Greatness of Soul

St. Thomas Aquinas says the virtue of magnanimity (greatness of soul) makes “someone deem himself worthy of great things in consideration of the gifts he holds from God” (Summa Theologiae II-II, 129, ad 4). It is a part of the virtue of courage.

Courage and greatness of soul are needed in every generation, and this is true of our own in the contemporary Church. Greatness of soul leads a person to esteem only great matters, not to sway from the truth because of threats which are either bodily or social and to “get beyond the secondary causes,” in the words of Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity.

Religious people can be intimidated from strong adherence to the faith by many things. One strong motive for this is observing the manner in which the mission of the Church to clarify doctrine and discipline is carried out. There have been many ages of crisis in the Church. Though each crisis causes some to pause and falter, others persevere, despite the seemingly stumbling way in which Church doctrine is clarified.

History can be helpful to form Catholic responses to this experience. Some Catholics have the ahistorical idea that events like Church councils or synods were always peaceful affairs in which there was intelligent discussion and no factions, leading to decisions that were equally peaceably applied, without struggle. Such Catholics have been surprised by the admonition of Pope Francis to the recent synod that he wanted freedom for the members of the synod to express their opinions about the problems of the contemporary Church and what they saw as the solutions.

When conflict occurred among the synod fathers, many reacted with surprise and were perhaps even scandalized there were such differences of opinion among the bishops — and that the Vatican could tolerate this. Statements of the Pope were reported without context, as though definitive in support of one or another position. All this was viewed by some as an intolerable innovation.

History can be instructive, however, in what a Catholic perspective might be concerning these developments. This is especially true regarding ecumenical councils. A case in point is the Council of Trent — it was hardly a peaceful affair in which consensus easily occurred. For one thing, it took place at a great testing time in the Church, in three sessions, from 1545 to 1563. At the outset, it was beset by struggle.

For another thing, very few bishops attended at first. When they did come, however, there was much disagreement even about the agenda (sometimes caused by purely political forces). The emperor of the Holy Roman Empire wanted them to focus on reform, especially of the clergy, so he could have peace with the Lutherans. Doctrine was not that urgent to him. The French king, however, wanted disorder in Germany, so he was more interested in doctrine. The Roman Curia had its own agenda, which pushed doctrine and was reticent about too many rules concerning discipline, lest the question of the relation of the pope to the council lead to a resurgence of conciliarism. The final solution was that they would discuss both equally and a decree on discipline would then be implemented.

Interestingly, there was not much disagreement about doctrine once the Council Fathers began discussing it, since the Protestants were generally excluded from the discussions. The greatest tests came in the discussion of discipline, especially of the clergy regarding the care of souls. The evil of multiple benefices — one person being bishop of several dioceses — was front and center. These multiple benefices were attached to salaries, and so the importance of clerical residence in a pastoral position became a point of passionate dispute.

The council was passionate to reassert Catholic truth through the clergy, and this demanded clerical presence in both the diocese and the parish. This was impossible, however, if one held multiple dioceses. As one historian of the council put it: “An implicit principle guiding the draft (on residency) was that office and benefice were inseparable — you get the money only if you do the job” (John W. O’Malley, Trent, 116-117).

This might seem obvious today, but it was an issue that led to great impasses. Its final resolution was to require clerical residency not by divine right or by invoking sanctions, but by the appeal of the commandment of the Lord to pastors to do what is necessary for the care of the faithful, which cannot occur without their physical presence. Though they mandated residency, they did this more by appeal to the conscience and responsibility of the bishops rather than penalties; and so they state, “… nor can they be absent, except to the degree and on the grounds that follow” (Tanner, Decrees 2: 744).

On the issue of freedom of discussion at the council, there was much criticism at times that the pope was limiting discussion, because every draft of the council documents had to be approved by the Vatican. Yet the pope reacted to this complaint through an intermediary: “The archbishop of Armaugh . . . said that the pope had expressly told him he wanted every member of the council freely to speak his mind on both doctrine and reform. No one was to be reprimanded, even if he spoke heresy, as long as he was willing to submit to the judgment of the council” (O’Malley, Trent, 117; see Council of Trent: 1: a133).

From this very limited examination of some of the currents of thought and interactions at the Council of Trent, it should be clear that all was not peace, light and conformity. The give-and-take in the discussions was necessary so that all of the bishops and the Holy See could with one voice put their stamp of approval on the final result.

