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Civil disobedience

One of the most common charges against “religious” people in general and Catholics in particular is that they surrender the use of their critical faculties and follow orders from their leaders like sheep. In other words: they are no trouble, they won’t break rank and are all-round model citizens.

Today I’d like to argue that this is as far from the truth as possible, and I will take advantage of the Vatican’s foreign secretary, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti’s address to the United Nations from last Monday, which in many ways tracks Pope Benedict XVI’s speech at the German Bundestag, delivered last year.

He starts by acknowledging the dangers that follow from the “financial crisis, which is worsening some humanitarian and environmental emergencies, does not seem yet to be over, and may even herald new and dangerous conflicts” and that spreading “the rule of law by every means becomes a particularly urgent task for a just, equitable and effective world governance.” Then, he fully aligns himself with the UN’s insistence on: “the unbreakable link between the rule of law and respect for human rights, […] the judicial control of laws and of executive power, […] transparency in acts of governance and the existence of public opinion capable of expressing itself freely.” Mamberti’s key point comes next though:

“The rule of law is also put at risk when it is equated with a legalistic mentality, with a formal and uncritical adherence to laws and rules, in an attitude which can even paradoxically degenerate into a means of abusing human dignity and the rights of individuals, communities and states, as happened during the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. Furthermore, in the phrase “rule of law”, the concept “law” should be understood as “justice”.”

The first thing to note here is that it calls for critical thinking and, I believe, that, as far as they are rules, this warning also applies to Church teaching. Taking even the ‘rules’ that the Church presents to its members and applying them with a “legalistic mentality, with a formal and uncritical adherence” can lead to their perversion. The Church has very rightly emphasized a focus on deepening one’s relationship with Jesus during the upcoming Year of Faith, rather than talking about making oneself familiar with Church “rules.”

In case you think that this is just my own interpretation of Church teaching, as opposed to the official line, let me point to one of my favorite lines from the Catechism:

A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. (CCC, §1790)

In fact, this brings us back to Mamberti’s talk, where he affirms that justice is “proper and inalienable to the nature of every human being.” Bringing all of this together in fact puts a Catholic into a position of having to critically assess laws and being called both to strict adherence to those that are aligned with their conscience and to resistance against those that don’t. This is neither a position of blind obedience, nor one of disregard for the law, but a more complex, but far more personally and socially rewarding one, where discernment and prudence need to be exercised.

Let’s get back to Mamberti though and see what he has to say about justice:

“Man is not merely self-creating freedom. Man does not create himself. He is intellect and will, but he is also nature, and his will is rightly ordered if he respects his nature, listens to it and accepts himself for who he is, as one who did not create himself. In this way, and in no other, is true human freedom fulfilled, and it is only in this way that we can speak truly of the rule of law.”

The key here, to my mind, is that freedom is not arbitrary. You can’t just decide, with disregard for human nature and your conscience, what behavior to follow and expect that it will allow you to remain free.

Just to avoid giving the impression that this topic is in any way simple, Mamberti rightly recognizes that “[t]he question of how to recognize what is truly right and thus to serve justice when framing laws has never been simple, and today in view of the vast extent of our knowledge and our capacity, it has become still harder.” The more you know the more difficult certainty becomes, which echoes Socrates’ “The more I learn, the more I learn how little I know.” And, finally, he postulates a very clear link between a subversion of the law and the economic crisis that the world is in today:

“It is well known that, at the international level, there are interest groups present who, by means of formally legitimate procedures, are impacting on the policies of states in order to obtain multilateral norms which not only cannot serve the common good but which, under the guise of legitimacy, are in fact an abuse of norms and of international recommendations, as has been seen in the recent financial crisis.”

Even just the last 100 years have been addled with abuses of the law that were fully legal in the sense of not exhibiting procedural violations. It would be a mistake to think though that this is all in the past or that it only applies to regimes notorious for human rights abuses. Even in the “civilized West” there are attacks on the rights of peoples to express their desire for self-determination and on the practice of religious freedom. As St. Augustine said “Without justice – what else is the State but a great band of robbers?”

Serving the Church

I am starting from scratch after having written a lengthy post on this topic already and realizing – after talking to my besties YYM¹ and PM – that I was approaching the topic all wrong. I can still use all the research, but the tone had to change from the playful and partly sarcastic to what I am going to try next.

I feel that my being married, working at a tech company and being a lay person allows me to seek God without limits, to fully participate in the life of the Church and to have the path to sanctity wide open to me. At the same time I realize though that some of my Catholic sisters suffer from feeling the call to the priesthood and being faced with (a now final) barrier to it:

“I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.” (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, §4)

At first sight (and maybe even after repeated reading) this might sound like an aspect of Church teaching that is simply out of date, that needs to catch up with the times and that can be summed up with the following:

“[T]here is an urgent need to achieve real equality in every area: equal pay for equal work, protection for working mothers, fairness in career advancements, equality of spouses with regard to family rights and the recognition of everything that is part of the rights and duties of citizens in a democratic State.” (Letter to Women, §4)

Now, maybe this will come as a surprise, but the author of both of the above quotes is the same person: Blessed Pope John Paul II, and you may ask yourself how he can at the same time talk about women’s rights and slam the door shut on the question of women priests. I believe the answer lies in the following (and, yes, it too is by John Paul II):

“If Christ […] entrusted only to men the task of being an “icon” of his countenance as “shepherd” and “bridegroom” of the Church through the exercise of the ministerial priesthood, this in no way detracts from the role of women, or for that matter from the role of the other members of the Church who are not ordained to the sacred ministry, since all share equally in the dignity proper to the “common priesthood” based on Baptism.” (Letter to Women, §11)

When I first saw this, a light went on in my mind after I read the words “an “icon” of his countenance.” Priests are Jesus’ proxies and transmit to us his presence in the Church and his being the source of the sacraments. When I attend mass, I experience a man saying the words that bring about the Eucharist, like I would have, had I been at the Last Supper; when I go to confession, I speak to a man, as I would have, had I been among Jesus’ disciples. Jesus having come into the world as a man rather than a woman is not an accident, nor is it a consequence of social conventions. I believe, that God became flesh as a baby boy, to use the male gender in a specific way, just like he sought consent from a girl to become His mother, again because of the specifics of the female gender. To read this as in any way discriminatory against women is incomprehensible to my mind, but I’ll leave that to another post.

Let me now put my last card on the table with regard to the priesthood. God’s call is ultimately the same for all of us: to choose Him as the first priority in our lives and to follow his new commandment of love. Placing something above a love for one’s neighbor and for God is a mistake, even if that something is the priesthood. If love for God and neighbor are missing, the priesthood becomes a millstone (“The road to hell is paved with the skulls of erring priests, with bishops as their signposts.” St. John Chrysostom) and if they are present, then it becomes secondary and one seeks specifics with humility. To come at the argument from a perspective of rights is also a category mistake. No one has the right to be made a priest, whether man or woman, and it is in all cases a gift that is received rather than an entitlement that can be claimed.

For now, let it suffice that my argument is this: the priesthood is only open to men, because Jesus was a man and because he indicated to us from the very beginning that it was through men that he wanted certain aspects of his ministry to be perpetuated. In this way, his ministers’ being male is integral to their being Jesus’ proxies and no matter what social or other developments ensue, the priesthood in the Catholic Church is going to remain restricted to them.

This is not the end of the story though, since we are ultimately all being called to be Jesus’ proxies: to be the means by which He can show His love to all. As a married, lay person I don’t feel in any way limited in the extent to which I can strive to imitate Jesus’ love for humanity, even if I don’t become a priest. But, and there is a but, there is a variety of other ways in which Jesus can be imitated and and in which Catholics can serve the Church (which is fundamentally also what the priesthood is about: service). Two of these, which today are not open to women, are the diaconate and the office of cardinal, and I would like to argue that they may both one day (hopefully soon) be conferred on women.

