Bernard Häring, a German Redemptorist priest, is generally acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of post-Vatican II Moral Theology. He played a major role in Vatican II itself. His two major writings in the field of moral theology are his Law of Christ and Free and Faithful in Christ – both comprising three volumes. Of particular interest to readers of this volume might be two books in which he recounts some of his own ‘personal odyssey’ in receiving Vatican II, Embattled Witness and My Witness to the Church. The latter is referred to in the following text as MWC. The following is the unpublished text of a lecture I was invited to give in Cambridge by the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology, a Catholic college for women in Cambridge. It was one of a series they arranged to honour the memory of Bernard Häring.
One point to avoid confusion – In some of my quotations from his writings, Häring refers to the Holy Office or the Doctrinal Congregation. These are pre-Vatican II names for what is now the CDF.
I first met Bernard Häring in the late 1960s. He came to Liverpool to run a threeday workshop on the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I had only recently begun lecturing in moral theology at our archdiocesan seminary in Upholland, Lancashire. The impression left by those three days was of a man who was passionately concerned that we should not give people a false image of God by the way we presented and celebrated the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Those were the days when many Catholics were still going to Confession on a very regular basis, often even once a week. The moral theology taught to priests was designed principally to equip them for dealing with the confessional. The presumption seemed to be that God’s main concern was with people’s sins and the priest had to help them recognise the gravity or otherwise of their sins, as well as their frequency. Integrity of confession was the object of the exercise and integrity meant that all possible serious sins had to be confessed. The priest had to make sure that that obligation was fulfilled. The image of God that came over was that of a bureaucratic judge, dispensing juridical forgiveness provided the sins confessed by the penitent tallied with those on the Lord’s register. There had to be sorrow, of course – and a purpose of amendment. The tragedy was that the sins confessed were often peripheral to the important concerns of real life. So the sorrow felt tended to flow from a kind of devotional piety rather than being linked to any harm caused by sins committed. And the purpose of amendment was often a naked act of will, lacking any real credibility.
Those three days with Bernard Häring made a deep impression on his hearers, most of them priests or teachers. He was concerned about the authenticity of our celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It has to be true to God and true to ourselves. In other words, it should be grounded on the image of God revealed to us through the whole story of God’s saving action in history and pre-eminently in the person, life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. It should also be grounded in who we are as human persons in relation to this God and our human family. For Bernard Häring the parable of the Father and his two sons, both deeply loved by him and unaware of how precious they are to him, is one of the major controlling images for our appreciation of this sacrament. Writ large in the life of Bernard Häring, therefore, were God and human persons, as loved by God.
The next time I met Bernard Häring was when he came to Upholland Northern Institute to give a course there. He arrived on a Sunday evening. I have a most vivid memory of concelebrating Mass with him the following morning, along with one or two other priests. We were the only ones with him in this small chapel. I had the impression of sharing in the eucharistic celebration of a saint. He was not pious in any trivial sense. Perhaps I can best express what I felt by saying that the Eucharist that morning seemed to express the wonder of his being. His whole being was eucharistic – deeply appreciative of the goodness of life and people and overflowing with gratitude to God. This experience came back to me later in the week when I was talking to him about his prolific writing. He told me that of all the many books he had written the one he himself liked best was a little book he wrote on the Eucharist.
Clearly, the eucharist was also writ large in the life of Bernard Häring.
The next time I met him was in Rome. By that time, I knew from various things he had written that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had been on his back. He had also provoked their ire by his stance on Humanae Vitae and by his support for Charles Curran. He even accompanied Charles to the Holy Office for his meeting with Cardinal Ratzinger and some other officials. What was eminently clear to me from what he wrote about all this, as well as from my personal knowledge of him, was that he had a very deep love for and commitment to the Church. In no way could he be accused of working out any authority hang-ups of his own in his dealings with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Though he had a deep belief in the inherent goodness of people, he was not blind to our propensity to sin and knew that this affected not only personal relationships but also human structures and how they work and are maintained – even within the Church. He had a good understanding of how the inner corridors of power in the Church operated. This came from his long years of teaching in Rome, his involvement with the process of drafting documents prior to and during the Second Vatican Council and also his being a member of the Papal Birth Control Commission. So he had first-hand experience of the human face of structural sin within the Vatican. Consequently, his passionate love for the Church was sometimes expressed in anger when he was convinced that the actions of some officials were an obstacle to the legitimate search for truth or impeded important initiatives in pastoral practice or were motivated by personal advancement or power politics and not by any commitment to a ministry of service.