Even so, the implementation of the decrees was difficult. This was especially true of the disciplinary decrees about the clergy, which had been so painstakingly worked out. Fortunately, many individual bishops showed their greatness of soul by taking seriously the required residence, seminary formation, regular diocesan visitations and synods and even regular preaching mandated by the council. There had been so much energy, discussion and time spent on the issue that many of the bishops realized how important this issue was, and so did it.

A case in point is St. Charles Borromeo, one the greatest of the cardinals during and after the council. He had become a cardinal at a very young age. Called to Rome by his uncle, Pope Pius IV, he organized and took an active role in the last session of the Council of Trent, in which the residency requirement for bishops was the subject of such bitter controversy. His association with new orders like the Jesuits and Theatines led him to a further conversion of life. When he was created archbishop of Milan, he determined to take seriously the directions of the council concerning both episcopal residency and responsibilities to guide the diocese. He was instrumental in the composition of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, established a curriculum and way of life for seminary training and regularly called synods and did parochial visitations.

The decisions of his six local synods in implementing both the teaching and the discipline of the council were published in the Acts of the Church of Milan, which became a model of Church reform in the Catholic Reformation. When a plague broke out in Milan, he refused to leave the city with many of the nobility and, together with religious orders, organized famine relief, which fed 60,000-70,000 people each day. He used his own funds, even going into debt to support relief for the poor. At the same time, he vigorously suppressed heresy. This is just one example of the greatness of soul that an ecumenical council can cause in an individual who refuses to be cowed or intimidated by the difficulties inherent in the sometimes-vitriolic discussions that take place.

For 50 years, the Church has been torn by differing interpretations of the Second Vatican Council. Many people wish to view its achievements and discussions through a prism of their own agenda. In addition, with each new challenge caused by some surprising development in discussions of synods or statements of the papacy, various factions react with shock and awe or warm approval. This seems to belie the proper greatness which the Catholic Church offers to her members.

Catholics should not fear open discussions, even on controversial points. Obviously, there is a development of doctrine that should be enshrined in the reform of the Church. Of course, the Catholic teaching on this development is that it cannot be changed in a negative way. In other words, doctrine develops in a homogenous way, not denying what we have always believed, but helping us to understand it and deepen our own moral reform accordingly.

If marriage is indissoluble, as the Lord taught and the Church has always maintained, no synodal discussion can change that. If the practice by which it is enshrined can compromise that teaching, then it cannot be changed. Still, our culture has confronted us with the pervasive problem of the breakdown of marriage and family, and a realistic discussion of possible avenues of addressing this problem can help to clarify just what the response of the Church should be. It can also help to produce arguments that explain further why the practice cannot be changed. As long as the process remains, it is not possible to make positive or negative judgments about the outcome.

St. Thomas says the magnanimous person is someone who is concerned only with great things because of the greatness of the gifts he has received. In the Catholic context, that greatness is the union of our souls with the Trinity, which should lead to our transformation in Christ. This, of course, means we are called to participate fully in the society of the Church united in creed, sacraments and government.

This will not lead to a monolith of conformity, however — and the lack of such a monolith should not be viewed as a surrender of the objective truth to the spirit of the age. It should be characterized by neither a denial of tradition nor a slavish limitation to what one has always done. Nor should it lead to traditionalism, all too commonly practiced today by those who in the name of tradition create new ones. Where there is not tradition, they make one up. None of these reactions is objectively based on the gifts which God has given to us.

The fact that such greatness of soul is difficult today is further compounded in this information age by instantaneous reporting and reaction, both to synodal discussions and informal papal statements, as though these were the final finished products of magisterial pronouncements. Greatness of soul should lead each Catholic to be very circumspect in making any judgments on such invitations to misunderstanding and division among Christ’s faithful. Gossip on the part of the media, which rarely understands what they are commenting on, is not only unrealistic, but a very poor basis on which to construct a theological edifice.

Legitimate discussion in the Church, encouraged by the magisterium, is meant to give us new expressions to confront the spirit of the age without denying what we have always taught. In Trent, this led to clarity of doctrine. In St. Charles Borromeo, it led to a further conversion of life and a passion for what Christ has always taught. Catholic greatness of soul is founded on the conviction that one must see time from the perspective of eternity. Grace causes this. This grace must always be at the heart of our conviction that Christ will always be with his Church.

Dominican Father Brian Mullady is a mission preacher and adjunct professor at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut.