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The inevitable, necessary crisis
'Every 500 years institutionalized Christianity becomes an intolerable carapace that must be shattered'
May. 13, 2009
Phyllis Tickle
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PDF versionIt may be difficult to see how the manner in which the church handles parish closings, the priest shortage or the sometimes bitter debates among its members relates to a bigger picture. At the local level, it becomes a matter of survival, of finding the community that "fits," whether to preserve Latin ritual, for instance, or to preserve a Eucharistic community with lay leaders.
Phyllis Tickle, however, would say that those competing tensions, the anxieties of the era, are among the signs that we are squarely in the midst of a grand shakeup that regularly occurs on a bi-millennial basis to institutionalized Christianity. In her latest book, The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why, she argues that this phenomenon has been "sending intimations of itself" and "slipping up on us for decades in very much the same way spring slips up on us week by week every year."
Her treatment of the Great Emergence deals largely with U.S. Protestantism and with a phenomenon that has generated its own universe of communities, literature and theology. More on all of that another time.
For the moment, however, her thesis -- that we are amid an emergence of huge proportions fashioned by forces ranging from the printing press to further advances in science and technology, from biblical studies to various realizations about space and time that have infiltrated our religious certainties -- serves as a larger frame for any investigation of what is emerging in U.S. Catholicism.
Tickle, founding editor of the religion department of Publishers Weekly and author of more than two dozen books, cites Anglican Bishop Mark Dyer's observation that "the only way to understand what is currently happening to us as 21st-century Christians in North America is first to understand that about every 500 years the church feels compelled to hold a giant rummage sale."
Another way to put it, as Tickle does early on in her book, again citing Dyer, is that "about every five hundred years the empowered structures of institutionalized Christianity, whatever they may be at that time, become an intolerable carapace that must be shattered in order that renewal and new growth may occur."
Dealing in 500-year cycles, give or take a few decades, means that the last "garage sale" occurred in the 16th century with the Great Reformation; 500 years back from that was the Great Schism; and 500 years before that "takes us to the sixth century and what once upon a very recent time was labeled as 'The Fall of the Roman Empire' or 'The Coming of the Dark Ages.'"
Through all of these periods, Tickle writes, three things have always occurred:
- a new and more vital form of Christianity emerges;
- the previously dominant form of Christianity "is reconstituted into a more pure and less ossified expression of its former self"; and
- every time the incrustations of an overly established Christianity have been broken open, the faith has spread … dramatically into new geographic and demographic areas."
Perhaps an even more important point for Catholics -- if, indeed, Catholicism is going through the same experience as the rest of Christianity -- is Tickle's observation that the central question the faith faces while making its way through the turmoil of each of these periods is: Where is the authority?
Each time the previous story is "broken" (think, for instance, of how Copernicus and Galileo disturbed Catholic cosmology and scriptural certainty) and "the common imagination dispelled into a thousand wisps of half-remembered and now ludicrous fantasy" there emerges "an adjusted, largely new story and an adjusted, largely new, imagination." Emerging along with the new story and imagination are the advocates to articulate and promote them. In the doing, authority finds a new locus.
In Tickle's scheme, America contributes enormously to the current emergence by virtue of its religious diversity and the way we no longer live just objectively in a pluralistic culture where religious freedom is guaranteed but, more significantly, and increasingly, as we moved from a rural to an urban culture, in close proximity with one another.
Old barriers have been breaking down. It has occurred over time as a gradual process, at first "people swapping stories and habits, people admiring the ways of some other people whom they liked, people curious and able now to ask without offense."
All this swapping back and forth was aided by the fact not only of our physical proximity with one another but also because we lived in a media age. "Newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and in one mighty burst of glory, the Internet saw to it that ideas flew about like bees in an overturned hive."
If one is tempted to dismiss Dyer's assessment as predictably Anglican (or more narrowly, U.S. Episcopalian) , with its distaste for some of Roman Catholicism's absolutes and its tolerance of revolutionary ordinations of women and gays, Tickle claims that the Roman Catholic Church was way ahead of most in anticipating the questions of the current emergence.