That time in Rome was my last meeting with him. We were at an international meeting of moral theologians hosted by the Accademia Alfonsiana to celebrate the bi-centenary of St Alphonsus. The Vatican did not approve of this meeting and imposed some additional speakers on the programme. Just before Häring was due to have a public debate with one of these, I was talking with him in the courtyard. I asked him about that particular moral theologian, whether he was a diocesan priest or a member of some religious congregation. Häring replied: ‘He belongs to the congregation of careers!’ I then asked whether many theologians supported his hard-line views on moral theology. The reply came back: ‘The congregation of careers has many members.’
Those words may seem harsh and unkind. However, they vividly express Häring’s pain that positions of authority and influence in the Church could be occupied by people whose motivation seems to be their own career rather than the good of the Church and the people it serves. I get the impression that in his later years, because Häring loved the Church so passionately, he became more and more outspoken on this point.
So the Church, too, was writ large in the life of Bernard Häring.
When I was preparing this talk, I jotted down a long list of Häring’s concerns as a moral theologian whose principal concern was in the pastoral field. That list had many items on it, but the more I tried to see how they were all linked, the more I began to see that the foursome I have focused on in this introduction seem to be central to his whole approach:
| God | loving, compassionate, forgiving, empowering. |
| Human Persons | loved by God, precious to God, gifted by God, invited into a communion of love with God and with each other. |
| Eucharist | sacramental celebration of this love of God for persons, a sign and instrument of unity, forgiveness, reconciliation, a table which is inclusive rather than exclusive. |
| Church | a gathering of people called to be a sign, sacrament, witness of God’s all inclusive love. |
Looking for an image to portray these four major points in relation to all the other items on my list, I settled for the image of the four points of the compass, something simple and easy to remember. Obviously, God has to be the north. We take all our bearings from the magnetic north. In other words, when we focus on human persons, or Eucharist, or Church, it is always in relation to God. So if our God-setting is wrong, our other three settings will be thrown out of alignment. So I settled on the following four points: God as North, Human Persons as West, Eucharist as East and Church as South
Let us imagine these four points I have highlighted as the four points on Häring’s compass guiding his approach to pastoral issues.
North-West: Häring’s commitment to God and human persons
Obviously, getting this alignment right is an essential dimension of pastoral practice. One could give a whole series of lectures on what is implied in this alignment. I would like to touch on just two issues which I believe are a very important interface between moral theology and pastoral practice at the present time:
‘Oikonomia’ (Economy) or epikeia
An interesting angle on this topic is found in Häring’s little book, No Way Out? Pastoral Care of the Divorced-Remarried. As an introduction to his discussion of this pastoral issue, he writes first about ‘the spirituality and practice of oikonomia’. ‘Oikonimia’ is a pastoral tradition in the Eastern Churches which is similar to but goes far beyond ‘epikeia’ in the West. Both are about humanising apparently inflexible laws by taking into account the more intimate personal situation. Häring speaks of the ‘benevolent father of the household’ (perhaps a reference to the father and his two sons) and also of ‘trust in the good shepherd who knows and calls each and every one by name and when necessary leaves the ninety-nine healthy sheep behind for a while and astonishes them in order to go lovingly after a single lost sheep to rescue it’ (p. 40).
Stressing the fact that ‘the letter without the spirit can only kill’, he goes on to write: ‘Economy is a much more broadly understood concept and a spirituality which includes and decodes the best of our Western statements about ‘epikeia’ but goes far beyond these’ (p. 41). Häring also makes the following comment, drawing together both the Eastern and Roman Catholic tradition: ‘Along with virtually the entire tradition of the Eastern Churches and a large part of the Roman Catholic tradition, St Alphonsus Liguori taught that even in questions of the natural law there is room for epikeia’ (MWC, p. 224).
The issue of ‘epikeia’ featured in Bernard Häring’s first brush with the Holy Office. It involved the pastoral interpretation of Humanae Vitae. To quote Häring’s own description of a communication he received from Cardinal Seper:
It is a very clear expression of the firm determination of the Doctrinal Congregation, in regard to the prohibition of artificial contraception, to stand rigidly with absolute inflexibility and absolute exclusion of every kind of application of ‘epikeia’ or ‘oikonomia’. No one should be allowed to think that an infringement of the objective scale of values would be permitted (MWC, p. 139).
Häring was deeply disturbed when the John Paul II came out with a particularly hardline statement about Humanae Vitae. Among other things, the Pope seemed to suggest that questioning the absoluteness of the teaching of encyclical was calling in question the idea of the holiness of God. Häring felt obliged to write a personal letter to the Pope. In it he wrote:
How can one expect the critically-minded people of today, including devout Christians, to accept the statement that in the interpretation of the norm laid down by Humanae Vitae every exception (all ‘epikeia’) must be absolutely excluded, and then put forward the statement: ‘In reality, what is called into question by the rejection of this teaching is the very idea of the holiness of God’ (MCW, p. 227).
The issue of the flexibility of norms haunted him to the end of his life. In one of the last books he wrote, he reveals his deep feelings very starkly with his very personal comment that, after his ‘intimate experience of war, the intimate experience of senseless killing and dying, the personal witnessing of the brutalising of many’:
I find it absolutely laughable and at the same time frustrating that at my age I still have to pour out so much energy on questions like flexibility or inflexibility concerning the forbidding of contraception and in the struggle against sexual rigorism (MWC, p. 24).
‘Do the best you can in your situation’ as a guide for decision-making
With the needle of the Häring compass still pointing north-west, i.e. God and human persons, I would like to touch on a second ‘gap’ which concerns the interface between moral theology and pastoral practice at the present time.
One of the best articles on moral theology and pastoral practice that I never wrote carried the title, ‘On Starting from where people are...!’ Incidentally, the Incarnation is the prime example of that. However, that is another story – though not really.
The gap between Church law and practice is not just about the tension between the universal and the particular. It can also be due to different worldviews and theological approaches between some Vatican directives and the convictions of many in the Church, theologians and lay. The pastoral practitioner, therefore, needs to be able to handle this gap without hurting individuals or violating their rights – and yet without destroying people’s love and respect for the Church.
Häring managed to achieve this even on those occasions when he was quite open in his disagreement with a particular piece of Church teaching. This was even true when he was expressing his anger at the failure of those responsible for such inadequate teaching. Perhaps they had failed to honour the necessary consultation process needed to ensure that the teaching represented the best current understanding in the Church.
A case in point is his handling of the so-called ‘infallible’ statement about the non-ordination of women. He devotes the whole of chapter sixteen of My Hope for the Church, the last book he wrote, to this issue. Häring makes it perfectly clear that, despite John Paul II’s intention to make an infallible decision, he did not observe the criteria for infallibility laid down by Vatican II. Yet, in stating this, he is not trying to score a point. In fact, he presents these built-in safeguards as redounding to the credit of the Church. Their very purpose is to help the Church be true to its teaching mission even in the face of a mistaken use of authority.
There are two levels to all these disagreements about the adequacy of Church teaching on a particular moral issue.
There is the level of theological or ethical argumentation. Some disagreements can be traced back to different ethical or theological presuppositions. It is common knowledge that there are different schools of moral theology in the Roman Catholic Church at present and that decisions emanating from the CDF – or even Pope John Paul II himself – tend to reflect the thinking of only one of these schools.
However, there is a second level which involves the individual person and his or her conscientious decision. Naturally, any well-disposed person will try, as far as possible, to be attentive to the concerns voiced at the first level I have just mentioned. However, that might still leave them dissatisfied. Their decision cannot await the outcome of complex theological-ethical debates. It is something to be faced now. Previously, when lay people were less well-educated and when such issues were debated behind closed doors, most might have resorted to consulting their priest. However, today people are urged to accept their own responsibility for decision-making.
In his book, Moral Demands and Personal Obligations, Washington, Georgetown University Press, 1993, the German moral theologian, Josef Fuchs states: ‘The distinction is made today between the ethical goodness of the person -morality in the truest sense of the word – and the ethical rightness of action or behaviour’ (p. 157). For Fuchs ‘the ethical goodness of the person’ is ‘morality in the truest sense of the word’ because it is dealing with the inner integrity of a person. That is why it goes to the heart of a person-centred approach to moral theology.
In the area of practical decision-making what is meant by ‘ethical goodness’ is that a person tries to honour his or her personal integrity in the reality of everyday life to the best of their ability. They do this if they have with openness and integrity tried their best to discern what course of action in their particular circumstances and taking account of their personal moral capacity is most in keeping with the criterion of the dignity of the human person, integrally and adequately considered – a criterion to which they are fully committed. They realise that their judgement is fallible and so it is possible that they are mistaken. Nevertheless, as long as they have made a serious conscientious judgement according to their best lights, they have clearly demonstrated their commitment to personal integrity.
Within the Roman Catholic Church, for instance, this means that no official teaching on sexual ethics can oblige a Catholic to act against their conscience or to accept as true any ethical ruling of the Church which they conscientiously believe not to be true. It also means that a person is abdicating their moral responsibility as a human person if they decline to follow their own convinced conscience purely because a Church directive on sexual ethics forbids them to do what they know they really should do. This is not saying anything which is contrary to what Roman Catholic moral theology has always taught.
Hence, if a couple are convinced that the Church’s official teaching on contraception is erroneous, they are not obliged to accept this teaching as true. In fact, they would be wrong to do so while they remain in their present state of mind. If they go on to decide that the good of their own marriage dictates they should use contraception themselves, they should regard their decision as well taken and so they can rest assured that they remain pleasing to God. Something similar would hold true across the board in the whole field of sexual ethics. So, for instance, it would also apply to similar conscientious decision-making on the part of gay men and lesbian women expressing their love sexually in a committed, faithful relationship or cohabiting heterosexual couples or people entering a second marriage after divorce.
In all of these cases I am assuming that we are dealing with people who are trying to do their best in a moral sense. They do not have a purely self-centred agenda. They are committed to the basic moral criterion of the dignity of the human person. They are also trying to behave responsibly both in the ongoing task of conscience-formation and in how they go about their conscientious decision-making. That being the case, in all these instances people are obliged to follow their conscientious judgement as to what is the right thing to do; and that this remains true, even when their conscientious judgement seems to be at odds with Church teaching. Häring often expressed this by saying: ‘What does not come from an honest conviction is a sin’ (MWC, pp. 145, 164).
Put very simply, therefore, a person following their conscience in this way can be absolutely certain that, in so doing, they are doing the best they can and God does not ask for more. They are being true to their commitment to be faithful to God’s will and are being ‘ethically good’ as persons, even though it is possible that what they are doing might not be ‘ethically right’.
Häring’s compass, pointed north-west to God and the human person, can be a great pastoral help to people struggling to do their best in the process of pastoral decision-making.
North East: Häring’s commitment to God and the Eucharist
It is remarkable how many day-to-day pastoral problems are linked to the Eucharist, especially within the Roman Catholic community. The cutting edge of the issue of divorce and remarriage is often experienced when it comes to the reception of Communion, especially if couples have young children and want to give them good example and encouragement by themselves receiving Holy Communion at Sunday Mass each week. Funerals would be another time when this is highlighted.
