On religion and cultural policy: notes on the Roman Catholic Church

Abstract

This paper argues that religious institutions have largely been neglected within the study of cultural policy. This is attributed to the inherently secular tendency of most modern social sciences. Despite the predominance of the ‘secularisation paradigm’, the paper notes that religion continues to promote powerful attachments and denunciations. Arguments between the ‘new atheists’, in particular, Richard Dawkins, and their opponents are discussed, as is Habermas’ conciliatory encounter with Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI). The paper then moves to a consideration of the Roman Catholic Church as an agent of cultural policy, whose overriding aim is the promotion of ‘Christian consciousness’. Discussion focuses on the contested meanings of this, with reference to (1) the deliberations of Vatican II, and (2) the exercise of theological and cultural authority by the Pope and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It is argued that these doctrinal disputes intersect with secular notions of social and cultural policy and warrant attention outside the specialist realm of theological discourse.

Keywords:

• cultural policy
• secularism
• religion
• Roman Catholic Church
• Vatican II

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following for their thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this paper: Jeremy Ahearne, Eleonora Belfiore, Chris Bilton, Christopher Gordon, Jim McGuigan, Paola Merli and Jonathan Vickery. I would also like to thank all those who commented on the draft of the paper that I presented at the Fifth International Conference on Cultural Policy Research held at Yeditepe University, Istanbul, on 20–24 August 2008.

Notes

1. In both the ICCPR and the IJCP, cultural policy is understood as ‘the promotion or prohibition of cultural practices and values by governments, corporations, other institutions and individuals. Such policies may be explicit, in that their objectives are openly described as cultural, or implicit, in that their cultural objectives are concealed or described in other terms’.

2. The only references, in English, to religious institutions as agents of cultural policy that I have been able to find are Jeannine Siat’s brief profile of the Holy See in the Council of Europe’s Compendium of Cultural Policies in Europe (2006) and Ahearne’s references to Debray’s account of the Roman Catholic Church’s use of culture to secure its position throughout its long history (2004). There are references to religious institutions in some of the Council of Europe’s national cultural policy reviews (see, e.g. Gordon 2004, pp. 26–28), but the primary purpose of these reviews is to focus on the explicit cultural policies of national governments rather than the implicit policies of other agencies.

3. For example, between 1965 and 2002, the number of priests in the USA declined by 22% to 45,000, the number of ordinations by 71% to 450 and the number of Catholic high schools by 49% to 786 (Jones 2003).

4. In the course of a scholarly refutation of the so‐called Kantian fallacy, Benedict quoted, without disputing them, derogatory remarks about Muhammed made by a fourteenth‐century Byzantine emperor. This caused outrage in the Muslim world, resulting in violent demonstrations, riots and protests.

5. ‘If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time’ (Russell 1952).

6. The Roman Curia is the collective term for the administrative and legal offices, based in the Vatican, through which the Pope governs the Catholic Church.

7. The Holy See and the Vatican are often used interchangeably. However, they refer to two different entities. The Holy See is a non‐territorial legal entity that governs the Catholic Church, enters into treaties with other states and sends out diplomatic representatives. The Vatican, by contrast, is a 108‐acre territory in Rome, which provides a physical base for the Holy See.

8. ‘Culture, which is the study of perfection, leads us … to conceive of true human perfection as a harmonious perfection, developing all sides of our humanity; and as a general perfection, developing all parts of our society’ (Arnold 1981, p. 11).

9. In a review of statistics that showed declining numbers of priests, ordinations, nuns and catholic schools in the USA, Buchanan (2002) declared that ‘[w]hen Pope John XXIII threw open the windows of the church, all the poisonous vapors of modernity entered, along with the Devil himself’.

10. The CDF is a committee made up of cardinals and bishops, supported by 30–40 paid members of staff. It is chaired by its ‘prefect’, who is himself appointed by the Pope.

11. Its full name was ‘The Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition’, sometimes known as ‘The Holy Office’. This should not be confused with the mediaeval versions of the Inquisition, such as the ‘Spanish Inquisition’, whose practices were considerably more violent. According to John Tadeschi, a leading scholar of the Roman Inquisition, its own forms of punishment were in fact relatively mild (1991, p. 151).

12. For the following account, I draw largely on Paul Collins’ book, The Modern Inquisition: Seven Prominent Catholics and Their Struggles with the Vatican. Collins was an Australian priest and church historian, who was himself investigated by the CDF for doctrinal ‘errors’. He has now resigned from the priesthood, though remains a member of the Catholic Church.