By Chris Eckl

Father Anselm Atkins, O.C.S.O., a young Trappist priest at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit at Conyers, has issued 95 theses for public discussion - just as Martin Luther did 450 years ago.

The 95 theses, published in the winter issue of Continuum, an independent quarterly, take a questioning look at the basic teachings and tradition of the Catholic Church.

What are the purposes of the theses? “I drew them up to stimulate discussion and thought. They are theological speculations and express part of my critical attitude toward some of the things in the Church.” He said there was an element of protest in picking the number 95.

Father Anselm, 34, a priest since 1962, works as a designer in the stained-glass shop at the monastery and as a forester. He is studying for a Ph.D. in literature and theology at Emory University. He also does cartoons for Jubilee magazine under the signature of Tyng, his middle name.

Following are some of the theses he presented and his comments on them:

“The organic constitution of the Church is not immutable; but Christian society, just as human society, is subject to perpetual evolution. The dogmas, the sacraments, the hierarchy, as far as pertains both to the notion and to the reality, are nothing but interpretations and the evolution of the Christian intelligence, which have increased and perfected the little germ latent in the Gospel.”

“A certain segment of our theologians are going in this direction,” Father Anselm said, “but they are moving so fast they don’t have a substantial defense. What they are doing is sending out feelers and in the future we will have to move in behind them and go carefully into things.”

Theologians who are moving toward this thesis in their writings are Daniel Callahan, Leslie Dewart, Rosemary Reuther and Eugene Fontinell, S.J.

Asked if he thought traditional ideas on transubstantiation and the Trinity will change. Father Anselm replied: “Yes. But this is a touchy thing for theologians because we don’t know how or what it will involve. It might be totally different in a certain sense, and it might not be.”

He then referred to Thesis 49 which says:

“The Church never historically ‘fell’ because it was never lily-pure. Yet the term is appropriate, since it expresses our sense of the present condition of the Church. And it must be insisted that the needs of radical and immediate reform - in ways which the institution is not able even to conceive as possible, let alone immediately necessary - cannot be met by continual reaffirmation of the lines laid down in the past. The only historical route open to us now is that of dialectical negation.”

Father Anselm said this refers to the development of doctrine in the Church. “The development of doctrine could be based on negation of a doctrine instead of just adding on to it,” he said.

In his speculation, Father Anselm implies, for example, the development could be the negation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. He said the negation concept should be argued and criticized by theologians.

Discussing another thesis, No. 74, Father Anselm said it touches on the problem of how doctrine expresses religious truth. He wrote:

“If anything is symbolical, doctrine is. A doctrine is based on religious experience and is only a paraphrase of the intuition of the man who had the experience. Paraphrase, moreover, can go on indefinitely without ever attaining or correctly representing the original intuition. When a paraphrase fully replaces the experience, or when it is taken as the only proper expression of the experience, it becomes heresy.”

“This is something that theologians are just beginning to get into as far as I can see,” the priest commented. “Things we say now will be immature and will have to be changed. It is necessary to explore the problem of language that doctrine is put into, and it’s more than just better expressing the doctrine.”

“Traditional teaching has had continuity, but there have been a lot of big changes that we don’t notice. Dan Callahan is interested in a very empirical form of theology which takes into account sociology, psychology, comparative religion and brings itself more into contact with branches of modern knowledge.”

Asked why the Church lagged behind modern thought, Father Anselm said, “Modern thought has attacked the Church, so she takes a defensive attitude. By taking the position of being in possession of all truth, the Church negates what others say instead of making use of what they say. For example, there have been very few Catholic theologians or philosophers who have made constructive use of Kant, whose philosophy came out about 200 years ago.” Another thesis says:

“It has taken some doctrines many centuries to work their way into the position of ‘official teaching.’ Then presto: everyone has to accept them immediately, totally, but it took work to get them to the top; why shouldn’t it take work to filter them back down to the bottom? Or why should the bottom have to accept them so readily, when the magisterium itself agreed to them only after laborious theological and political processes? If the apotheosis of theological opinion is such a laborious affair for the angels, why shouldn’t the common believer be allowed a little skeptical inertia of his own?”

“In this I am implying that it seems funny that theologians could grind these things out at such a pained effort, hesitate, go back and then the faithful are not allowed to do the same thing. Because something has been decided by the theologians doesn’t mean that it is any easier for the people to assent to it or understand it.”

“When the Great Church repudiates her claim to infallibility, the result will not necessarily be pandemonium. The jostling schools of theology will control one another, criticizing, correcting, sifting, interacting, reaching here and there a partial agreement. Persuasion will be the intellectually binding force in the fallible church - not formulas and decrees. Assent, when it occurs, will be real.”

“I can live without infallibility, but this does not deny that the Spirit does not guide the Church. I don’t think the average Catholic is prepared to do without infallibility, but the younger people seem to be able to do without it.”

Father Anselm said he thought the Church has used the doctrine of infallibility more than it should have.

He said he was very excited about the tone of the post Vatican II Church. “It is exciting because there are so many new avenues open for us to explore in theology. The chances are opening for the Church to bring its theology in closer accord with modern man’s thought. People have to see the value of things that modern man has learned in all branches of knowledge.”

Asked what some of his fellow monks thought of his theological speculations, Father Anselm replied, “They accuse me of being a comic-book theologian.” His comment was marked with a wide smile.