Pope Francis – Page 12

Married priests: a hermeneutic of choice

That the Catholic Church should allow for married men to become priests (or for priests to marry) is frequently put forward as a must and as a sure-fire way to address the current dearth of priests in many parts of the world. Celibacy, it is argued, is an outmoded idea and one that presents an obstacle to otherwise great candidates for the priesthood. And, it is suggested that having married priests would both make them better understand their parishioners and avoid crimes like pedophilia, which are laid at the feet of celibacy. The hope then is that a “modern” pope, e. g., like Francis, would finally see sense and do the right thing.

As should be obvious from the tone of the above, I have never seen these as being good grounds for changing the practice of requiring Roman Catholic priests to be celibate (for that is all it is – practice, not dogma, and the desire for its change is furthermore directed primarily at the Roman rite and not, e. g., the Eastern Catholic ones, where married priests have always been an alternative to celibate ones).

First, I don’t believe having married priests would lead to more priests (the low numbers today deriving from what Pope Francis has called a “fascination with the temporary”, equally affecting the sacrament of marriage). Second, I consider celibacy to be a treasure – different from, yet equal to marriage in its potential for sanctification. Third, I have my suspicions about those who today would opt for the priesthood in the Roman rite if only it allowed for marriage too (note the specific wording of this point). Fourth, I don’t believe that shared experience is a necessary prerequisite for understanding – it can help, but it is not what is essential (otherwise – via reductio ad absurdum – understanding would be impossible – see Nagel’s bats). Fifth, linking pedophilia to celibacy is a red herring, and, sixth, you can bet your bottom dollar that Francis will do the right thing – it’s only its level of “modernity” that remains to be seen.

And then there is probably the most serious reservation I have about married priests – that it is just too hard! Being married asks for 100% of one’s capacity and, I am sure, so does being a priest. Even with the above I wouldn’t have said that I am against married priests though, as I have seen great ones both in the Catholic Church an the Anglican Communion. It undoubtedly is challenging, but I wouldn’t exclude its being an option just on those grounds.

A couple of weeks ago I read a book chapter about this subject (in the book “La grande meretrice”) and it changed my mind. Its author, Prof. Lucetta Scaraffia, a historian from Rome’s La Sapienza University, presents the history of priestly celibacy in the Catholic Church and has the following to say about the reasons for allowing priests to marry that were put forward in the Church’s early days:

“The problem of clerical celibacy, and its eventual imposition, clashed with another point that was one of the principal innovations of Christian culture: the value of free choice, especially in the context of spiritual life. […] The high regard enjoyed by chastity meant that, since the first centuries, many clerics spontaneously practiced celibacy, especially in the West, where it was particularly valued. But the Church has not declared a norm with regard to it. The married state too, in fact, had a religious and spiritual value, which made it difficult to exclude clerics from it without provoking its devaluation.”

What struck me about the above was that the argument pivoted around an insistence on the fundamental value of choice and therefore on freedom. It was an argument that decidedly was not pitting celibacy against marriage but presented this important choice as being both orthogonal to that of the priesthood and as having great importance, which in turn placed equal value on the two choices: celibacy and marriage. How strongly this was believed is exemplified by the following canons of the Synod of Gangra in 340 AD:

“Canon 1: If any one shall condemn marriage, or abominate and condemn a woman who is a believer and devout, and sleeps with her own husband, as though she could not enter the Kingdom [of heaven] let him be anathema.

Canon 4: If any one shall maintain, concerning a married presbyter, that is not lawful to partake of the oblation when he offers it, let him be anathema.

Canon 9: If any one shall remain virgin, or observe continence, abstaining from marriage because he abhors it, and not on account of the beauty and holiness of virginity itself, let him be anathema.

Canon 10: If any one of those who are living a virgin life for the Lord’s sake shall treat arrogantly the married, let him be anathema.”

Not only were married priests to be treated as the equals of celibate ones and marriage be afforded with reverence, but anyone who acted contrary to this teaching was anathema and therefore subject to excommunication.

While the above is a strong argument already, what really clinched it for me is the realisation that Jesus himself called married men to the priesthood, while he could have just as easily chosen only unmarried ones. St. Peter was certainly married (the Gospel referring to his mother-in-law, cf. Matthew 8:14-15) and in all likelihood so were more of the apostles. Even being sure only of St. Peter’s married state is sufficient for knowing that Jesus called married men to go out in His name and proclaim the Good News. St. Peter having been the first pope further underlines the deliberate character of Jesus’ choice and it can’t be argued that only some peripheral apostle was married and that this was some anomaly (and even that would be a weak argument). As it stands though, we have Jesus call a married man to be not only a priest and bishop but also the first pope.

There are certainly challenges with opening up the choice between celibacy and marriage to priests (both practical and psychological), but I am left with standing on the side of those in favor of it, predominantly because Jesus himself chose to stand among them too (as he chose to stand among those in favor of celibacy (e.g., cf. Matthew 19:12). In no way is this in opposition to celibacy though, which I consider to be a great good when chosen for the sake of giving one’s life to God. Neither is this a call to disobedience with the Church’s norms or a demand for a change. Instead, it is a (albeit minuscule) contribution to a discussion of the topic and, I believe wholly consonant with the magisterium of the Church. For example, the Vatican II decree Presbyterorum Ordinis clearly states that celibacy “is not demanded by the very nature of the priesthood, as is apparent from the practice of the early Church and from the traditions of the Eastern Churches” (§16). Pope Francis too has spoken on this subject in a way that is open to discussion, while being clear about the norm in force today, when he said that priestly celibacy “is a matter of discipline, not of faith. It can change, [but] for the moment, I am in favor of maintaining [it], with all its pros and cons, because we have ten centuries of good experiences rather than failures” (On Heaven and Earth). Even though I don’t dispute at all that priestly celibacy is working well “for the moment,” an understanding of the reasons for having it co-exist with priestly marriage in the Early Church has made me understand that this co-existence was a “discipline” practiced for profound, and to my mind, very strong reasons of choice and freedom.

Francis in Rio: we’re ALL brothers and sisters

Francis favela

[Warning: Long read! 🙂 The following are my favorite bits from the many talks and homilies Pope Francis gave last week in Brazil. The originals span 30K words, while the following comes in at just above 3K. As you will see, it is more of a collection of gems than an attempt to comment on them, which I am sure I’ll get to in due course. For now I just wanted to give you my “best of” of Francis’ spectacular week in Brazil.]

Last week saw the 28th World Youth Day take place in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, where as many as 3.7 million young people participated in a variety of events and during which time Pope Francis went on a pilgrimage to the Marian shrine of Aparecida, met with local bishops as well as the leadership of the Latin American Bishops’ Conference (CELAM) and visited one of Rio’s favelas. Instead of giving you a run-through of the week’s proceedings, let me instead just pick out my favorite bits.

Before digging into Francis’ 30K words spoken publicly last week, it might again be interesting to see the ones he used most frequently, with the top 50 being the following:

Even just from the above, it is clear both that his emphasis, as ever, is on Jesus, but it can also be seen that he had a particular concern for emphasizing our communion among ourselves and with Him – the Church. Looking at the other words, there is a high frequency of active verbs: make, work, come, love, hope, see, ask, know, encounter – and his frequent use of the word “Aparecida” also stands out. Here, the references are not so much to the place of pilgrimage as to the document written there in 2007 by the Latin American bishops, under the leadership of the then-cardinal Bergoglio. A document that Francis has referred to several times already and with even greater frequency during his visit to Brazil.

Already the day before his departure for Rio, Francis set out his expectations by saying: “All those who come to Rio want to hear Jesus’ voice, to listen to Jesus: ‘Lord, what should I do with my life? What path I should take?’” During the flight from Rome he then spoke briefly to the journalists on his plane, starting by saying that he doesn’t give interviews (a point worth remembering once we’ll come to the spectacular interview he gave during the flight back 🙂 and going on to outline his intentions for the trip, where his aim is:

“to reach out to young people, not in isolation but rather within the larger fabric of society. When we isolate them, we do them an injustice because young people already belong in several ways … they belong to a family, a country, a culture and a faith. […] It’s true, of course, that youth are the future of a people. They’re the future because they have the strength, as young people, to move forward. But those at the other extremity of life, the elderly, are also the future of a people. A people has a future if it moves forward with both these ends – young people with their strength to go forward and the elderly because they’re the ones who offer us the wisdom of life.”

Upon arrival in Rio, Francis heads to the Guanabara Palace for an official welcome, where he starts his speech by saying: “I have neither silver nor gold, but I bring with me the most precious thing given to me: Jesus Christ!,” which again underlines the constant focus on Jesus and a preference for the poor.