Bishop Emil Wcela has just published a very interesting article (that I recommend in full), entitled “Why not women?” It starts where the final word on women priests in the Catholic Church ends: by making a case for exploring the possibility of ordaining women as deacons. Wcela presents a compelling case, starting with evidence for deaconesses dating back right to the time of the apostles (giving the example of St. Phoebe, whom St. Paul calls a diakonos in his letter to the Romans (16:1) – although the meaning of the term is disputed) and dotted through the history of the church (including Pope Benedict VIII writing to the bishop of Porto to give him authority to ordain deaconesses). He the proceeds to give the example of deaconesses in other Christian churches, but is also clear about the fact that this is not the case in the Catholic Church at present.

Nonetheless, there has been a desire to explore its possibility since the Second Vatican Council, including a raising of the issue by the US bishops in a pastoral letter from 1992. 2009 then saw an important change to Canon law, which differentiates between the nature of the priestly and episcopal order and that of deacons, stating that bishops and priests “receive the mission and capacity to act in the person of Christ the Head; deacons, however, are empowered to serve the People of God in the ministries of the liturgy, the word and charity.” (Canon 1009 of the Code of Canon Law). This change removes the constraints that previous legislation placed on the diaconate and historical precedent further supports a future change in this area. Bishop Wcela finally notes that women already participate extensively in the Church’s ministry and that ordaining them as deacons would provide greater official recognition, confer the grace of the sacrament on them and give them access to ecclesiastical offices that require ordination. The article ends with a call to raising awareness of this opportunity and I would personally like to add my voice to it.

On a related note, Cardinal Timothy Dolan stated in an interview last March, that the office of cardinal is in principle open to women, since it does not require priestly or episcopal orders. He then proceeded to tell the story of how someone once suggested to Pope John Paul II to make Mother Teresa a cardinal, to which he replied: “I asked her – she doesn’t want to be one.” While the John Paul II – Mother Teresa story may be little more than an anecdote, it nonetheless expresses both the Church’s newfound openness and Mother Teresa’s humility beautifully. What is key here is the acknowledgement by one of the cardinals that his office is in principle not restricted to women.

I hope it is clear what I am getting at: the role of women in the Church is certainly not what it ought to be, but I see clear signs of a desire to change that, including at the highest levels. What it won’t be is an opening of the priesthood to women, but the diaconate and the office of cardinal are both on the horizon (hopefully even in my own lifetime). One point I would like to emphasize though is that the role of women in the Church needs to be all-pervasive and not only constrained to “women’s issues.” When one of the 23 women present at the Second Vatican Council – one of the Council Mothers – was asked what topics were discussed that related to women, she responded “We are now interested in everything.” As Fr. Fabio Ciardi, who was taught by Rosemary Goldie (another Council Mother) during his time at the Lateran University, said: “The temptation is to constrain women in the Church to dealing with topics that are about women, not knowing that all topics are about them and that they have a contribution to make to all of them.”

¹ Thanks to YYM also for giving me probably the most acceptable label: “progressive orthodox.” It may sound like an oxymoron, but I shall wear it with pride :).

A man the color of a sapphire

Tomorrow is the feast day of St. Hildegard of Bingen, a great 12th century German mystic who was a Benedictine Abbess, poet and composer and all round intellectual (having contributed not only to theology but also to medicine and science as well). Even though she has been venerated as a saint for centuries, she has only been formally canonized last May by Pope Benedict XVI, who also spoke about her in several of his sermons. There he emphasized her as a role model for spiritual leadership, since “she inspired holy emulation in the practice of good to such an extent that, as time was to tell, both the mother and her daughters competed in mutual esteem and in serving each other.”

Also with regard to her mystic visions he praised here humility, which at first made her doubt them and only when they received approval first from St. Bernard of Clairvaux and later from Pope Eugene III did she share them with her followers and the public. “The person endowed with supernatural gifts never boasts of them, never flaunts them and, above all, shows complete obedience to the ecclesial authority.” As far as she herself was concerned, this is how she described her visions:

“The vision fascinates my whole being: I do not see with the eyes of the body but it appears to me in the spirit of the mysteries…. I recognize the deep meaning of what is expounded on in the Psalter, in the Gospels and in other books, which have been shown to me in the vision. This vision burns like a flame in my breast and in my soul and teaches me to understand the text profoundly” (Epistolarium pars prima I-XC: CCCM 91).

