eyebeleave

I’m with O’Malley: the Mexican border mass

Omalley 1

When an idea or an event that pushes the envelope (in the parlance of our times) arises, the most immediate reaction from some people is to oppose it instinctively, on the grounds of it just not making sense or being the done thing. This is pretty much ubiquitous in science, where new theories initially tend to be ridiculed or at least approached with skepticism, and no less at home in the Church, where new expressions of imitating Jesus often fall on deaf ears or are met with some form of the “crimes against tradition” objection.

Last week saw an event exactly like that – a mass celebrated at the Mexican-US border, where the concelebrands, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Bishop Gerald Kicanas, and a dozen other bishops, were on the US side of the 20-foot-tall, metal-fenced border, while the congregation around them, numbering in excess of 500, was partly on US and partly on Mexican soil. The occasion was a two-day visit of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration Committee to the border, to experience first hand the conditions under which immigrants risk their lives on their way to the US and to mourn the loss of the many who die in the process. It was also an expression of the many divisions that emigration and deportations bring to families and a clear move to be with those at the peripheries, in imitation also of Pope Francis’ mass at Lampedusa.

During his homily, Cardinal O’Malley, puts the objectives of the event very clearly:

“We come to the desert today because it is the road to Jericho; it is traveled by many trying to reach the metropolis of Jerusalem. We come here today to be a neighbor and to find a neighbor in each of the suffering people who risk their lives and at times lose their lives in the desert. […] We are here to discover our own identity as God’s children so that we can discover who our neighbor is, who is our brother and sister.”

Omalley 2

And he then proceeds to illustrate the scale of the tragedy:

“Last year about 25,000 children, mostly from Central America arrived in the US, unaccompanied by an adult. Tens of thousands of families are separated in the midst of migration patterns. More than 10 million undocumented immigrants are exposed to exploitation and lack access to basic human services, and are living in constant fear. They contribute to our economy by their hard work, often by contributing billions of dollars each year to the social security fund and to Medicare programs that will never benefit them. […] We have presently over 30,000 detainees, most of whom have no criminal connections. The cost of these detentions is about $2 billion a year.”

When I first heard about the event, I was very impressed by it, as an expression of solidarity and closeness to those who suffer and are excluded from society, as Pope Francis put it so clearly in Evangelii Gaudium:

“We have created a “throw away” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”.” (§53)

Imagine then my disappointment and disbelief, when I came across a condemnation of the border mass by George Weigel (introduced there as “papal biographer”), whose reaction was:

“It’s not clear to me how holding Mass in these circumstances can be anything other than politicized. […] To turn the Mass into an act of essentially political theater is something I thought we had gotten over in the Church, no matter how noble the cause might be.”

And by the canon lawyer Ed Peters, who made the following assessment of the event:

“Canon 932 § 1 […] states that “The eucharistic celebration is to be carried out in a sacred place unless in a particular case necessity requires otherwise; in such a case the celebration must be done in a decent place”. Obviously, no one suggests that the border is a “sacred place” in the canonical meaning of that term, so the question becomes whether necessity required holy Mass to be celebrated at the border. I think not. The intentions for which this Mass was offered (immigration reform and in memory of those who died crossing the border, both legitimate intentions of course) could have been amply asserted at a Mass celebrated in a sacred place as envisioned by c. 932 […] Thus, the kinds of factors commonly invoked to justify Mass outside of a sacred space do not support this Mass at the border.”

It’s hard to know where to start in the face of such rule-based, status quo thinking – not for want of counterarguments, but for their excess. From among several alternatives, I could go down the Scriptural route, pointing to the instances of Jesus’ own “political theater” (did anyone say Caesar? (cf. Mark 12:17)) or to his take on “necessity” (did you say “withered hand” (cf. Mark 3:4)), but I wont :). Instead I’d like to re-tell a story about one of the Desert Fathers that I came across a while ago, but whose source eludes me now.¹

“A poor couple came to Abba Irenaeus to cancel their wedding, since they were unable to find a venue for the reception that they could afford. Upon seeing their sadness, Abba Irenaeus felt moved by compassion and said to them: “Why don’t you hold your wedding celebration in our church?” The couple were overjoyed and accepted the offer. On their wedding day, well into the party, the local bishop happened to walk past, and when he heard music and cheers coming from the church, he stopped and proceeded to investigate. Upon entering the church he saw dancing and food being served to a merry crowd. Filled with indignation he sought out Abba Irenaeus and proceeded to scold him: “How can you desecrate this church by allowing such profanity? And in the presence of the Eucharist!” To which Abba Irenaeus calmly replied: “Wasn’t Jesus himself a wedding guest at Cana? Wouldn’t he have celebrated the wedding of this couple just as much if he were here today in person?””

[UPDATE (11/04/14): Within a couple of hours of publishing this post, my überbestie ML sent me another version of the above wedding story – thank you! This one is told by Anthony de Mello (re-telling Cardinal Martini’s story), is set in Italy, and the two takes on the Eucharist are embodied by the parish priest and his assistant pastor. The whole article that contains it is very much worth reading!]

¹ If you do know where the story is from (and its above version is very much just from my imperfect memory), I’d be very grateful if you’d let me know so I could credit it’s source – and you :).

The emptiness of manufactured allure

Visiting South Beach in Miami a couple of days ago has provided me with one of the saddest experiences of recent times. A few brief moments there stunned me and left me unable to relate freely to the friends I was with. Since this event has had such a strong impact on me, I would like to use this post to try and make sense of it for myself, but also to share this, in itself negative, experience with you, in the spirit of completeness and openness.

Let me start by giving an account of what happened.

Last week I spent five days in North Miami on business, with PM and JMGR – two of my very best friends. One evening, for the sake of a change of environment from the conference hotel, we thought of heading out to do a bit of local sightseeing. The day before, some colleagues recommended a visit to South Beach and, without looking into what the destination had to offer, the three of us set out there.

After a lengthy and costly taxi ride, we were dropped off in front of Versace’s house (a destination that held no appeal to any of us, but one that the taxi driver considered de rigueur for tourists, which we obviously were) and set off down Ocean Drive, towards its southernmost tip. The first offering of local culture was a group of inebriated chaps, whose most extensive member immediately launched into what can politely be labelled as an invitation to a mano-a-mano, urban skirmish (with an unusually high frequency of references to mothers). Having spent years in large cities (thank you, London), this was no big deal, and a smile, shrug and feigned incomprehension dealt with the matter successfully.

What came next unsettled me deeply though. While, at first sight it was just a 15-20 second walk through an on-street restaurant, my experience of it was anything but a simple traversal of that space. Instead, I passed through a gauntlet. At the restaurant’s entrance I was met by a woman of approximately my own age, dressed in thigh-high boots and a skirt and top of microscopic square-inchage, counterbalanced by bucket-fulls of makeup and hair extensions reaching down to the top of her boots. The dagger to my heart then came from the expression in her eyes that met me as I tried to smile at her. It was an ashen look of resignation. An emptiness and absence so deep it made me flinch.

As painful as that welcome was, I tried to shake it off, while feeling deeply sorry for this woman. Instead, the rest of the walk through the establishment just kept dragging me deeper and deeper into its oppressive morass. I met three more employees, all wearing variants of the first one’s outfit – nominally with the intention to entice, allure and excite, but each making me more and more concerned for their wellbeing and worried about their mental health.

Walking out at the other end of this pavement-gripping setup left me unable to carry on the light conversation we have been having with my friends and made me a dour companion for the rest of the night (which we, thankfully, spent in a Cuban restaurant a couple of streets away from Ocean Drive – a place whose down-to-earth-ness would normally not be my kettle of fish, but whose normality was a welcome change from the void of Ocean Drive).

Where am I going with all of this though? First of all, I wanted to share a disturbing experience with you, since disturbing experiences tend to be opportunities. I don’t yet know what consequences to draw from it, but it has been undoubtedly unsettling and therefore important, even if in an as yet unclear way. This was also underlined for me yesterday when I saw Pope Francis tweet the following: “How good it is for us when the Lord unsettles our lukewarm and superficial lives.”

Thinking about these words, I can certainly see that the experience was good for me – in spite of it’s great negativity for all involved, and me wishing that that place didn’t exist – it shook me and gave me a heightened sensitivity to the wellbeing of those around me, who thankfully weren’t in distress like the waitresses of the South Beach restaurant, but who nonetheless each had their expectations and needs.