In fact, she writes, "approximately one quarter of today's 'emergents' and 'emergings' are Roman Catholic, not Protestant, in background and natal formation," which leads her to conclude that any treatment of the period leading up to the great emergence "must acknowledge the presence and enormous formative impact of both Vatican I and Vatican II on Roman Catholicism in particular and on re-traditioning and emergent/emerging Christianity in general."
"Vatican I was a recognition that things were changing," she said in a recent phone interview. "Vatican I was trying to hold the line" by establishing authority in the principle of papal infallibility. "Much of Vatican II was to accommodate or enable or advance what was happening" with its push away from Latin to a common tongue, "more lay leadership and encouragement of greater use of daily offices by laity."
The groundbreaking document Nostra Aetate, the statement on Catholicism's relation to non-Christian religions and particularly its rethinking of the church's relationship to Judaism, "was a recognition that changes were happening. Rome was the first large body of Christendom that responded in any way that recognized in some organized way that change was afoot," she said in the interview. And church leaders at that moment met "to see how they could reposition the church to accommodate the changes."
A characteristic of these times of upheaval (the hinge periods) is "a heavy anti-clericalism." And this period is no exception. "The last time it was indulgences, this time it's sex," she said. Though what will emerge is yet unknown, she points to the growing number of women being ordained and notes that "Rome doesn't have the authority any more" as it may have in the past, to stop such ceremonies. And that means "the authority's got to be somewhere else, but where?"
She believes that Christian Scripture will continue to provide one locus of authority and another "is going to be community. Self-organizing principles are too much a part of what is happening culturally and politically to say it is not going to be part of what is happening" in religious circles.
Different forms of community, often heavily laced with monastic elements and disciplines, have already emerged in Protestant and ecumenical circles, she said, and increasingly she knows of Catholics who for various reasons of disenchantment or disagreement with the institutional church are gathering in communities outside the official structures.
The church, following the great schism, sought to locate authority in a single place, the papacy, she writes, with appointed cardinals around the papal throne, "a religious expression of the system of kings and lords growing up in the centuries of pre-Reformation culture."
If, as she contends, the governance of the Christian church, in its broadest sense, often reflects and/or influences the political structure of the secular realm, then what does the future portend in an age not of kings and lords but of ever growing pressure for democracy and broad participation?
In the future, Tickle writes, emergent Christians will likely locate authority in both scripture and community. She compares the notion to "what mathematicians and physicists call network theory."
"In this case, the Church, capital C -- is not really a 'thing' or entity so much as it is a network in exactly the same way that the Internet or the World Wide Web or, for that matter, gene regulatory and metabolic networks are not 'things' or entities. Like them and from the point of view of an emergent, the Church is a self-organizing system of relations, symmetrical or otherwise, between innumerable member-parts that themselves form subsets of relations within their smaller networks, etc., etc., in interlacing levels of complexity."
There are no markers, of course, pointing neatly to some future. But on the road, in the midst of the anxiety over parish closings and what will become of the church in the future as the numbers of priests keep falling, I hear hints of what Tickle describes as the future -- a Christianity that is "relational, non-hierarchical" and "democratized … as an analog for the political and social principles of authority and organization that will increasingly govern global life during the centuries of the Great Emergence."
One priest tells me that the future of Catholicism is "experiential and relational" and that the "most fundamental Catholic thing is community." Another tells me, "take time, our new understanding of the mystery of time, our new understanding of the mystery of space and a more humble acknowledgment that God remains fundamentally mystery to us." All of it, he contends, "is creating a perfect storm, with winds blowing every which way."
Finally, around tables and in circles of conversation with lay Catholics and women religious deeply invested in what becomes of the Roman Catholic Church, there is a certain determined resignation among all the questions. Catholic life may, in many ways, be an arbitrary venture. Will the next bishop upend all we've done? Will the next pastor appreciate all we've built over the past two decades? Will our parish go on the chopping block because there aren't enough priests? But almost invariably these people already have a fallback position in other small communities, some sacramental, some not, that keep them both tethered to the church and hopeful for the future.