From among her extensive visions that touched on virtually all aspects of Christianity, I would just like to pick out her vision of the Trinity, which struck me as particularly beautiful:

“Then I saw a bright light, and in this light the figure of a man the color of sapphire, which was all blazing with a gentle glowing fire. And that bright light bathed the whole of the glowing fire, and the glowing fire bathed the bright light; and the bright light and the glowing fire poured over the whole human figure, so that the three were one light in one power of potential.” (Scivias 2.2, quoted in Anne Hunt’s The Trinity: Insights from the Mystics, pp. 38).

In fact, the image at the top of the post is a representation of this vision from an early illuminated printed version. St. Hildegard explains this vision as follows:

“You see a bright light, which without any flaw of illusion, deficiency or deception designates the Father; and in this light the figure of a man the color of a sapphire, which without any flaw of obstinacy, envy or iniquity designates the Son, Who was begotten of the Father in Divinity before time began, and then within time was incarnate in the world in Humanity; which is all blazing with a gentle glowing fire, which fire without any flaw of aridity, mortality or darkness designates the Holy Spirit, by Whom the Only-Begotten of God was conceived in the flesh and born of the Virgin within time and poured the true light into the world.” (Scivias, 2.2.2, quoted in ibid).

What I find very attractive about St. Hildegard is the visual and allegorical nature of her mystical experiences (which she is careful to describe as spiritual rather than ocular) and their subtle beauty that is particularly clear in the above example.

Continuity in the present

Since the start of this blog, I have noticed another theme emerging, in addition to the one about saints and the related roles of orthopraxy–orthodoxy and dissent. Namely, the question of traditionalist versus liberal Catholicism and more generally the concept of neatly-packaged, pre-cooked labels or categories. Looking at my 56 posts so far, I note a greater propensity for opposing those who self-apply the traditionalist name, which leads me to today’s question: am I a liberal or a traditionalist, on the left or the right of the Catholic spectrum, a dissenter or a wholehearted follower of Catholic teaching?

I find this question quite challenging as I don’t come to an easy answer when I ask myself: “Who would you rather spend an hour with in a stuck lift – someone who calls themselves a traditionalist or a liberal?” Indulge me therefore during the next two paragraphs, while I share with you my thoughts on two imperfect and incomplete stereotypes.

What I value in traditionalists is their dedication to continuity: what the Church has understood throughout its history and as a result of the Holy Spirit’s acting in and among the people of God, is to be treasured and must be built on. The heritage of the Church – including its saints, liturgy, practices and dogmatic teaching – throughout its 2000 year history is a precious gift to us, members of the Church Militant today. After all, the starting point of tradition and its continuity is Jesus himself and the value of preserving it is unquestionable. We can only be Christians if we follow Jesus’ teaching and example, handed down to us by tradition. Just picking up the Gospel today and trying to apply it without the benefit of our predecessors’ insights and lived experiences would greatly impoverish it or even falsify it. Where I part ways with traditionalists though is on the point of whether what tradition teaches is immutable or open to adaptation. My impression here is that traditionalists tend to fall into the trap of considering the past homogeneous (i.e., “this is what the Church has always taught”) and implicitly that it was in a perfect state typically at some date before their birth, e.g., see the Society of Saint Pope Pius X. Incidentally, note that Pope Pius X has introduced numerous changes versus the tradition that has preceded him, such as allowing children to receive the Eucharist instead of them having to wait until adulthood. The result often is a distancing from neighbours whom Jesus called us to love.

