Religious authority in the modern world

Abstract

W~e e Loma Prieta earthquake that shook northrn California in the fall of 1989 was a major geological event, perhaps the most significant of that year. A commenta to r at the time, however, noted that one might interpret that quake as an aftershock of the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Such an interpretation, jarring at first, reminds us that geological change is appropriately measured in centuries or even millennia, and an event that occurs today might be connec ted to an underlying tectonic shift whose movements and consequences take many human lifetimes to work themselves out. The same is true in the social world. Some kinds of social change unfold over decades or centuries, and unders tanding events depends in part on placing them within the relevant time span and connect ing them to the appropriate tectonic shifts. Philip Jenkins places the current crisis in the Catholic Church within the context of a decadeslong cultural conflict be tween liberal and conservative Catholics. Without denying the relevance of this context, I would add another.Whatever else it is, this crisis also is one of many quakes produced by a long-term tectonic shift in the fortunes of religious authority in the modern world, a shift in which religious authority's scope becomes ever narrower.A central aspect of this narrowing scope for religious authority is religious professionals' declining capacity to authoritatively make decisions. Consider, concretely, how few binding, socially consequential, decisions religious authorit i e s c l e r g y h a v e the recognized authority to make in institutionally differentiated societies. Do clergy, qua clergy, decide whether some course o f ac t ion was legal or illegal, and the re fo re w h e t h e r a jail s en t ence or fine is imposed?; whe ther some set of symptoms represents health or illness, and therefore whe ther medication is required?; whe the r some object is beautiful or ugly, and therefore whether it will be displayed in a museum?; whe ther some individual is skilled or unskilled, and therefore whether that person is hired for a job?; whether a book is learned or foolish, and therefore whether it is published by a prestigious press? The fewer such decisions religious professionals are called upon to authoritatively make, the narrower the scope of religious authority, and the greater the extent of secularization in a society. From this perspective, one of the notewor thy aspects of recent events in the Catholic Church is the removal of yet another kind of dec is ion-whether a priest has been abusive, and therefore whether to allow him to continue practicing as a pr ies t f rom the sole purview of religious authorities, in this case bishops. Whether the authority over this decision is lost to lay-dominated commissions, courts, or some combinat ion thereof, it represents a narrowing of religious authority in the Catholic Church. This is perhaps a particularly jarring kind of decision-making authority for religious leaders to lose since it involves authority over internal operations of the church, but it nevertheless should be seen in the context of a centuries long trend in the West in the direction of religious authority's declining s c o p e a trend that is not negated or even greatly challenged by the continuing presence of large numbers of believers and religiously observant individuals. Religion may be safe in modernity, but religious authori ty is vulnerable. These events represent a cultural conflict, as Jenkins suggests, but not just a conflict be tween liberals and conservatives, not just a conflict with its roots in the 1960s, and not just a conflict involving Catholics. I would broaden Jenkins's analysis in another way as well.Although he chides interpreters who