To conclude, let me just address what might otherwise seem like an implicit prudishness. What disturbed me about the women in the restaurant wasn’t at all what they were wearing. It wouldn’t be what I’d choose, but who am I to tell them how to dress. Neither was it about them exposing extensive parts of their anatomy. The human body is full of beauty, made even to God’s own liking (“God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good.” Genesis 1:31). And neither did I feel any resentment towards these four women. They were very likely in a position of limited choice and in existential need of income – some probably supporting families. Instead, I felt a deep rage against the owners of the establishment, who – to my mind – unquestionably exploited their staff and tried to turn them into cheap merchandise.

The brawl

The Church is often criticized for requiring mindless obedience and for seeking uniformity instead of fostering an exploration of alternatives in pursuit of greater understanding and insight.

Well, I’d say that recent events ought to lay such prejudices to rest. Instead of singing from the same hymn sheet, in robotic unison, the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church look more like a bunch of brawlers than the yes-men of a pontifical monarch. Instead of being of one voice, these princes of the Church are engrossed in an escalating game of fisticuffs where argument and counter-argument are generously interlaced with genteel-sounding, but under-the-hood, razor-sharp ad hominem jabs.

Before we look at the implications of this verbal brawl, or jump to its denunciation, let’s take a quick look at some of the punches that have been thrown so far. The examples I’ll refer to next all come from the run-up to this year’s synod on the family, in the context of which there is a particularly controversial topic – whether those who got divorced and subsequently civilly re-married could be admitted to the Eucharist, which sustains and strengthens, while also expressesing unity. I don’t mean to go into the question itself here,¹ but it is useful to have at least an idea of the topic for the following quotes to make some sense.

The scene for our brawl has been set by Pope Francis himself, when – in the off-the-cuff interview on the flight back from the World Youth Day in Rio – he indicated a desire to look at “the larger context of the entire pastoral care of marriage,” including the “issue of giving communion to persons in a second union.” At the same time as making these remarks, Francis also pre-announced the family as the theme of the next bishops’ synod.

As soon as word came out about Francis’ desire to review this topic, the German diocese of Freiburg published a set of guidelines that essentially assumed that divorcees will be admitted to the Eucharist (while later denying such an interpretation and arguing that they were merely making a “contribution” to the discussion …). In any case, a couple of days later, the the then-Archbishop (now, by Francis’ choice a cardinal – make a mental note of this) Müller published an extensive article on the “care of remarried divorcees” in L’Osservatore Romano, where he sets out the teaching of the Church as it stands, doing – in my opinion – a great job of being very clear, structured and direct, while also compassionate and seeking new solutions.

It is this article by Müller that lit the fuse of our verbal brawl – probably best thought of as a drawing of a line in the sand rather than a flying chair, but nonetheless very much part of the proceedings.

The first punch to kick off the brawl proper then comes from Cardinal Maradiaga – head of Franics’ council of eight cardinals, who had the following to say when asked about Müller’s move in an interview for the German daily Kölner Stads-Anzeiger:

“Yes, I have read it. And I thought: “OK, maybe you are right, but maybe not.” I mean, he is a German – yes, I have to say it, and he is a Professor on top of that, a German professor of theology. With his mentality there is only right and wrong, that’s it. But I say: “The world, my brother, the world is not like that. You should be a bit flexible, when you hear other voices, so that you don’t just listen to them and say, no, here is the wall.” So, I believe, he’ll get there, to understand other views. But now he is just at the beginning, he listens only to his advisers.”

Yikes! Next, Maradiaga is quickly backed up by Cardinal Marx – another of the council of 8, saying that Müller “cannot stop the discussions.”

A couple of months later, a new pocket of altercation starts, following a talk by Cardinal Kasper addressed to the college of cardinals, on the behest of pope Francis, in which he outlines possible conditions under which remarried divorcees might be admitted to communion. As an aside, with these two texts – Müller’s exposition of the current status and Kasper’s speculation about possible new alternatives, both of which were made to order by the pope, Francis nicely brackets the discussion in the upcoming synod, ensuring both a clear picture of where we are and making sure that there are courageous new proposals in play.

Hot on the heels of Kasper’s talk, Cardinal Caffarra states, in an interview for the Italian Il Foglio, that Kasper’s proposal “negates the foundations of the Church’s teaching on sexuality.”

And finally, pulling an ace from his sleeve, Cardinal Müller (now no longer Archbishop), puts his foot down one more time, in response to a question from Vatican Radio about where he stands in the debate about remarried divorcees:

“I don’t participate [in this debate] as a private theologian, but by exercising my office. The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith [whose head Müller is] is the only Roman congregation that participates immediately in the pope’s magisterium, while others, who join in here, even if they are cardinals, simply speak for themselves personally and cannot make official pronouncements.”

Take that, Maradiaga! [Just kidding, your Eminence.]

This may not sound like much, but recent decades have seen nothing like any of the above direct jabs of one cardinal at another. While a possible reaction is horror and disappointment at a lack of unity among the cardinals, I would like to argue that the above is not in itself negative and may even be positive. The stakes are high here as there is an opportunity for the Church to better transmit God’s mercy, while having to ensure that she doesn’t, in the process, trample on the treasures handed to her by Jesus. That cardinals feel passionate about one alternative versus another is, I believe, a good thing, as is the fact that they are being serious about thinking the alternatives through. This is certainly not a show trial, or a staged “conversation” – the players mean it and that is as it should be. It is also good that the discussion spills out into the media, since the cardinals have an opportunity here to give an example for how serious discussion among peers should be conducted. If they just kept themselves out of the open, the result would appear simply as a dictate, received from the pope and blindly recited by his minions. Like this, we at least see a bit of the process in action. And finally, the only caveat to these differences of opinion being a good thing that I’d like to put on the table comes from Francis in his Evangelii Gaudium:

“Within the Church countless issues are being studied and reflected upon with great freedom. Differing currents of thought in philosophy, theology and pastoral practice, if open to being reconciled by the Spirit in respect and love, can enable the Church to grow, since all of them help to express more clearly the immense riches of God’s word. For those who long for a monolithic body of doctrine guarded by all and leaving no room for nuance, this might appear as undesirable and leading to confusion. But in fact such variety serves to bring out and develop different facets of the inexhaustible riches of the Gospel.” (§40)

¹ For its discussion see an earlier post, as well as two posts on Cardinal Walter Kasper’s address to the latest consistory of cardinals here and here.

Francis fights fundamentalism

A new book by Pope Francis, entitled “Beauty will teach the world,” was published today in Italian and the daily La Repubblica has already released an excerpt. There Francis speaks out against fundamentalism, and while his thoughts are very much along the lines of the understanding of truth that he laid out in the letter to Scalfari, their freshness and forcefulness expand the scope and intensity of the previous sketch. Since I haven’t found an English translation yet, the following is my own, rough attempt.

In the published excerpt, Francis starts with an analysis of fundamentalism, portrayed as a flavor of insecurity and cowardice:

“What is apparent is the fact that during the course of history there has been an explosion, and there continues to be an explosion also today, of fundamentalisms. At their heart, these systems of thought and conduct are absolutely outdated, mummified, and serve as bunkers. Fundamentalism grows from the rigidity of a single thought, inside which a person protects itself from sources of instability (and from crises) in exchange for a certain existential calm. Fundamentalism does not allow for shades of meaning or second thoughts, simply because it is afraid and – specifically – it is afraid of the truth. The person who hides in fundamentalism is someone who is afraid to set out on a journey in search of truth. They already “possess” the truth, they have already acquired it and used it as a defensive means; therefore they experience each discussion as personal aggression.”

Francis then presents an alternative view of the truth – not as defense mechanism and aggression, but as a shared gift, very much reminiscent also of Dr. Slipper’s paper on “cognition by mutual reflection”:

“Our relationship to the truth isn’t static, because the Supreme Truth is infinite and can always be known better; it is always possible to immerse oneself into greater depth in it. The apostle Peter asks of Christians to be ready to “give an explanation”¹ of their hope; which means that the truth, on which we base existence, must open itself to dialogue, to the difficulties that others show us or that circumstances present us with. Truth is always “reasonable,” even when I may not be, and the challenge is to remain open to the point of view of the other, without turning our convictions into an immovable whole. Dialogue does not mean relativism, but a “logos” that is shared, reason that offers itself in love, to build together a reality that is more and more liberating every time.”

Dialogue therefore fosters a sharing in truth and freedom, built on mutual openness, and Francis proceeds to project the consequences of such an attitude even further, calling it a “virtuous cycle”:

“In this virtuous cycle, dialogue uncovers the truth and the truth is nourished by dialogue. Careful listening, respectful silence, sincere empathy, an authentic making oneself available to the stranger and the other, are essential virtues that are to be fostered and transmitted in today’s world. God himself calls us to dialogue, he calls and summons us by his Word, the Word that has abandoned every nest and shelter to make itself human.”

Dialogue is presented here not only as something that is a good thing to do, but – for Christians – as a direct call from God and an example set by Him, which in turn opens new dimensions:

“As a result, three, intimately interlinked, dimensions of dialogue appear: one between the person and God – the one that we Christians call prayer, one among human beings themselves, and a third one, of dialogue with oneself. Through these three dimensions the truth grows, consolidates itself and extends over time. […] At this point we have to ask ourselves: what do we mean by the truth? Seeking the truth is different from finding formulae for possessing and manipulating it to one’s own liking.”

An aspect of the above that I particularly like is the order in which Francis presents the dimensions of dialogue: God, others, self … With this framework in place, he proceeds to emphasize the role of humility in the quest for truth:

“The search involves the totality of the person and of being. It is a journey that fundamentally involves humility. With the firm conviction that no one is sufficient for themselves and that it is dehumanizing to use others as means for being sufficient for oneself, the search for the truth embarks on this laborious journey, often artisanal, with a humble heart that refuses to quench its thirst with standing waters.

A fundamentalist “possession” of the truth lacks humility: it tries to impose itself on others by a gesture that, in and of itself, is self-defensive. The search for truth does not quench the roaring thirst. An awareness of “wise ignorance”² lets us continually restart the journey. A “wise ignorance” that, with life’s experiences, becomes “learned.” We can affirm without fear that the truth isn’t had, is not possessed: it is encountered. For us to desire it, it must cease to be the one that can be possessed. The truth opens itself, uncovers itself to those who – in turn – open themselves to her. The word truth, precisely in its Greek sense of aletheia, suggests that which manifests itself, that which uncovers itself, that which reveals itself by means of a miraculous and gratuitous apparition. The Hebrew sense, instead, of the term emet, unites the meaning of the true with that of the certain, stable, that which does not lie or deceive. The truth, therefore, has a dual connotation: it is a manifestation of the essence of things and persons, that in their opening up of their innermost selves give us the certainty of their authenticity, the reliable proof that invites us to believe in them.”

How does such a concept of certainty mesh with the humility Francis called for earlier on?

“Such certainty is humble, because it simply “lets the other be” it its manifestation, and does not subject it to our needs or demands. This is the first justice that we owe others and ourselves: to accept the truth of what we are, to tell the truth of what we think. Our painful political history has tried many times to gag them. Very often the use of euphemisms has anesthetized us or made us fall asleep before her. But, the time has come to rejoin, to twin ourselves with the truth that needs to be announced prophetically, with justice authentically restored. Justice only springs forth when the circumstances, that we are betrayed and deceived by in our historical destiny, are called by their names. And by doing this, we accomplish one of the principal services of responsibility due to future generations.”

The above seems very clear to me: the need for dialogue and humility that Francis starts out with is motivated by the need for an honest understanding and acceptance of reality, whose denial and distortion otherwise go against the good of all. To conclude the excerpt, Francis pulls back from truth, to reveal her sisters – goodness and beauty:

“The truth is never found by herself. Together with her there are goodness and beauty. Or, better put, the Truth is good and beautiful. An Argentinian thinker used to say: “A truth that is not entirely good always hides some goodness that is not entirely true.” I insist: these three go together and it is neither possible to find nor seek one without the others. It is a reality that is very different from the simple “possession of truth” claimed by fundamentalism: they take formulae in and of themselves as valid, emptied of goodness and beauty, and they try to impose themselves on others with aggression and violence, doing evil and conspiring against life itself.”

As soon as a proper translation becomes available, I’ll point to it here, but I hope that even my broken attempts at rendering Pope Francis’ thoughts in English will give you a sense of his concerns and his positioning of the truth as part of a set with goodness and beauty and as a gift received with others in response to openness, dialogue and a journey shared.

¹ “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.” (1 Peter 3:15)
² I guess this is in reference to the Socratic: “I am wiser than this man; for neither of us really knows anything fine and good, but this man thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas I, as I do not know anything, do not think I do either. I seem, then, in just this little thing to be wiser than this man at any rate, that what I do not know I do not think I know either.” (Plato, Apology 21d)

Serra: space in the flesh

[Warning: long read – again]

It might seem strange to start a post about the sculptor Richard Serra by referring to Pope Francis’ homily from last Friday morning, but I hope you’ll bear with me while I do it anyway and that you won’t interpret it as an attempt to imbue Serra’s work with religious motives, which I believe it does not have. Instead, my reason for starting out with the following quote is that I believe both Richard Serra and Pope Francis give great importance to physicality, as is apparent from the examination of conscience proposed here by the pope and as I will try to spell out in greater detail with regard to Serra’s work:

“Am I embarrassed by the flesh of my brother or sister? When I give alms, do I let the coins fall without touching his hand? And if by chance I touch him, do I do this? [he asked mimicking a gesture of repulsion with his hand] When I give alms, do I look my brother or sister in the eyes? When I know a person is sick do I visit him or her? Do I greet them with tenderness?”

That the pope emphasizes physicality – using the word “flesh” 13 times last Friday morning – is, I believe, motivated by a desire to counter the ever-recurrent dualist distortion of Christianity that considers only the spirit to be good while equating matter with evil. This is categorically not Jesus’ message and, to my mind, Serra’s work is a great way also for a Christian (and everyone else too) to understand why, in an experiential rather than a moral or intellectual way.

What Richard Serra does, in my opinion, is to heighten the potential for an immediate experience of space, mass, scale, orientation and matter in a way that is difficult to be had directly in nature, where these experiences are admixed with those of other properties or qualities. The result can be awe and an experience of profound beauty (that is not to be sought only in the superficially aesthetic), which – while, as far as I can tell, not intended by their author – make Richard Serra’s work precisely what the composer James MacMillan pinpointed as the key feature of art: “a window on to the mind of God.”

To begin with, speaking about Richard Serra’s work faces the same challenges as appreciating any piece of art, in that no verbal account is going to suffice as a surrogate for direct experience. In fact, Serra himself argues this point very starkly, when asked to describe his “Delineator” (shown next):¹

Serra delineator

“What happens with Delineator is that the only way to understand this work is to experience the place physically, and you can’t have an experience of space outside of the place and the space you’re in. Any linguistic mapping or reconstruction by analogy, or any verbalization or interpretation or explanation, even of this kind, is a linguistic debasement, in a sense, because it isn’t even true in a parallel way.”

Nonetheless, Serra does say more about Delineator elsewhere, which highlights some of his concerns and the mental model he uses for thinking about his own work:

“The sculpture defines a definite space inside the room. […] The juxtaposition of steel plates forming this open cross generates a volume of space which has an inside and an outside, openings and directions, aboves, belows, rights, lefts – coordinates to your body that you understand when you walk through it. Noe you might say that that sounds quite esoteric. Well, one of the things that you get into as you become more in tune with articulating space is that space systems are different than linguistic systems in that they are nondescriptive. The conclusion I’ve come to is that philosophy and science are descriptive disciplines, whereas art and religion are not.”

So, if you haven’t seen any of his work and tried to circumnavigate and “inhabit” it, I would very much encourage you to try to do so, if you get a chance. Personally, I have had experiences akin to what Serra speaks about above, when I saw his “Seven plates, six angles” (below) at the Gagosian in New York. The overwhelming sensation I had was of a heightened awareness of scale, volume and proportion, but also – unexpectedly – of space and mass. In some sense, my extensive use of photos in this post is futile – like showing you images of alien foodstuffs that you have not tasted, so, please, consider them tokens or bookmarks – i.e., pointers for your own future experience.

Serra 7 plates 6 angles

When asked about the relation of one of his pieces, shown at the Tate in London, to the building it was exhibited in, Serra made another important observation about what his work intends to be (and one that rang very true to me in retrospect):

“I did not want to enter into an affirmative dialogue with the building. I did not want to mirror face-value language, the physiognomy of the architecture. I wanted to deal with the volume, weight, mass and directionality of the space. [… I] wanted to make a sculpture out of the whole volume […] I wanted to make the volume of the space tangible, so that it is understood immediately, physically, by your body.”

The idea that the sculpture is not solely the object Serra created, but that it is that object in relation to the space it is situated in, is a paradigm shift and the key to understanding his insistence on making site-specific work even in the case of indoor sculptures. And even when a piece is shown in multiple locations over time, its placement in every one of those spaces results in multiple sculptures involving the one Serra-made object (that naïvely might be identified as the sculpture in full).

Beyond the paradigm shift from objects to entire spaces, Serra also broadens the palette of sculptural considerations:

“There’s a difference between walking into a telephone booth and a football stadium. If you take those two extremes and make the idea very subtle, then you can say there’s a difference between walking to the left and walking to the right, between the experience of the concave and convex, between something leaning right and something leaning left. How do you know that to be a different experience in terms of your daily life? And if it is, is it meaningful? The degree of meaningfulness depends on the limitations of the viewer. I think it is very difficult to introduce large-scale works into the public arena inasmuch as I am not interested in complicity or affirmation.

[…]

Compared to that of vertical sculpture, the ideas of sculpture existing horizontally are basically different concepts about construction, are basically different concepts about how we live in the world. On a simple, perceptual level, a modular unit extending above your eye-level becomes foreshortened as it rises, while the horizontal modular unit implies an infinite vanishing point. […] The cultural symbolic iconography of verticality versus horizontality is most apparent in the cross, where the vertical expresses transcendence and the horizontal expresses materiality.”

While Serra is clear about his interests being “nonutilitarian, nonfunctional” and declaring that “any use [of sculpture] is a misuse,” as well as anticipating limited audience appreciation (likening it to “poetry and experimental film” :)), he at the same time has a profound message behind his work:

“We are all restrained and condemned by the weight of gravity. […] The constructive process, the daily concentration and effort appeal to me more than the light fantastic, more than the quest for the ethereal. Everything we choose in life for its lightness soon reveals its unbearable weight. We face the fear of unbearable weight of repression, the weight of constriction, the weight of government, the weight of tolerance, the weight of resolution, the weight of responsibility, the weight of destructions, the weight of suicide, the weight of history which dissolves weight and erodes meaning to a calculated construction of palpable lightness.”

In many ways, the above strikes me as having affinities with Christianity, where Serra’s “Everything we choose in life for its lightness soon reveals its unbearable weight.” can be seen as a complement of Jesus’ “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.” (Matthew 6:33).

A further aspect of Serra’s weight versus lightness statement (made in 1988) is its echoing of Milan Kundera’s novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” published only four years earlier, where its author too makes a play for weight over lightness:²

“The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”

What, you may ask, is my point though? I hope that the above highlighted a couple of aspects of Serra’s work, which I have found to be deeply engaging and appealing. First, that he has invented a whole new concept of sculpture whose building blocks are not only form, texture, composition and proportion, but also mass, space, directionality and orientation, rendering an entire space a sculpture. Second, that his work is deeply rooted in the entirety of art and philosophy, without these being prerequisites for its appreciation and experience. Third, that experiencing his work, which explicitly shuns religious motives, does shed light on deeply Christian concepts and is therefore also of spiritual value to a Christian viewer at least.

As such, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you, when I tell you that Richard Serra is probably my favorite sculptor (alongside Michelangelo, Rodin and Giacometti) and I hope that you will appreciate his work too when you next see one of his pieces.

¹ All Richard Serra quotes here are from “Writings/Interviews.”
² Both, probably, derived from Nietzsche’s concept of eternal recurrence, where the permanent (heavy) is contrasted against the fleeting (light).

Kasper’s family: the domestic church

[Warning: long read]

Even though I only meant to translate from and comment on the first half of Cardinal Kasper’s talk at the extraordinary consistory of cardinals two weeks’ ago, I realized that its middle part – where Kasper focuses on the sacrament of marriage and then speaks about the family as domestic Church – has not received much coverage either (with all attention being directed at the two scenarios he sketched out that constitute a 5% of what he said …). With that in mind – and assuming you are interested in what follows, I would recommend you to take a quick look at the previous post, which covers the general framework in which Kasper then gives thought to how the family could be better welcomed by the Church.

Following the presentation of the principles of how the Gospel is to be understood, how the concept of a gift is central and how God places trust in man and woman and of the subsequent Scriptural exegesis both of the ideal and reality of the family, covered before, Kasper moves on to discuss why marriage is indissoluble:

“[T]he doctrine of the indissolubility of the marital bond […] persists also where, humanly, marriage breaks down. Many today have trouble with understanding it. This doctrine cannot be understood as a kind of metaphysical hypostasis beside or above the personal love of the spouses; on the other hand it isn’t fully accounted for by reciprocal affective love and doesn’t die with it. It is Gospel, or definitive word and permanently valid promise. As such, it takes humans and their freedom seriously. It is precisely due to human dignity that definitive decisions can be taken. These belong in a permanent way to the history of a person; they characterize it in a lasting way; it is not possible to take them back and pretend as if they had never been made. When they are broken, a deep wound results. Wounds can be healed, but the scar remains and continues to trouble; but one can and must continue to live even if that requires effort. Similarly the good news of Jesus is that, thanks to the mercy of God, those who convert can be forgiven, healed and start anew.”

Wow! I have never heard the indissolubility of marriage tied to freedom in this way, or to mercy. It is an understanding of faith like this that makes Pope Francis’ choice of Kasper very clear …

Next comes the passage where the family – based on the indissoluble bond of marriage – is likened to the Church and where Kasper introduces the “law of gradualness” that he then builds on in later parts of his talk:

“Just like the Church is on a journey of conversion and renewal, so marriage too finds itself on the way of the cross and of resurrection, under the law of gradualness of continuing to grow in ever new ways and greater depth in the mystery of Christ. This law of gradualness¹ seems to me something of great importance for the life and for the pastoral care of marriage and the family. It doesn’t mean a gradualness of the law, but a gradualness, which means growth, in the understanding and putting into practice of the law of the Gospel, which is a law of freedom (James 1:25, 2:12),² but which has today become often difficult for many of the faithful. They require time and patient accompanying along their journey.”

Next, Kasper outlines what he sees as the sources of the current crisis of the family:

“[T]he nuclear family, which developed only during the 18th century from the extended family of the past, has ended up in a structural crisis. Modern conditions of work and accommodation have resulted in a separation between accommodation, places of work and places where free time is spent and therefore have lead to a break-up of the home as the social unit. For work reasons, fathers are often away from the family for prolonged periods; women too, for work reasons, are often only partly present in the family. Due to current conditions being hostile to the family, the modern nuclear family finds itself in difficulty.”

What is the answer to these challenges? Is Kasper suggesting some sort of return to the pre-18th-century model? Not quite (and this was to be expected given his thoughts in the opening parts of the talk):

“What we need are extended families of a new kind. For nuclear families to survive, they need to be inserted into new family units that span generations and in which it is above all the grandfathers and grandmothers who take on important roles, into inter-familiar circles of close ones and friends where children can find refuge in the absence of their parents and where single old people, the divorced and single parents can find a kind of home.”

Kasper suggests that the above extended families and “circles” have hints of a “domestic Church” that he further elaborates on next:

“How to define these domestic Churches? They are a Church in miniature inside the Church. They make the local Church present in the concrete life of the people. In fact, where two or three meet in the name of Christ, he is in their midst (Matthew, 18:20). […] Through the Holy Spirit, they have the sensus fidei, the sense of faith, an intuitive sense of faith and of living according to the Gospel. They are not only object but also subject of pastoral care for families. Above all by their example, they can help the Church to enter more deeply into the word of God and to put it into practice in a way that is more full of life. Since the Holy Spirit has been given to the Church in its entirety, they mustn’t isolate themselves in a sectarian way from the broader communion of the Church. This “catholic principle” preserves the Church from disintegrating into single, autonomous, free Churches. Through such unity in multiplicity, the Church is also a sacramental sign of unity in the world.”

One thing that strikes me as important in the above is also how Kasper positions the domestic Churches – families as being important for the Church as a whole – even in core aspects like the growing understanding of the word of God. It is not like the Church in its entirety is putting itself into a position where it knows best and is the source of support for families. Instead, the relationship is very much reciprocal, which is further highlighted in the following passage, where Kasper also returns to the importance of accompanying those who suffer from the break-down of the family:

“Families need the Church and the Church needs families for the sake of being present at the center of life, where modern life takes place. Without the domestic Churches the Church is a stranger to the concrete reality of life. Only through families can it be a home where people are at home. Its being understood as domestic Church is therefore fundamental for the future of the Church and for the new evangelization. Families are the first and best messengers of the Gospel of the family. They are they way of the Church. […] Thinking about the importance of the family for the future of the Church, the rapidly growing number of broken families appears as an even greater tragedy. There is a lot of suffering. [… W]e must change the paradigm and must – like the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37) – look at the situation also from the point of view of those who suffer and ask for help.”