Whether this is part of the Great Emergence, of course, remains to be seen, but given all of the change and the turmoil, it is not a far leap to say that at least a minor emergence is upon U.S. Catholics.
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Tom Roberts, NCR editor at large, is traveling the country reporting on parish life. He is on the first of several trips he plans to take, this time moving through Ohio, eastward into New Jersey and on to the nation’s capital. His e-mail address is troberts@ncronline.org. Read the full series here: In Search of the Emerging Church.
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Follow Tom Roberts on his journey "In Search of the Emerging Church." Sign up to receive an e-mail alert when his stories are posted to this series. If you already receive e-mail alerts from NCR, click on the button that says "update my profile."
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Great article Tom. Thank you
Great article Tom. Thank you for the work you do. The bishops are doing their part to make themselves irrelevant when they resort to Pio Nono tactics of condemning everyone and everything. If Pio Nono made himself the prisoner of the Vatican, this new generation of bishops are making themselves prisoner of their exclusionary theology and rabid, myopic politics.
Steve
This sounds an awful lot like
This sounds an awful lot like another echo of John Paul II's prophesy about the new evangelisation... Details of which are in the hands of Christ, who is risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!
I do not know about 500 year
I do not know about 500 year cycles but I do believe that the Church must find ways to reinvent herself. I believe that priests should marry or women should become ordained priests.
What I have stated is probably heresy in the eyes of the Church's hierarchy. If my name is surfaced, I will probably be exempt from receiving the Sacraments. Condemnation and threats are the Church's answer for rational dialogue.
Hello, I totally agree with
Hello, I totally agree with your comment. We live in a very disfunctional church which says that we are not supposed to think or talk or feel or dialogue with anyone regarding anything that would rock any kind of boat.
I,too, am considered someone who should be burned at the stake for thinking just because I am a woman. I believe that priests should marry and woman can be priests. Also I become very upset that the bishops spend so much time and effort condemning things rather that improving things. I would like to ask the protesting bishops why they were not jumping up and down and screaming when children were being sexually abused. That is still a profound mystery.
You are not alone...
You are not alone...
It appears Ms. Tickle has
It appears Ms. Tickle has identified emergence. I find her analysis, however, terribly benign. Considering what emerged in the sixth century unto the middle ages I would not consider it a new and more vital form. If so, why aren't the new and more vital forms sustainable?
Yes, there is emergence. And even today there is emergence. It is, however, a continual breakdown because something more fundamental is left untouched. And that untouched element continues to erode what is new. And I tend to think that untouched element is the notion of sin. Until we clearly and unequivocally identify sin, Jesus crucifixtion is a timeless event. Perhaps that's one reason why he didn't answer Pilate when he asked, "And what is truth?"
thanks, should be interesting
thanks, should be interesting
Well put. I've had this
Well put. I've had this nagging feeling that I can't be the only person who feels like I do. I guess i'm going to have to look up her book.
In response to Tom Roberts’s
In response to Tom Roberts’s review of Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Emerging and Why, the central question the faith faces is where is the authority? I believe the answer will be that we are the authority, but only after we become qualified. This means mass education. I think that Christian Scripture has run its course as a locus of authority if I understand the biblical scientific scholarship. But community will undoubtedly be a locus of authority providing it earns its credentials. As I already implied I don’t think it will be Christianity because it seems to have run its course. But it will be a new story and imagination of community pursuing feasible restoration of the planet and social progress seeking our continuing evolution. Our contingent being will be able to seek the Origin of our being on this mysterious journey. A post-Axial Age faith will be acceptable to all faith seekers because of a shared common human knowledge.
I'm sorry, I don't think I
I'm sorry, I don't think I understand what is being said here. It seems to me that you are stating that Christianity has run its course and must be supplanted by a "common human knowledge". That Christ Jesus, the Savior of the World, be replaced by focus on restoring the planet, social progress, and our "continuing evolution". That Scripture and Tradition be replaced by a new story created by some community. Is that right? Are you truly advocating replacing the Divine One, the Alpha and Omega, the Redeemer of all humanity, with human knowledge and evolution? Surely not.
