Christianity – Page 5

WWJD

Neither WWDC, nor WWJZD, but WWJD – “What would Jesus do?” A question that, in this specific form, originates in the writings of the US evangelical pastor Charles Sheldon, that has regained currency in the 1990s with evangelical youth groups and that has even been adopted by parts of the current Occupy movement (e.g., including protesters camped outside London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral).

It is not without critics though, such as the US evangelical and academic Dr. Conrad Gempf, who has the following to say:

“[The Early Church] didn’t copy Jesus. […] They didn’t walk on water. Jesus didn’t tell us to do what he did, he told us to do even greater things.”

To my surprise even the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, whom I greatly admire, has some things to say against WWJD:

“The Jesus we meet in the Bible is somebody who constantly asks awkward questions […] rather than just giving us a model of perfect behaviour.”

Instead of getting het up about the above, it is worth realising that the point of the criticisms is not about being against imitating Jesus (Dr. Williams starts his talk by saying “Well, an archbishop is hardly going to suggest that it isn’t a good question to ask!”). It is all about a well-founded concern regarding the dangers of oversimplification (maybe tinged also with a pinch of cynicism – that I too share – regarding the wearing of the now-popular WWJD bracelets). Simply mimicking Jesus’ actions verbatim, taken out of context and without the benefit of either an attempt to develop a relationship with him or of learning from how his followers have imitated him over the centuries, runs the risk of going off course.

Even if naive extremes, like attempting to walk on water, taking up carpentry or growing a beard are left to one side, there is still plenty of room for error, just like there would be with mindlessly applying the Golden Rule (“What do you mean? I would like it if you made me watch football!”). Dr. Williams comes to the following conclusion in his criticism of a headless use of WWJD:

“First, what changes things isn’t a formula for getting the right answer but a willingness to stop and let yourself be challenged right to the roots of your being. And second, we can find the courage to let this happen because we are let into the secret that we are in the hands of love, committed, unshakeable love.”

To me this doesn’t sound like he is challenging WWJD at all – he is merely highlighting two important aspects of it. WWJD? He would want to get to the root of things (“The truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)) and away from the formulaic. WWJD? He would place his trust in his Father, who is love (For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” (John 3:16)).

It is also worth noting that the idea of following the example Jesus set is fundamental to Christianity and has been a core part of it since day one. Jesus called the apostles to follow him (“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Mark 1:17)), he called all to embrace their sufferings and follow him (“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)) and his call has been heard by every generation of his followers (e.g., look at St. Augustine and St. Francis, who deeply believed in an imitation of Jesus, and at Thomas à Kempis’ book even entitled The Imitation of Christ).

Personally, asking myself the question of what Jesus would do is something I have been encouraged to practice since my childhood and is something that I see as an effective guide also for my sons. Even to a four-year-old the answer is obvious when the question is asked in a situation where they have to make a choice. Focusing on Jesus in a decision making moment helps to introduce the selfless, altruistic and loving into a context that may otherwise be steered to an excessive focus on oneself or on following conventions. And even when at times I cannot answer the question unequivocally, placing myself in front of Jesus is of value in and of itself.

Catholics in a water park

This is not the sequel to Snakes on a Plane, but if you read various “Catholic” blogs, you could think that holding a youth day in a water park (and having mass during its course) was to Catholicism what Snakes on a Plane is to cinema. Before proceeding to the outburst in these blogs, let’s just take a quick look at the event’s announcement by the Diocese of Honolulu, which, apart from organizational details about the event that took place a week ago, includes the following quote from Pope Benedict XVI:

“Joy is at the heart of the Christian experience. [W]e experience immense joy, the joy of communion, the joy of being Christian, the joy of faith [… and w]e can see the great attraction that joy exercises. In a world of sorrow and anxiety, joy is an important witness to the beauty and reliability of the Christian faith.”

The theme of the year is then stated as “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4) – i.e., the same theme as that of this year’s World Youth Day – and a key part of the program is a mass presided over by Larry Silva, the Bishop of Honolulu. And it is precisely this that so incensed my (at least by name) fellow Catholics.

I don’t want to pollute your mind too much, so let me just pick out a couple of choice cuts from among the dissenting blogs:

“Does it strike anyone else that “joy” is being confused with “frivolity” or “fun” in this case? Second, how exactly does spending a fun day at the water park “better equip” the youth for their “witness to Jesus”? And third, are the youth really going to be reflecting on the presence of God in their daily lives at this event? I have nothing against the kids (or the adults, for that matter) enjoying a day of fun at a water park, but let’s just call it what it is and not pretend it’s something else. And let’s not mix the sacred with the profane.” (Philothea on Phire)

“First, it could be argued that the location planned for Mass is a demeaning venue and contrary to the dignity due to the Blessed Sacrament. The focus of the surrounding environment of a water park screams personal fun and self-gratification rather than personal sacrifice and the selfless sacrifice of our Lord and Savior made present at the holy Sacrifice of the Mass with the real presence of His body and blood.” (Unam Sanctam Catholicam)

“I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed people doing much reflection at a water park. I have no idea how wading pools, slides, etc. contribute to a renewal of faith.” (Popin’ aint easy)

I’ll spare you all the other nonsense, including copious references to Canon Law and to the General Instructions of the Roman Missal (i.e., the mass manual), as the above should be plenty to last anyone for a good while. Fundamentally they boil down to an attempt to justify the underlying, grave misunderstanding shared by all of the three blogs mentioned above. Namely, that one’s Christian faith applies to some aspects of life – “the sacred” (self-sacrifice, reflection, selflessness, “witnessing to Jesus”) but not to others – “the profane” (fun, leisure, “enjoying a day at a water park,” “wading pools, slides, etc.”). In other words, we can be good Christians in church and when doing “spiritual” things, but everyday life is another, separate matter.

Such schizophrenic compartmentalization of life is, in fact one of the worst mistakes that the follower of any religion can make and that will ultimately either lead to psychological damage or to a very hollow, superficial religiosity that so many now rightly reject. What is the point of going to church if that is a self-contained, separate activity, unrelated to the real challenges and joys of life? It certainly wouldn’t be for the music …

Just to make it crystal clear that such dualism is not Christian, bear with me during this paragraph. Jesus himself says: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12), not “I’ll turn the lights on while you are at church, but you are on your own in the water park.” In fact, the whole underlying idea that there is a separation between God and non-God and the heresies that follow from it – starting with Docetism (that Jesus was just a spirit and therefore separate from the material world) and then spreading through various forms of Gnosticism (that the world was created by an imperfect/evil being and that there is a struggle between it and God) – were among the chief issues fought by the Church, starting with St. Irenaeus (my namesake) in the second century AD. St. Augustine puts it very well, as follows: “How is it, then, that I seek you, Lord? Since in seeking you, my God, I seek a happy life, let me seek you so that my soul may live, for my body draws life from my soul and my soul draws life from you” (Confessions 10:20) and St. John, in his first letter, then goes to the root: “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16) Jesus asks us to follow him body and soul, weekdays and weekends, in secular contexts and religious ones and both when working and resting.

Finally, just in case you were wondering what sacrilegious frivolities and self-gratification I am trying to cover up with this post, here are two photos from last Sunday’s youth day at the Honolulu water park (taken from their Facebook page):

Hawaii Hawaii2

Since the blogs I am arguing against here have all asked their readers to write to the Diocese of Honolulu to voice disagreement with their Youth Day, I would like to ask you to join me in writing to the Diocese of Honolulu (info@rcchawaii.org) and/or to their Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry (hawaiicathyyam@rcchawaii.org) to share with them your appreciation for their good work, if you are that way inclined.

UPDATE: A reader has just shared with me the following email, received in response to their message of support sent to the Diocese of Honolulu:

Thank you very much for your note of support, which my staff and I appreciate very much. I wish our critics could have seen how reverent the young people were at the Mass, especially when they spontaneously knelt in the grass for the Eucharistic Prayer.

God bless you!

+ Larry Silva
Most Reverend Clarence (Larry) Silva
Bishop of Honolulu

Just FYI, here is the message I sent: “Dearest representatives of the Youth and Young Adult Ministry of the Diocese of Honolulu, since I have come across several blogs asking their readers to voice their disagreement with your Diocesan Youth Day held at a water park in Kapolei, Oahu on 1 September 2012, I would just like to express my gratitude to you for bringing Jesus to your youth and assure you of my support and prayers.”

Happy Birthday, Maryām!

Tomorrow is the feast of Mary’s nativity – her birthday 🙂 and, to be honest, it hasn’t meant a whole lot to me up until now. I greatly appreciated the feasts of Mary’s being mother of God (that opens the calendar year), of her sorrows, of her assumption into heaven (which coincides with my parents’ wedding anniversary and my younger son’s birth), of the annunciation and of her immaculate conception, but her birthday just seemed a bit of an add-on.