It is only at this point that Kasper starts talking about the challenges of divorce and re-marriage and proceeds to sketch out two scenarios of how the Church could handle them differently. But, that will have to remain for another time. For now, let me just flag up one of Pope Francis’ morning sermons (from last Friday), where he again emphasizes the key in this context:

“When [… the] leaving [of] one’s father and mother, and joining oneself to a woman, and going forward … when this love fails – because many times it fails – we have to feel the pain of the failure, we must accompany those people who have had this failure in their love. Do not condemn. Walk with them – and don’t practice casuistry on their situation.”

¹ As far as I can tell, this “law of gradualness” comes from John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio (§34): “Married people too are called upon to progress unceasingly in their moral life, with the support of a sincere and active desire to gain ever better knowledge of the values enshrined in and fostered by the law of God. They must also be supported by an upright and generous willingness to embody these values in their concrete decisions. They cannot however look on the law as merely an ideal to be achieved in the future: they must consider it as a command of Christ the Lord to overcome difficulties with constancy. “And so what is known as ‘the law of gradualness’ or step-by-step advance cannot be identified with ‘gradualness of the law,’ as if there were different degrees or forms of precept in God’s law for different individuals and situations. In God’s plan, all husbands and wives are called in marriage to holiness, and this lofty vocation is fulfilled to the extent that the human person is able to respond to God’s command with serene confidence in God’s grace and in his or her own will.”” Although I also found it in the I Ching here, where it says: “[The] principle of gradual development can be applied to other situations as well; it is always applicable where it is a matter of correct relationships of co-operation, as for instance in the appointment of an official. The development must be allowed to take its proper course. Hasty action would not be wise.”
² “But the one who peers into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres, and is not a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, such a one shall be blessed in what he does.” and “So speak and so act as people who will be judged by the law of freedom.”

Kasper’s family: beauty in the battlefield

Comedy 1921 by Paul Klee 011

[Warning: long read – again.]

While the family is a constant and core feature of human existence that has the potential to strongly shape its members’ lives, the forms it takes today are more diverse than they have probably ever been. At the same time, the Church, at least seemingly, presents a single one of the many alternatives in practice today as the ideal and even penalizes the others. This, undoubtedly results in distance being put between the Church and those whose family lives don’t conform to its ideals, which is a serious problem for the Church, whose mission is to be close to all.

As a result, Pope Francis has put a process in motion to study the current situation of the family and explore ways of the Church being more open and welcoming, while at the same time – and here lies the true challenge – remaining faithful to Jesus’ teachings and the prompting of the Holy Spirit. The form taken by the process are two bishops’ synods – one this year and one next year – where the subject will be discussed and proposals put to the Holy Father for approval. To begin with, a questionnaire has already been circulated to dioceses around the world, in which both priests and lay faithful were asked to provide feedback on a wide variety of questions to do with the family in a broad sense. Many of these surveys have already concluded, with some bishops’ conferences even choosing to publish their result that so far consistently show a gap between Church teaching and practice by the Church’s members. An unsurprising result, but one whose openness and honest is nonetheless a positive sign.

Beyond the questionnaire, the next significant step taken by Pope Francis has been to ask Cardinal Walter Kasper to prepare an address to the extraordinary consistory of cardinals that took place in the Vatican two weeks ago. The resulting two-hour talk was greatly praised afterwards by Pope Francis, by referring to his work the next day as “doing theology on one’s knees.” The first thing to note here is that Cardinal Kasper is not in any formal way related to the family – he is neither in charge of the Pontifical Council for the Family nor the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose heads would have been the obvious choices if the criterion had been about formal scopes or responsibilities. Instead, Francis picks one of his favorite theologians (as he said already during the first Angelus after his election) – a retired Cardinal, who had previously been in charge of working towards Christian unity and who has played important roles in improving relationships with Jews. Second, it is worth being aware of the fact that Kasper’s speech was initially not meant for publication and was instead intended only for the cardinals present at the consistory. Nonetheless, ten days after he delivered it, and following extensive media coverage of its summary and some leaked passages, the full text is now available in Italian.

Instead of attempting a detailed commentary on Kasper’s words, I would like to focus on passages from the opening parts of his speech, where he lays out the basic principles and reflects on what is immutable versus what can (and has been) changed during the Church’s long history as far as the family is concerned. Kasper then proceeds to sketch out two ideas of what could be done differently for civilly remarried divorcees – if that is what you are interested in, there has been plenty of coverage of their details, and an English translation of the relevant passages is available here.

To my mind those two proposals are the least interesting part of Kasper’s thought, since, as he states from the outset, his aim is only to provide a “kind of overture that leads towards the theme, in the hope that in the end we will receive a sym-phony, or a harmonious whole of all the voices in the Church, including those that at the moment are partly dissonant.” Kasper wants to set the scene and provide a framework in which all can come together.

The first, to my mind beautiful and lucid, insight regards an understanding of what the Gospel is and of how it relates to the Church’s teaching:

“The Gospel, believed in and lived by the Church, is the source of all truth, of salvation and of practice. This means that the teaching of the Church is not a stagnant lake, but instead a torrent that springs from the source of the Gospel, in which flows the experience of faith of the people of God of all the ages. It is a tradition that is alive and that today, as on many other occasions during the course of history, has arrived at a critical point and that, in view of the “signs of the times,” requires continuation and deepening.

What then is this Gospel? It isn’t a legal code. It is the light and strength of life that is Jesus Christ. It gives what it asks for. Only in its light and in its strength is it possible to understand and observe the commandments. […] Without the Spirit that works in our hearts, the letter of the Gospel is a law that kills (2 Corinthians 3:6).¹ Therefore the Gospel of the family does not want to be a burden, but instead, as far as being a gift of faith, an uplifting news, light and strength of the life of the family.”

The second cornerstone is about the nature of the sacraments and their interdependence with faith:

“The sacraments, including that of marriage, are sacraments of faith. […] The Second Vatican Council [… says about the sacraments:] “They not only presuppose faith, but […] they also nourish, strengthen, and express it.” (SC 59) The sacrament of marriage too can become efficacious and be lived only in faith. Therefore, the essential question is: how is the faith of the future spouses? […] Many persons are baptized but not evangelized. Put in paradoxical terms, they are baptized catechumens, if not baptized pagans.”

These may sound like harsh words – and they are! – but I believe they, sadly, express a widespread reality whereby there is broad lack of understanding about faith among Catholics.

The third opening consideration brings together the dynamism of the Gospel and the indispensability of faith, and relates them to how God participates in our lives:

“God is a God of the journey: in the history of salvation he has journeyed with us. Today he has to walk the Earth again with the persons of the present. He doesn’t want to impose faith on no one. He can only present it and propose it as a way of happiness. The Gospel can convince only by means of itself and by its profound beauty.”

In summary, I see Kasper as setting a scene in which the Gospel is a source of joy, where it is through faith and with open eyes that it guides and delights the followers of Jesus. It is not to be imposed, nor is it to be read as a rule-book, and taking its consequences out of context is lethal.

Next, Kasper proceeds to lay out the basic principles of the ideal family, all by reference to the first book of Genesis:²

“God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) Here Kasper focuses on the relationship between man and woman and on it being based on the concepts of love and gift: “Man and woman are given as gifts by God one for the other. They have to complement and sustain each other, delight each other and find joy in each other. Both, man and woman, inasmuch as they are image of God, have the same dignity. There is no room for discrimination against the woman. But man and woman aren’t simply equal. Their equality in dignity is based on creation, just like their diversity. […] The equal dignity of their diversity explains the attraction between the two […] Wanting to make them equal on ideological grounds destroys erotic love. The Bible understands this love as union for the sake of becoming one flesh, which means one community of life, which included sex, eros and human friendship. In this complete sense, man and woman are created for love and are an image of God, who is love (1 John 4:8). […] When a partner deifies the other and expects that they prepare heaven on earth for them, the other necessarily feels that too much is being asked of them; they can do nothing but disappoint. Many marriages fail as a result of such excessive expectations. The community of life of man and woman, together with their children, can be happy only if they see each other as reciprocal gifts that transcend each one of them.”