Two days later, Francis travels to the Marian shrine of Aparecida, where he starts off by emphasizing the role of Mary: “When the Church looks for Jesus, she always knocks at his Mother’s door and asks: “Show us Jesus”. It is from Mary that the Church learns true discipleship. That is why the Church always goes out on mission in the footsteps of Mary.” Francis then proceeds to talk about “three simple attitudes: hopefulness, openness to being surprised by God, and living in joy” and has the following to say about the last one:

“Christians are joyful, they are never gloomy. God is at our side. We have a Mother who always intercedes for the life of her children, for us […]. Jesus has shown us that the face of God is that of a loving Father. Sin and death have been defeated. Christians cannot be pessimists! They do not look like someone in constant mourning. If we are truly in love with Christ and if we sense how much he loves us, our heart will “light up” with a joy that spreads to everyone around us.”

The next morning Francis headed to the Varginha which is part of the Manguinhos Favela in Rio and said the following to the community assembled in a football field:

“From the start, my wish in planning this visit to Brazil was to be able to visit every district throughout the nation. I would have liked to knock on every door, to say “good morning”, to ask for a glass of cold water, to take a cafezinho, to speak as one would to family friends, to listen to each person pouring out his or her heart – parents, children, grandparents. […]

I am well aware that when someone needing food knocks at your door, you always find a way of sharing food; as the proverb says, one can always “add more water to the beans”! And you do so with love, demonstrating that true riches consist not in material things, but in the heart![…]

No amount of “peace-building” will be able to last, nor will harmony and happiness be attained in a society that ignores, pushes to the margins or excludes a part of itself. A society of that kind simply impoverishes itself, it loses something essential. Let us always remember this: only when we are able to share do we become truly rich; everything that is shared is multiplied! The measure of the greatness of a society is found in the way it treats those most in need, those who have nothing apart from their poverty!”

From the favela, Francis headed for an unscheduled meeting with Argentinian youth in Rio’s cathedral, where he indicated his expectations for when they return home from the World Youth Day:

“I would like us to make noise, I would like those inside the Dioceses to go out into the open; I want the Church to be in the streets; I want us to defend ourselves against all that is worldliness, comfort, being closed and turned within – Parishes, colleges and institutions must get out otherwise they risk becoming NGOs, and the Church is not a Non-Governmental Organization. […] Young people and old people in this moment of history are condemned to the same destiny: exclusion. Don’t let yourselves be excluded!”

Next, Francis headed to the St Francis of Assisi hospital, located in the run-down Tijuca district of northern Rio de Janeiro, where young Franciscan friars and sisters care for the poorest and most marginalized slum dwellers. His message was again about brotherhood and he returned to the image of the “flesh of Christ” that he spoke of on previous occasions:

“[W]hen Francis embraced a leper, this brother, suffering and an outcast, [he] was the “mediator of light … for Saint Francis of Assisi” (Lumen Fidei, 57), because in every suffering brother and sister that we embrace, we embrace the suffering Body of Christ. Today, in this place where people struggle with drug addiction, I wish to embrace each and every one of you, who are the flesh of Christ, and to ask God to renew your journey, and also mine, with purpose and steadfast hope. […] We all need to look upon one another with the loving eyes of Christ, and to learn to embrace those in need, in order to show our closeness, affection and love.”

This same Thursday, that Francis started in Aparecida, continued in the favelas, the cathedral of Rio and finally the hospital caring for drug addicts, concluded with a prayer service on Copacabana beach with the World Youth Day pilgrims, whom he addressed as follows:

“[T]oday you are all here, or better yet, we are all here together as one, in order to share the faith and the joy of an encounter with Christ, of being his disciples. […] Today Christ asks each of us again: Do you want to be my disciple? Do you want to be my friend? Do you want to be a witness to my Gospel? […] I think the answer is yes, because here today, it is good for all of us to be gathered together around Jesus! It is he who welcomes us and who is present in our midst here in Rio. […] Certainly, possessions, money and power can give a momentary thrill, the illusion of being happy, but they end up possessing us and making us always want to have more, never satisfied. “Put on Christ” in your life, place your trust in him and you will never be disappointed!”

On Saturday, Francis first met with Brazil’s political, cultural and business leaders, whom he addressed by touching on on “cultural tradition, joint responsibility for building the future, and constructive dialogue in facing the present moment”:

“Memory of the past and utopian vision of the future meet in the present. […]

[A]n integral humanism and the culture of encounter and relationship: this is the Christian way of promoting the common good, the joy of living. Here, faith and reason unite, the religious dimension and the various aspects of human culture – art, science, labour, literature… Christianity combines transcendence and incarnation; it has the capacity to bring ever new vitality to thought and life, in the face of the threat of frustration and disillusionment which can creep into hearts and spread in the streets.

No one should be denied what is necessary and everyone should be guaranteed dignity, fraternity and solidarity: this is the road that is proposed. In the days of the prophet Amos, God’s frequent warning was already being heard: “They sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals – they … trample down the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and push the afflicted out of the way” (Amos 2:6-7). The outcry, the call for justice, continues to be heard even today.

Between selfish indifference and violent protest there is always another possible option: that of dialogue. Dialogue between generations, dialogue within the people, because we are all that people, the capacity to give and receive, while remaining open to the truth. […] Others always have something to give me, if we know how to approach them in a spirit of openness and without prejudice. This open spirit, without prejudice, I would describe as “social humility”, which is what favours dialogue. Only in this way can understanding grow between cultures and religions, mutual esteem without needless preconceptions, in a climate that is respectful of the rights of everyone. Today,either we take the risk of dialogue, we risk the culture of encounter, or we all fall; this is the path that will bear fruit.”

From the encounter with secular society, Francis proceeds to celebrating mass with priests, religious and seminarian in Rio’s cathedral and speaks to them about the call by God, to proclaim the Gospel and to “promote the culture of encounter”:

“It is not pastoral creativity, or meetings or planning that ensure our fruitfulness, but our being faithful to Jesus, who says insistently: “Abide in me and I in you” (John 15:4). And we know well what that means: to contemplate him, to worship him, to embrace him, especially through our faithfulness to a life of prayer, and in our daily encounter with him, present in the Eucharist and in those most in need. “Being with” Christ does not isolate us from others. Rather, it is a “being with” in order to go forth and encounter others.

We cannot keep ourselves shut up in parishes, in our communities, when so many people are waiting for the Gospel! It is not enough simply to open the door in welcome, but we must go out through that door to seek and meet the people! Let us courageously look to pastoral needs, beginning on the outskirts, with those who are farthest away, with those who do not usually go to church. They are the V.I.P.s invited to the table of the Lord… go and look for them in the nooks and crannies of the streets.”

After lunch with the Brazilian bishops and cardinals, Francis addresses the following words to them:

“[H]umility is one of God’s essential features, part of God’s DNA.

Let us read once again […] the story of Emmaus (cf. Luke 24:13-15). The two disciples have left Jerusalem. They are leaving behind the “nakedness” of God. They are scandalized by the failure of the Messiah in whom they had hoped and who now appeared utterly vanquished, humiliated, even after the third day (vv. 17-21). Here we have to face the difficult mystery of those people who leave the Church, who, under the illusion of alternative ideas, now think that the Church – their Jerusalem – can no longer offer them anything meaningful and important. […] Perhaps the Church appeared too weak, perhaps too distant from their needs, perhaps too poor to respond to their concerns, perhaps too cold, perhaps too caught up with itself, perhaps a prisoner of its own rigid formulas, perhaps the world seems to have made the Church a relic of the past, unfit for new questions; perhaps the Church could speak to people in their infancy but not to those come of age. It is a fact that nowadays there are many people like the two disciples of Emmaus; not only those looking for answers in the new religious groups that are sprouting up, but also those who already seem godless, both in theory and in practice.

Faced with this situation, what are we to do?

We need a Church unafraid of going forth into their night. We need a Church capable of meeting them on their way. We need a Church capable of entering into their conversation. We need a Church able to dialogue with those disciples who, having left Jerusalem behind, are wandering aimlessly, alone, with their own disappointment, disillusioned by a Christianity now considered barren, fruitless soil, incapable of generating meaning.”

In the evening Francis was back with the young people on Copacabana beach, talking to them about being a disciple and a missionary, by analogy with three different uses of a field: as a place for sowing, as a training ground and as a construction site:

“Jesus offers us something bigger than the World Cup! He offers us the possibility of a fulfilled and fruitful life; he also offers us a future with him, an endless future, eternal life. But he asks us to train, “to get in shape”, so that we can face every situation in life undaunted, bearing witness to our faith. How do we get in shape? By talking with him: by prayer, which is our daily conversation with God, who always listens to us. By the sacraments, which make his life grow within us and conform us to Christ. By loving one another, learning to listen, to understand, to forgive, to be accepting and to help others, everybody, with no one excluded or ostracized.”