You see, aside from the profoundly serious implications for the eternal desination of the human person found in the proposal to cast Christianity aside, there is also the problem of differing community and vision. This is what Benedict XVI meant when he spoke of the "dictatorship of relativism". That, when we remove from the debate the Truth, which is Christ Himself, then we find ourselves being batted around by every whim that comes our way. Apart from Christ, there is not "common human knowledge".
A visit to any university campus will prove that. On a typical campus, one finds some of the most educated women and men around, but one will also find contension and disagreement about politics, theology, pedagogy, philosphy, history, science, etc. Taking another example, hundreds of well-educated scientists say that manmade global warming is occuring and will continue to become more serious. An equal number of equally well-education scientists will say that manmade global warming is a myth. I consider myself an educated person, holding degrees in philosophy, theology and education, yet I would disagree with equally or better educated people who approve of socialism, government-supported health care, gay marriage, abortion, etc. I would agree with free market economics, adoption, the use of military force, if necessary, to secure freedom and security, the myth of man-made global warming, etc. I would say that the vast majority of my friends and colleagues would concur with me on these issues. So, where is the community you speak of as the source of authority? How can there be any authority if there is no truth?
The European Community has tried this method of authority, replacing Christ with economics and social order. What is the result? Nations that are batted about by the seas of relativism. Nations that practice so much contraception that they are no longer replacing the number of deaths in their countries with new births. In other words, more people are dying than are being born. Europe is committing continental and cultural suicide, while Muslims are immigrating to Europe in record numbers, so that, what Islam could not conquer by excellence of ideas or by force, it is conquering by attrition.
Some in the Church see the debates and arguments as evidence that the Church has splintered and should be replaced. After all, if Christians cannot get along and be united then the whole Christian project must be useless. I will grant you that the division in Christianity is a profound scandal, but that division is more a result of pride and arrogance, and a quest for power on both sides, than some deep problem with Christianity itself.
A cursory and superficial read of history will demonstrate that Christianity has experienced various changes every 500 years or so. But a deeper read will indicate that those changes came about as results of flawed humanity -- the Great Schism was a result of pride and arrogance on the part of the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Pope, neither of whom were interested in finding a solution to their theological and political disagreements. The Reformation was a result of questionable practices of the Church which led to calls for reform of those practices; those calls then became weapons in the hands of an arrogant cleric who was used by the German princes to secure political freedom from Rome. Thus, in both cases, the Church was sundered, not because of a deep routed problem in the Church, but as a result of the pride of clerics and princes who saw this as their chance to gain and wield greater power. In each of the situations mentioned in the book, the fall of Rome, the Great Schism, and the Reformation, the result was a strengthening of the authority of the Popes and of the Church. In other words, when Christianity reaches crisis points, the answer is not in dillution of the Church's teachings or its authority, but rather strengthening of that authority and a greater fidelity to its teachings.
You see, the Church is, and always has been, divided among progressives (like St. Paul) and conservatives (like St. Peter), to borrow terms from the political debate. There is a tension which is good. Progressives continue to push the bounds of evangelization and mission, while conservatives continue to preserve and protect the deposit of faith. In this way, progressives are not allowed to get too far outside the bounds of the faith, while conservatives are challenged to find new and innovative ways to preach that unchanging faith in each age. Yet, as much as these parties may disagree with one another, it is faith in Christ Jesus that binds them together. It is the common mission of evangelization that motivates them. It is the love of Christ that impells them to greater and greater fidelity to the One Who is Truth.