Trying to understand the significance of this feast, which is only one of three birthdays the Church celebrates (the others being those of John the Baptist and Jesus), I started looking at what has been said about it so far, and I have to say that most homilies that I came across were rather disappointing. Not necessarily as such, but with regard to shedding light on celebrating Mary’s birthday, rather than other aspects of her life.

Then I found this gem:

“The present Feast is for us the beginning of feasts. Serving as boundary to the law and to prototypes, at the same time it serves as a doorway to grace and truth. “For Christ is the end of the law” (Romans 10:4), Who, having freed us from the letter (of the law), raises us to spirit.” (St. Andrew of Crete, sermon on the Nativity of the Theotokos)

Wow! Reading this was a real ‘eureka’ moment for me as it does squarely hit the nail on its head. Mary’s birth can be seen as the start of Christianity, which becomes flesh in her some years later. It is the beginning of a new way, the breaking of prototypes, the transition from rules to life. I warmly recommend the whole sermon, which opens with the above lines and which, in its joyous tone, is a great fit for tomorrow’s celebration.

Marriage and the family

I am married and am immensely grateful for being part of several families: the family I was born into (since, even though I am a first child, my parents were a family already before I was born or even conceived), multiple extended families, and the family my spouse and I form with our children. And that’s only as far as biological ties go. I am also a member of the Church – the family of Jesus and (some of) his followers. In many ways I also consider the relationship I have with close friends to be like that with brothers, sisters or parents and I strive to extend this circle whenever and with whomever possible.

What is it that is so special about the family? I believe it is the fact that it mimics the relationships of the persons of the Trinity, where each loves the others without limits and with complete self-noughting,¹ to the extent that the three become one. In my families I have often experienced love that is selfless, self-sacrificing, generous, gratuitous and unconditional and that invokes Jesus’s promise: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew, 18:20). This love makes the family a place of peace, trust, safety, stability, openness, growth and joy and a place where I can most fully be myself. I can rely on the support and love of other family members and also on their desiring only the best for me. I don’t have to look out for myself, as it is the others who look out for me and I can instead focus on them and on others. My families have also been safe havens that have protected me from state-organized oppression, from the negative influence of others, from erroneous tendencies of my own and that have also looked after me in illness, bad moods, uncertainty and fatigue.

Is this to say that there are no challenges with living in a family? Certainly not, since even though the model is perfect, its instances are often not, even to the point of breaking. Does that make the model any less worthy of following? I don’t think so, since even when not lived to perfection, the ideal of the family provides a clear direction of what to aim for.

For me, as a Christian (and for others too), the foundation of a family – its birth, is in marriage, where the spouses each make an indissoluble gift of themselves to one another, which they do in front of God and which they aim to sustain with His help and in His presence. The day I got married was one of the sacred, lived in great simplicity (I remember polishing shoes in the morning and sending a couple of emails to close friends who couldn’t be with us and being filled with great joy and a delicious lightness of being,² not even to mention the rest of the day that you would expect to be joyous). The years that then followed and persist into the present have been filled both with everything I said about the ideal of the family and with challenges, trials, difficulties and suffering. To me, as a Christian, these too are very much part of being married and of living in a family, just like they were very much part of Jesus’ life. They are always an opportunity to recognize Jesus’ presence and to start again to seek forgiveness, forgive and love and I am deeply grateful to God for my spouse, children, parents, siblings and all with whom I have family-like relationships.

There would be a lot more to say, but I believe I managed to give an idea of why marriage and the family matter to me. This reflection was very directly motivated by many recent pronouncements by different representatives of the Church who have spent paragraphs upon paragraphs talking about what threatens the family and how it needs to be opposed and which have always left me wondering: ‘But what is it about the family that you see worth protecting? How do you see the things you oppose as threatening? [beyond stating them as such] And what positive proposal can you make as an alternative to the ones you oppose?’ I am not saying that opposition alone isn’t worthwhile, but it is very much a level zero approach and I was certainly hoping for more. The closest I have seen to an acknowledgement of this trend is a statement made two days ago by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin:

“The Church’s social doctrine must always be animated with charity and must be accompanied by charity and will only really be understood through the lens of charity. When the Church’s organizations simply become lobbying bodies alongside other lobby organizations or social commentators alongside other social commentators then they loose their real originality and therefore their original contribution to the debate about the formation of society.”

This is exactly what I have been looking to hear from many others and I hope that Archbishop Martin will follow up this call to a focus on love and apply it to the various issues being so hotly debated these days.

Lest I be misunderstood in a way that is most repulsive to me, let me be explicit about one thing: I believe there is the potential for good in all human relationships, regardless of who their protagonists are or what their status is. What I have said about the family and about marriage was in no way meant as suggesting that the things which I value about it cannot also take place under other circumstances. In no way do I mean to suggest that the family built on marriage has a monopoly on all the good that it is capable of. Compassion, commitment, selflessness, caring, support and love are the potential of any human relationship and my seeking them in the context of my family, and the marriage it is built on, is in no way a declaration of inferiority or inadequacy with respect to other forms of life.

Finally, I do see a big challenge that the Church (i.e., me too!) faces, which is to find a way for all, who want to, to participate in its life. Cardinal Martini in his last interview gave a clear example: “A woman is abandoned by her husband and finds a new companion who is concerned for her and her three children. The second love succeeds. If this family is discriminated against, not only the woman, but her children, too, will be cut off.” Cardinal Woelki said that he tries to “acknowledge that [homosexuals] take responsibility for each other on a permanent basis, have promised each other faithfulness and want to look after each other, even though [he] cannot endorse their life choices.” And there are many others like them! What is very positive in my eyes is that there are representatives of the Church, who feel the presence of gaps that ought not be there and even though I don’t see how the gaps will be closed (without throwing the baby out with the bathwater either), I trust God will help us find a way to make everyone feel welcome in His Church.

¹ Thanks to my bestie, CS, for coining this term, which I believe expresses the extent of the love the Persons of the Trinity have for one another spot on.
² The antithesis of its unbearable variant, so beautifully described by Kundera though.

Martini: backstabber or faithful son?

You’ll know from a previous post here, that I am becoming a great fan of Cardinal Martini, whose funeral was celebrated two days ago and whose exchange of letters with Umberto Eco I enjoyed greatly. Upon hearing of his death, I was keen to learn more about him and I also eagerly read the last interview with him, published in the Corriere della Sera (and available in English translation here).

The interview took place on 8th August and asks Martini to comment on the state of the Church – a question he is very well positioned to answer and that he answers with great honesty. Martini says that the church is tired, culturally out of date, being weighted down by bureaucracy and basically showing the traits of a mature business rather than a dynamic start-up (my words :). The Church lacks the dynamism of John the Baptist and St. Paul, the faith of the Roman centurion (whose servant Jesus healed) and of St. Mary Magdalen and the closeness to the people that the Servant of God, Bishop Óscar Romero and the Jesuit martyrs of El Salvador had. Martini’s answer to this predicament is to involve more people from outside formal Church structures, to recognize our own errors and start a process of conversion, to return to the Word (i.e., to a personal closeness to the Gospel), to renew an adherence to the sacraments and to be open to all, regardless of what family and social circumstances they are in. Finally, he exhorts us to renew our faith, confidence and courage and to let ourselves be conquered by God’s love.

My immediate reaction was that of gratitude for such a greatly distilled analysis of where the Church is today, for the degree of honesty and self-criticism, for the concrete steps forward and for a final call to love.

The second hand, to form applause with Martini’s interview, then is the message that Pope Benedict XVI sent to his funeral. The pope picks a line from Psalm 119: “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light for my path” to sum up the cardinal’s life, calls him a “generous and faithful pastor of the Church” and states that everything Martini did was “for the greater glory of God.” The pope then goes on to say that:

[h]e did so with a great openness of heart, never refusing to encounter and dialogue with anyone, responding concretely to the Apostle’s invitation to “always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope ” (1 Peter 3:15).

Finally, he concludes by saying: “May the Lord, who guided Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini his whole life, receive this tireless servant of the Gospel and of the Church in the Heavenly Jerusalem.” Not only an elegant nod to Martini’s fondness for the earthly Jerusalem, but also an endorsement of his faithfulness to and inspiration from God.

If it were just for these two texts – the last interview with Martini and the pope’s message at his funeral – you could think that the two were uncontroversial parts of giving thanks for the life of a great son of the Church and, I believe you’d be right. A quick look at the press presents a very different picture though. The Independent calls Martini’s interview “a damning critique that has rocked the Catholic Church,” the Daily Mail calls it a “scathing attack,” the Belfast Telegraph says that the “Vatican is rocked by Cardinal Martini’s damning words from beyond the grave” and all news outlets latch on to Martini’s saying that “the Church is two hundred years behind.” Reading these and virtually all other reports (with the notable exception of Fr. Lucie-Smith’s blog), you’d think that Martini’s last interview was some kind of vengeful, underhand jab at the Church. Instead, I see Martini’s words as much more in line with Blessed Pope John Paul II’s emphasis on acknowledging past wrongs as a first step towards a renewal of the Church. E.g., in Incarnationis Mysterium he says that the Church “should kneel before God and implore forgiveness for the past and present sins of her sons and daughters” (Section 11), such humble repentance being in fact a common feature of the attitude of saints.

I’d first like to thank my bestie, PM, for suggesting this as a topic for a post 🙂

I also realize that I may come across as someone who unreservedly agrees with everything the Church and its representatives do. Let me assure you that this is far from the case and may in fact be more a consequence of my desire to focus on what is good and worth sharing rather than on presenting a complete, balanced view of how I see the Church. As an example of something that recently irked me, take a look at the third question in this very recent interview with Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor:

Q: At a lecture after Archbishop Vincent Nichols’ installation you urged Christians to treat atheists and agnostics with deep esteem. However, later you are quoted as saying that a lack of Faith is the ‘greatest of all evils’. You blamed atheism for war and destruction, and implied it was a greater evil than sin itself. Is this a contradiction, or were you misquoted?
[At this point Cardinal Cormac got up and went to his adjacent study. Perhaps this was an abrupt end to our interview? However, after a few minutes he returned with two books.]
A: Yes, I was misquoted – it was out of context. To get the full meaning of what I said, I would encourage [you] to study the books I have assembled ‘Faith in Britain’ and ‘Faith in Europe’.

No, thanks … If the Cardinal cannot address this, very good question in the interview and his only recourse is to bring back TWO books that the reader is to study and from which they are to distill what the Cardinal thinks, then in all likelihood those books are not going to be any help either. Seeing a response like this (and much of the lengthy interview) just makes me recoil in frustration and shake my head in disappointment …

Saints as teaching

Especially if you are a nonbeliever (and even if you aren’t), you would be forgiven for looking at saints as a rather outmoded, superficially pious and self-congratulatory aspect of Christianity. Their statues can appear as nothing more than window dressing and be part of what Cardinal Martini referred to as off-putting ‘pomp‘. Even a closer look can yield unedifying results and present a view of saints as freaks, focusing either on their horrific deaths (burning, skinning, drawing and quartering, beheading, mauling, hanging, …) or on weird stunts like levitation, bilocation, living atop a pillar, or severe self-mortification. With a view like that, you’d do best to stay well clear of them and the last thing you’d want to do is tell your children about them!

If you have seen this blog before, you’ll know that I profoundly admire many saints and that I strive to learn from them. St. Francis is an example for approaching poverty, St. Therese for valuing simple, everyday life, St. Maximilian Kolbe for what it means to give one’s life for one’s friends, St. Anselm for how logic can point to God, St. Philip Neri for recognizing humor as a gift, Bl. Chiara ‘Luce’ for how cancer can be an encounter with Jesus, St. John of the Cross for how one’s relationship with God can be misunderstood even by one’s closest fellow believers, St. Thomas More for how adherence to Jesus is above any secular power. And I could go on and on 🙂

What is the point of looking up to saints though? Actually, the point is precisely that it is a looking across rather than a looking up, since saints are my fellow followers of Jesus – subject to weakness, limitations, errors, lapses, pride, difficulties of personality and bounded intelligence. They are what makes me think that I too may have a shot at faithfully following Jesus and it is their virtue, selflessness, compassion, determination and love for all that spurn me on.

There is another key aspect to saints that has been forming in my mind since I have started writing this blog, and it is the following: Church teaching is a complex, often technical and hierarchically–governed set of prescriptions and proscriptions. It is far more akin to the law than anything else, and – just like in the case of the law, its correct interpretation and application to ‘real life’ is arbitrated by professionals: theologians and church officials – the barristers/solicitors and judges of theology. This, however, presents a serious challenge for the individual Christian, who is keen to be faithful to Jesus’ teaching, but who faces the complexities of a technical corpus with finely-tuned, carefully-crafted, legalistic language. How am I, an apprentice follower of Jesus, to grapple with encyclicals, exhortations, the church fathers, canon law, the councils, and even the relatively user-friendly catechism, when I lack theological and legal training? How on earth did St. Peter – a fisherman – do it?

