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S i d e b a r
J.R.R. Tolkien on Church Scandal
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This Rock
Volume 13, Number 9
 November 2002 
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In the last resort faith is an act of the will, inspired by love. Our love may be chilled and our will eroded by the spectacle of the shortcomings, folly, and even sins of the Church and its ministers, but I do not think that one who has once had faith goes back over the line for these reasons (least of all anyone with any historical knowledge). "Scandal" at most is an occasion of temptation-as indecency is to lust, which it does not make but arouses. It is convenient because it turns our eyes away from ourselves and our own faults to find a scapegoat. . . .
The temptation to "unbelief" (which really means rejection of our Lord and his claims) is always there within us. Part of us longs to find an excuse for it outside us. The stronger the inner temptation the more readily shall we be "scandalized" by others. I think I am as sensitive as you (or any other Christian) to the "scandals," both of clergy and laity. I have suffered grievously in my life from stupid, tired, dimmed, and even bad priests; but I now know enough about myself to be aware that I should not leave the Church (which for me would mean leaving the allegiance of our Lord) for any such reasons: I should leave because I did not believe. . . . I should deny the Blessed Sacrament, that is: call our Lord a fraud to his face.
If he is a fraud and the Gospels fraudulent-that is: garbled accounts of a demented megalomaniac (which is the only alternative), then of course the spectacle exhibited by the Church . . . in history and today is simply evidence of a gigantic fraud. If not, however, then this spectacle is alas! only what was to be expected: it began before the first Easter, and it does not affect faith at all-except that we may and should be deeply grieved. But we should grieve on our Lord's behalf and for him, associating ourselves with the scandalizers not with the saints, not crying out that we cannot "take" Judas Iscariot, or even the absurd and cowardly Simon Peter, or the silly women like James' mother, trying to push her sons.
It takes a fantastic will to unbelief to suppose that Jesus never really "happened," and more to suppose that he did not say the things recorded of him-so incapable of being "invented" by anyone in the world at that time: such as "before Abraham came to be I am" (John 8:58); "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9); or the promulgation of the Blessed Sacrament in John 6: "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life." We must therefore either believe in him and in what he said and take the consequences; or reject him and take the consequences. I find it for myself difficult to believe that anyone who has ever been to Communion, even once, with at least right intention, can ever again reject him without grave blame. (However, God alone knows each unique soul and its circumstances.)
The only cure for sagging or fainting faith is Communion. Though always itself perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals. . . .
I myself am convinced by the Petrine claims, nor looking around the world does there seem much doubt which (if Christianity is true) is the True Church, the temple of the Spirit dying but living, corrupt but holy, self-reforming and re-arising. But for me that Church of which the pope is the acknowledged head on earth has as chief claim that it is the one that has (and still does) ever defended the Blessed Sacrament, given it most honor, and put it (as Christ plainly intended) in the prime place. "Feed my sheep" was his last charge to Peter; and since his words are always first to be understood literally, I suppose them to refer primarily to the bread of life. It was against this that the W. European revolt (or Reformation) was really launched-"the b.asphemous fable of the Mass"-and faith/works a mere red herring.
Excerpted from a letter to Tolkien's son Michael written on November 1, 1962 (Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Humphrey Carpenter, ed., Houghton Mifflin Co. [1981], pp. 337-9).
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