Let us never believe that the way in which the people in power tell us to look at the world is the only way we can look, because if we do that, then that’s a kind of appalling selfcensorship. (Salman Rushdie).

In Britain we believe in live and let live ... Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists and Rastafarians are all welcome to our tolerant society. But there is only one law for all of us ... Those who say their deep religious convictions prevent them from obeying the law of this land should quit Britain immediately and go and live in a country where the conflict does not exist. (Sunday Sport, 19 February, 1989 — editorial on Rushdie).

So the battle over The Satanic Verses is a clash of faiths, in a way. Or, more precisely, it’s a clash of languages. (Salman Rushdie, The Observer, 22 January, 1989).

Britain’s prized tolerant and pluralist society began to exhibit the power of its master code from the beginning of 1989, following the highly publicised second attempt at book burning by Bradford Muslims in January, 1989. (The first protest in Bolton, in December 1988, failed to get any media coverage—so it was repeated after advice that the national media be duly invited!). Text burning was encoded and enmeshed into two curiously related histories: that of Nazism and that of the history of religious bigotry and intolerance. Hence, from a major national quality paper: ‘following the example of the Inquisition and Hitler’s National Socialists, a large crowd of Muslims burnt some copies of the book’ (The Independent, 16 January, 1989).

The promulgation of the Bull In agro dominico in March 1329, which condemned twenty-eight propositions taken from the work of Meister Eckhart, is an event which has attracted the attention of many scholars in recent years. This interest is the result not only of the ‘rehabilitation’ of Eckhart by the theological fraternity (the greater part of which is now convinced of his fundamental orthodoxy) but also of the extraordinary character of the condemnation itself. In the present article I do not intend to repeat the work of Bernard McGinn, Edmund Colledge and others, who have shown the extent to which Eckhart was misunderstood by the commission which examined his work, but rather to enquire why it was that such misgivings were ultimately translated into a formal condemnation of Eckhart’s work by the Holy See itself.

In agro dominico stands out from other such condemnatory Bulls in a number of ways. Firstly, it was the first and only occasion when the full machinery of the Inquisition was used against a member of the Dominican Order, and it was similarly the first and only time in which a theologian of the first rank was charged with the inquisitio haereticae pravitatis: the most serious accusation which the Inquisition had at its disposal and the one which carried the heaviest penalties. Despite its extraordinary character, however, Eckhart’s trial remained fundamentally within the bounds of legality, as Winfried Trusen’s recent study has shown. Trusen also reveals, however, the malevolence of his detractors and their determination to inflict maximum damage upon Eckhart within the strict letter of the law.

The years since Vatican II have hit religious brothers hard. Brothers have been leaving religious life in greater percentages than priests or women religious. The brothers’ present search for identity in this vocational crisis may take years to work itself out. Meanwhile, brothers need to reflect on a phenomenon not affecting women religious or priests: general silence in the Church about their vocation. The question is: what do we make of the silence?

Before exploring the silence, I want to first situate the brother’s vocation in a historical perspective. Brothers are presently caught between two contradictory historical forces. On the one hand, the lay religious life has an ancient, valid, and venerable tradition in the Church; on the other hand, male religious life has become clericalized since the middle ages.

In western monasticism, by the ninth century the vocation of the lay monk suffered gradual diminishment as more and more monks were ordained. The identity of the brother suffered further obfuscation during the Gregorian Reform. A monastic reform accompanied Gregory VII’s battle against the abuses of lay investiture. New communities such as the Camaldolese and Cistercians arose; other monks (e.g. William of Hirsau) attempted to reform Benedictine monasticism without breaking away. During this monastic reform, some orders created a new class of religious: the laybrother (at that time called conversi Laybrothers were not considered monks. Some orders, particularly the Cistercians, established structures of class distinction. Cistercian laybrothers, for example, had no vote in chapter, wore a habit different from that of the monks, were not allowed into the cloister, and could not be taught reading and writing.

He appeared at the end of the day. Suddenly. Out of nowhere. I had seen my last patient. I was ready to go home. The end of another day. Thank God.

I opened the door to leave my consulting room—and there he was. Standing still, staring—or so it seemed to me—fixing me with that gaze, that look I cam to know, and hate. And love. Those eyes which looked inside me until I could not bear it any longer. The emptiness. The loneliness. The endless horror of it all.

But now, that first time, he just stood there, passively, waiting. Waiting for me, it seemed. How long had he been there? What did he want? How could I get rid of him?—these were my first thoughts. Later I asked another question, simpler still: who was he?

Moments passed. I stood there awkwardly and as I looked at him I became aware of a kind of disgust rising in myself. He seemed hardly human. I couldn’t tell if he was young or old, carefree or past caring. His face was wrapped up, as if he had something terrible to hide. A wound, a scar, something so deep it would be there for all to see. But all I could see were the eyes, watching. Watching my disgust trying not to show itself.

He must once have been the tallest of men but now, now he was bent over, as if he was carrying a great weight on his back. The thought, the cliche, came into my head: he looks as if he’s carrying the problems of the world on his shoulders.