Liberals, on the other hand attract me for their desire to bring Jesus to today’s men and women, who live in a culture other than that of the traditionalists. The role and rights of women, the participation of divorcees and homosexuals in the life of the church, the role of the laity, an openness to other Christian denominations, religions and society at large and the broad question of how those who do not live in complete accord with Church teaching (which liberals often see as covering everyone) are to participate in Her life are all of great relevance to me. What does distance me from them though is a seemingly great ease of slipping into dissent – a lack of humility that places their own views above those of the Church and that gives preference to interfacing with contemporary trends and challenges over ensuring that one’s actions and views are those that Jesus would have done or thought today. Then there also seems to be an element of pride and personal importance that doesn’t gel with the beatitudes.

So, what is the right answer, as neither traditionalism nor liberalism look like the way forward in their reductio ad absurdum. I believe that the answer is to develop a personal relationship with Jesus, by seeking and loving Him in the people I meet – regardless of their views, actions or allegiances, by encountering him in the Eucharist, the Gospel and the teachings of the Church and by listening to His voice as made accessible to me via my own, imperfect conscience. Whether the result will look like traditionalism or liberalism or whether it will be foreign to both is irrelevant, and, I believe will also lead to solutions that neither extreme school of thought would arrive at by its own means. What Pope Benedict XVI said about ecumenism – that “the most important thing is that we listen to each other, since as fellow Christians we cannot create unity, which is a gift from God.” – is a template that can be applied more broadly.

I’m with Müller: Ecumenism

After addressing criticisms directed at Archbishop Müller¹ in terms of his statements about the Eucharist and about this virginity of Mary, let me now turn to the last of the three topics that most irked ‘traditional Catholics’ when he was named head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (the Vatican’s orthodoxy watchdog, enforcer and promoter). Before looking at the evidence, let me start off with putting my cards on the table: I am deeply committed to ecumenism, inter–religious dialogue and dialogue with those of no religious convictions. I believe God made us all and wants to have a personal relationship with us all – then who am I to pick and choose who to try and relate to! What I do value as well though, and here I can intuit some of the feelings of ‘traditionalists,’ is the truth and a jealous preservation of Jesus’ message – a message though that is not dead, fixed, static, but alive and active in the here and now, in our continuing relationship with Him.

Before we proceed, let me just share a word of caution – what follows is fairly technical and, if you are not that way inclined, you may do better to skip this post, or just take a look at the last paragraph. With that caveat out of the way, let’s look at what Archbishop Müller said that angered his critics:²

“[C]hristians, who are not in full communion with regards to the teaching, means of salvation and apostolic–episcopal constitution of the Catholic Church, are also justified by faith and baptism and fully members of the Church of God, as the body of Christ. In this way we are brothers and sisters among ourselves and really belong to the ‘whole Christ, head and body, one Christ’ (see Unitatis Redintegratio, 3))” and
“Baptism is the fundamental sign that sacramentally unites us in Christ and that makes us visible as one Church in front of the world. We, as Catholic and Evangelical Christians, are also already united in this, that we call the visible Church. There are therefore – to be precise – not multiple Churches alongside one another, but we are dealing with divisions and splits within the one people of the House of God: Credo unam ecclesiam … confiteor unum baptisma [I believe in one Church … I confess one Baptism].”

Both were quoted here and come from a speech he gave when Dr. Johannes Friedrich, regional bishop of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Bavaria, was presented the ecumenical award of the Catholic Academy of Bavaria. Note though that the above includes an additional sentence in both cases versus the English article and even though it does not change what the critics attack, it will allow me to more clearly present my defense of Archbishop Müller’s views (if his critics are allowed to pick two sentences from a lengthy speech, then surely I am allowed four :).

Before going into what the above means, let me just start by showing how this is very much what the Church teaches, rather than some deviation introduced by Müller. In fact, if we follow up the hint he himself makes at Unitatis Redintegratio – the ‘Decree on Ecumenism’ of the Second Vatican Council, we’ll find the following:

“[A]ll who have been justified by faith in Baptism are members of Christ’s body, and have a right to be called Christian, and so are correctly accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church.” and
“Moreover, some and even very many of the significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, and visible elements too. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ.”