The answer lies precisely in what the early Christians realized already: that it requires putting one’s faith in God and acting on the inspiration provided by the Holy Spirit (e.g., see the account of St. Stephen’s trial and execution in the Acts of the Apostles – chapters 6-8, where Stephen is repeatedly referred to as being ‘filled with the holy Spirit’ (e.g., Acts 7:55), but it also requires continuity with how God acts in others and has acted in others in the past (where the more structured aspect of Church teaching, referred to before, comes from) also so that one’s conscience is purified of errors. What all of this leads to is that explicit Church teaching is certainly a guide to following Jesus, but also that the example of others can provide a more accessible means of seeing it put into practice. For example, by imitating St. Therese in seeking God’s will in everyday chores and doing them out of love for Him and my neighbors, I will not only act orthopractically, but also on an orthodox basis. By seeing how a saint has acted, I have a more applied and immediate view of what the Church teaches. In fact, Pope Benedict XVI said something similar yesterday in the context of ecumenism, when he highlighted that while Church unity is not something that we can cause (it will be a gift from God), we can “learn from each other how to follow Christ today.” In other words, orthopraxy is to be imitated regardless of who does it.

Finally, there is another aspects of learning from the actions of saints, which is that it is not only individual Christians who can do so, but the Church as a whole too. I believe that official, formal Church teaching can be seen as a distillation of the orthopraxy (holiness) and therefore orthodoxy of saints. This was evidently so at the very beginning of the Church, where it is Jesus’ actions and beliefs that are Church teaching, but right from the get go it is also the teachings of the apostles that attain orthodox status (e.g., see Peter’s ‘trance’ in which he is told to eat food considered impure and told “What God has made clean, you are not to call profane.” (Acts, 10:15)). The history of the church is then a sequence of growing insight into how best to follow Jesus and the actions and beliefs of saints are a key part of it (just look at the Catechism and notice the number of references to what the saints have said). Since such growth of insight also involves change, the new understanding, acted upon by saints, is often misunderstood and often so for decades or centuries (but luckily saints don’t do what they do for celebrity status). In the end though, the orthopraxy of saints tends to be of such vehemence that doubts about the origin of their beliefs are dispelled.

Servant of servants

Today is the feast of a saint whose name alone – Pope Gregory the Great – promises an edifying closer look and, if you have been following this blog (e.g., here and here), you will also know that he influences the Church to this day. St. Gregory had a varied and rich career, whose first milestone (after an extensive and broad eduction spanning music, law, mathematics and natural sciences) was to be named Prefect of the City of Rome (effectively its mayor). Following the death of this father, Gregory became a monk though and withdrew from the world, only to be called upon by Pope Pelagius II to act as his ambassador to Constantinople. Instead of being allowed to retire to the monastic life after this mission, he was instead elected pope, very much against his will, and lead the Church for 14 years during which he introduced reforms both in the administration of the Church and in its liturgy.

There would be lots to say about St. Gregory, but I would like to focus only on two points:

His love for the poor and his large-scale charitable work, best expressed by him saying: “I hold the office of steward to the property of the poor.” St. Gregory saw the church as a not-for-profit organization (in secular terms) and distributed the many donations the Church received to the poor – only keeping what was necessary for maintaining its facilities and supporting its personnel.
His reluctance towards being pope, born of a deep humility, very clearly expressed by his adoption of the title “Servant of the servants of God” – by far my favorite papal title and one used to this day by his successors. St. Gregory also emphasized the importance of personal spiritual life for those holding high office in the Church, e.g., by saying “[U]nder the cloak of the Ecclesiastical office, I found myself plunged on a sudden in a sea of secular matters, and because I had not held fast the tranquillity of the monastery when in possession, I learnt by losing it, how closely it should have been held.” This is certainly an attitude I have seen very clearly both in the current pope and his predecessor and in many priests I have known and admire.

Orthodoxy and/or orthopraxy

What is the relationship between correct belief (orthodoxy) and correct action (orthopraxy) and how much does one matter versus the other? Is it more important what you think or what you do? While this is not a new question, I believe it is still a key one today.

Starting with Jesus, we can see him emphasizing both orthopraxy (also as a means of inferring orthodoxy when heterodoxy may be suspected):

“By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” (Matthew 7:16) and

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)

and validating orthodoxy in spite of it’s proponents’ heteropraxy:

“The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens [hard to carry] and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen.” (Matthew 23:2-5)

Looking at Jesus’s teaching, there is a clear preference for orthopraxy (whose absence is an obstacle and which will also be the basis for the questions asked at the last judgement about feeding the hungry, quenching their thirst, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, visiting prisoners, … (Matthew 25:31-46)) but orthodoxy is valued in its own right as a (non-exclusive) means for engendering orthopraxy (and, by Christians, as a gift from God). In a way it can be seen as being assumed to be present at least implicitly, partially, unconsciously in those behaving orthopractically.