The Eucharist was of tremendous importance to Bernard Häring – not just personally but as the central celebration of the whole community. So he was deeply disturbed when the observance of purely human laws and practices were given priority over the availability of the Eucharist to provide spiritual nourishment. This is why, on the issue of obligatory celibacy for the ordained ministry, he is prepared to state very frankly that ‘the present situation in the “Latin” Church (i.e. Western-Roman Church) is in my opinion untenable’ (MWC, p. 208). This is because, as he says,
the right to regular participation in the eucharist comes from the solemn testament, the act of empowerment of Jesus: ‘Do this in my memory. Take and eat this, all of you.’ On the other hand, the admission of only the unmarried to the priesthood is a purely human tradition. It must be clear that in cases of conflict the divine act of empowerment has to have priority … my main concern is that the Western Church may not violate the right of a regular participation in the eucharist of a large part, indeed, even the majority of the faithful, for the sake of a law of celibacy based on this human tradition and legal structure (MWC, p. 209).
As far as I know, Häring never extended this line of argument to the ordination of women. However, I am sure that, had he lived a little longer, he would certainly have done so. In recent years his position on the ordination of women moved considerably. As mentioned earlier, he discusses that issue in the last book he wrote. Chapter sixteen is entitled, ‘The Future of the Church and the Issues of Women’. He is in no doubt that, before long, women will be ordained in the Roman Catholic Church and he goes so far as to say: ‘I suspect that the rejection of ordaining women to celebrate the Eucharist is a relic of magical thinking’ (MWC, p. 114). He even dares to express the hope that ‘it would be splendid if the pope were to realize and humbly acknowledge his error before he leaves us … It would be a special sign of God’s grace to ecumenism’ (MWC, p. 118). Häring says these things out of his commitment to the full and equal dignity of women, certainly. In fact, he even writes: ‘I consider Rome’s “infallible” decision not only inopportune, but also out of touch with the times.’
Perhaps to a greater extent, he is motivated by a concern that the Eucharist should play its full and powerful place in the Church’s mission to the world. This comes out in a story which Häring repeats in two of his recent books. In Häring’s early days in Rome, the Jesuit, Fr Hurth, had great influence with Pope Pius XI (he was one of the editors of the encyclical, Casti connubii). He used to lecture to packed halls. Häring tells of hearing him spend the whole of one lecture discussing whether a priest should be allowed to celebrate Mass twice on a weekday if this was the only way it would be possible for people to attend Mass at least once a year. Hurth’s answer was an emphatic ‘No’. And the reason he gave was that people have never been obliged to attend Mass on a weekday. Häring expected the whole student body to rise up in protest – but there was not a murmur. Authority had spoken. Häring ends his narrative by saying:
I took my hat and departed, deeply shaken: So, the Eucharist is only ‘a law’, not a means of life, not an experience of the community of faith and salvation, not a celebration of grateful remembrance, not life from the New Covenant and for the New Covenant! (MWC, p. 32).
Somehow, Häring seems to be bringing in all four points of his compass here in challenging Hurth’s view which is unpastoral in the extreme. Häring sees the Church not in legal categories but as a community of people. For him the Eucharist is the lifeblood of that community. And God is not a trivial God delighting in legal niceties but a dynamic, life-giving God, empowering people, inspiring the Church and giving every eucharistic celebration an inclusive potentiality to be a symbol of the unity of our whole human family.
I have a feeling that, despite all the violence, ethnic cleansing and discrimination of our age, one of the ‘signs of the times’ of our day is a yearning for inclusivity. I do not mean this in any collectivist or totalitarian sense – no Big Brother state, not even Europe (even though I am a pro-European). Somehow I feel that the Christian Church is called to be the symbol (sign or sacrament or whatever) of this inclusivity. It is not an inclusivity which threatens our uniqueness as human persons. It rejoices in the unique giftedness of each of us but recognises that this is enriched, not diminished, by the celebration of our relatedness and interdependence.
I am amazed at how often the prayers in the Eucharist express a belief that it is through our sharing in this Eucharist that we are drawn together. I was saddened by our Bishops’ Pastoral Letter, One Bread, One Body. Somehow it gave the impression that the Eucharist is a celebration of an ‘in group’. You had to belong to fully participate.