If anything, Archbishop Müller could be more effectively accused of plagiarizing Vatican II documents, but in his line of work that is not a bad thing. On the face of it, it might seem difficult to see why ‘traditionalists’ got so het up about these words of the Archbishop, but – extending the Principle of Charity to their words too, quickly leads to the Dominus Iesus declaration of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), written by Cardinal Ratzinger in 2000 when he was its head. This declaration, which at the time caused a lot of hurt to Evangelical and Anglican Christians (and should have been much better handled by the CDF), spoke about what a Church is and who are to be considered Churches versus other entities. The following are a couple of excerpts that would give you a sense of the declaration’s gist (all from section 17):

“[T]here exists a single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him.”
“[E]cclesial communities which have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery, are not Churches in the proper sense; however, those who are baptized in these communities are, by Baptism, incorporated in Christ and thus are in a certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church.”
“The Christian faithful are therefore not permitted to imagine that the Church of Christ is nothing more than a collection — divided, yet in some way one — of Churches and ecclesial communities; nor are they free to hold that today the Church of Christ nowhere really exists, and must be considered only as a goal which all Churches and ecclesial communities must strive to reach”

While it does seem from the above that the traditionalists do have a leg to stand on, the declaration is definitely among the more technical and complex Vatican documents I have read and it is in fact Müller himself who offers the following explanation in the same speech – his point being that the term ‘Church’ is used in a very specific, legal sense in Dominus Iesus:³

“The assertion that the Ecclesial Communities that have not upheld valid episcopacy … are not Churches (plural) in a proper sense is not translated theologically correctly by the bold statement that ‘the Evangelical Church is not actually a Church’. That is because the plural designates the Churches as local Churches with a bishop. The question here is not whether the confessional Churches of reformed character are actual Churches — it is rather whether sacramental episcopacy is a constitutive element of a local Church or of a diocese. The difference between an Evangelical local Church and a Catholic diocese is being described – not evaluated. The Catholic Magisterium is far from denying an ecclesial character or an ecclesial existence to ‘the separated Churches and ecclesial Communities of the West’ (Unitatis Redintegratio, 19).”

So, what does all of this boil down to? I believe that it depends on how you view the scandalous divisions among Christians today. I understand that ‘traditionalists’ are protective of Catholic teaching and that there may be different takes on and interpretations of the key Catholic texts regarding ecumenism. I also read Pope Benedict’s declaration as a call to being precise – to not calling the current situation something that it is not (yet). But, I do feel a misplaced us-versus-them attitude in ‘traditionalist’ statements and very much stand by Müller’s ‘us’-only take on things (which nonetheless does not lack precision). An ‘us’ that is painfully and unacceptably divided, but an ‘us’ nonetheless.

¹ Note that in the meantime there are others, who have come to his defense too.

² The English translations, as reproduced in the source I refer to above were actually the following:
“Also the Christians that are not in full community with the Catholic Church regarding teaching, means of salvation and the apostolic episcopacy, are justified by faith and baptism and they are fully incorporated/ integrated into Church of God, being the Body of Christ.” and “Baptism is the fundamental sign that sacramentally unites us in Christ, and which presents us as the one Church in front of the world. Thus, we as Catholic and Evangelical Christians are already united even in what we call the visible Church.” Since the original German (contained in the full text of the speech here) was the following, the English above is my own translation: “Denn auch die Christen, die nicht in voller Gemeinschaft der Lehre, der Heilsmittel und der apostolisch-bischöflichen Verfassung mit der katholischen Kirche stehen, sind durch Glaube und die Taufe gerechtfertigt und in die Kirche Gottes als Leib Christi voll eingegliedert. So sind wir untereinander Brüder und Schwestern und gehören wirklich zum „ganzen Christus, Haupt und Leib, ein Christus“ (vgl. UR 3).” [this includes the additional sentence I refer to above] and “Die Taufe ist das grundlegende Zeichen, das uns sakramental in Christus eint und vor der Welt als die eine Kirche sichtbar macht. Wir sind als katholische und evangelische Christen also auch in dem schon vereint, was wir die sichtbare Kirche nennen. Es gibt daher – genau genommen – nicht mehrere Kirchen nebeneinander, sondern es handelt sich um Trennungen und Spaltungen innerhalb des einen Volkes und Hauses Gottes: Credo unam ecclesiam … confiteor unum baptisma.” [again with an additional sentence included versus the original English source].