Hello Clint. Thank you for
Hello Clint. Thank you for some thinking response. It’s refreshing. You have said so much I can’t begin to respond to it all. But what comes immediately to mind is that your piece demonstrates the need for an online curriculum. There are so many issues that need to be addressed. No matter how educated or uneducated an individual is there is room for more knowledge. We need to talk these issues through. We need to learn more critical thinking skills even if we think that we possess many. Through discussion comes further understanding. I think that the majority of us are for truth, justice, and all good things. It’s a never-ending search and desire. It is so easy for any of us to make assumptions. If you are in academia you know that one of the requisites for advancement is peer review. Sharing knowledge is what it’s about. You received your degrees in philosophy, theology and education only through sharing knowledge. Your piece contains what many educated people might consider significant assumptions. This is why expert dialogue is so essential to human understanding and cooperation. I am saying that there appear to be good reasons for my believing that Christianity has run its course. There are good reasons for following the indicators that the nature of our belief in a Supreme Being or what I call the Origin of our contingent being may be changing. I base this on scholarship and expertise that you may not be familiar with even though you are highly educated. The many issues you raise are exactly what we need to discuss. They are emotionally laden issues. As a community we discuss together and try to diminish the heat and strengthen the light. Experts in specific areas who know better than we do what we are talking about at a given moment guide us. From this can come more advancement in seeking the truth, furthering understanding, pursuing justice, and becoming more cooperative as the human species, while always attempting to be one with the Origin of our being. Peace, Marie
The role of language and
The role of language and communication in the evolution of consciousness and conscience can hardly be exaggerated. Sometimes we can be talking about the same things without knowing it because language and thinking are so over loaded with cultural conditioning.
http://www.secondenlightenment.org/Wars%20and%20Other%20Insanity.pdf
You and Clint may not be as far apart as it may seem
Dear Clint Green, Thank you
Dear Clint Green, Thank you for your sobering analysis of Tom Robert's essay. It seems as though we attempt to humanize the SACRED TRUTHS THAT JESUS CHRIST THROUGH HIS LIFE DEATH AND RESURRECTION INSTRUCTED US! THANK GOD THESE TRUTHS WILL NEVER CHANGE!!
YES: "a Christianity that is
YES: "a Christianity that is "relational, non-hierarchical" and "democratized … as an analog for the political and social principles of authority and organization that will increasingly govern global life during the centuries of the Great Emergence."
One priest tells me that the future of Catholicism is "experiential and relational" and that the "most fundamental Catholic thing is community."
...But almost invariably these people already have a fallback position in other small communities, some sacramental, some not, that keep them both tethered to the church and hopeful for the future."
Put not your trust in princes. The current episcopal version of absolute authority is passing, mercifully. Trying to resurrect the beached whale of hierarchical authority that brought us the sexual abuse scandal among other things is a useless exercise. The laity is growing up, no longer threatened by past fears of hell for holding to their consciences.
This is tremendously hopeful. Thank you, Tom Roberts, for this article. Celibates take note, and grow up yourselves.
I think Miss Tickle ought to
I think Miss Tickle ought to write a novel and call it the Second Coming of Dan Brown.
This is a profoundly
This is a profoundly illiterate analysis of the history of the Church. Tickle has apparently based her analysis of history almost exclusively on 16th century narratives of Reform.
None of these bi-millennial emergences has the importance she attributes to them. Does the 6th century fall of the Western Roman Emperor change the Church more than the 4th century edict of Milan, the 8th century rise of the Carolingians or their early 9th century reforms? How is the fall of Rome more meaningful than the Battle of Tours (732) or the iconoclast controversy in the Eastern empire(resolved, more or less, in 787). Which is more important in the long run, St. Benedict of Nursia writing the rule in the early 6th century, or St. Benedict of Aniane, with Emperor Louis the Pious, causing monasteries to actually follow it in the 9th? Likewise, the identification of "The great schism" as important is beyond ludicrous. The two Churches had never been culturally united, and they'd been drifting apart since the 750s, and between 750 and 1054 frequently excommunicated each other and then reconciled. It is mere historical accident that the excommunications of 1054 stuck; no one at the time could've reasonably expected they'd be permanent. How is that more important for the history of the Church than the 4th crusade in 1203? Or the first 3 crusades from the end of the 11th through the 12th centuries? Or the proliferation of different forms of religious life during the so-called "evangelical awakening" of the 12th century? Or the breakdown of scholastic thought beginning in the 14th century?