On Sunday Francis returned to say mass on Copacabana beach, to a crowd of 3 million, and continued with the theme of mission:

“Jesus did not say: “go, if you would like to, if you have the time”, but he said: “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Sharing the experience of faith, bearing witness to the faith, proclaiming the Gospel: this is a command that the Lord entrusts to the whole Church, and that includes you; but it is a command that is born not from a desire for domination, from the desire for power, but from the force of love, from the fact that Jesus first came into our midst and did not give us just a part of himself, but he gave us the whole of himself, he gave his life in order to save us and to show us the love and mercy of God. Jesus does not treat us as slaves, but as people who are free, as friends, as brothers and sisters; and he not only sends us, he accompanies us, he is always beside us in our mission of love.

Where does Jesus send us? There are no borders, no limits: he sends us to everyone. The Gospel is for everyone, not just for some. It is not only for those who seem closer to us, more receptive, more welcoming. It is for everyone. Do not be afraid to go and to bring Christ into every area of life, to the fringes of society, even to those who seem farthest away, most indifferent. The Lord seeks all, he wants everyone to feel the warmth of his mercy and his love.”

After lunch, Francis addressed the leadership of the Council of Bishops’ Conferences of Latin America and the Caribbean, CELAM, with a rich speech, from which I’d just like to pick out a couple of points:

“Christ’s followers are not individuals caught up in a privatized spirituality, but persons in community, devoting themselves to others.

Is pastoral discernment a habitual criterion, through the use of Diocesan Councils? Do such Councils and Parish Councils, whether pastoral or financial, provide real opportunities for lay people to participate in pastoral consultation, organization and planning? The good functioning of these Councils is critical. I believe that on this score, we are far behind. […] As pastors, bishops and priests, are we conscious and convinced of the mission of the lay faithful and do we give them the freedom to continue discerning, in a way befitting their growth as disciples, the mission which the Lord has entrusted to them? Do we support them and accompany them, overcoming the temptation to manipulate them or infantilize them?

Responding to the existential issues of people today, especially the young, listening to the language they speak, can lead to a fruitful change, which must take place with the help of the Gospel, the magisterium, and the Church’s social doctrine. The scenarios and the areopagi involved are quite varied. For example, a single city can contain various collective imaginations which create “different cities”. If we remain within the parameters of our “traditional culture”, which was essentially rural, we will end up nullifying the power of the Holy Spirit. God is everywhere: we have to know how to find him in order to be able to proclaim him in the language of each and every culture; every reality, every language, has its own rhythm.

Every utopian (future-oriented) or restorationist (past-oriented) impulse is spiritually unhealthy. God is real and he shows himself in the “today”. With regard to the past, his presence is given to us as “memory” of his saving work, both in his people and in each of us as individuals; with regard to the future, he gives himself to us as “promise” and hope. In the past God was present and left his mark: memory helps us to encounter him; in the future is promise alone… […] The “today” is closest to eternity; even more: the “today” is a flash of eternity. In the “today”, eternal life is in play.”

Before embarking on the journey back to Rome, Francis met with the volunteers who had helped out with the World Youth Day and addressed the following words to them on the subject of vocations:

“God calls you to make definitive choices, and he has a plan for each of you […]. God calls each of us to be holy, to live his life, but he has a particular path for each one of us. Some are called to holiness through family life in the sacrament of Marriage. Today, there are those who say that marriage is out of fashion; in a culture of relativism and the ephemeral, many preach the importance of “enjoying” the moment. They say that it is not worth making a life- long commitment, making a definitive decision, “for ever”, because we do not know what tomorrow will bring. I ask you, instead, to be revolutionaries, to swim against the tide; yes, I am asking you to rebel against this culture that sees everything as temporary and that ultimately believes that you are incapable of responsibility, that you are incapable of true love. I have confidence in you and I pray for you. Have the courage “to swim against the tide”. Have the courage to be happy.”

Finally, the return flight itself was one of the highlights of this trip, as Francis spent an hour and twenty minutes answering unvetted questions from the journalist on board his plane. I wonder what brought about this change of attitude in Francis, who on the outbound flight declared that he doesn’t do interviews, but I am glad he changed his mind :). Of the many interesting, and masterfully answered questions, let me just pick out the following few:¹

“[In response to a question asking Francis why he didn’t address the topics of abortion and same sex marriage:]

Francis: The Church has already expressed itself clearly about this. There was no need to return to it, like there was no need to talk about fraud, or lying, or other topics about which the Church has a clear doctrine.

Patricia Zorzan: But this is a question that interests young people …

Francis: Yes, but there was no need to speak about this, but rather about positive things that open the way ahead for kids. Isn’t that true? Furthermore, young people know perfectly well what the position of the Church is!

Patricia Zorzan: What is the position of Your Holiness, could you tell us?

Francis: That of the Church. I am a son of the Church!

[Asked about the role of women in the Church, Francis responded:]

A Church without women is like the college of apostles without Mary. The role of the woman in the Church is not only maternity, being the mum of a family, it is stronger: she is the icon of the Virgin, of the Madonna; her who helps to grow the Church! Think that the Madonna is more important than the Apostles! She is more important! The Church is female: she is Church, she is a spouse, she is a mother. But the role of the woman in the Church mustn’t end up being just that of a mum, a worker, limited … No! It is something else! […] It is impossible to think of a Church without women, but women who are active in the Church. […] In the Church one has to think of a woman from this perspective: making risky choices, but as women. This has to be explained better. I believe that we haven’t done a deep theology of the woman in the Church yet. She can only do this or that, now she is an altar server, now she reads a reading, she is the president of Caritas … But, there is more! There is a need for a profound theology of the woman. This is what I think.

[In response to another journalist’s question Francis returns to this topic:]

I would like to explain a bit what I have said about the participation of women in the Church: it mustn’t be limited to them being an altar server, president of the Caritas, a catechist … No! It has to be more, but profoundly more, also mystically more, with regard to what I have said about the theology of the woman. And, as far as the ordination of women, the Church has spoken and says: “No.” John Paul II said it with a definitive formulation. That one is closed, that door, but I would like to tell you one thing about it. I have already said it, but I’ll repeat it. The Madonna, Mary, was more important than the Apostles, than bishops, that deacons and than priests. The woman, in the Church, is more important than bishops and than priests; how, is what we need to try and explain better, because I believe that we are missing a theological explanation of this. Thank you.

[Finally, the answer that most stirred the media (for, I believe, good reasons), was in response to a two-part question, whose second part was about the “gay lobby”]

[…] You mention the gay lobby. Uff! [Mah! in Italian :)] A lot is being written about the gay lobby. So far I have not met anyone who’d give me their Vatican ID card with “gay” on it. They say that there are some of them. I believe that when one meets a person like that, it is necessary to distinguish between the fact of it being a gay person and the fact of lobbying, because lobbying is never good. That is bad. If a person is gay and they seek the Lord and have good will, who am I to judge them? The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this in a very beautiful way. It says: “these persons mustn’t be marginalized for this, they need to be integrated in society.” The problem is not having this tendency, no, we must be brothers, because this is one, but there are others and others. The problem is lobbying: a lobby of misers, a lobby of politicians, a lobby of masons, many lobbies. This is the most serious problem for me. I thank you very much for having asked me this question. Thank you very much!”

In spite of this being a long post, the passages I picked here are just a skimming of the surface of Francis’ spectacular week in Brazil and there will be a lot to think about and internalize in the coming weeks and months. From everything I have read, and from the videos I have seen of Francis speak, by far the most consistent message that I have heard is the emphasis on us all – Christians or not – being brothers and sisters and the need for dialogue, encounter and love. Every person must be loved first, before anything else can be said or done. It is this profound conviction that, I believe, drives Francis to reaching out to all who are in any way marginalized: the poor, the young and elderly, women, gays. It is not some politicking, demagoguery or a giving–in to external pressures that are at play, but a consistent and universal reading of brotherhood and sisterhood.

A final comment I’d like to make regards the frequent insistence over the last days that Francis is not changing Church teaching and that he couldn’t even if he wanted to. While it remains to be seen what changes to Church teaching will result from his unquestionable change of tone and emphasis, I believe that the signs are very strong already: the admission that the theology of the woman is lacking, the outreach to gays (and even the use of the word “gay”!), and his response to a question about the divorced and re-married (that I didn’t quote above) are all pointers that have an unmistakeable direction. To claim that Francis, the head and supreme legislator of the Catholic Church, successor of Peter to whom Jesus said: “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19), cannot change Church teaching is astonishingly naïve and historically uninformed. Francis insists that he is a “son of the Church,” but let’s not be blind to the fact that it is a Church where, as Francis said, “[t]he “today” is closest to eternity.”

¹ For the full, official Italian transcript see here, and for notes from one of the journalists in English, go here. The English in this post is my own, crude, strepidotious, but close, translation from the Italian (and where available, Spanish).

