Holy People, Holy IrReverence

Fr. Harpe's writing is a classic example of the Franciscan intellectual tradition, still alive and answering Christ's call to "rebuild my Church which you see is falling down", 750 years after Francis of Assisi. "If man had not sinned, would Christ have come?" The question was hotly debated during the Middle Ages. "Yes", the Franciscan thinker John Duns Scotus argued. Incarnation was the first act of a loving God, wanting to share his life with his creation. "No", his opponents answered, the only point in becoming incarnate was to do something for feckless mankind, to erase the stain of our original sin.

Since then, theologians have noticed how the answer you give renders certain New Testament events as critical, while others become purely mechanical, necessary means to an end. If you say that incarnation would have happened regardless of man's state, you also emphasize Pentecost and deemphasize Cross and Church. Pentecost is a continuation of the incarnation and cross and Church are simply what happens when the divine meets the human. If you emphasize cross, you also glorify human institutions. Our original sin cost God the life of Christ; best set up an institution to keep us in line in the future.

It is that Franciscan point of view that Fr. Harpe brings to bear in diagnosing the malaise affecting the contempory Catholic Church. "Church" is a human institution; it is not the point of the New Testament. Sharing God's love is the point of the New Testament. That is the point of Christianity. The former is the posture taken by "churchianity". Today the Catholic Church has lost its balance, favoring the "churchianity" at the expense of Christian values.