North-South: Häring’s commitment to God and the Church
What about the North-South axis on our compass? North-South these days smacks of inequality. That is certainly true when we line up God and the Church together. The Church through the sinfulness of some of its structures can easily obscure the true face of God. Having experienced this in the life of many of his fellow theologians and even in his own life. Häring was even prepared to say that in the Church ‘we are in a pathological situation’ (MWC, p. 90). However, far from letting this get him down, he saw this as a call from God to which he should respond – a living example of his moral theology of responsibility. He writes very movingly of this period of his life:
This was the most creative period of my life. The perspective of an imminent death gave me a great inner freedom from every form of external pressure … Without irony or sarcasm I believe that I can say that my experiences with the Holy Office, and the later Doctrinal Congregation, have had a liberating effect on me … Whoever loves the Church must also be prepared to suffer in the Church, with the Church, through the Church, and for the Church (MWC, p. 93).
This very moving passage reminds us that what is sometimes presented as rebellious opposition creating confusion and fermenting unrest may, in reality, be deep loyalty to the Church, solid commitment to the truth and a burning pastoral concern for people, struggling with the complexities of everyday life. That was certainly true of Häring. In one of his communications with the Holy Office, he made it clear that the responsibility for confusion in the Church does not lie solely, or even principally, on the shoulders of theologians. The Vatican, by its refusing to accept the legitimacy of pluralism on moral issues, is itself a major cause of any confusion that might exist:
The faithful certainly know already, or at least have a right to know, that in questions of interpretation there is a pluralism in the Church, which by no means needs to lead to chaos or laxism. My question to the Doctrinal Congregation is precisely this: Must it not lead to a much greater confusion among critical and uncritical faithful if the Doctrinal Congregation takes a position on a very concrete question and authoritatively presents a very specific solution while, at the same time, many learned theologians and physicians, on the basis of their expert knowledge, experience, long term reflection and discussion, are of another opinion? (MWC, p. 159).
It might be helpful to quote an even longer passage from a document Häring wrote to the Doctrinal Commission of the Holy Office in 1977 when they were challenging his orthodoxy:
Reformable teachings cannot demand an act of faith nor absolute agreement. All the world know that in the past the Magisterium itself has reformed several doctrines which it had previously presented in emphatic fashion; and that was made possible by the strength of the loyalty and honesty of many theologians.
I will always attempt to honour the Church, the People of God, and its Magisterium through absolute honesty, even if that should bring me a threat. This loyalty and honesty is for me a holy duty, even in all those questions in which after serious reflection and prayer, I have come to the conviction that I cannot accept the all too narrow interpretations of the Doctrinal Congregation. This is especially so when I know myself to be at one with many bishops, with the majority of theologians, and with a large number of laity zealous for the faith. I would not have such great trust in my own insights if I found myself in contradiction to the great majority of theologians or to the sensus fidelium of the Christian people (MWC, p. 153).
Häring did not enjoy this kind of encounter. In fact, in a later letter to Cardinal Seper, the then Prefect of the Congregation, he said that his trial at the hands of the Holy Office ‘has transformed my love for the Church into a suffering and critical love’ (MWC, p. 155). This makes it clear that, although he did not enjoy it, he saw it as expressing his love for God and God’s people through his love for the Church. That is why he is a challenge to theologians. We are failing in our pastoral responsibility if we remain silent when we believe that an instance of Church teaching is either mistaken or misleading to people. Häring puts it well:
A theologian or group of theologians becomes inauthentic when, rather than suffer for the truth, they allow themselves to be frightened and choose to bury the talents of creative freedom and creative loyalty in favour of ‘safe’ repetition of old formulas … A theologian can betray the Church and truth when he denies his conviction of the truth ‘out of obedience’ (MWC, p. 180).
Nevertheless, he warns his fellow theologians against ‘struggling for their cause out of resentment and bitterness … in rebellious disobedience’ (op. cit.).
Conclusion
By way of conclusion, I would say that Bernard Häring offers the Church, and moral theologians in particular, a shining example of the immense gifts that can come to the Church through faithfully receiving the teachings and spirit of Vatican II. In particular Bernard Häring was a moral theologian who: