#268: Benedict Goes Outside the Box

Pope John-Paul II famously rejected "liberation theology," and in the process undermined the radically progressive social teachings of his predecessor, Paul VI.  Ironically, the "conservative" Benedict XVI personally took up the challenge of reviving Paul's social vision--thus proving that his resignation was not the first time Benedict defied expectations. Here (from 2009) is my last retro-piece before Benedict leaves tomorrow:

 

After more than 35 turbulent years working in the Catholic Church, I often wonder "Why work here?"

Benedict XVI’s new social encyclical “Caritas in Veritate” ("Charity in Truth") confirms my habitual answer, reminding me of a simple but unheralded fact: few institutions can match the world vision of the Roman Catholic Church (despite all the Church’s flaws).  It's a vision that offers a depth, balance, and wisdom far beyond any corporation, university, or political party I know -- especially because it consistently goes "outside the box" of conventional ideologies. 

A Surprise From The Pope. Benedict largely confirms and updates previous Catholic social teachings, without breaking dramatic new ground.  But he does so in a way that greatly surprised me. 

After all, Joseph Ratzinger abandoned his "progressive” identity 40 years ago, becoming first a champion among theological "conservatives," then serving as "Vatican watchdog," and finally succeeding his conservative mentor John-Paul II as pope.  Yet he centers his first social encyclical on the very document that many regard as the most progressive, even radical, of all papal pronouncements: Paul VI’s “Populorum Progressio” (“The Progress of Peoples,” 1967). 

Conservatives have long labeled “Populorum Progressio” an "odd duck" among papal writings, and even social progressives like Father Andrew Greeley found it uncomfortably close to left-wing radicalism.  Many believed that the subsequent political turmoil of 1968 -- the same turmoil that scared Ratzinger off his progressive agenda -- proved that Paul VI was a naive romantic. 

Yet here is Benedict, writing to assess the 40 years since “Populorum Progressio,” and finding it is not only still relevant but even vital for understanding the challenges of our day. 

Modern Catholic social doctrine has been largely shaped by papal encyclicals, beginning with Leo XIII’s "Rerum Novarum" ("Of New Things," 1891) and continuing with major contributions by Pius XI, John XXIII, Paul VI, and John-Paul II. 

Rerum Novarum launched this modern era in Catholicism's worldview by focusing the Church's attention on "the social question." This phrase, a household word among thinkers and leaders between 1870 and 1914, questioned the circumstances in which Europe’s newly-emerged working classes were laboring and living.  Those raising "the social question" -- including Pope Leo XIII -- wondered why the emergence of competitive market societies (modern capitalism) had not produced the "liberty, equality, fraternity" expected of modern democracies.  With Rerum Novarum, the Catholic Church joined forces with those who believed that social reforms and political intervention might be required to correct the injustices of "unbridled capitalism."

Paul VI: Prophet of Globalization.  Papal encyclicals after 1891 amplified or updated Rerum Novarum, but in 1967 Paul VI attempted a more ambitious project: Totally re-framing the social question in light of the new global era emerging in the 1960s due to decolonization, air transportation, mass media, and multinational corporations.

 While American politics was still obsessing over tensions between capitalist West and communist East, Pope Paul was already focused on relations between the rich North and the poor South, and he re-set the social question on a new basis: development.  "Development," he famously said, "is the new name for peace."

Paul did not use the term "globalization," but his vision of an emerging new world order scared off many readers, so that Populorum Progressio has languished in a neglected state, even as globalization itself has blossomed into a dominant force in our social, political, and economic lives.

Benedict's surprise move is to refocus attention squarely on Populorum Progressio, even calling it "the Rerum Novarum of our time." In effect, this Pope, writing in the enormous wake of John-Paul II, has ironically cast himself as the champion of Paul VI’s world vision.  Indeed, the simplest way to grasp the gist of Caritas in Veritate’s 144 pages is to understand that Benedict wants to accomplish two things: (1) he wants to affirm the vision and message of Populorum Progressio, and (2) he wants to update that vision to preserve its relevance. 

The Vision of Paul VI.  Benedict's full title is "On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth." Here he adopts Paul VI’s notion that our era's principle challenge is to achieve, not just any development, but the kind of development that will fulfill humanity's true calling and destiny. 

For Benedict, this Integral Human Development (“IHD”) cannot be achieved by mere technological progress; it must also incorporate a special kind of love -- "charity in truth" -- that goes beyond sentimentality to achieve real fraternity rooted in our true nature as God's chosen ambassadors. 

