If we live, we die. While we live, we change. To ignore either of these facts is to be ignorant of the basics of life. To understand change in our individual and institutional lives provides us with an opportunity to develop an authentic and healthy human life. Change and Confusion in Catholicism: A Historical Perspective on Today’s Liminal Church provides us with an opportunity to examine both individual and social changes using the history of Roman Catholicism as a case study. Consistently using several categories throughout the book, the reader is able to compare the church as it existed in one era with its existence in others. The church may be described as a way of life composed of four signposts that constitute its identity and enable its members to live a life of meaning from generation to generation. If these signposts of belief, ritual, moral standards, and polity (organization) differ over the centuries, we are able to see change occurring within the church. Not only does change occur over time, there is a certain type of change within each era that provides a crucible of events, which in turn creates a time of transition between a past and future way of life. This is what I call “liminal” change. The word is derived from the anthropological scholarship of Victor Turner who described an event among tribal cultures in which children endure a long ritual of transition between their childhood and adulthood. It is a time of meaningful change to those undergoing it, which includes the disappearance of all the markers of their former role in society, as well as feelings of confusion, panic and uncertainty. These times of transition exist within human societies as they develop over time. A liminal era, therefore, is a transition between the signposts of one historical era to the next.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines change as “to make or become different”, and “to exchange one thing for another, especially of a similar type.” Likewise, we are dealing with similarities and differences when we claim that Catholic words, ideas, stories, rituals, morals, and organizations change. Chris Mortensen, in his superb article “Change and Inconsistency,” provides us with an elaboration on this dictionary definition. He reminds us that central to making a claim of “change” is to demonstrate the inconsistency between what reality was before and after the change. When we claim that something has changed at a certain moment of history, we must be clear as to what has changed and what it has changed to, as well as the transitioning moments in-between. This is done in my book by using the “way of life” metaphor and describing its signposts in the beginnings of the Catholic Church and then in its subsequent eras of Imperial Church, Christendom, Tridentine Church, Modern Church, and the liminal times between each of these.

Anyone who has read books or seen movies about time travel realizes the challenges to recognizing what has changed because we see the past through present eyes. Common words we use today may easily cloud our understanding of the past. The meaning of words changes over time, and words are an essential part of Catholic life and identity. The essential words of Catholic identity, as well as the chaos resulting from being misunderstood during liminal periods, is a necessary part of our review of change within the Church.

Words and other symbols of every sort constitute our daily life. We will delve more deeply into their nature in the book. One particular aspect of a symbol must be mentioned when talking about symbol change: the distinction between symbol, symbol-fact, and symbol-experience. An understanding of each enables us to understand how societies can undergo radical change but not be consciously aware of exactly what is changing. Things today may look the same as they did yesterday (symbol-fact) but they may not be understood in the same way nor affect us in the same way (symbol).

Here is an image that acts as a symbol, symbol-fact, and, possibly even a symbol experience simultaneously:

When you see either the duck or the hare, you have experienced a symbol disclosure whose source is the lines on this page (the symbol-fact). The result is a symbol. To some it is a rabbit, to others is a duck, but to most it is both at different times. Many times, however, the symbol-fact is exactly the same while the symbol differs depending on the context. For example, the battle flag of the Confederate Army was seen differently by Union and Confederate soldiers in the nineteenth century; even in the twenty-first century, it is seen differently by African Americans, white southerners, and anti-government militias. Over centuries, therefore, the very same flag signifies different ideologies and binds together different communities. The symbol-fact may remain the same, but the symbol is effectively dead. The same happens when a symbol-fact moves from one historical epoch or culture to another. What we call ‘Christmas’ has at various times been a Roman holiday of the winter solstice, the celebration of Jesus’ manifestation to the Jews, the birth of Jesus, and a time of gift giving and familial kindness. Depending on where you live today, December 25^th (the symbol-fact) may symbolize any or even none of these things.

The list of symbol-facts is infinite. Examples surround us as everything is capable of being a symbol: our bodies, words, gestures, books, rituals, flags, water, oil, spit, buildings, and dress. Every symbol is basically what we sense (the symbol-fact), and the complex web of meanings, belonging, fairness, and well-being always associated with it. The symbol, which, when brought to consciousness, results in a symbol-disclosure as seen above. It becomes meaningful, makes us aware of our community, provides us with norms of fairness, and establishes expectations of well-being. To view the “symbol-fact” as constitutive of the symbol allows us to claim that there is something about a symbol that is continuous over time, even if we do not encounter it directly. There is a real sameness (fact) even though people may experience it differently. This reality provides a common base on which changes of meaning, belonging, and goodness are built. It cannot be destroyed. Any attempt to deny what is there (what is real) moves into the realm of imagined-reality, not fact-reality. Thus, to change the symbol-fact “G-O-D” to “D-O-G” changes the symbol-fact. We can have various meanings for the symbol “GOD” but those three letters in this unique sequence are always the same. So it is with all symbols. The symbol-fact is there – “G”-“O”-“D”. The symbol GOD is immediately sensed by us with sameness and difference, stability and change. Thus, in today’s pluralistic society, when the word “God” is spoken, it is heard differently by Jews, Muslims, and Christians. After all, most Christians believe in the Trinity as God, which, to many others, is one God, not a triune God. The same is true not only of a word, such as God, but also people (such as clergy) and things (such as bread and wine, complex rituals, processes) and feelings associated with the symbol or symbol system.

The history of change in Catholicism is the history of putting together a puzzle made up of these symbols, which seems complete until you find new pieces that lead you to continue and, in the process, create a new completed puzzle. That is, until you find more pieces and repeat the process. Each of these completions may be described as a way of life: the Catholic Church. As each church becomes the next during liminal times, we see a way of life that is not easily recognized by a former or subsequent church. As you read this book, you will see the changes that occur as symbol-facts are abandoned. For example, an actual Sunday meal replaces the Eucharist, as well as the introduction of private confession or penance. Our challenge today is to visualize a completed Church as we read the Catholic Church’s history.

The modern era has come to an end and we are now living in the chaos introducing a new era, which has not yet been named. Like the times of liminality in the past, ours is a time of change, division and chaos that is bringing about a new vision of church and society. That new church will be both continuous with and strikingly different from the societies and churches of the past.

Change and Confusion in Catholicism: A Historical Perspective on Today's Liminal Church is available now in Hardback at a 25% discount. Enter code PROMO25 at checkout to redeem.

Read Extract