Let me just pick out two examples of where this principle of orthopraxy being taken to assume (implicit) orthodoxy has been employed by Jesus’ followers – a very recent one and a rather ancient one:

Saint Pope Gregory the Great (6-7 century AD) was so taken by the justice that the emperor Trajan (1-2 century AD) has shown towards a widow, who violently lost her only son, and by his virtue that he prayed for the salvation of his soul and it’s promotion from purgatory to heaven. In other words, Gregory was motivated by Trajan’s orthopraxy to petition for his receiving the rewards he thought were only due to the orthodox.

Archbishop Müller, when questioned about his friendship with Gustavo Gutiérrez, the father of Liberation Theology, responded: “The theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez, independently of how you look at it, is orthodox because it is orthopractic. It teaches us the correct way of acting in a Christian fashion since it comes from true faith.” This is not to say that all of Liberation Theology is exonerated by virtue of the virtue of its followers (the Vatican’s criticisms of Marxist influences in some of its strands are upheld by Müller), but that the virtue of its followers is a fruit of their orthodoxy.

All of this links rather nicely with Martini’s idea of (non)believers and is another argument for appreciating the orthopraxy of all while also valuing beliefs that can lead to it. I also believe it is a key to reading some Protestant–Catholic differences, to relating the lives of saints and Church doctrine and to appreciating great works of art created by artists who have committed heinous crimes (a.k.a., my roadmap for a couple of future posts :).

Martini & Eco: ethics for (non)believers

The passing of one of the princes of the Church is always a call for me to find out a bit about them, if I didn’t know of them already, and Cardinal Martini, whose dies natalis was yesterday, is no exception. I’ll leave it to you to find out about him for yourself (and there is certainly interesting material widely available across the internet) and will instead spend a couple of paragraphs talking about a topic very close to my own heart: the relationship between believers and nonbelievers, which is also the subject of a great book (or rather pamphlet as it is only 60-odd pages in length) containing the correspondence of Carlo Maria Martini and one of my favorite writers and an agnostic, Umberto Eco. The book is entitled “Belief Or Nonbelief” and I highly recommend it to you in full.

The two points I would like to pick out here (and I may return to others covered there in the future) are what constitutes (non)believers and whether one can think of a common basis for ethics that can be shared by all.

In the introduction, by Harvey Cox, Martini is quoted as saying the following about (non)believers:

When I think about “believers” and “nonbelievers,” I don’t have two different groups of people in mind. In all of us there is something of the believer and something of the nonbeliever, and this is true of this bishop as well.

As soon as I read this, I knew that I was going to enjoy the whole book – and I was not disappointed. After tackling topics like hope, human life and the role of men and women, the pair – who deliver a masterclass is dialogue (neither trying to trip up or ridicule the other, striving to deepen their understanding of each other’s positions) – turn to the question of whether there is common ground in terms of the ethical basis of believers and nonbelievers.

The question is posed by Martini, who asks: “what guides a secular person[, who does not recognize a personal God or appeal to an Absolute, to] profess moral principles, principles so firmly held that the person would give his life for them?” Martini acknowledges that all have ethical foundations and that even believers would often not seek recourse to God when making decisions under ordinary circumstances. What interests Martini is what happens in extremis – when one’s life is at stake – and he also pays homage to nonbelievers who have sacrificed their lives for their moral convictions or performed acts of great altruism. He is particularly keen to drill down to the foundations, which kick into action when things are pushed to their limits and wants to sweep away the consequences of “custom, convention, usage, functional or pragmatic behavior, even social necessity” and get to life and death choices which these can’t underpin.

To answer his question on behalf of believers, Martini points to inter-religious efforts that have looked into it and that point to it being “transcendental Mystery” that forms the basis for moral action. For Christians this is the Trinity, which provides us with “God the Father, Creator of All, and our brother Jesus Christ,” who give us an impulse to closeness and solidarity with others and who express that “the other is within us.”¹ Quoting Hans Küng, Martini also points out that this basis makes ethical values “binding unconditionally (and not simply when it’s convenient) and hence universally (to all classes, ranks, and races).”