³ Note the irony of this also being Müller’s choice of episcopal motto :).

A golden mouth against corruption

Q: Which saint had (at least) four skulls?¹
A: John Chrysostom – just ask a Russian, a Greek and two Italian churches who all claim to have it. 🙂

St. John Chrysostom, whose feast day it is tomorrow, is actually one of my favorite saints and I’m sure he won’t hold this joke against me. He is one of those saints – like Saint Pope Gregory the Great, whose thought had a wide-reaching influence on the Church during their lifetime and, even more impressively, still continues to have today (just note the 18 sections of the 1992 Catechism that cite him).

St. John’s epithet, Χρυσόστομος (Chrysostom) means “golden mouthed,” and if you start reading his many homilies and treatises you will soon appreciate his obvious rhetorical gift. The Church is fortunate to have had him on her side and to have had Jesus’ teaching so clearly, elegantly and effectively applied to his day. Take a look at the following quote on poverty and Church property (which applies today just as it did in the 4th century AD) and I hope you will agree with me:

“Do you wish to honour the body of Christ? Do not ignore him when he is naked. Do not pay him homage in the temple clad in silk, only then to neglect him outside where he is cold and ill-clad. He who said: “This is my body” is the same who said: “You saw me hungry and you gave me no food”, and “Whatever you did to the least of my brothers you did also to me”… What good is it if the Eucharistic table is overloaded with golden chalices when your brother is dying of hunger? Start by satisfying his hunger and then with what is left you may adorn the altar as well.”

(Evangelium S. Matthaei, hom 50:3-4; Cited by Blessed Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, footnote 34.)

¹ Multi-skulled saints cannot be mentioned without telling a joke by an Irish relative of mine:

A rogue relic dealer kept selling skulls, claiming to be St. Oliver Plunkett’s, until one day a customer said to them: “This can’t be St. Oliver’s skull. I am a doctor and can tell you that this is the skull of a child and St. Oliver died in his fifties!” The dealer, thinking on their feet, retorted: “Well, of course it is a child’s skull. It is St. Oliver’s skull when he was a child!” 🙂

Beauty, ugliness and art

Michel pochet

“Ugliness will redeemed us” was certainly among the most provocative and profound insights shared at a conference of Christian academics and artists that I attended some 12 years ago in Rome. This statement, by the French painter Michel Pochet, was made very much in earnest and at a moment of reflection on a sacred text that spoke about Jesus’ suffering on the cross and his cry of abandonment before his death (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mathew 27:45). It certainly was not a frivolous, Oscar Wilde-esque quip, yet the reaction to it was one of disbelief, shock and immediate, widespread opposition. A very prominent Italian sculptress asked to be given the floor and launched into what was effectively a plea for reason to return: “How can you say that ugliness will redeem us? God is beauty and it will be by beauty that salvation will be delivered!” Personally, I was very much attracted to Pochet’s words and equally disappointed by the immediate opposition they received. Thankfully, the conference chair swiftly rebuked Pochet’s critic, with something along the following lines: He said that the sculptress’ words were not in the spirit of charity, reminded her that we must believe in the good intentions of others and that if their views differ from ours, we must try to understand why they are different. In the end what she said was true but so was that which she criticized, in its own context. The most impressive thing to my mind was not only Pochet’s insight, but also that this group of distinguished academics and artists was both capable of open disagreement and of accepting a rebuke that in many contexts would have lead to offense.

But, let us return to Pochet’s insight, which has immediately attracted me, for which I could see good reason, but which I never had the opportunity to know more about, until I read the transcript of a talk (in Italian) that he gave at an event in 2006. There he talks about his experience of returning to painting after many years and being in post-war Croatia with some friends. Materials were scarce and when his friends realized that he was painting again, they were looking for supplies for him. One day he was given a piece of canvas that was badly marked, torn, discolored and generally not in a fit state to be used as the basis for a painting. Since it was offered to him out of love by his friends, he could not refuse it. Examining the canvas, the thought came to him to paint a portrait of Jesus in his abandonment on the cross, since there he too suffered from the damage that this canvas presented.