“God blessed them and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply” (Genesis 1:28) Kasper’s focus here is on God’s trust: “Responsible parenthood has a more profound meaning than that which is usually attributed to it. It means that God entrusts the most precious gift he can give, which means human life, to the responsibility of man and woman. The can decide responsibly the number and timing of the birth of their children. They have to do it responsibly in front of God and by respecting the dignity and the good of their partner, responsibly with regard to the good of their children, responsibly in view of the future of society and while respecting human nature. The result though isn’t a casuistic, but instead a form whose specific putting into practice is entrusted to the responsibility of man and woman. They are given the responsibility over the future. The future of humanity passes through the family.”

“[F]ill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28) becomes interpreted by Kasper as a call to filling the world with a culture of love: “These words are not meant as submission or violent domination. The second creation account here speaks about cultivating and caring for (2:15). […] With this cultural mission, the relationship between man and woman transcends them again. It isn’t mere sentimentalism that revolves around oneself; it mustn’t close itself in on itself, but open itself towards a mission for the world. The family is not only a private community of persons. It is the fundamental and vital cell of society. […] It is fundamental for the birth of a culture of love and for a humanization and personalization of society, without which it would become an anonymous mass. In this sense it is possible to speak about a social and political role of the family.”

The family, as presented here by Kasper, is an exciting and grand participation, of humans as God’s partners, in the life of God, which is called to bringing love both ad intra and ad extra.

As soon as Kasper presents the ideal of the family, he is quick to point out that this ideal is “not the reality of the family [and that …] the Bible knows it.” The root cause is that “the alienation of man from God has as its consequence alienation in man and among persons,” which also projects onto the family:

“The first alienation happens between man and woman. They experience shame, one in front of the other (3:10). This shame demonstrates that the original harmony between body and spirit has been disturbed and that man and woman are alienated from one another. Affection degenerates into desire and domination of man over woman (3:16). They reproach and accuse each other (3:12). Violence, jealousy and discord creep into marriage and the family.”

Kasper also points out that the marital infidelities that the Bible recounts are even part of Jesus’ family tree, which “includes two women (Tamar and Uriah’s wife) who are considered sinners (Matthew 1:3). Jesus too had ancestors who didn’t come from a “good family,” and whom it would have been preferable not to speak about. The Bible here is very realistic, very honest.” He then goes on to warn against a distorted, idealized view:

“When we speak about the family and about the beauty of the family, we mustn’t start from an unrealistic, romantic image. We must also see the hard realities and participate in the sadness, the worries and the tears of many families. Biblical realism can in fact offer us a certain consolation. It shows us that what we lament is not something of today and that it has always been like that. We mustn’t give in to the temptation of idealizing the past and then, as happens in many cases, see the present merely as a history of decadence.”

To conclude his reflection on the family, which starts out from the ideals derived from Genesis, chapter 1, and then proceeds through the failures catalogued in both Old and New Testaments, Kasper finishes on a positive note, again derived from Scripture:

“In the end, the third chapter of Genesis kindles a light of hope. Throwing man out of paradise, God gave him hope for accompanying him on his journey. That which tradition defines as the protoevangelium (Genesis 3:15), can also be understood as the protoevangelium of the family. From its descendants a Savior will be born. The genealogies of Matthew and Luke (Matthew 1:1-7; Luke 3:23-28) witness that from the sequence of generations, even with its jolts and jerks, in the end a Savior is born. God can write straight even along crooked lines. Therefore, when we accompany people along their journeys, we mustn’t be prophets of doom, but instead bearers of hope, who offer consolation and who, even in difficult situations, encourage people to go ahead.”

The picture here is very much of hope with eyes wide open and of pursuing a great ideal even in the midst of failure and weakness. In the second half of his talk (that’s right – the above are just a couple of pieces from the first half!), Kasper then proceeds to look at how the various painful situations that families find themselves in can be approached, with a focus on how those who got divorced and the subsequently civilly re-married could be accompanied and included. Since this second half of Kasper’s talk is receiving good coverage in the media, I will limit myself to the above framework that I translated from the Italian full text and commented on above. To give you a sense of where Kasper is going in the second half of his talk, let me just quote one line from it: “The Church must be a home for all, in which all must be able to feel at home and like in a family.” Amen!

[UPDATE (4 March 2014): I have changed my mind and have continued with translating passages from and commenting on the second part of Kasper’s talk here. There he takes us through his analysis of the indissolubility of marriage, of the causes of the breakdown of the nuclear family and proposes the domestic Church as the way forward.]

¹ “[W]ho has indeed qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter brings death, but the Spirit gives life.”
² Here he is in good company with John Paul II’s “theology of the body” whose conclusions are also well reflected in Kasper’s thought.

An ecumenism of brotherhood

Francis abp welby

[Warning: long read.]

Already St. Paul was faced with factions and divisions among the earliest followers of Jesus – to the point of frustration, in the face of groups declaring their allegiance to one or other leader: “[I]t has been reported to me about you, my brothers, by Chloe’s people, that there are rivalries among you. I mean that each of you is saying, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Corinthians 1:11-13). In other words: “Pull yourselves together!”

That there are divisions among Christians is a scandal and one that both mocks Jesus’ own call for his followers to be united and for us to love each other like ourselves. It is no wonder then that ecumenism – the desire to see all Christians reunited after centuries of divisions – is one of the most prominent themes of Pope Francis’ preaching and actions. To get a sense of how he is approaching this challenge (or “opportunity,” as it would be put using a politically-correct vocabulary), it is worth taking a look at what he has said on the subject so far. The following is, therefore, my attempt to pull all of Francis’ remarks on ecumenism together in one place (in chronological order):

When addressing the Archbishop of Canterbury in June ’13, Francis focuses on ecumenism as a shared journey, undertaken with Jesus in our midst:

“The unity we so earnestly long for is a gift that comes from above and it is rooted in our communion of love with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. As Christ himself promised, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20). Let us travel the path towards unity, fraternally united in charity and with Jesus Christ as our constant point of reference.”

Later that month, addressing the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Francis draws attention to ecumenism not being about a lowest common denominator, but instead about an exchange of riches and a seeking of truth:¹

“It comforts me, knowing that Catholics and Orthodox share the same conception of dialogue that doesn’t seek a theological minimalism on which to reach a compromise, but that rather is based on the deepening of the truth that Christ has given to his Church and that we, moved by the Holy Spirit, never cease to understand better. This is why we shouldn’t be afraid of encounter and true dialogue. It doesn’t distance us from the truth but rather, through an exchange of gifts, leads us, under the guidance of the Spirit of truth, to the whole truth.”

In his address to Baselios Marthoma Paulose II, Catholicos of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church in September ’13, Francis calls for a culture of encounter instead of clashes, emphasizing both the need of individual effort and the work of the Holy Spirit:

“I believe that on the ecumenical path it is important to look with trust to the steps that have been completed, overcoming prejudices and closed attitudes which are part of a kind of “culture of clashes” and source of division, and giving way to a “culture of encounter”, which educates us for mutual understanding and for working towards unity. Alone however, this is impossible; our witnesses and poverty slow the progress. For this reason, it is important to intensify our prayer, because only the Holy Spirit with his grace, his light and his warmth can melt our coldness and guide our steps towards an ever greater brotherhood.”

In “the” interview to Jesuit magazines later that month, Francis emphasized the mutual enrichment that is a consequence of ecumenism: “In ecumenical relations it is important not only to know each other better, but also to recognize what the Spirit has sown in the other as a gift for us.”
During a general audience at the end of September ’13, Francis emphasized two points with regard to ecumenism: first that there is an abundance of riches that Christians already share:

“There is one body, that of Christ which we receive in the Eucharist; one Spirit, the Holy Spirit that animates and constantly recreates the Church; one hope, eternal life; one faith, one Baptism, one God, Father of us all (cf. vv. 4-6). The richness of what unites us!”

second, that the work for communion among all Christians starts with each one of us – in the family, parishes, … rather than being something removed from the lives of individuals:

“Each one should ask himself today: do I make unity grow in the family, in the parish, in the community or am I a motive of division, of hardship? Do I have the humility to heal with patience, with sacrifice, the wounds to communion?”

and, finally, a reminder that Christian unity is not principally a matter of political negotiation, but a gift received from God:

“[W]ho is the motor of this unity of the Church? It is the Holy Spirit. Our unity is not primarily the fruit of our consensus, of our effort to be in agreement, but it comes from Him who makes unity in diversity, which is harmony.”

When addressing the president of the Lutheran World Federation in October ’13, Francis positions unity among Christians as a consequence of each individual, community and church drawing closer to Jesus and as being in proportion to the sincerity with which it is asked for: “In the measure in which we draw closer to our Lord Jesus Christ in humility of spirit, we are certain to draw closer to one another. And, in the measure in which we ask the Lord for the gift of unity, we are sure that he will take us by the hand and be our guide.” In other words, both as a consequence of fidelity and as a gift.
A week later, in a letter to the World Council of Churches, Francis effectively calls for action as one Christian community, even in the face of our existing differences:

“In fidelity to the Gospel, and in response to the urgent needs of the present time, we are called to reach out to those who find themselves in the existential peripheries of our societies and to show particular solidarity with the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters: the poor, the disabled, the unborn and the sick, migrants and refugees, the elderly and the young who lack employment.”

In an interview for the La Stampa Italian daily in December ’13, Francis further sharpened his insistence on what Christians all have in common:

“Today there is an ecumenism of blood. In some countries they kill Christians for wearing a cross or having a Bible and before they kill them they do not ask them whether they are Anglican, Lutheran, Catholic or Orthodox. Their blood is mixed. To those who kill we are Christians. We are united in blood, even though we have not yet managed to take necessary steps towards unity between us and perhaps the time has not yet come. Unity is a gift that we need to ask for. I knew a parish priest in Hamburg who was dealing with the beatification cause of a Catholic priest guillotined by the Nazis for teaching children the catechism. After him, in the list of condemned individuals, was a Lutheran pastor who was killed for the same reason. Their blood was mixed. The parish priest told me he had gone to the bishop and said to him: “I will continue to deal with the cause, but both of their causes, not just the Catholic priest’s.” This is what ecumenism of blood is.”

At the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity at the end of January ’14, Francis highlighted that Christian unity won’t be something that suddenly happens at the end of a process, but that it is instead a journey that we share already now:

“We have all been damaged by these divisions. None of us wishes to become a cause of scandal. And so we are all journeying together, fraternally, on the road towards unity, bringing about unity even as we walk. […] Unity will not come about as a miracle at the very end. Rather, unity comes about in journeying; the Holy Spirit does this on the journey. If we do not walk together, if we do not pray for one another, if we do not collaborate in the many ways that we can in this world for the People of God, then unity will not come about! But it will happen on this journey, in each step we take. And it is not we who are doing this, but rather the Holy Spirit, who sees our goodwill.”

On 18th February Pope Francis then addressed the attendees of a Evangelical Christians, via a video recorded by his friend – the Anglican Bishop Tony Palmer on his iPhone. Not only was the form of the message refreshingly friendly and informal, but its content too is significant in the completely fraternal level at which Francis places himself and the gathering he addresses. The very direct identification of past disagreements as sins on both side, the acknowledgement of God’s action among the gathering he addresses and his emphasis on the need for encounter and the recognition of each other as brothers further underline where he is coming from:²

“Dear brothers and sisters, excuse me because I speak in Italian, but I am not speaking English. But, I will speak no Italian, no English, but heartfully. It is a simpler and more authentic language and this language of the heart has a special style and and a special grammar. A simple grammar. Two rules: Love God above all else, and love the other because they are your brother and sister. With these two things we go ahead. I am here with my brother, with my brother bishop, Tony Palmer. We have been friends for years. […] It is a pleasure to greet you. A joyful and wishful greeting. Joyful, because it fills me with joy to know that you are together to give praise to Jesus Christ, the only Lord. And to pray to the Father and receive the Spirit. This gives joy, because it can be seen that the Lord works all over the world.

And wishful because … Well, what happens with us is what also happens in some neighborhoods where there are some families who love each other and other families who don’t. Families who come together and families who separate and we are a bit – I’ll use the word – a bit separated. Separated because sins have separated us, our sins. The misunderstandings throughout history. It has been a long road of communitarian sin. But who is to blame? We all are to blame. We are all sinners. Only one is just – the Lord.

I am wishful for this separation to end and for communion to come. I am wishful for that embrace that Holy Scripture speaks about when Joseph’s brothers, starving, went to Egypt so that they could buy food to eat. They went to buy, they had money, but they couldn’t eat the money! And there they found something more than food, they found their brother. All of us have “currency.” The currency of culture, the currency of our history, and lots of cultural riches and religious ones, of diverse traditions. But we have to come together as brothers. And we must cry together like Joseph did. This crying will unite us – the crying of love. I am talking to you as your brother. And I speak to you like this, simply. With joy and wishfulness. Let us make our wishfulness grow, because this will push us to find each other, to embrace each other and to praise Jesus Christ as the only Lord of history. […] I ask you to bless me and I bless you – from brother to brother.”

That emphasis on Jesus being the center of Christian life is then taken further in Francis’ Angelus message³ last Sunday, where he insisted that :

“Saint Paul explains that […] the community does not belong to the apostles, but it is them – the apostles – who belong to the community; but the community, in its entirety, belongs to Christ!

From this belonging derives the fact that in Christian communities – dioceses, parishes, associations, movements – differences mustn’t contradict the fact that we all, through Baptism, have the same dignity: we are all all, in Jesus Christ, sons and daughters of God. And this is our dignity: in Jesus Christ we are sons and daughters of God! Those who have received a ministry of leadership, of preaching, of administering the Sacraments, mustn’t consider themselves to in possession of special powers, masters, but place themselves at the service of the community, helping it along the journey of holiness with joy. […]

May the Lord give us the grace to work for the unity of the Church, of building this unity, because unity is more important than conflicts! The unity of the Church is of Christ, conflicts are problems that are not always of Christ. […]

Pray for us [the new Cardinals, made the previous day, and the pope], that we may be good servants: good servants, not good masters! All together, bishops, priests, consecrated persons and faithful laity, we have to give witness of a Church faithful to Christ, animated by the desire to serve brothers and sisters and ready to reach out with prophetic courage towards the spiritual expectations and needs of men and women of our times.”

All of this is a lot to take in, but for me there are a couple of key points that Francis has made. First, that neither those who persecute or denigrate Christians, nor God, make distinctions between the different denominations. Second, that there are degrees of unity and that we can make it grow by working together for the good of all – including those who are not Christians, thereby contributing also to universal brotherhood (as stated also in Evangelii Gaudium §245). Third, that no one owns the Christian “brand” but Jesus himself. We are all on a level playing field, all having made mistakes, but all being recipients of God’s gifts and in a position to help, accompany and support each other. Fourth, that ecumenism is not akin to mergers and acquisitions or to a peace treaty – it is not about compromise or a lowest common denominator. The name of the game is truth, and differences, instead, are riches that will be brought together by the actions of the Holy Spirit. Fifth, ecumenism is both God’s work and ours and is part of our broader obligation – in response to Jesus’ own testament⁴ – to work towards unity in all contexts, which also reminds me of a great piece of advice by St. Ignatius of Loyola: “Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”

¹ Echoing one of Pope Benedict XVI’s most daring statements on the subject: “[T]he search for knowledge and understanding always has to involve drawing closer to the truth. Both sides in this piece-by-piece approach to truth are therefore on the path that leads forward and towards greater commonality, brought about by the oneness of the truth. As far as preserving identity is concerned, it would be too little for the Christian, so to speak, to assert his identity in a such a way that he effectively blocks the path to truth. Then his Christianity would appear as something arbitrary, merely propositional. He would seem not to reckon with the possibility that religion has to do with truth. On the contrary, I would say that the Christian can afford to be supremely confident, yes, fundamentally certain that he can venture freely into the open sea of the truth, without having to fear for his Christian identity.”
² The following is my translation of the original Italian – except for the first few sentences (transcribed in italics), which Francis speaks in (broken) English – another great gesture :).
³ Since the English version of the full text is not available yet, the following is my own, crude rendition. ⁴ “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.” (John 17:20-22)

A(rt)ppreciation

Imagine waking up one morning, walking into your kitchen and finding the table set with your favorite breakfast, beautifully laid out and ready for you to enjoy. What would be your first reaction? Delight? Surprise? Curiosity? Gratitude? And what about when you started eating the food? Would you be savoring its flavors? Would you enjoy the taste?

Or, would the sight of this unforeseen setup stop you dead in your tracks, even preventing you from crossing the kitchen’s threshold? Would you be wondering who prepared the breakfast? What their motivation was? What recipe they followed? How they learned to cook? Where they sourced the ingredients? What other breakfasts they prepared? Who else prepared breakfasts? What they were trying to tell you by making breakfast for you? And would your inability to answer all of these questions put you off so much that you wouldn’t even sit down and eat?

The above scenario might sound very far-fetched and contrived – and it is! – but I’d like to argue that it is an analogy¹ of how a growing number of my friends approach art. And I don’t mean to ridicule them here at all – their approach is eminently reasonable, but just to share my own experience² of relating to art and appreciating it,³ that side-steps (but in some cases defers) what I see as my friends’ inhibitors to sharing in the same enjoyment that I receive.

Over the last couple of years I have, on separate occasions, visited galleries with close friends and have spent some time discussing questions like: “What did the artist want to say with this piece?,” “Is this really art?,” “What do you see in this?” and “What do you know about this artist / the period / the technique / etc.?” As far as I can, I try to dismiss such questions, since I believe them all to be of secondary importance at best.

In the first instance, I find that it pays to try and allow for an encounter between me and a piece of art, which is actually an encounter with a person – its creator – by proxy. And just like when being in the presence of another person, this is all about emptying myself of expectations, prejudices, stereotypes and allowing for the other to express themselves and speak to me. In some cases a connection is established – and it is worth letting it breathe before proceeding to anything else – while in others not – the same applies for art as for people. As Grayson Perry put it – “you don’t have to like it all.”

Second, in case a connection is in place – in case a piece of art has elicited a reaction from me, I can reflect on it and make its effects on me explicit to myself. I can think about how this piece of art fits into my world – what it makes me feel, think, remember, wish for, …

Third, I can share my experience of this encounter with someone else, who is there with me, whom I speak or write to later, … And this sharing can also be in the form of creating new art, that others can engage with without my immediate presence.

And, fourth, I may be compelled to learn more about the piece, it’s author, the technique, it’s context, it’s symbolism, it’s history, which in turn can allow for the sequence to restart and to take a different course, compared to this first, “uninformed” encounter.

A key idea here, at least one that helps me engage with a piece of art, is also to realize that not everything has a verbal equivalent – not everything is just an alternative to verbalized thought and the resolution of every encounter is not a verbalized thought. When looking at a painting by Paul Klee (to give a recent example), my great friend NP asked me: “What was he thinking when he painted this?” To which I hesitatingly and apologetically replied “This!,” while pointing at the painting. I didn’t believe that it was a visual translation of preexisting verbalized thought any more than a piece of music is. And while the answer was awkward, I believed it to be correct. Certainly, words can be said in response to visual art, but – at least in the case of great art, I don’t believe any amount of words can fully capture it, just like they couldn’t a person, whose expression art is.

Finally, I would also like to anticipate a likely objection: “Alright, what you say may be OK, but it doesn’t lead to an understanding of what the artist wanted to say – only to a subjective and potentially unrelated experience by a viewer. Aren’t you missing the point?” Here I’d like to argue that two scenarios are possible: first, that the artist wasn’t trying to communicate – they were “only” expressing themselves (if they wanted to communicate verbal content, they could have used more unambiguous means), in which case a quest to identify a message is futile and, second, that the artist was well aware of the the inherent disjointedness of the process, where the content they intended to embody in a piece of art may not be accessible to some (or even any) viewer, in which case an effort to cross the chasm, that is the piece of art itself, is likely to have arbitrary success.

A third scenario is possible though, I hear you say: that the artist has also written or spoken about what their intentions were when creating a piece. Then, if I am unaware of this proclamation, my viewing of their work will be incomplete and my lack of knowledge an obstacle to getting what they intended by their work. That may well be true, but even if it is, this only impacts the fourth stage of engaging with a piece of art as outlined above – a risk I am happy to take, especially since most artists I know of detested or flatly refused supplying such crutches for the viewing of their work.

¹ Please note a key feature of analogy, which is its incompleteness – I don’t mean to suggest that art is the same as food (although it can have a nourishing effect) and I am intentionally staying away from the trap of trying to define what art is – only to argue that there may be a particular way to engage with it.
² I am making no claims of universality or excellence of method here – this is only my attempt at introspection and sharing of what goes on when I come across a piece of art, in case it may be of some interest or help to someone else.
³ Just a word of warning – if you google “appreciating art,” you are far more likely to find junk – including statements like: “Visiting an art gallery or museum is a low-cost way to spend time with friends or a date.” or “Appreciating art is very easy once you understand art history.” from sources I won’t even link to …

The demon of distance

A couple of weeks ago, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi lead another of the “courtyard of the gentiles” events, aimed at providing a space for dialogue between non-believers and Catholics. This time it took place in Budapest and Cardinal Ravasi’s address focused on the fundamental Christian principles, from which its understanding of morality, economy and society derives.

These principles include those of the person (created in the image of God and intrinsically being in relationship with others), of autonomy (of the civil and religious spheres, following Jesus’ words: “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” (Matthew 22:21)), of solidarity and of truth (that precedes and exceeds us and that we inhabit rather than possess¹). Each of these four principles is insightfully presented and analyzed by Ravasi and I would recommend anyone to read his talk in full (at the time of writing this post, only available in Italian). Here, however, I would like to focus only on the principle of solidarity, which Ravasi further differentiates into its aspects of justice and love.

The starting point of the principle of solidarity in Christianity, like that of the other three principles too, is the incarnation: “And the Word became flesh” (John 1:14), as a result of which there is a link between faith and history, between religion and political and social life. Cardinal Ravasi also emphasized this point during his brief opening remarks of the entire event, where he pointed out that, while in Eastern religions saints tend to be depicted with closed eyes (indicating an interiority of focus), in Christian art saints are typically shown with their eyes wide open – projecting out into the world around them. What is needed, Ravasi concludes, is both an interiority and a having one’s eyes open to see the great political, economic, social and cultural problems of the world.

In this context, the principle of solidarity in Christianity has its roots already in the Genesis account of creation, where

“the fact of all of us being human is expressed by the noun “Adam,” which in Hebrew is ha-’adam,² with the article (ha-) that simply means “the human.” is used to refer to humanity. Therefore there is in all of us a shared “adamness.” Solidarity is, therefore, structural to our fundamental anthropological reality. Religion expresses this anthropological unity using two terms that are two moral categories: justice and love. Faith takes solidarity, which is also at the basis of lay philanthropy, but goes beyond it. In fact, staying with John’s Gospel, during the last evening of his earthly life Jesus says a wonderful phrase: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13).”

To illustrate the two aspects of solidarity – justice and love, Ravasi takes advantage not only of Christian tradition, but also makes reference to Eastern thought, in the spirit of inter-religious dialogue.

To present the essence of justice, Ravasi quotes the 4th century saint, Ambrose of Milan:

“The earth was created as a common good for all, for the rich and for the poor. Why, then, O rich, do you usurp an exclusive right to the soil? When you help the poor, you, rich, don’t give them from your own, but you return to them their own. In fact, you alone use the common property, given for the use of all. The earth belongs to all, not only to the rich, therefore when you help the poor you give them back their due, instead of providing them with a gift of your own.” (On Naboth)

Turning to the second aspect of solidarity – love, Ravasi takes advantage of the following Tibetan parable, showing that religious cultures, that are undoubtedly diverse, do at their bases have touch-points and contacts:

“A man, walking through the desert, spots something strange in the distance. Fear starts welling up in him, since, in the absolute solitude of the steppe, such an obscure and mysterious reality – maybe an animal, a dangerous wild beast – can’t but unsettle. Moving ahead, the traveller discovers that he is not approaching a beast, but a person instead. But his fear does not pass. If anything, it grows, thinking that the person could be a robber. Nonetheless, he has no choice but to proceed, until arriving in the presence of the other. At this moment, the traveller lifts his gaze and, to his surprise, exclaims: “It is my brother, whom I haven’t seen for many years!””

Ravasi concludes his reflection on solidarity by noting that “distance generates fears and demons; one has to get close to the other to overcome fears, no matter how understandable they may be. Refusing to get to know the other and to encounter the other is the same as saying no to the love that springs from solidarity and that dissolves terror and generates a true society.”

Personally, I have found Cardinal Ravasi’s reflection highly compelling and enlightening, both due to its deep roots in Scripture and its open and broad perspective that is equally at ease with drawing on the rich sources of Christianity as it is to benefit from the insights of other religions, even in matters as fundamental and core to Christianity as its understanding of love. Specifically, I have also found the Tibetan parable to be a great reminder to attempt closeness with all, instead of remaining at a distance and being put off by distorted, prejudice-filled, blurry perception.

¹ Ravasi addressed this concept of the truth several times already, e.g. see also its coverage in a previous post here.
² For more on the Genesis account and ha-’adam, see John Paul II’s “Man and Woman He Created Them,” discussed here.