Francis’ “grammar of simplicity”

Yesterday the 28th World Youth Day has come to a close in Rio de Janeiro and there would undoubtedly be a lot to say about it. Instead, I would like to look at a different, yet related, topic today, which is that of Pope Francis’ daily morning sermons, delivered at the Domus Sanctæ Marthæ (DSM). Since his election in March, Francis has been inviting different groups of Vatican staff and other visitors to join him for morning mass at his residence of choice, during which he’d deliver a short, off-the-cuff-style reflection, inspired by the day’s readings. Since these morning masses, and the homilies they contained, have now been suspended for the summer months, one can consider their first season, so to speak, as complete, and reflect on them as a whole. These, by my count 123, homilies form a corpus that is not only important in terms of the themes that it addresses, but also as a body of linguistic content, and it is both of these aspects that I would like to reflect on here.

Before proceeding to the DSM homilies, it is worth hearing the following point made by Francis on Saturday, during a lunch with Brazilian bishops, since it is the key to unlocking their language:

“Another lesson which the Church must constantly recall is that she cannot leave simplicity behind; otherwise she forgets how to speak the language of Mystery. Not only does she herself remain outside the door of the mystery, but she proves incapable of approaching those who look to the Church for something which they themselves cannot provide, namely, God himself. At times we lose people because they don’t understand what we are saying, because we have forgotten the language of simplicity and import an intellectualism foreign to our people. Without the grammar of simplicity, the Church loses the very conditions which make it possible “to fish” for God in the deep waters of his Mystery.”

With the above in mind, let’s turn to the DSM homilies. According to the Vatican’s spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, the morning homilies are spontaneous instead of delivered from a prepared written text and a “‘complete’ publication, therefore, would necessarily entail a transcription and a reworking of the text at various points, given that the written form is different from the spoken one, which in this case is the original form chosen intentionally by the Holy Father.” The result would be “‘something else’, which isn’t what the Holy Father intends to do [with his daily homily] each morning.” As a result of this primarily spoken and spontaneous form of the morning homilies, only summaries and quotes from them are available, instead of full transcripts. These summaries, furthermore, include notes on who was present at the individual masses, on what the readings of the day were and addenda like “the Holy Father said,” “pope Francis noted,” etc.

As a direct linguistic analysis of the summaries would be skewed by the above additions, I first parsed the 123 summaries and removed from them any text that went beyond a transcript or paraphrasing of Pope Francis. The end result are 27K words, resulting in an average of 220 words per sermon, which corresponds to about half a page of written text. The end result are only snippets of what Francis said and a degree of separation between his full, albeit short, sermons and the record available publicly is inevitable, and indeed in accord with Francis’ own wishes.

Running a textual analysis on the above corpus yields very interesting results, which make plain the simplicity of the language Francis employs:

The total of 27,132 words result from using only 4,118 different ones, which is less than the typical vocabulary of a 6-year-old.
The Gunning fog readability score of the text, which derives from the number of words per sentence and the percentage of complex words used, is 6.6. This is at the very bottom end of the scale and matches that of the Bible (with popular novels coming in at 8-10 and academic texts at 15-20).
The average sentence length here is 13 words, where 17 is typical and 11-13 is considered easy.
Word length too is at the low end of the scale, with an average of 1.49 syllables per word (as compared with typical language having 1.66).

That Francis speaks simply can easily be seen when listening to him and the above just underlines how consistently and persistently he does so during his morning sermons.

Turning to the content of his homilies, the word cloud at the top of this post shows the 50 most frequently used words, where font size is proportional to frequency. As can be seen immediately, “Jesus” is the word that Francis uses by far most often (2.3% of the time), followed by “Lord” (1.5%), where the two top words are in fact synonyms in this context. Comparing this to an analysis of his first sermons after being elected pope, it can be seen that his focus on the person of Jesus is a constant feature of his preaching. If we combine these two words, the second most frequent word becomes “our,” which, to my mind, underlines the sense one gets of Francis being one of us, referring to issues and ideas applicable to an “us” that includes him, rather than a “you” that he is removed from. Worth noting is also that the highest-ranked verb among the 4K words used in these homilies is “love” (7th among all words). A final point to pick up on in terms of word frequency is that of the top 50 words, only two imply obstacles or prohibition by themselves: “cannot” (48th) and “without” (49th). Looking at four word phrases, the most frequent one is “the word of God” (used 41 times in these 123 homilies) and in third place comes “the name of Jesus.” Francis continuously stays close to the person of Jesus, even just from the perspective of the vocabulary he employs, stays close to the congregation he addresses and is overwhelmingly positive.

Since I have already written at length about some of Francis’ DSM homilies in earlier posts, I would here just like to highlight some of the aspects that stood out to me while editing the text of these 123 sermons:

Francis uses the term “pope” quite generously: he refers to the apostle Paul by saying that he “is a Pope, a builder of bridges.” and he also refers to Tawadros II in the same way, and has the following to say about him to the morning mass congregation: “Today there’s a good reason for joy in this house, where we are hosting the Pope of Alexandria, the Patriarch of the See of St Mark. He is a brother who has come to visit the Church of Rome to talk and to make a journey together.”
Similes are a great favorite of Francis’, and he uses them liberally: “The confessional is not a laundromat,” “To solve the problems of life it is necessary to look reality in the face, ready like the goalkeeper of a football team to grab the ball whatever side it comes from,” that God is “not an indefinite God dispersed in the air like a spray”, that Jesus is “like an engineer, like an architect; He tells them what He will do: ‘I am going to prepare a place, in my Father’s house is my dwelling’,” that the Church is like a mother (“How would you feel if someone said: she’s a domestic administrator? ‘No, I am the mother!’ And the Church is Mother.”) and that some Christians are like pickled peppers (“Sometimes these melancholy Christians faces have more in common with pickled peppers than the joy of having a beautiful life”) are just a couple of examples.
Francis draws inspiration from a very broad range of sources, including his grandmother (who’d tell him and other children in the family: ‘Look he is dead, but tomorrow he will be Risen!,’ when visiting the tomb on Good Friday), a man who worked for the diocese of Buenos Aires (“before going to do any of the things he had to do, he would always whisper to himself: ‘Jesus!’”), Pope Paul VI (who “said that you cannot advance the Gospel with sad, hopeless, discouraged Christians”), the martyrs of Nagasaki (“each one helped the other, they struggled mightily and spoke of Jesus as they awaited the moment of their death”), the garment factory collapse in Dhaka (which “killed hundreds of workers who were being exploited and who worked without the proper safety preoccupations. It is a title, which struck me the day of the tragedy in Bangladesh: ‘How to die for 38 euros a month’”), an electrician who prayed for his daughter’s recovery (“Miracles do happen. But we need to pray with our hearts: A courageous prayer, that struggles to achieve a miracle, not prayers of courtesy”) and a priest, who, when he was appointed bishop worried about his unworthiness (to which his confessor told him: “But do not worry. If after the mess Peter made of things, they made him Pope, then you go ahead!”).

Camus on dialogue, revolt, beauty and love

Camus

One of the features of Pope Francis’ first encyclical, Lumen Fidei, that stood out for me most is its constant reference to love, regardless of the specific subject of its reflection. This certainly is not surprising in the context of Christian theology – a theology that is all about God, who is Love – but it’s all-pervasiveness nonetheless made me think. In particular, it made me think about what someone who is not a Christian, who is an atheist or humanist, would say on the subject.

With these questions in mind, I turned to my “read later” reading list and my eyes landed on a piece by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, where he speaks about how Albert Camus‘ thought is a confrontation with the same questions that Christianity grapples with. Questions of meaning, purpose, suffering, revolt, hope and love.

Ravasi there starts with quoting from a talk Camus gave to a group of Dominicans in 1948, where he says to his hosts that “the world of today needs Christians who remain Christians” and where he declares:

“I shall not, as far as I am concerned, try to pass myself off as a Christian in your presence. I share with you the same revulsion from evil. But I do not share your hope, and I continue to struggle against this universe in which children suffer and die.”

This directness and honesty of Camus has always been very attractive to me, which made me look for the full text of his talk to the Dominicans and I found a fairly extensive set of fragments from it here. What struck me there is how I find myself very much agreeing with him, where what he says is in fact a very powerful examination of conscience for Christianity and also for me personally.

From these fragments it is explicit that the Dominicans invited Camus to talk to them about what “unbelievers expect of Christians,” which makes me very impressed with them too, and for which Camus also acknowledged their “intellectual generosity.” He then proceeds to set out the following principles of dialogue:

that “if I allowed myself at the end of this statement to demand of you certain duties, these could only be duties that it is essential to ask of any man today, whether he is or is not a Christian.”

that “I shall never start from the supposition that Christian truth is illusory, but merely from the fact that I could not accept it.”

and that “I shall not try to change anything that I think or anything that you think (insofar as I can judge of it) in order to reach a reconciliation that would be agreeable to all. On the contrary, what I feel like telling you today is that the world needs real dialogue, that falsehood is just as much the opposite of dialogue as is silence, and that the only possible dialogue is the kind between people who remain what they are and speak their mind.”