Moreover, a comparison to the 16th century, which, in fact, is important, shows the meaninglessness of saying that we live in such an age presently. The reformers did nothing that hadn't been done before; they just succeeded. Luther's teachings on grace and indulgences had been around for over a century, the philosophical basis for imputed justification had been around for 2 centuries. Similarly, Henry VIII was hardly the first king to be excommunicated; no one in the 16th century could have thought his excommunication would remain permanent; and it wasn't even fully permanent until well into the 17th century (by the end of the English Civil War), as is also the case with Lutheranism and Calvinism, which the Holy Roman Emperor was trying to put an end to at any point until the 1648 peace of Westphalia. The Reformation only exists in hindsight. At the time, there was no way to distinguish the prospects of people like Zwingli, Luther, and Muntzer from the prospects of earlier heresiarchs.
The recognition of a movement's importance and emergence are things that require perspective, something which no one can do very well for that which they are contemporary to, and which Tickle apparently fails at for the distant past.
Then, in what sense does your
Then, in what sense does your perspective qualify as valid?
I agree with Phyllis Tickle.
I agree with Phyllis Tickle. I have been a woman lay leader in the church for over 25 years now. I realized about 10 years ago that the oppression of women and laity in the church was not about us- it was about men. I realized that priests and Bishops in the Catholic church are the ones who are oppressed by the current church rules today, and when they can see and embrace their full personhood and giftedness and come to love their differences and full identities as men, there will be a reformation in the Church. The Holy Spirit is alive and well in the church, and pushing it forward. It is only the regimented identities of the male leadershiip that is holding back the fullness of the Spirit. It is analogous to the Women's movement many years ago, when women discovered that they could be more fully women. Now its the men's turn. The Spirit wants the church to be so much more! I don't fear the shortage of priests, because I know the Spirit is alive and well in the leadership of the Body of Christ.
Seems to me that a lot of the
Seems to me that a lot of the women's movement had nothing to do with being "more woman" as much as being "the same as man."
I've been reading such
I've been reading such musings on the "emerging Church" for some time now. They generally reduce themselves to female ordination, redefinition of marriage, and rejection of legitimate Church authority. In other words, progressive fantasies. Perhaps what's new here is the idea of the five hundred year cycle.
Forgive me if I yawn.
One lever that will bring on
One lever that will bring on the Emergance is the fact that laity today firmly believe that clerical/hierarchal authorities do not have the 'power' to
deny them salvation. Small communities are growing..
This is a profoundly honest
This is a profoundly honest and intelligent analysis of exactly where the Roman Catholic imperial top-down model of authority is headed. Yes, WE, THE PEOPLE OF GOD, ARE THE AUTHORITY! We will take back our church and model it on Christ's teachings and not the present decaying and corrupt right wing political organization that disenfranchises all of those sheep that Christ embraces. The end of this dark era is happening before our eyes. Thanks be to God!
Interesting review. One is
Interesting review.
One is reminded of the best-selling book of 1999 by the Anglican bishop, John Shelby Spong: WHY CHRISTIANITY MUST CHANGE OR DIE.
Yes, I think there is some
Yes, I think there is some substance to Phyllis Tickle's thesis that every 500 years or so Christianity goes through a giant "garage sale". But it's precisely a "garage sale" - a freeing from accumulated bits and pieces no longer of use. Through it all the Church continues its vital task of preaching Christ crucified and risen.
I agree with Ms. Tickle. The
I agree with Ms. Tickle. The Catholic Church is no longer relevant in today's world. Women do not need men leading them. There needn't be a priest shortage; we have women priests (although not recognized by the Vatican) and we have plenty of priests who are now married and could be actively serving. The Church clings to views that are appropriate for when people believed the earth was flat. Thanks to modern science we know more now, but the Church is stuck back centuries and like a stubborn toddler refuses move, claiming it has the Divine "truth." Many Catholics, like myself, worship in small faith communities without the presence of a priest or brick building.