Following the lead of both Vatican II and Paul VI, Benedict sees our time facing one principal risk: that the globalized world’s de facto interdependence will not be matched by the moral dynamics needed for "truly human development."

That's why, for Benedict, Populorum Progressio remains a landmark in Catholic social doctrine.  It was Paul VI who saw that "the social question had become worldwide," and who proclaimed that the Church's life must aim to promote IHD.  Indeed, he taught that development is the heart of the Christian social message, and that Christian charity is a principal force in promoting IHD worldwide. 

For ordinary Catholics, the implications are profound.  We cannot be truly Catholic without embracing the Christian social message -- and we cannot do that without committing ourselves to development.  The rest of Caritas in Veritate simply spells out what that means. 

The Church’s Goal: Global Fraternity. But first Benedict invokes one more of Paul VI’s ideas.  If the world lacked true development in 1967-- and if IHD is even more lacking 40 years later-- the main causes are not material (lack of money, resources, institutions, or legislation).  The main causes are lack of wisdom and a lack of brotherhood. In calling for social reforms aimed at "the establishment of authentic fraternity," Benedict offers this comment as the keystone of his entire encyclical:

As society becomes more globalized, it makes us neighbors but does not make as brothers.

Benedict then devotes a chapter to surveying the changes since Populorum Progressio -- the shifts in economic, political, and social life that require updating Paul VI’s account of IHD. 

He deplores that 40 years of expanding global wealth have not reduced what Paul VI called "the scandal of glaring inequalities."

He notes that national governments no longer control commerce in an age of mobile capital, production, and labor.

He warns that globalization threatens to downsize the social safety nets for needy people. 

He admits that trade unions face new difficulties in outsourcing and unemployment. 

He fears that the commercialization of world culture threatens to extremes: a parallelism where different cultures share no dialogue, and a leveling where cultures lose all their traditional identity. 

Benedict finds hunger, respect for life, and religious freedom all struggling to progress, and laments that scientific knowledge and ethical wisdom do not collaborate better. 

In sum, Benedict says all these new elements "require new solutions" -- solutions that will redistribute global wealth, prioritize full employment, protect workers' rights, and create more humane living for all.  Without such solutions, he warns, globalization could "cause unprecedented damage and create new divisions within the human family."

In restoring Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio to prominence, Benedict has gone outside the box of both his own conservative reputation and of conventional interpretations of Catholic Social Doctrine. On top of that, his proposed “new solutions” will go outside the box of conventional American politics.

              © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2009

#211: Our German Shepherd

Here is the third and last reprise of my coverage of Benedict XVI's US visit in 2008:

In one fell swoop, Benedict XVI has gone from bad press to terrific PR. As the Associated Press reported, “Pope Benedict XVI's U.S. visit left behind the impression of a compassionate and candid leader who has made a successful transition from professor to pope.”

After three years of mainly negative reports (CrossCurrents readers will note I’ve argued such reports were mostly undeserved), the Pope used massive media coverage to great advantage.

"Basically, he seems like a nice guy," National Catholic Reporter’s John Allen said, "which already is an advance over what some of his publicity was three years ago when he was elected."

The element of surprise served Benedict's extremely well during his US visit. 

Catholics who doubted the Vatican would ever appreciate how grievously wounded the sex abuse scandal had left American Catholicism were stunned but also pleased to learn of the Pope's unprecedented face-to-face meeting with five victims from the Archdiocese of Boston.

No one had predicted the scandal would occupy pride of place in so many of the Pope’s messages, yet by the time he’d mentioned it to bishops, worshippers at Nationals Stadium, and those gathered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and Yankee Stadium, millions of Catholics began to feel that maybe, just maybe, the Pope really did “get it”—even if there was no mention of action to hold bishops accountable for what he called “badly handled” abuses cases.

Those expecting a stern task-master found instead a quiet, gentle, even elegant figure with a ready smile and sparkling eyes.  Most observers were unexpectedly struck by the Pope's evident pleasure to be visiting the one country where religious vitality and modernity cohabit in relative peace—what George Weigel has called the "Un-Europe."

Indeed, Benedict XVI viewed “up close and personal” appears every bit the shy, retiring professor who, after loyally serving John-Paul II for 22 years by playing the role of the Vatican's watchdog, has been liberated by his new office to simply be himself. 

So we watch a brilliant scholar and congenial pastor performing his priestly and professorial duties for the people he personifies.  No longer the “Vatican Rottweiler,” Benedict had suddenly become our “German Shepherd”!

Even so, American Catholics should not have been surprised by the contrast confronting them when Benedict addressed the United Nations. 

As citizens, we've long witnessed the rollercoaster of US-UN relations, capped since 2000 by the Bush administration's open hostility, including the appointment of a virtual anti-ambassador to the UN.  As believers, however, we've seen the Church's rock-solid support of the U.N. extend over more than 40 years. 

Paul VI, the pilgrim Pope, first addressed the UN in October 1965.  His address—justly famous for his call for nuclear disarmament and the dramatic plea "Jamais plus de guerre! War never again!"—also included extravagant praise for the then-young United Nations:

You are a bridge between peoples. You are a network of relation between states. We would almost say that your chief characteristic is a reflection, as it were, in the temporal field, of what our Catholic Church aspires to be in the spiritual field: unique and universal. Your vocations is to make brothers not only of some, but of all people…The edifice which you have constructed must never fail; it must be perfected and made equal to the needs which world history will present.

That history brought John-Paul II’s charismatic presence to the General Assembly's podium twice.  In 1979 he called for a world beyond Cold War, one that balanced the equitable distribution of material goods (touted by communist regimes) with the free and open sharing of spiritual values (espoused by capitalist societies). In 1995 he argued that while everyone can embrace basic human rights based on human reason, they can be guaranteed only by reference to transcendent faith-values

Through all these visits, the unmistakable common thread has been the Church's commitment to the UN’s importance and mission.  This Papal willingness to side with the UN reflects the central theme of Vatican II: bringing the Church more directly into public life—bringing Wisdom to Power.

Benedict followed suit in style. At Yankee Stadium, Benedict made this point explicitly, saying that building the Kingdom of God “means rejecting a false dichotomy between faith and political life, since, as the Second Vatican Council put it, ‘there is no human activity - even in secular affairs - which can be withdrawn from God’s dominion.’ ”

At the United Nations, he devoted his entire address to honoring the sixtieth anniversary of the UN's founding document, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

Praising the UN as a "moral center” for promoting a “family of nations," the Pope observed that the UN's founding principles "constitute the ideals which should underpin international relations."

He immediately targeted the US invasion of Iraq (but without naming names) by proclaiming that such ideals are:

All the more necessary at a time when we experience the obvious paradox of a multilateral consensus that continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few, whereas the world's problems call for interventions in the form of collective action by the international community.

Beyond this call for international coordination, he appealed for a solidarity wherein strong nations would act to support weak nations.  The unity of the human family, he insisted, requires that rights be balanced by responsibilities—and especially the “responsibility to protect.”  If a nation fails to protect its own people, he said, the international community should intervene with legal and diplomatic instruments capable of "pre-empting and managing conflicts.” 

The Pope then launched into a brief argument for the "universality, indivisibility and interdependence of human rights."

Clearly Benedict sees such human rights as the key to peace:

The promotion of human rights remains the most effective strategy for eliminating inequalities between countries and social groups, and for increasing security. Indeed, the victims of hardship and despair, whose human dignity is violated with impunity, become easy prey to the call to violence, and they can then become violators of peace.

But he also believes human rights will never be secure if they are regarded as merely legal provisions, rather than natural endowments.  Like John-Paul II, he argued that such rights are "based on the natural law inscribed in human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations.”

Here the Pope echoed Thomas Jefferson's words from the Declaration of Independence, where rights are proclaimed to be "inalienable" since they are things with which humans are "endowed by their creator." 

Of course, Jefferson famously named only three main rights, while the Catholic Church proclaims several more, including some (like healthcare) not recognized in the US.

In any case, Benedict’s appearance (which was the formal impetus for his US visit) reminds us that, despite our national ambivalence about the UN and the internationalism it represents, certain things should be clear to American Catholics.

First, the UN can count on the Roman Catholic Church more than on the US for solid consistent support.

Second, the UN benefits from the global prestige of the Papacy.

Third, the Church benefits from papal UN addresses, which provide the most public stage possible for its social teachings to be heard.

Fourth, the world benefits from the partnership between Church and UN.

Indeed, if peace ever comes, it may well be midwifed by these two international institutions working hand-in-hand and heart-to-heart.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2008

#210: The Evolution of Hope

This is the second of three pieces I wrote around Benedict XVI's visit to the US in 2008.

 

It is no secret that Benedict XVI has not enjoyed good press.  His speech on Christian-Muslim relations caused trouble for its unflattering references; Bin Laden has recently charged him with leading a “crusade” against Islam; his Easter Vigil baptism of a prominent Italian Muslim raised further suspicions that he sees the Church competing with Islam in a time when, we learned this week, Muslims now (and for the first time in history) outnumber Catholics.

But Easter season is a time for hope, and Benedict’s new encyclical “Spe Salvi” is fascinating for what it says about hope, and even more for what it says more about our time and our world.  Far from suggesting that Benedict is a fearful man who lacks hopefulness, this document reveals him as one who feels called to proclaim hope to a world badly in need of  it.

In this sense, this is very much a new kind of encyclical. To John XXIII’s openness to all humanity, Paul VI’s focus on contemporary issues, and John-Paul II’s sweeping vision of a global culture of life, Benedict adds his own personal urgency rooted in lifelong to scholarship and theological reflection . 

The first section focuses on the treatment of hope in scripture.  Here, says Benedict, we find that hope is virtually interchangeable with faith, since by their faith Christians know they have a future. This knowledge is not just information to be filed away, but it performs a practical function: it changes our lives.  We live differently because our faith gives us hope . 

He then reviews how faith-based hope is presented in both the New Testament and the early Church.  For Benedict, Christ’s teaching about the kingdom of God shows us what it means to be truly human by drawing the future into the present and creating a new foundation for life that puts into perspective our "habitual foundation" of routine daily concerns and crises, and gives a "new freedom" to live life in the light of eternity. 

(About “eternal life” he asks two delicate questions: What is it?  Do we really want it?  He admits the notion of “eternal life” in Catholic tradition has often been unhelpful. After all, if “eternal” means interminable, and “life” means the kind of life we already know--is all there is?  In fact, he says, we are driven beyond the life we know to hope for more, even though we cannot grasp what could be beyond: the "blessed life" in which we are all happy all the time!) 

Benedict then moves to an overview of how the very idea of hope has undergone an evolution. During the Renaissance, he claims, developments in technology and global exploration led to a new kind of faith--a faith in progress. And this, he thinks set in motion the "trajectory of modern times" which has led us, in his view, to a crisis of hope . 

This faith in progress depended on two things: the rise of reason and the rise of freedom.  By the 18^th century both of these took on political meaning, and both were seen in conflict with faith and Church.  In this conflict, hope was "rescued" from the custody of the Church 's faith and transformed into a political notion.  This happened in two stages.

First came the French Revolution, which claimed to liberate the victims of feudal aristocracy and ecclesiastical power on the basis of reason, and offered hope of a better life beyond monarchy and hierarchy. 

A second stage drew its inspiration from Karl Marx , who proposed a new revolution to liberate victims of industrialism by promising to replace the control of owners with a classless society. 

Benedict does not deny the noble aspirations behind these revolutions, but proposes two critiques: a critique of heaven and a critique of earth--that is , a critique of faith-based hope as well as a critique of politically-based hope.

In fact, Benedict does not really complain that both science and politics have progressed so far.  He does not blame either one for the crisis of hope he perceives.  Rather, he says, our spiritual formation has not kept pace.  This is very much the central view of Vatican II, which always argued that the central challenge of our time is to match modernity’s technical and political power with a spiritual wisdom capable of guiding that power into a future that is better and not worse than our past. 

But the basic question that Benedict sees underlying this challenge is: What do we really hope for?  If we hope for political structures or scientific achievements that will produce a happy world, he is convinced we are fooling ourselves.  In his view, freedom always remains freedom for evil as well as for good, and no structure can guarantee peoples’ goodness unless it destroys their freedom do so:

Certainly we cannot “build” the Kingdom of God by our own efforts—what we build will always be the kingdom of man with all the limitations proper to our human nature.

Personally, I have often wondered what it was about the widespread political turmoil of 1968, especially the rioting and revolt of students on campuses throughout Europe, that so altered Joseph Ratzinger’s posture in relationship to contemporary society.  In this encyclical, I believe, he presents his answer. 

For those of us who lived through that period as students, many were caught up in the romantic enthusiasm and euphoria of thinking we could actually change the world.  Some of us, however, managed to enjoy the electricity of the moment without being seduced by it. We recognized how naive it would be to expect the prevailing powers to simply yield to youthful idealism and without a fight.

But Joseph Ratzinger could not enjoy even the electricity, for his skepticism was deeper: he saw such enthusiasm as a dangerous capitulation to a false hope that ignored the reality of human nature and human freedom.  And here his pessimism culminates in his call for a critique of the "ambiguity  of progress."  

He is not against progress nor does he believe that the  Church should be, but he sees the evolution of hope that led to 1968 as duping people into the belief that progress would lead to a kingdom of God on earth.  So he repeats Vatican II’s concern that if technical progress is not matched by ethical formation, disaster can follow.  Reason needs faith, because freedom can never guarantee moral perfection.

But Benedict also has a critique of religion. For he believes Christianity has taken the wrong path of treating faith and spirituality as a purely private matter:

Modern Christianity, faced with the successes of science in progressively structuring the world, has to a large extent restricted its attention to the individual and his salvation. In so doing it has limited the horizon of its hope and has failed to recognize sufficiently the greatness of its task—even if it has continued to achieve great things in the formation of man and in care for the weak and the suffering.

Benedict is wielding two blades at once here.  On the one hand he says all utopias eventually become unmasked, unable to produce the perfect society they promise.  To invest our hope in them is to doom ourselves to despair.  On the other hand, faith that retreats into private personal devotions forgets that our communion with Jesus involves a commitment to living for others and to worldly concerns.  If our drive to hope in something more than what we already have is to avoid despair, then our faith must match the idealism of utopia even while it offers more. 

I find Benedict's view somewhat dark but also quite profound.  I may be more optimistic in my view of hope than he is, but I have absolutely no doubt that the issue he addresses is as important as any issue we face today, not only in the Church but also in the world. 

And I also have no doubt that Benedict is raising this issue with a clarity and a power that no other public figure can offer. 

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2008

#209: The Pope of Hope

With Benedict XVI resigning this week, it is time to review what he accomplished during his papacy. The following is the first of a 3-part report from 2008, written at the time of his visit to the United States. This replay article offers a key to understanding the man who is resigning his papacy. The encyclical it summarizes hints more clearly than ever before why the man Joseph Ratzinger was willing to make the move from theologian to bishop to Vatican to Pope.
      The Pope is coming, and my question is: Are you ready for him? 

And perhaps there's no better way to prepare for his first U.S. visit in this Easter season  than to learn a bit about his latest encyclical SPE SALVI –“Saved by Hope.”

The New York Times called it “a complex but elegant argument for the necessity of hope,” and David Scott (who coined “Pope of Hope”) finds this encyclical establishing Benedict XVI’s place in history:

Nearly three years into his papacy, Benedict has emerged as the wisest leader on the world stage today, one who has thought deeply about what ails us in these troubled times and has offered compelling answers for what we should do about it. But very few people, even among Catholics, seem to have grasped this or taken him seriously.

Perhaps this is because Benedict’s press coverage has often been unkind, partly due to his prior reputation and partly due to self-inflicted gaffs.

To be perfectly honest, I must admit that, if Joseph Ratzinger had not become Benedict XVI, I would still be ignoring this man.  By ignoring I don't mean that I didn't know who he was.  I mean I actually avoided paying any attention to him.  The fact is that for the last 40 years, Joseph Ratzinger was not my idea of the kind of spokesperson the Catholic Church needed in the wake of Vatican Council II.

His style and tone seemed altogether too strict, too accepting of the very established church conventions Vatican II sought to renew, too fearful and critical of the contemporary world that Vatican II had sought to embrace.  I tended to prefer those theologians who seemed more enthusiastic about renewal: Karl Rahner, and Edward Schillebeeckx, Bernard Lonergan. 

But none of these men became Pope--and one does not ignore the Pope. So since his election as Benedict XVI I have found myself paying attention in a new way to this man , and close inspection of his major works suggest a complex figure who may reflect the complex age the Church is living through. 

It may even be that this man was born to write encyclicals --and to transform what a papal encyclical can be.  At 81, he may finally have found his true niche in life.  But if so, it has been a long and twisty path. 

By now we all know that as a teenager he was pressed into service as part of the Hitler youth.  After the war ended he spent the 1940s and 1950s living the life of the young priest and scholar.  Vatican II transformed his work when he became one of the theological experts to the German Bishops at the Council, where he served side by side with Han Kung. Their partnership got them both tagged as "progressives" in the theological movement to renew the Church, but while Kung has continued to confirm the label "progressive," Joseph Ratzinger’s public image has long since changed. 

It all happened around 1968, when the May ’68 revolt of Paris students spread across Europe and appeared briefly to portend a profound social revolution.  For professor Ratzinger comfortably teaching back on his German campus, the experience was mind-altering.  Henceforth his posture shifted, and his public image became that of a champion of orthodoxy rather than of change--though he still claimed, as always, to represent the cause of Church renewal and Vatican II.

Then, under John Paul II, he became head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith: the Vatican's "watchdog" of orthodoxy. He served in this role as a loyal soldier, and the private image of a gentle congenial personality was superseded by the public image of a strict and censorious judge.

Time will tell whether Ratzinger’s "watchdog" image was a true or false reflection of the real man, but so far it appears that (like many before him) election to the papacy has liberated him to become his true self. 

(I am reminded of the always compliant and obedient Angelo Roncalli who, in decades of church service, never rocked the Vatican's boat and seemed the prefect candidate to warm the papal seat as a do-nothing caretaker until a younger man could be chosen.  But once elected Pope, he had no one left to obey but God and his own instincts--and promptly called for an ecumenical council that still has the boat rocking 45 years later.)

Benedict’s first encyclical, “God is Love,” was an attempt to elaborate upon the basics of Catholic faith, not by returning to a pre-conciliar view of Catholicism but by cutting through much of the paraphernalia of Catholic tradition to illuminate its core.  Now he is focused on hope and, since he views hope as interchangeable with faith, the two encyclicals have now covered the main virtues of Christian live: faith hope and love.

This new encyclical is written in a distinctive personal style (some passages read like class lectures, and are best left for scholars). So in some ways it tells us as much about Joseph Ratzinger as it does about his views on hope. 

For example, his treatment makes several references to Saint Augustine.  It seems clear there is an intellectual affinity between Ratzinger’s way of viewing Christian faith and Augustine's.  But there is also a curious way that Benedict identifies with Augustine's life as well as his thought. 

This encyclical marks the second time in less than a year that Benedict has publicly referred to the moment when Augustine gave up his dream of forming in a monastic community to dedicate himself to pastoral leadership. The pope devotes an extraordinarily long passage to Augustine’s story:

After his conversion to the Christian faith, he decided, together with some like-minded friends, to lead a life totally dedicated to the word of God and to things eternal. His intention was to practise a Christian version of the ideal of the contemplative life expressed in the great tradition of Greek philosophy, choosing in this way the  “better part” (cf. Lk 10:42). Things turned out differently, however. While attending the Sunday liturgy at the port city of Hippo, he was called out from the assembly by the Bishop and constrained to receive ordination for the exercise of the priestly ministry in that city….

It's obvious why Benedict would draw on the thinking and writing of the best in, who remains one of the intellectual giants of Catholic tradition.  But why is he so struck by Augustine's story as well?  One point of identification is obvious: just as Augustine abandoned the life of meditation and prayer to work in Church leadership, Ratzinger surrendered the quiet and removed life of academic teaching and writing for the turmoil of Vatican politics and public exposure.

For Augustine this meant a totally new life...Amid the serious difficulties facing the Roman Empire…this was what he set out to do: to transmit hope, the hope which came to him from faith and which, in complete contrast with his introverted temperament, enabled him to take part decisively and with all his strength in the task of building up the city. On the strength of his hope, Augustine dedicated himself completely to the ordinary people and to his city—renouncing his spiritual nobility, he preached and acted in a simple way for simple people.

“To transmit hope”—here, I suspect, is the key to understanding both this document and Benedict’s true vocation.

For this encyclical hints more clearly than ever before why the man Joseph Ratzinger was willing to make the move from theologian to bishop to Vatican to Pope.  In writing about hope, he does more than review Catholic thought and teaching. He also reveals his own personal conviction that he must speak out beyond the academy to the public forum, whether as Vatican official or as Pope, precisely because he sees our current situation as a crisis--and specifically, he sees it as a crisis of hope.  

In fact, this encyclical offers a glimpse into the mind of Joseph Ratzinger through the Pope's personal reading of the intellectual history of the last five centuries, a history that in his view reflects an evolution in the idea of hope that has led us—not just Catholicism but the whole world--to a watershed moment: a crisis of hope that only faith can resolve.

It will be no small surprise if the Pope’s upcoming address to the United Nations does not focus on this very notion of the crisis of hope. 

And next time: The Evolution of Hope.    

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2008

#383 Does the Pope Matter?

Amid all the coverage of Pope Benedict’s resignation, two points emerge.

       One: the media is having a field day.  Time magazine has put Benedict XVI on its cover, with two stories inside.  Jokes abound, from Jon Stewart to Facebook.  Self- designated experts from Las Vegas to Rome are handicapping the election of the next pope.  As I write, the front page of today’s Boston Globe reports at length on  speculation that Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley may be in the running.  Of course, 40 other home-town bishops around the world are subjects of similar speculation.  In other words, Conclave-mania has broken loose.

But the second point, typified by Frank Bruni’s New York Times Op-ed piece on February 18, is that perhaps all this media attention deceives us into the false notion that the pope matters more than he really does.  Bruni claims the pope and his curia are really “a royal family of dubious relevance,” at least to the majority of Catholics in North America and Western Europe.  I think Bruni has a point--but he also protests too much, in a way that brings out the old debater in me.  So allow me to revert to my former forensic format: I’ll list Bruni’s arguments, and respond to each point, one by one (read Bruni at http://nyti.ms/130cVoA ).

Bruni argues that widespread media attention results from mere “habit and convenience.” The media is drawn to the drama, the “visual backdrops,” the pageant.  It is mere spectacle.

But of course spectacle attracts more than media.  It attracts the public too, and can entertain, enthrall, even inspire them.  The 1,000,000-strong crowd for Barack Obama’s 2008 inauguration may never forget that event.  For some, it was life-changing.  

     The truth is that spectacle does hold sway with the human spirit, and Bruni belittles it needlessly.  Catholicism clearly has a knack for spectacle on a global scale.  This is an advantage, not a liability.  The question that must be asked is: is this merely empty spectacle, or is it a means to a greater end?

Next Bruni argues that the pope gets notice as part of our cult of celebrity.  The election holds out drama and the prospect of victory, much like American Idol, Iron Chef, the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, or presidential elections.  The election is our “ecclesiastical Oscars.”

This may be true, but once again Bruni seems intent on missing what matters.  The fact is that not all celebrities are created equal.  Some are merely “famous for being famous,” while others are famous for their impact on people’s lives.  Fifty years ago, Ed Sullivan was a celebrity and so were the Beatles, but no one thinks Sullivan had their lasting influence.   

Wilt Chamberlain was famous winning the NBA championship the spring before Martin Luther King was shot, but only one earned a national holiday and the Nobel prize.  To call the pope a celebrity begs the next question: so what?

Among celebrities in the western world, perhaps the Queen of England is the post closest to the pope’s status, and garners similar media attention for herself and her own royal family.

     Even her role as a symbolic leader is similar, but the pope is no mere figurehead.  Even Bruni calls him the CEO of a worldwide organization, recognizing that he functions as a genuine executive.  And his reach far exceeds the British Commonwealth. So reducing the pope to mere “celebrity” is a half-truth at best.

Next Bruni admits that the Catholic Church is a large and powerful organization (though he fails to note how prevalent and dominant its “charities and agencies” are), but then he argues that today’s U.S. Catholics are “less invested” and “less attached” to the church than 50 years ago.

As a general rule, this is true. But it does not make Bruni’s case against the pope’s relevance.  Quite the contrary.

First, because much of the last 50 years of Catholic history has been a case study in how the pope does matter.

When John the XXIII opened Vatican Council II 50 years ago, his humble daring transformed the Catholic scene overnight.  
 Before John, the pope had been a remote, largely invisible figure operating a great distance from US Catholics. The Vatican might as well have been Olympus, or another planet. But then the Council came, and suddenly Vatican events were the stuff of daily coverage by The New York Times’ John Cogley and of insider perspective from Xavier Rynne in The New Yorker’s “Letters from Vatican City” for four years running.  Moreover, Vatican events were now (for the first time) a global spectacle thanks to satellite TV.  And John’s council soon touched every Catholic at the parish level, especially through changes in liturgy and sacrament.  Moreover John altered the church’s image beyond Catholics: today’s warmer Catholic-Protestant and Catholic-Jewish relations are the result of his influence.