These are an excellent set of principles: do to others as you would want them to do to you, the principle of charity and respect for the other being who they are, not setting out to change them. In fact, they seem to me to be very much in sync with what Pope Francis said on the same topic: “Dialogue is born of an attitude of respect towards another person, of a conviction that the other has something good to say; it requires that we make space in our heard their point of view, their opinion and their position.”

With these principles as the basis, Camus proceeds to spelling out his expectations:

“What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear, and that they should voice their condemnation in such a way that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could rise in the heart of the simplest man. That they should get away from abstraction and confront the blood-stained face history has taken on today. The grouping we need is a grouping of men resolved to speak out clearly and to pay up personally. When a Spanish bishop blesses political executions, he ceases to be a bishop or a Christian; even a man; he is a dog just like the one who, backed by an ideology, orders that execution without doing the dirty work himself. We are still waiting, and I am waiting, for a grouping of all those who refuse to be dogs and are resolved to pay the price that must be paid so that man can be something more than a dog. […]

Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you don’t help us, who else in the world can help us do this? […]

But it may be […] that Christianity will insist on maintaining a compromise or else on giving its condemnations the obscure form of the encyclical. Possibly it will insist on losing once and for all the virtue of revolt and indignation that belonged to it long ago. In that case Christians will live and Christianity will die. In that case the others will in fact pay for the sacrifice. [… I]f Christians made up their minds to it, millions of voices—millions, I say—throughout the world would be added to the appeal of a handful of isolated individuals who, without any sort of affiliation, today intercede almost everywhere and ceaselessly for children and for men.”

When I read this, it really stopped me in my tracks. This is the kind of dialogue that we, Christians need – someone from the “outside” shaking us, pointing to our errors and doing so not for the sake of some propagandist point-scoring, but out of a genuine concern for our returning to our roots and maintaining our identity. In many ways, what Pope Francis is doing now from the “inside” is similar – the call to poverty, to the “existential peripheries” and to respect for and collaboration with atheists are all examples of it and I am deeply grateful to him and to Camus.

Returning to Ravasi’s discourse, he steers it to another very interesting point of common interest to Christianity and Camus, by quoting from “Helen’s Exile” and then from “The Rebel”:

“Man cannot do without beauty, and this is what our era pretends to want to disregard. It steels itself to attain the absolute and authority; it wants to transfigure the world before having exhausted it, to set it to rights before having understood it. Whatever it may say, our era is deserting this world.”

“Beauty, no doubt, does not make revolutions. But a day will come when revolutions will have need of beauty.”

Here the connection between beauty and the revolt Camus speaks about to the Dominicans is clear – both are set against an exploitation and ignoring of the world. Revolt is directed against suffering while beauty is aimed at appreciating existence.

Ravasi then makes the, to me at first surprising, summary of the above as being “the way of love.” To get a sense of why he may have interpreted it as such, Camus’ own words in “The Rebel” point to the key: “The procedure of beauty, which is to contest reality while endowing it with unity, is also the procedure of rebellion.” Rebellion and beauty bring about unity, which in turn is synonymous with love in Christianity – the Persons of the Trinity being One is their love for each other; Jesus-Love is present among his followers if they are united in his name (cf. Matthew 18:20), etc.

Finally, to underline the importance Camus gives to love, Ravasi quotes the following from his “Notebooks” from 1937:

“If someone told me to write a book on morality, it would have a hundred pages and ninety-nine of them would be blank. On the last page I would write, “I recognize only one duty and that is to love.” And as far as everything else is concerned, I say no.”

St. Augustine would be pleased, as am I 🙂

Lumen Fidei: Love and truth are inseparable

Pope 001 4 3 rx513 c680x510

Pope Benedict XVI’s long-awaited encyclical on faith (completing the trilogy of encyclicals with those on love and hope) and Pope Francis’ equally eagerly awaited first encyclical are out – and they are one and the same – the encyclical entitled “Lumen Fidei” – “The Light of Faith.” As Francis puts it, “It’s an encyclical written with four hands, so to speak, because Pope Benedict began writing it and he gave it to me. It’s a strong document. I will say in it that I received it and most of the work was done by him and I completed it.”

I couldn’t agree more – it is a very strong document indeed, and one rich in insights that merit reflection and repeated analysis. It is a document that is beautifully written, in rich yet purposeful language, with razor-sharp logic and with a tremendous openness to the world as it is today. The references alone are worth highlighting, as they range from theological classics like the works of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, through ancient non-Christian texts like the writings of Celsus, up to more recent and also critical voices like Nietzsche, Wittgenstein or T. S. Eliot. This is not a piece of propaganda, but a carefully thought out presentation of what faith means to a Christian, from a Catholic perspective, and how it relates not only to matters internal to the Church but to secular thought as well. As such, if you are not a Christian and curious about what we mean when way talk about faith, I would recommend a reading of Lumen Fidei (a recommendation I don’t make lightly).¹

Since Lumen Fidei is a hefty document, and one where “padding” is minimal, I won’t even attempt an overview of the topics it touches upon and will instead just highlight the section where Benedict and Francis talk about how faith, truth, knowledge and love are related.

This train of thought starts already in the introductory chapter:

“Faith […] appear[s] to some as an illusory light, preventing mankind from boldly setting out in quest of knowledge. The young Nietzsche encouraged his sister Elisabeth to take risks, to tread “new paths… with all the uncertainty of one who must find his own way”, adding that “this is where humanity’s paths part: if you want peace of soul and happiness, then believe, but if you want to be a follower of truth, then seek”. Belief would be incompatible with seeking. From this starting point Nietzsche was to develop his critique of Christianity for diminishing the full meaning of human existence and stripping life of novelty and adventure. Faith would thus be the illusion of light, an illusion which blocks the path of a liberated humanity to its future.”

Faith is here portrayed as an illusion that at best can be an anxiolytic, but that is opposed to a seeking of truth and to free human fulfillment. This is certainly a view I have come across in person and I was pleased to see it be the position with which Lumen Fidei sets out to contrast it’s understanding, where it first declares what it understands by faith, before then considering its consequences:

“Christian faith is […] faith in a perfect love, in its decisive power, in its ability to transform the world and to unfold its history. “We know and believe the love that God has for us” (1 John 4:16). In the love of God revealed in Jesus, faith perceives the foundation on which all reality and its final destiny rest. […] Our culture has lost its sense of God’s tangible presence and activity in our world. We think that God is to be found in the beyond, on another level of reality, far removed from our everyday relationships. But if this were the case, if God could not act in the world, his love would not be truly powerful, truly real, and thus not even true, a love capable of delivering the bliss that it promises. It would make no difference at all whether we believed in him or not. Christians, on the contrary, profess their faith in God’s tangible and powerful love which really does act in history and determines its final destiny: a love that can be encountered, a love fully revealed in Christ’s passion, death and resurrection.”

To my mind the above does two important things: first, it underlines that faith is all about love and second, that this love is real here and now – that it is an incarnate, material, tangible love and not some ethereal, abstract, wholly otherness. Lumen Fidei goes on to underlining these important features of faith:

“Far from divorcing us from reality, our faith in the Son of God made man in Jesus of Nazareth enables us to grasp reality’s deepest meaning and to see how much God loves this world and is constantly guiding it towards himself. This leads us, as Christians, to live our lives in this world with ever greater commitment and intensity.”

Having established the focus of faith on love and on its incarnation in the world, Lumen Fidei, proceeds to linking it to truth:

“Faith without truth does not save, it does not provide a sure footing. It remains a beautiful story, the projection of our deep yearning for happiness, something capable of satisfying us to the extent that we are willing to deceive ourselves. Either that, or it is reduced to a lofty sentiment which brings consolation and cheer, yet remains prey to the vagaries of our spirit and the changing seasons, incapable of sustaining a steady journey through life. […] Only to the extent that love is grounded in truth can it endure over time, can it transcend the passing moment and be sufficiently solid to sustain a shared journey. If love is not tied to truth, it falls prey to fickle emotions and cannot stand the test of time. True love, on the other hand, unifies all the elements of our person and becomes a new light pointing the way to a great and fulfilled life. Without truth, love is incapable of establishing a firm bond; it cannot liberate our isolated ego or redeem it from the fleeting moment in order to create life and bear fruit.”

This, to me, is both a beautiful and a particularly lucid way of putting faith’s dependence on truth, knowledge and honesty. Looking back to the quote from Nietzsche’s letter to his sister, the above agrees with him on the deficiency of the kind of faith Nietzsche criticizes as being divorced from the truth and points to a (Hegelian dialectic) resolution of the initial, seeming opposition.

Lumen Fidei then goes further and emphasizes that it is not only “love [that] needs truth, [but that] truth also needs love.”:

“Love and truth are inseparable. Without love, truth becomes cold, impersonal and oppressive for people’s day-to-day lives. The truth we seek, the truth that gives meaning to our journey through life, enlightens us whenever we are touched by love. One who loves realizes that love is an experience of truth, that it opens our eyes to see reality in a new way, in union with the beloved. […] It is a relational way of viewing the world, which then becomes a form of shared knowledge, vision through the eyes of another and a shared vision of all that exists. [… F]aith-knowledge does not direct our gaze to a purely inward truth. The truth which faith discloses to us is a truth centred on an encounter with Christ, on the contemplation of his life and on the awareness of his presence. Saint Thomas Aquinas speaks of the Apostles’ oculata fides — a faith which sees! — in the presence of the body of the Risen Lord. With their own eyes they saw the risen Jesus and they believed.”

Since they derive from love, faith and truth are neither a private matter, nor are they oppressive, imposing or colonizing:

“But if truth is a truth of love, if it is a truth disclosed in personal encounter with the Other and with others, then it can be set free from its enclosure in individuals and become part of the common good. As a truth of love, it is not one that can be imposed by force; it is not a truth that stifles the individual. […] Clearly, then, faith is not intransigent, but grows in respectful coexistence with others. One who believes may not be presumptuous; on the contrary, truth leads to humility, since believers know that, rather than ourselves possessing truth, it is truth which embraces and possesses us. Far from making us inflexible, the security of faith sets us on a journey; it enables witness and dialogue with all.”

The above is a great manifesto not only for a Christian’s understanding of their own faith but of its inherent pointing outward towards others, with an openness and a welcoming disposition aimed at profound dialogue.²Unsurprisingly, the above faith sees science as a great good and sees itself as being a source of wonder that is also the motivational root cause of scientific endeavor, as readily agreed to by atheist and religious scientists alike:

“Nor is the light of faith, joined to the truth of love, extraneous to the material world, for love is always lived out in body and spirit; the light of faith is an incarnate light radiating from the luminous life of Jesus. It also illumines the material world, trusts its inherent order and knows that it calls us to an ever widening path of harmony and understanding. The gaze of science thus benefits from faith: faith encourages the scientist to remain constantly open to reality in all its inexhaustible richness. Faith awakens the critical sense by preventing research from being satisfied with its own formulae and helps it to realize that nature is always greater. By stimulating wonder before the profound mystery of creation, faith broadens the horizons of reason to shed greater light on the world which discloses itself to scientific investigation.”

I have barely scratched the surface of Lumen Fidei here, but what I have found has been a joy to read, reflect on and try to share with you here. Thank you, Benedict and Francis, for such a beautiful piece of thinking!

¹ Plus, if you are interested, take a look at the second paragraph here for a suggestion of how to read both this blog and the Lumen Fidei encyclical.
² I can’t not mention again one of Benedict XVI’s most astonishingly beautiful insights that is echoed here: “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.” (Christmas Greetings to the Roman Curia, 2012)

Celibacy and marriage

On Monday I listened with growing disappointment to a BBC Radio 4 program that intended to shed light on celibacy from the perspective of different faiths. The program’s panel was composed of a muslim cleric, a Catholic nun and an academic, who provided Buddhist and Hindu perspectives. Instead of dissecting the program here,¹ I would like to share my personal, very much Christian, reflection and invite you to let me know what you make of it.

The optics I’d like to apply here are those of vocation.² And I’d like to think about celibacy and marriage in parallel, since they are each key comparators for one another, and since talking about one without referencing the other would be artificial and woefully incomplete. Note also that I won’t attempt to knot a customary net of references, and will instead aim to present a synthetic and condensed exposition of my take on this topic, which has occupied my mind for a good 20 years so far.

First, I’d like to suggest that there is only one Christian vocation, which is to say (and keep saying) “Yes!” in response to God’s call to follow, imitate and love Him, directly and in my neighbors, and to give Him primacy in my life. Just as God didn’t supply Samuel with a job description when He called him (1 Samuel 3:1-10), like “a light silent sound” (1 Kings 19:12), or as Jesus didn’t issue the apostles with detailed terms and conditions (cf. Luke 5:1-11, Matthew 4:18-22), so too the specifics of following Him are part of the journey He invites me on. This adventure can take a myriad forms, like the infinite variety and ever-evolving novelty of God’s love itself.

Second, any perfection attained as a consequence of responding to God’s call is a gift. It can be welcomed and facilitated by staying attentive to the Holy Spirit’s “inspiration” in every present moment, by being open to embracing Jesus in every suffering and welcoming him among those who love one another mutually, and by placing one’s childlike trust in our loving Father. Perfection is not a human product, as the lives of so many saints attest.

Third, responding to my vocation yields both challenges and joys, where the natures and sources of both depend on the specific path I follow. On the surface of it, some are more likely if you are celibate while others are more typical of married life. Ultimately though, difficulties (suffering, frustration, disappointment) and joys alike are a consequence of what God wills or allows for me to experience and how I respond to it. This has nothing whatsoever to do with celibacy or marriage and everything to do with looking for God and embracing His will, moment by moment. Both have equal capacity for sanctification and torment, to the extent to which they lead to experiencing union with or absence from God.

Fourth, celibacy is a great treasure. It is an expression of a person’s permanent commitment to follow God’s call in total self-giving. By imitating Jesus’ celibate life, they, like He, devote themselves to supporting, enriching and guiding the People of God and proclaiming the Good News of God’s love to all. They, with their communities around them, are witnesses to God’s love in the world and a beacon of His fatherly and motherly love. The essence of celibacy is not a foregoing of sexual joy and the delights that one’s own children bring, but a positive, total gift of oneself to God, who is not to be outdone in generosity.

Fifth, marriage is a great treasure. It is an expression of a person’s permanent commitment to follow God’s call in total self-giving. By imitating the life of the Trinity, husband and wife become one family – a small church, where God dwells among those who follow his word. By “follow[ing] Jesus closely,”³ a family supports, enriches and guides the People of God and proclaims the Good News of God’s love to all. Married persons follow the evangelical counsels of poverty, obedience and chastity in ways proper to their circumstances and are available for transmitting God’s love to all. The essence of marriage is not an avoidance of a total commitment to God, a holding back of something for oneself, but a positive, total gift of oneself to God, who is not to be outdone in generosity.

Sixth, as one discerns how to follow God’s call in celibacy or marriage, it is understandable that one considers one’s own calling to be superior to the alternative. Since both have great riches and are means for sharing in the most intimate life of God, they each provide an overflowing basis for being extolled as superior. I believe that arguments for either exceeding the other ought to be read in this light – through their proponent’s eyes, and appreciated for being signs of the value and beauty that those who have chosen them see in them.

Finally, I would like to thank all who guided me during the time of discerning my vocation – some of whom were celibate, others married, and all of whom made me experience the presence of Jesus among his disciples – and my spouse, who is the tabernacle of our family.

¹ If you’d like to hear it for yourself, a recording is available here. I’d be curious to know whether you found it enlightening or frustrating …
² Since this is going to be spiritual and personal as much as intellectual, you might want to check out my standard Thomas-Nagel-inspired disclaimer in the second paragraph here.
³ Speaking about marriage a couple of weeks ago, Pope Francis described it as “men and women who have left their homes to commit to a lifelong marriage, that is to follow Jesus closely!”

Me atheist, you Vatican spokesman

The journalistic farce that followed Pope Francis’ now-famous “atheists” homily is best viewed through Monty Python lenses, where it is in many ways like the final scene of the Life of Brian.¹ There, a centurion comes to rescue Brian from the cross, but when he asks “Where is Brian of Nazareth?!” everyone volunteers, even to the point of one of the other crucifixion victims saying “I’m Brian, and so’s my wife!”

Let’s backtrack though and see what happened step by step. First, there was Francis’ homily itself:

“The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class! We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all! And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”

When I first read this, a couple of hours after Francis delivered it during his 7 am Domus Sanctae Marthae mass on 22nd May, I felt great joy and gratitude for having a Pope who is open and welcoming to all – just like Jesus was. I thought no more about it, since it seemed to me to be just a re-iteration – albeit a very welcome and clear one – of what the Church has been teaching consistently since Vatican II.² In essence, Francis was saying that we hope to see atheists in heaven as much as we hope to be there ourselves. This is not to impose beliefs on those who believe neither in God nor in the existence of heaven, but to assure them that we, Catholics (and many other Christians too), believe in a God who loves all and welcomes all, regardless of their beliefs.

When I then looked at Twitter later in the day, I saw it ablaze with two types of reactions: very positive ones both from Christians and atheists, welcoming the invitation to dialogue and the appreciation of the good done by atheists (e.g., see the Huffington Post article from the same day and note the Pope’s homily being the second most shared piece on Reddit) and very critical ones – mainly from “traditional” Catholics (e.g., see a particularly forceful and conceited criticism here).

