“At
first, there were no Catholic members in AA, but their participation
was made possible by the final separation of AA from the Oxford
Group.
In New York, the first
Catholic member was Morgan R., who acted as AA's first unofficial
liaison
with the Catholic Church. Morgan submitted the manuscript of the book
Alcoholics
Anonymous
("the Big Book") to the New York Archdiocesan Committee on
Publications and received a favorable response. The Committee, Morgan
reported, "had nothing but the best to say of our efforts. From
their point of view the book was perfectly all right as far as it
went." A few editorial suggestions were readily and gratefully
incorporated, especially in the section treating of prayer and
meditation.
Only
one change was requested. In Wilson's story, he had "made a
rhetorical flourish to the effect that 'we have found Heaven right
here on this good old earth.' " It was suggested he change
"Heaven" to "Utopia." "After all, we
Catholics are promising folks something much better later on!"
A
Catholic non-alcoholic who profoundly influenced AA in its early days
was Fr. Edward Dowling of the Society of Jesus. Although his
involvement with AA was only one of many apostolic and charitable
works, his influence on AA was considerable. His work is valuable as
a pattern for Catholics who wish to relate constructively to AA and
other recovery groups.
Dowling was a Jesuit from
St. Louis and was the editor of a Catholic publication called The
Queen's Work.
Upon reading the Big Book, he was favorably impressed and saw
parallels
between the 12 steps and aspects of Ignatian spirituality—perhaps
especially the Ignatian admonition to pray as if everything depends
on God and to work as if everything depends on oneself.
Dowling
made Wilson's acquaintance on a cold, rainy night in 1940. Wilson
grudgingly admitted the visitor, thinking his unexpected guest was
yet another drunk demanding help and attention. Soon, as they talked,
the Jesuit began to share an understanding of the spiritual life
which was to influence Wilson from that day forward.
This
is all the more remarkable because Wilson had never known any
Catholics intimately and felt a lingering prejudice against members
of the clergy, of whatever denomination.
Wilson viewed his meeting
with Dowling as "a second conversion experience." The
crippled Jesuit, he said, "radiated a grace that filled the room
with a sense of Presence" (interestingly enough, Wilson used the
same expression, "sense of Presence," to describe his
impression of Winchester Cathedral in England, which had obvious
Catholic associations and where he had first experienced a desire for
God many years before). Wilson was feeling depressed
and angry at God because, at the moment, he seemed to be a failure:
As
Wilson's biographer tells it, "When Bill asked if there was
never to be any satisfaction, the old man snapped back, 'Never. Never
any.' There was only a kind of divine dissatisfaction that would keep
him going, reaching out always."
The
priest went on: Having surrendered to God and received back his
sobriety, Wilson could not retract his surrender by demanding an
accounting from God when life did not unfold according to
preconceived expectations. Even the sense of dissatisfaction could
be an occasion of spiritual growth.
Dowling
then hobbled to the door and declared, as a parting shot, "that
if ever Bill grew impatient, or angry at God's way of doing things,
if ever he forgot to be grateful for being alive right here and now,
he, Father Ed Dowling, would make the trip all the way from St. Louis
to wallop him over the head with his good Irish stick." And so
began a twenty-year friendship between Wilson and Dowling, who
remained Wilson's spiritual advisor.
Wilson
was deeply attracted to the Catholic Church and even received
instruction from Fulton Sheen in 1947. Wilson's wife Lois, looking
back on it all, was sure that he was never really close to
conversion; but a close friend thought otherwise: "I had the
impression that at the last minute, he didn't go through with his
conversion because he felt it would not be right for AA."
The
simplest explanation is that Wilson remained profoundly ambivalent
about organized religion and its doctrines. Just as he had
shied away from the "Absolutes" of the Oxford Group, so
he could not see his way to accepting Catholicism's own absolutism—in
particular, papal infallibility and the efficacy of sacraments:
"Though no disbeliever in all miracles, I still can't picture
God working like that."
Concerning
infallibility, Wilson wrote to Dowling: "It is ever so hard
to believe that any human beings, no matter who, are able to be
infallible about anything." In a 1947 letter to Dowling he
said, "I'm more affected than ever by that sweet and powerful
aura of the Church; that marvelous spiritual essence flowing down by
the centuries touches me as no other emanation does, but when I look
at the authoritative layout, despite all the arguments in its favor,
I still can't warm up.
No affirmative conviction comes . . . P. S.