Mrs. Tickle's observations
Mrs. Tickle's observations are precise and on the point in my opinion. The Church is indeed facing a watershed moment, time will only tell how it chooses to respond...
Basically, the idea of the
Basically, the idea of the people of God holding the authority in community is a Roman Catholic law! Remember that doctrine can't become dogma without the people's acceptance of it's truth. So there will be nothing new here and yet it will be all new as the hierarchy finally comes to accept the very law they have written.
Yes, Catholic women are
Yes, Catholic women are already being ordained priests and bishops. All totally valid and apostolic succession for the women bishops is intact. Millions of Roman Catholics know the Holy Spirit is at work here and the old guard is passing away to make way for the Church that Christ intended. We turn our backs on the corrupt and decaying system that is in its' final Vatican swan song. Married Roman Catholic priests are also very much serving full, active priesthoods as well. We no longer need the decadent "authority" of the boys in Rome, we ARE the authority. We are The People of God and we thank blessed Pope John the 23rd for his opening salvo by initiating Vatican II.
The idea that any historical
The idea that any historical factor happens every 500 years or so. This is a silly article.
Whether Tickle is correct on
Whether Tickle is correct on the historical structure or not she is, I think, correct that a tectonic plate sort of syndrome operates within most orginizations and especially a monolith like the Roman Catholic Church whose principal capacity seems to be to resist change. There comes a point where the resistance energy is spread over such a wide range of pressures that "collapse into the black hole" or reformulation on a different plane is inevitable.
As one sarcastic post rightly posited the issues of female ordination, celibacy and a few other touch points are the most visible but certainly not fantasy. There are actually significantly deeper challenges to change which, I believe, are the base reasons for most of the resistance.
First: challenges like the ordination of women, evoke the very nature of papal infallability, the institutional cornerstone of the church.
Second: a married clergy, particularly a married female clergy revisits the legal and the "detachment"/spiritual dimensions of property/poverty.
Principally though: Is the Church of Christ that of the "Petrine rock" or the "Sermon on the Mount"? While one might automatically respond "both" the reality suggests that Church has survived in the development of its current structure based on the centralization of authority in hierarchical structure and consequential obiesence of "the little people". One might describe the scenario as "If you accept my absolute authority over you, then we can talk about love". The Jesus story is that of the Sermon, the rock is that of man.
The church seems to have interpreted its "teaching mission" as the development and inculcation of theology by authority (i.e., the shepherd as herder)rather than in the pedagogical development of the human capacity to love (i.e., being Christ). To date the church has failed in its "teaching mission. Whereas Christ entered history to elevate man/creation by the connectedness, interdependence and challenge of love, the church seeks to control history by creating distinctions and then imposing an artificial connectedness of structure. As long as the power of the sword and fire backed-up the power of the chair the church felt secure. Their loss is evident by the futile flailing demands for (not just a role but) hierarchical control of the democratic process and the (now fire'less) essentially impotent damnation of excommunication (dis-memberment).
Finally, one can call references to the church's response to Galileo as passe, but one can make a case that subsequent silencing of deChardin, for example, demonstrate that the Church is rooted in medieval theology and mindset and is no more ready for the cosmic Christ (as Eric Idle's the "Galaxy Song" goes: "And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions in this amazing and expanding universe") than it has been for the more earthly and immediate liberation theology.
Shouldn't we be giving more
Shouldn't we be giving more historical consideration of Christianity's 500 year cycles if they do, in fact, exist? For example, the fall of Rome was accompanied by military invasion, immense destruction of culture and knowledge and the subsequent conversion of the invaders whose concept of God likely was very different from that of a cosmopolitan Roman. The Great Schism occurred in the context the very different cultures between Imperial East and conquered West. The Reformation with immense technological and cultural innovation and learning by many more levels of the populous than theretofore. Certainly, we in the late 20th-early 21st Centuries are experiencing vast cultural winds brought about by not yet fully understood technology and wider world learning than in the known past. The modern currents of living and understanding may well direct the thinking of Faith, much as they have in past periods.
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