The day ended well for this story though, with a spot-on rebuke of Francis’ critics from a 1964 homily of the then-Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, shared in a blog post by Anna Williams:

“It seems as if we want to be rewarded, not just with our own salvation, but most especially with other people’s damnation—just like the workers hired in the first hour. That is very human, but the Lord’s parable [of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-6)] is particularly meant to make us quite aware of how profoundly un-Christian it is at the same time.”

So far, so good: another great homily by Pope Francis, mostly positive and some negative reactions and a great put-down of the critics to round out the day.

The next morning, the weather turned though and a farce of epic proportion began brewing with the news of a Vatican spokesperson having issued a correction of Pope Francis’ words. As far as I can tell, the source of this red herring was a post on cnn.com, which stated that “On Thursday, the Vatican issued an “explanatory note on the meaning to ‘salvation.’” The Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman, said that people who [are] aware of the Catholic church “cannot be saved” if they “refuse to enter her or remain in her.”” This was quickly picked up by media outlets around the world, with headlines like: “Vatican Clarifies Pope’s ‘Atheist’ Remarks,” “Vatican corrects Pope: Atheists are still going to hell,” and “Not so fast: Vatican says Pope Francis got it wrong, atheists do go to hell.”

It was immediately clear to me that something didn’t add up here: first, Fr. Thomas Rosica isn’t “a Vatican spokesman” (Fr. Federico Lombardi being “the” Vatican spokesperson, who has been in office for many years),³ second, “people who are aware of the Catholic Church and are not in her cannot be saved” is not at all what the Catechism says⁴ and third, any member of the Catholic Church (never mind a priest or Vatican member of staff) who felt it to be their job to issue an “explanatory note” about the Pope’s words off their own back and unprompted by the Pope better check themselves, before they wreck themselves.

In any case, I was curious to see this alleged “explanatory note,” so I (foolishly!) headed over to the Vatican website, where – naturally – there was no trace of it. Instead, I tracked it down on zenith.org here and I found – as I should have anticipated – that it was actually not a bad commentary on Francis’ words (and, no, it did not contain the offensive quote on “being aware of the Catholic Church” attributed to it on cnn.com). So, the facts of the matter are that the Vatican never issued any communication to “correct” Francis’ words and Fr. Rosica actually did a good job of commenting on the Pope’s words in my opinion (if you take care to read the whole text rather than pick phrases out of context – or even misquote them).

Like in so many cases before (did anyone say “Jesus’ wife”?), this incident was a display of journalistic ineptitude, carelessness and superficiality.

To conclude though I’d rather leave you on a positive note – a quote from Pope John Paul II’s address to the United Nations from 1995, which Fr. Rosica quoted in his explanatory note:

“Because of the radiant humanity of Christ, nothing genuinely human fails to touch the hearts of Christians. Faith in Christ does not impel us to intolerance. On the contrary, it obliges us to engage others in a respectful dialogue. Love of Christ does not distract us from interest in others, but rather invites us to responsibility for them, to the exclusion of no one and indeed, if anything, with a special concern for the weakest and the suffering. Thus, as we approach the two thousandth anniversary of the birth of Christ, the Church asks only to be able to propose respectfully this message of salvation, and to be able to promote, in charity and service, the solidarity of the entire human family.”

[UPDATE] I actually started writing this post several days ago and I was beginning to wonder whether it still made sense to publish it, since the events it speaks about took place two weeks ago. Surely the storm in a teacup would have died down since then and Francis’ words would be seen for what they were. Last night and then this morning I saw two articles that changed my mind though: first, one by the otherwise very cogent Fr. Alexander Lucie-Smith, who concluded his latest blog post with the following: “Heresy, and atheism, produce nothing beautiful. They can’t. They are stony barren fields.” and second, a post by the atheist Herb Silverman, whose take on the matter is that “Perhaps Pope Francis forgot to run this concession by the papal censors, because the following day the Vatican announced a do-over. The Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman, said that those who are aware of the Catholic Church “cannot be saved” if they “refuse to enter her or remain in her.” […] So Rev. Rosica is simply reiterating the traditional Catholic position that atheists can go to hell.” Sadly, this post still has currency, but I hope that you have found it to be of some interest.

¹ And those of you who are well versed in all matters Python, will also have spotted the direct reference to the “nurse” sketch, which is closely related to the present matter too.
² For previous coverage of how the Church relates to atheists, see the following posts.
³ Though he did translate for Lombardi during the last conclave, so the mixup could be excused – if the source were not supposed to be engaged in journalism.
⁴ What the Catechism actually says is this: “Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.” (§846) Knowing and necessary – two very strong words, on a very different end of the scale to being aware that the Catholic Church exists! In effect it means that if you act against your own certain conviction that being in the Catholic Church is necessary for salvation, you are choosing to reject it and it is your freedom that is being respected instead of you being excluded.

The church that can(not) change

A criticism frequently leveled at the Church is that it is set in its ways and that – unlike science – new inputs have no impact on its tenets. In a word, the Church comes across as static, in a world whose rate of change increases and that adapts and adjusts itself continuously. The end result is the appearance of mismatch and alienation, and Church representatives saying things like “These are the teachings of the church and they’re unchangeable truths.” does not help.

There is a very serious problem with statements like the above though and I am just saying so from the perspective of the Church itself, rather than as a criticism from outside. The problem is that such statements negate Jesus’ own words: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.” (John 16:12-13). They deny “inspiration” received from the Holy Spirit and consider the Church’s teaching to be an immutable monolith obtained in one go rather than the gradual understanding of its full revelation in the person of Jesus. In fact Pope Francis himself reminds us that “throughout the history of salvation, whenever God reveals himself, He brings newness — God always brings newness — and demands our complete trust” and then goes on to challenge us:

“Are we open to God’s surprises? Or are we closed and fearful before the newness of the Holy Spirit? Do we have the courage to strike out along the new paths which God’s newness sets before us, or do we resist, barricaded in transient structures which have lost their capacity for openness to what is new?”

This is not to say that everything is open to change, but to be very clear about change being a core feature of Christian faith and consequently of the Church’s teaching too.

“OK,” you say “but does the Church actually change what it teaches?” Instead of answering that with a categorical “yes” and a lot of handwaving, let me present the following, very specific, example that I came across by accident some time ago. It concerns the question of “mixed marriages,” which here refers to marriages between one Catholic and one Christian, but non-Catholic spouse.

Let’s first look at how such marriages were spoken of in 1893, in Pope Leo XIII’s Constanti Hungarorum encyclical:

“[T]o remove the source of many evils, it is of utmost importance that pastors never cease to admonish their flocks to refrain as far as possible from entering into mixed marriages. Let the faithful correctly understand and resolutely remember that it is their duty to regard with horror such marriages, which the Church has always detested. They are to be abhorred for the reason which we emphasized in another letter, “They offer the opportunity for a forbidden sharing and participation in sacred things; they create a danger to the religion of the Catholic partner; they are an impediment to the virtuous education of children and very often cause them to become accustomed to viewing all religions as equal because they have lost the power of discriminating between the true and the false.” (Pope Leo XIII, Arcanum)”

Uff … “source of many evils,” “regard with horror,” “the Church has always detested,” “to be abhorred,” “impediment to the virtuous education of children [… who lose] the power of discriminating between the true and the false.” Sounds nasty!

Scroll ahead 100 years and look at what the 1993 Catechism of the Catholic Church says on the exact same subject (§1633-1637):

“[Mixed marriage] requires particular attention on the part of couples and their pastors. […] Difference of confession between the spouses does not constitute an insurmountable obstacle for marriage, when they succeed in placing in common what they have received from their respective communities, and learn from each other the way in which each lives in fidelity to Christ. But the difficulties of mixed marriages must not be underestimated. They arise from the fact that the separation of Christians has not yet been overcome. The spouses risk experiencing the tragedy of Christian disunity even in the heart of their own home. […] Through ecumenical dialogue Christian communities in many regions have been able to put into effect a common pastoral practice for mixed marriages. Its task is to help such couples live out their particular situation in the light of faith, overcome the tensions between the couple’s obligations to each other and towards their ecclesial communities, and encourage the flowering of what is common to them in faith and respect for what separates them.”

Hmm … “learn from each other the way in which each lives in fidelity to Christ,” “tragedy of Christian disunity […] in the heart of their own home,” “encourage the flowering of what is common to [the couple] in faith and respect for what separates them.” From abhorrently horrific, conscience-distorting evil to a challenging miniature laboratory of ecumenism where “fidelity to Christ” mutually enriches spouses – all in the space of 100 years. Not bad …

Jesus laughed

In many ways I find the subject of today’s post among the most difficult to talk about as, to me, it is akin to asking whether Jesus looked people in the eye when he spoke to them (or whether he looked down at his feet instead). Neither is mentioned in the Bible, yet both seem equally self-evident to me. I have yet to meet a loving, kind, compassionate person whom I haven’t also seen and heard laughing. So why is it that I am even writing about this topic?