Oh, if only the Church had a fellow-traveler department, a cozy spot
where one could warm his hands at the fire and bite off only as much
as he could swallow. Maybe I'm just one more shopper looking for a
bargain on that virtue— obedience!"
To
Sheen Wilson wrote: "Your sense of humor will, I know, rise to
the occasion when I tell you that, with each passing day, I feel more
like a Catholic and reason more like a Protestant!"
This
is precisely the challenge faced by Catholic apologists in witnessing
to those in recovery groups: bringing the head and the heart
together.
Wilson's
difficulties with Catholic faith tell us that—without dilution—we
must make our faith and its graces more accessible by connecting
faith with experience. This does not mean we can neglect reasoned
apologetics—far from it. We must respect people's intelligence.
But, as Sheen noted, in some cases, our reasoning "leaves the
modern soul cold, not because its arguments are unconvincing, but
because the modern soul is too confused to grasp them."
If
we offer a plausible account of the religious implications of 12-step
recovery, we can perhaps get a receptive hearing for a fuller
evangelization and catechesis.
At
the convention marking AA's twentieth anniversary (the society's
"coming of age"), Dowling said, "We know AA's 12 steps
of man toward God. May I suggest God's 12 steps toward man as
Christianity has taught them to me." He then went on to draw out
the parallels between AA's steps of recovery and God's redemption of
the human race in Christ, who is both the Incarnate God and the New
Adam of redeemed humanity.
Dowling
concluded with Francis Thompson's poem The Hound of Heaven,
suggesting that the poem was "[t]he perfect picture of the
AA's quest for God, but especially God's loving chase for the AA."
Another
important, though somewhat later, Catholic influence on AA was Fr.
John C. Ford, S.J., one of Catholicism's most eminent moral
theologians. In the early forties, Ford himself recovered from
alcoholism with AA's help. He became one of the earliest Catholic
proponents of addressing alcoholism as a problem having spiritual,
physiological, and psychological, dimensions.
Ford
said that alcohol addiction is a pathology which is not
consciously chosen, but he rejected the deterministic idea that
alcoholism is solely a disease without any moral component: "[I]t
obviously has moral dimensions, and that is one reason why the
clergyman is thought to have a special role to play.
"To
answer the question: Is alcoholism a moral problem or is it a
sickness, I think the answer is that it is both. I don't think it
is true to say that alcoholism is just a sickness, in the sense
that cancer or tuberculosis are sicknesses. I think there are too
many rather obvious differences between the two to classify
alcoholism as a sickness in that sense. On the other hand, I don't
think it is true either to say that alcoholism is just a moral
problem. There are still a good many people who look at an
alcoholic as a good-for-nothing with a weak will or one who doesn't
use his willpower . . .
"They
keep saying, 'Don't do it again,' over and over. I don't believe he
does it just because he wants to do it or because he is willful.
When you look at the agony that the alcoholic inflicts upon himself
over the course of the years, it seems to me to be very difficult to
say he wants to be that way or he does it on purpose. . . . I think
it is fair to speak of alcoholism as a triple sickness—a sickness
of the body, a sickness of the mind, and also a sickness of the
soul."
Wilson,
impressed by Ford's insight, asked him to edit Twelve Steps and
Twelve Traditions (with the Big Book, this is the basic text of
12-step recovery) and Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age. In
part, Wilson's concern in these books was to present the AA program
in a way acceptable to Catholic sensibilities.
Ford's
contribution to AA was therefore twofold: He drew on both religion
and psychology to show alcoholism as a synthetic problem requiring a
synthetic remedy, and he took seriously the quasicompulsive nature of
addiction while rejecting both absolute determinism and the attendant
pitfalls of a purely therapeutic approach. He drew on psychological
insights, but ultimately shared the sentiments of Dr. Bob, who used
to say, "Don't louse it up with psychiatry."
In
so many ways, Ford's approach to addiction and recovery remains a
model of spiritual discernment for our own time.”
©
This Rock,
Catholic Answers, P.O. Box 17490, San Diego, CA 92177
(our
emphases)
Comment:
Setting aside both the underlying (and explicit) evangelistic
tendencies and that peculiarly clerical conceit which suggests that
they may possess some special expertise when it comes to matters of
morality (emphasising thereby the importance of retaining a clear
distinction between the 'religious' and the 'spiritual' domains)
there are some interesting questions raised here about the “moral”
dimension of addiction.
Cheerio
The
Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