Eco’s² response kicks off with an admission of his, now lost, Catholic roots and the realization that their past presence cannot be factored out. Given such caveats, he states that there can be a sense of the scared and of “communion with something greater even in the absence of faith in a personal and provident deity,” but he rightly comes back on track by reiterating the focus on that which is “binding, compelling, and unrenounceable” in secular ethics.

Eco cleverly and appropriately widens the scope of the question to universals and not just their application to ethics and proceeds with a magisterial introduction to “universal semantics”³ – i.e., that “notions common to all cultures exist” (citing examples of referring to our position in space – up, down, left, right, …). After postulating the universality of perception, memory, desire, fear, pleasure, pain, … Eco steps back and draws our attention to there being not only universals applicable to the “solitary Adam,” but that sex, dialogue, parental love or the loss of a loved one provide social ones too. Poignantly Eco exposes the underlying implications of the semantic basis so far – that of focusing on ‘us,’ and on restricting the “other” or Martini’s “the other is within us” to those from our own tribal group, ethnicity or circle. Those outwith are inhuman and may therefore be treated barbarically even while members of one’s own group are afforded respect. Eco places the growth of who is considered a member of one’s circle at a millennial scale and cites even Jesus’s coming as having been conditioned by when humanity was ready for his teaching of the Golden Rule.

To get to the basis of what can drive a nonbeliever to give their life for a moral principle, Eco cites the example of a “communist” whom he asked how he, an atheist, can make sense of “something as otherwise meaningless as his own death.” “By asking before I die for a public funeral, so that, though I am no longer, I have left an example to others.” Eco argues that it is this “continuity of life,” a sense of duty to those who come after us, “because in some way what one believes or what one finds beautiful can be believed or seen as beautiful by those who come after.”

In essence my take on this exchange is that Martini threw a bit of a curved ball, knowing that Eco’s answer can but elaborate the consequences of his own beliefs about the roots of morality since he also believes that God is present in all – whether they believe in him or not. Eco did hold his own though by turning the situation around and highlighting the value of the Christian story, whether it is true or not. What they have done together is present a case for the Golden Rule both from divine revelation and from semantic analysis. I only see winners in this exchange: Martini’s “the other is within us” and Eco’s “continuity of life” form a pair of insights that, I believe, enrich all (non)believers :).

¹ See my take on the epistemological parallel of this concept here.
²Please, note that, unlike Cardinal Martini for Catholics, Eco is not an official representative of nonbelievers and his answer therefore cannot be taken even as being intended as an answer on behalf of all nonbelievers. I, therefore, also don’t take it as such and don’t presume that, if you are a nonbeliever, it represents you. If you do happen to be a nonbeliever reading this and either agree or disagree with Eco’s take, I’d very much appreciate hearing from you in the comments. Thanks! 🙂
³ Semantics being the “study of meaning.”

Somewhat off-topic is another gem from the book – a reference of Eco’s to Kant’s take on atheism: how can one not believe in God, maintain that it is impossible to prove his existence, yet also firmly believe in the nonexistence of God, claiming that it can be proved 🙂

I would, finally, also like to dedicate this post to my bestie, SH – the most sincere agnostic I have ever met and a man who to this day teaches me humility by consistently beating me at scrabble, typically by a factor of two …

What do you mean, John 3:16?

Today is the feast of two great saints: Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. Neither was involved in the great battles against heresy that mark the lives of so many saints nor were they believed to have been martyred, to have lead ascetic lives or to have had visions or ecstasies. Also, in all likelihood, both were married men – pillars of the Jewish community at the time. Nicodemus was a politician, judge and prominent public figure, while Joseph (believed by some to be none other than Josephus Flavius) was an aristocrat and scholar. If they had LinkedIn profiles, they would come across as regular 1%ers.

Nonetheless, these guys are great examples of following Jesus – and they had the privilege of doing so in person. Nicodemus visiting Jesus in secret at first (John 3:1-21) but then coming out in the open to help Joseph to bury him (John 19:39–42) and Joseph being the one who stepped out of the shadows to petition Pilate for Jesus’s corpse. To my mind, both have shown great courage to place themselves at Jesus’s side under risky circumstances, putting their good standing and reputation at risk by associating themselves with a convicted and executed criminal. While that may not be asked of me, I see them as examples for taking Jesus’s side also when it is uncomfortable in the eyes of society.

Nicodemus can’t be mentioned without a nod to Wyclef Jean‘s “John 3 16,” where “pig couldn’t fly straight so you die in your sleep; I stay awake only to see Nicodemus.” Here you can find the lyrics and the song itself.