The most immediate reason is a message I received from my bestie ML a couple of days ago, in which he shares a frustration that I too have had for years: the tendency of some to make a science out of distinguishing between joy and “mere fun,” branding one as a deplorable, shallow waste of time while extolling the other as a good, clean, Christian virtue. The point here isn’t that no distinctions ought to be made between varieties of enjoyment (the joy of mutual love, of a joke shared among friends, of delighting in success not being consubstantial with sadism or schadenfreude), but that such an enterprise bears the great risk of draining the joy out of Christian life through a process of abstract analysis and categorization that leaves one dour and cold.

In fact, the above thoughts were triggered by one of Pope Francis’ homilies from last week, where he says:

“A Christian is a man and a woman of joy. Jesus teaches us this, the Church teaches us this, in a special way in this liturgical time. What is this joy? Is it having fun? No: it is not the same. Fun is good, eh? Having fun is good. But joy is more, it is something else. […] Fun, if we want to have fun all the time, in the end becomes shallow, superficial, and also leads us to that state where we lack Christian wisdom. […] Joy is another thing. Joy is a gift from God. It fills us from within. It is like an anointing of the Spirit. [… On the other hand, s]ometimes melancholy Christian faces have more in common with pickled peppers than the joy of having a beautiful life.”

Clearly Francis distinguishes between fun that becomes shallow and joy that “fills us from within,” but he also warns against the lifelessness that follows from an absence of joy and that this is not Christian.

Having read and re-read Francis’ sermon many times over the last days, I am coming to the conclusion that the distinction ought not to be between fun and joy but between fun that leads to or subsists in joy and fun that does not and that leads to resentment, frustration and disappointment. In fact, Francis himself says that “Having fun is good[, b]ut joy is more” and I believe that this leads to a reading not of dichotomy but of set relationships, where fun and joy overlap. I’d like to go a step further though and argue that if joy is sought on the back of avoiding fun then only the latter is likely to be be achieved. Fun is a context in which relationships are built and avoiding it or looking down on it will eventually cut a person off from their neighbors – precisely the neighbors Jesus asks me to love like myself.

If I just look at my best friends, I can say with confidence that the moments that have lead to the birth of friendship have been ones of fun and joy – of delighting in each other, of recognizing oneself in the other, of having fun being together. This is not all that friendship is and moments of difficulty and suffering certainly test and strengthen it, but ultimately, as John Paul II said: “We are an Easter people.” Being an “Easter people” means both understanding the fundamental value that suffering has and realizing that its embracing is not for its own sake but as a means that leads to the joy of the resurrection.

But where does the question about whether Jesus laughed fit into this picture? It comes precisely from concerns about fun: should it be discredited or seen as a potential contributor to love and joy. At least up until the middle ages, many viewed laughter with deep-seated suspicion, but there were also those, like Erasmus of Rotterdam, who wrote the “Morias Enkomion” (“In Praise of Folly”) to his friend, St. Thomas More, who were its proponents. I don’t mean to mount an extensive defense of Jesus’ having laughed here – it is not something I believe is necessary and if you are convinced he never laughed, then Billy Graham would tell you: “I feel sorry for [you], because a balanced sense of humor can save us from taking ourselves too seriously, and help us see through the pride and pretense of our sinful world.” If, however, you’d like to see such a defense of laughter, others have done so very well already and I’d just pick out two: first, there are the very interesting scriptural pointers by the Protestant Rev. Kuiper and second, the great defense of humour by the Jesuit Fr. Martin, both of which I very much recommend.

To conclude on a fun note, let me leave you with a couple of examples of humor and laughter from the bible and the sayings of the saints (who are always a great weather vane for orthopraxy):

St. Sarah (yes, “Old Testament” figures are held up as saints in the Catholic Church), who is the patron saint of laughter, laughed when God told her she’d get pregnant in her nineties: “God has given me cause to laugh, and all who hear of it will laugh with me.” (Genesis 21:6). Not only did Sarah laugh, but her son was named Isaac, which means “He laughed.”
Jesus, during the “Sermon on the Plain” says: “Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh.” (Luke 6:21).
Jesus often employs humor (which does not preclude him making important points at the same time) – e.g., as in the “eye of the needle” image: “[I]t is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24).
I have previously argued that the opening line of the Johannine prologue has the structure of a joke.
When St. Thomas More is about to be executed for disobeying Henry VIII, he pulls his beard off the chopping block and tells the executioner: “This hath not offended the king.”
In instructions to fellow nuns, St. Teresa of Ávila said: “What would happen if we hid what little sense of humor we had? Let each of us humbly use this to cheer others.”
When asked by a journalist “How many people work in the Vatican?,” Blessed Pope John XXIII replied: “About half.”

🙂

Atheists: adversaries, or brothers?

It is no secret that I have a great deal of respect for my atheist and agnostic friends and I feel like I have learned a lot from them about matters that are of profound value to me as a Christian. With Cardinal Ravasi I can also say that I too have absolutely no interest in converting them (or anyone else for that matter). At the same time I am aware of this attitude not having been the mainstream position of the Church for a long time (although there have always been those who have shared it – many of whom were saints) and that atheism is seen by some (many?) in the Church as a problem even today.

It is against this background that I was pleased to hear voices consonant with mine while reading two great books: On Heaven and Earth (by Cardinal Bergoglio – now Pope Francis – and Rabbi – and biophysicist! – Abraham Skorka, mentioned here before) and Colloqui (by Fr. Pasquale Foresi – one of the co-founders of the Focolare Movement).

Here Francis has the following to say:¹

“When I meet atheist persons, I share with them human questions […] which are such rich material for sharing and working on together that they can easily lead to mutual and complementary enrichment. As a believer I know these riches are a gift from God[, but] instead of proselytizing, I respect atheists and I present myself the way I am. I have nothing to hide and I would not say that their life is condemned, because I am convinced that I have no right to judge their honesty. […] We have to be coherent with the message we receive from the Bible: all men and women are made in the image of God, whether they are believers or not.”

Later in the book, this attitude is also reinforced by Rabbi Skorka, saying that “we are all joined by the links of brotherhood.” While the position is, to my mind, positive – we are all brothers and sisters irrespective of our beliefs and there are great riches to be shared with each other in openness, a point worth elaborating on are the positions that Pope Francis rejects here – i.e., proselytism and condemnation.

Why these are novelties in the Catholic Church is addressed in Fr. Foresi’s book, which I happened to read at the same time :). There he points to the great changes that have been confirmed by the Second Vatican Council, a key point of which was an increased emphasis on and respect for following one’s conscience.² Among others, this shift also legitimized pacifist positions held by prominent Christians during the last century’s World Wars. E.g., see the Catholic, Italian MP Igino Giordani – now in the process of being considered for sainthood, who championed a bill to allow for conscientious objectors to abstain from military service – incidentally in collaboration with atheist Communists (a great rarity during the first half of the 20th century).

It was on the back of this rediscovery of the importance of conscience that the honesty of atheist beliefs was contemplated and while the Church certainly has a position different from atheism, it stated clearly in the Gaudium et Spes constitution of the Second Vatican Council that,

“motivated by love for all men, [the Church] believes [that the] questions [raised by atheism] ought to be examined seriously and more profoundly. [… T]he Church sincerely professes that all men, believers and unbelievers alike, ought to work for the rightful betterment of this world in which all alike live; such an ideal cannot be realized, however, apart from sincere and prudent dialogue. Hence the Church protests against the distinction which some state authorities make between believers and unbelievers, with prejudice to the fundamental rights of the human person.” (Gaudium et Spes, 21)

Fr. Foresi explains that prior to Vatican II it was generally thought that “one couldn’t be an atheist in good faith, and that it was “impossible” for them to be saved.” This has all changed though, so that now there are not only individuals in the Church, who are keen to build relationships with their atheist friends, but it is the Church’s official teaching that the dignity of believers and non-believers alike be protected and valued.

And there is more. In his book, Fr. Foresi recounts how the Focolare Movement, founded by Chiara Lubich, has gone a step further and has done so with the Church’s formal approval. The Focolare Movement is an organization that promotes unity and universal brotherhood among all and even though it started in the Catholic Church during the Second World War, it also has members from other Christian churches and communities and from other religions. And it also counts agnostics or atheists among its members. While links with non-Catholics and atheists were at first informal, as the Focolare Movement was gaining official recognition by the Catholic Church, it also asked for its non-Catholic members to be officially recognized as such – a request eventually granted by the Vatican.

Why am I saying all this? Do I care so much about being “official”? No, not for its own sake, but I believe that it is an indication of how seriously these questions are taken by the Church and how it is not only its declared intention to be open to atheists but also something it approves formally.

¹ Since I have the original book in Spanish, the English text is my rough translation.
² For a more detailed discussion of this topic see a previous post.