Upon completing the painting (shown at the top of this post), Pochet realized that what he did was not so much a portrait of the abandoned Jesus but of the risen one, bearing the marks of his crucifixion and suffering. Looking at his own work, Pochet understood that this dual portrait of the suffering and risen Jesus provides an insight into what beauty is. He realized that Jesus, being God, is also perfect beauty and that his person is substitutable with that of Beauty in the Gospel:¹

“[Beauty] seems dead, buried under the rock of ugliness. But on the third day the tomb is empty. Someone tells us that she is risen and that she waits for us. She walks with us, talks to us. My heart burns in my chest. It is getting late. We ask her to stay for supper, but our eyes open in the moment she disappears. Risen Beauty does not appear again: she disappears, hides in the anonymity of whomever, in the banal, the everyday. […]

Beauty is at the lake’s shore, unrecognizable. A pure eye intuits her and opens our eyes. We dive into the water and Beauty nurtures our mind and our senses, with bread baked on a hot stone. Beauty climbs a mountain with us, is lifted up high before our eyes and a cloud removes her out of sight.

And while we are staring at the heavens as she leaves: “Why are you looking at the sky? This Beauty, which has been among you and has been taken up to heaven, will return one day in the same way in which you have seen her leave.” And we, along the ways of the world, remember her words of farewell: I am with you all the days, until the end of the present age. […]

[T]he death of Beauty, “ugliness” – if we want to call it that, [is] assumed by God, divinized, in the risen Jesus.”

This fits perfectly with the intuition I had when first hearing him speak about ugliness, although the profound insight that Jesus’ life can be applied to Beauty, to gain a deeper understanding of it, is an impressive bonus! Beauty, understood through the optics of Jesus, is not superficial, ‘kitsch’ or only concerned with aesthetics, but one that goes to the heart of what it is to be human. It embraces the ugliness of suffering and uses it to arrive at love and joy.

What Pope Benedict XVI has to say on the subject is very much related. E.g., when talking about Michelangelo‘s “The Last Judgement” fresco in the Sistine Chapel, he says that it “issues a strong prophetic cry against evil, against every form of injustice” and goes on the exult beauty as follows:

“[T]he experience of beauty, beauty that is authentic, not merely transient or artificial, is by no means a supplementary or secondary factor in our search for meaning and happiness; the experience of beauty does not remove us from reality, on the contrary, it leads to a direct encounter with the daily reality of our lives, liberating it from darkness, transfiguring it, making it radiant and beautiful.

Indeed, an essential function of genuine beauty, as emphasized by Plato, is that it gives man a healthy “shock”, it draws him out of himself, wrenches him away from resignation and from being content with the humdrum — it even makes him suffer, piercing him like a dart, but in so doing it “reawakens” him, opening afresh the eyes of his heart and mind, giving him wings, carrying him aloft.”

He then quotes Simone Weil, saying: “In all that awakens within us the pure and authentic sentiment of beauty, there, truly, is the presence of God. There is a kind of incarnation of God in the world, of which beauty is the sign. Beauty is the experimental proof that incarnation is possible. For this reason all art of the first order is, by its nature, religious.”

I hope that you won’t see this as an attempted land-grab for all art in the name of religion. Instead, I believe, it is an acknowledgement of art expressing a fundamental attribute of God, which believers can seek regardless of whether the artist intended it, agrees with it or believes in it. With the profound understanding of beauty (including a “risen” ugliness) that both Pope Benedict XVI and Michel Pochet talk about, we can further seek to recognize the presence of beauty also in art (and life!) that at first sight appears ugly.

¹ Apologies for this unpolished translation – it is mine and was done in a hurry :$

Catholics in a water park

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hawaii Hawaii2

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

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

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

God bless you!

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

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

Martini: backstabber or faithful son?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Servant of servants

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

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

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