform as a sign of love for Christ and the desire to grow closer to him. Examples including: forgiving a wrong and asking for forgiveness, repairing a broken marriage, change in career or living situation, giving a substantial amount of money to the poor, and destroying an occasion of sin such as a computer used for pornography. Here again we find an explicit orientation to Christ, a reliance upon the Holy Spirit, and an amateur psychology that is concrete, practical and radical.
7. In my own large, extended Catholic family of about 100 adults I count about 12 involved with psychology. 12% is a lot. My daughter Margaret Rose is completing her post-doctoral certification in psychoanalysis even as she is living the evangelical counsels of pvoerty, chastity and obedience in a community of women. She has found that this therapy has enhanced her interior freedom and so her life of faith. Phillip Rieff would be curious about this. She studied at the Institute for Psychological Studies (Arlington, Va) which is dedicated to the integration of psychology with Catholic principles. Her mentor on her dissertaion (on the healing power of Beauty) was Paul Vitz who has been a leader of the application of the therapeutic within Catholic life.
Much of my adult life has been a fascination with the role of psychology in the life of faith. Happily, I consider myself a Therapeutic Catholic, always, gratefully, in conversion and recovery.
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