Pneumatology is that branch of theology dealing with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is understood as indwelling in the Church and keeping her from error.

The Church’s inerrancy is neither political nor historical; she can and has made mistakes in those areas. The Church’s inerrancy is related to her mission. The Church exists for one reason (and one reason only): to save souls by proclaiming God’s Kingdom in Christ. Salus animarum suprema lex. To fulfill her raison-d’être the Church has to be able to teach authoritatively and correctly in matters of faith and morals. That is why the Holy Spirit dwells in the Church.

A recent article from an Italian source provoked this question: Are we dealing today with an inverted pneumatology? If one listens to some in the contemporary Church, it seems the Holy Spirit is working almost backwards from how Catholics have usually understood His action.

La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, reporting on the conclusion of the Italian Bishops Conference’s “synodal process,” wrote critically of what it saw in the conference’s document as an attempt to give moral approval to homosexual activity (see here). That article raises questions about how some seem today to understand the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church.

Traditionally, the Holy Spirit was understood as guiding the Church — as Christ promised (Jn 16:13) — “to all Truth.” Today, however, it seems almost as if the Holy Spirit flew out one of those famous windows that John XXIII opened in order to teach the Church from outside. If one listens to a lot of ecclesial talk today, one comes away with the impression that the Holy Spirit has relocated to secularism and all its works and pomps, using them as teaching instruments for His “backwardist” Church to get with the new Spiritual program.

It’s apparent that no small number of clerics — especially Western European clerics — seem to think that the Spirit who moves where He wills (Spiritus spirat qui vult; see Jn 3:8) has a decided preference for moving mostly outside the Church. If one listens to this renewed “reading of the signs of the times,” today’s aggiornamento appears mostly to take the form of the role of the Zeitgeist in getting the Church up-to-spiritual-speed. One is dumbfounded at just how “rigid” and “resistant” the Church appears to have been, compelling the now relocated Spirit to teach from gay bars, divorced-and-remarried households, and every other religion except the Catholic.

A renewed appeal to “lived experience” is often offered in defense of this approach. But this raises critical theological problems. Lived experience is important, but it is not self-interpreting. Nor is it coextensive with fides. The sensus fidelium presupposes a prior sensus fidei, which today’s churchmen often ignore. As I’ve argued before (here), “experience” is neither good nor bad in itself; it is simply fact. Experience must be tested, not canonized. Its meaning and especially its value depend on whether it can be reconciled with the faith received and held by the Church in which the Spirit already dwells.

This inverted pneumatology has also been selective. In addressing modernity, today’s signs of the times “spirit” readers seem to have ignored the second half of 1 Thessalonians 5:21: “test everything; retain what is good.” Such “testing” does not occur ex nihilo. It takes place within the living and ongoing tradition of the Church, ostensibly inspired by the Holy Spirit and discerned through a hermeneutic of continuity, since we assume the Holy Spirit is not nominalist and thus not prone to Self-contradiction.

I am aware some might attack these reflections as exaggerated, but let us ask whether we need honestly to address the pneumatology that is inspiring some current developments in the Church. I am old enough to remember how, soon after the Second Vatican Council closed, it came into vogue to ignore what the Conciliar texts actually said in favor of reading the “spirit” of the Council. I also remember one French theologian (whose name now escapes me) asking that we identify that “spirit,” in the event certain of its instantiations might require exorcism.

In that light, it seems right to ask both whether some in the today’s Church are operating out of an inverted pneumatology that “discerns” the Spirit’s actions everywhere except in the Church and what the ecclesial consequences of such thinking are. That question seems particularly pressing in the face of what seems to be a free-floating “synodal process” in which settled doctrinal and moral matters appear unsettled in the name of some undefined “discernment.” With all due respect, I doubt what some seem to think is the “Spirit” speaking after 30 seconds of silence followed by “sharing.” It seems we need a richer pneumatology.