Admittedly, this happy profile of papal power and impact did not last long.  No doubt millions of U.S. Catholics today are disenchanted with the institution, even alienated from it.  But ironically, this strengthens (rather than weakens) my case against Bruni.  For rejecting Church teaching is not the same as ignoring it, and disenchantment is not the same is indifference.  In fact, I would argue that today’s decline in practice among U.S. Catholics has happened, not in spite of the popes, but because of them.

Sociologist Andrew Greeley documented as early as the mid-1970s that U.S. Catholics were distancing themselves from the institution, and famously argued that there was a single cause: Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which rejected his own papal commission’s recommendation that church teaching on contraception be revised, and instead reasserted the existing prohibition against all “artificial” means of birth control.

Perhaps Greeley overstated his case, but certainly after 1968 millions of Catholic parents opted to reject Paul’s position in good conscience.  Baby boomers, barely emerging from adolescence in 1968, typically decided there own path into marriage family and parenthood would not be guided by Humanae Vitae.  And they in turn raised kids for whom official church teaching on contraception--and indeed on masturbation, premarital sex, and most other matters sexual--was in fact irrelevant to their lives.  In short, three generations of Catholics have not simply drifted away from the institution--they have been pushed by, or ran from, papal action.  Their alienation stands as proof that the papacy, far from meaningless, is capable of significantly affecting people’s lives--for better or for worse.

More recently, of course, the clergy sex abuse scandal has further tainted the church’s credibility on matters sexual--and handed young Catholics their silver-plated alibi to ignore the institution.  John Paul II’s handpicked U.S. bishops transformed the face of U.S. hierarchy: once committed to Catholic renewal and public dialogue, the U.S. hierarchy in the 1980s and 1990s became a corps of company men devoted to protecting their own interests.  Beginning with Boston’s Bernard Law and ending with LA’s Roger Mahony, these men earned a self-inflicted reputation for hypocrisy in high places that has scandalized millions of U.S. Catholics.  This was not some random, accidental occurrence.  This was the effect (albeit unintended) of papal strategy and action.

Even John-Paul’s illness illustrates my point: at the very moment that decisive papal action might have provided the damage control needed to rehabilitate the hierarchy’s good name, his age and illness (in concert with the custom of the pope serving until death) made him incapable of the crisis management the church needed. 

 So once again, the fallout among U.S. Catholics traces to the pope’s doorstep.

The rest of Bruni’s argument is a parade of polls documenting the gap between Catholic officialdom and the rank and file.  The portrait that emerges is indeed bleak.  But since these statistics are themselves the product of papal and hierarchical mismanagement, they cannot demonstrate that it makes no difference who the next pope is or what he does.

On the contrary, the examples of John XXIII, Paul VI, and John-Paul II over the last 50 years suggest that the pope’s performance affects the life of rank and file Catholics more than ever before.

Imagine, for example, if the next pope were to revise the mandate of priestly celibacy.  A century ago, this news would spread out gradually from Rome via print media.  Today, it would be an instant media firestorm that would alter the Church’s--and the pope’s--public image literally overnight.  And it would transform seminaries and dioceses, as well as our priest shortage, in short order.

Or imagine that the next pope calls Vatican Council  III.  We could foresee several years of virtually non-stop coverage of the institutional Church once again transforming itself.  It defies such imagining to argue that no one would pay attention.

Finally, Bruni’s whole argument depends on glossing over its most significant weakness: his focus is almost exclusively on U.S. Catholics (with a token nod to Canada and Europe).  But our 60 million Catholics represent only 5% of the world’s Catholics.  And the Church’s standing in South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia is vastly different from the American Catholics scene.  Assessing the papacy’s impact requires a separate account for each region.  And certainly the overall posture of the pope cannot be gauged by his response to the situation of a 5% segment of Catholics.

(I am reminded of a similar mistake the French made when the pope’s World Youth Day was held in Paris in 1997. Assuming the rest of the world to be as blasé about the pope as themselves, they were caught flatfooted--and ankle deep in overflowing toilets!--when 2 million kids showed up.)

  But given Bruni’s narrow focus, this much can be said: the actions of four popes since 1962 have either helped or harmed the institutional church’s standing among American Catholics--and the same will be true for the next pope.  Perhaps the media’s superficial, celebrity-and-spectacle driven interest will wane soon after the election, but Catholics everywhere, including the U.S., will be affected by the papacy that follows--for better or for worse!

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013