#406: Paris Press Warms to Francis

My second article profiling the impact Pope Francis is having in the land once called “the Oldest Daughter of the Church.”

In France the print media remains a prominent shaper (and mirror) of public opinion.  Paris maintains several daily newspapers as well as weekly news magazines and monthly commentaries. 

The Catholic press is no exception.  Among dozens of periodicals, La Croix is the nation’s daily Catholic newspaper, and La Vie (formally La Vie Catholique) offers weekly coverage and commentary in a glossy, Time magazine format.  Neither has a U.S. equivalent.

Which is not to say that the general public is paying close attention to the Catholic press.  When I stopped at a news kiosk outside Paris’ Saint-Lazare train station in mid-October and ask for La Vie, the vendor hesitated, then pull the issue off the rack that turned out to be for the week of July 25-31^st! It had been sitting there, unwanted and unreplaced, for more than two months.

http://www.lavie.fr/

No matter. A mid-summer edition proved more than useful to my main goal: to sample the French media’s reaction to Pope Francis.  It happens that this edition offered a lengthy account of the new pope’s agenda for reform--especially financial reform--within the Vatican.

This independent, lay-managed magazine pulled no punches.  The caption above the pope’s photo said: “THE POPE KNOWS that it is urgent to clean up the church.” Then the article opened by declaring that Francis’ July 19 decision to launch an across-the-board audit of the activities of the Holy See was without precedent, and offered this assessment:

Managed for centuries the “Italian” way--that is to say, according to unwritten “laws” inspired by nepotism and corruption--the world’s smallest state needs a serious house cleaning.

The magazine went on to describe the audit as the “third stage” in Francis’ program of Vatican reforms. 

The first was his April 13 creation of an advisory commission of eight cardinals (including one American, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston).  The second was his June 23 decision to launch a commission to supervise the reorganization of the Vatican Bank.

La Vie’s reporter noted that the new audit commission was comprised, not of insiders, but of “seven independent laypeople, all noted experts” in their fields: judicial, economic, financial, and administrative.  They are to operate in total independence, the article said, and report directly to the pope himself--thus “eliminating any in-house bureaucratic ‘filters’ interested in masking or minimizing Vatican dysfunctions.”

Moreover, the commission’s mandate explicitly states that no Vatican office may restrict or limit the commission’s access to any documentation or information.

After reporting all this, La Vie’s reporter concluded with a brief commentary:

Therefore there can be no doubt about Francis’ very strong intention to reform the Church, while in pastoral matters he urges Catholics to venture from their cocoon into the “existential outskirts” of the world.  Thus the Franciscan revolution is only just beginning.

Meanwhile, another glossy but secular weekly, Le Point, chose to interview Swiss theologian Hans Kűng about Francis. 

This choice reflected a not-entirely-subtle agenda: to contrast the new pope with his predecessor.  For Kűng is not only the last working survivor of the “periti” (theological experts advising the Bishops) at Vatican II, he was also a close collaborator with Joseph Ratzinger, later Benedict XVI. 

Hans Kűng

Moreover their relationship was the stuff of drama. Two years after the Council concluded, in 1967, Kűng lobbied his faculty at the University of Tubingen to offer Ratzinger a teaching position.  Kűng also covered teaching responsibilities for Ratzinger while his colleague finished his first book, Introduction to Christianity.  But the student upheavals of 1968 pushed them apart.  Soon Ratzinger had left for another university, had ceased his collaboration with Kűng on the journal Concilium, and had developed a posture increasingly critical of Kűng’s progressive positions. 

Eventually Ratzinger took over the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (formerly the Holy Office), where he was instrumental in stripping Kűng of his status as an officially Catholic theologian.  After his election as pope, he hosted Kűng for a 4-hour private luncheon that appears to have been amicable but fell short of reconciliation.

So Le Point had every reason to believe that Kűng’s take on the new pope would be formed by his own special assessment of Benedict’s papacy.

Kűng did not disappoint.

Asked about Benedict, Kűng said Benedict had resigned due to the “crisis” besetting the church from all angles: sex-abuse, cover-up, financial mismanagement, falling numbers of priests, parishioners, and sacraments. The unspoken point: Benedict left behind a mess.

Asked what difference Francis might make, Kűng opined that both Francis’ words and acts move the Church toward “renewal” rather than “restoration.” This was an implicit but pointed barb at Benedict’s traditionalist tendencies.  Kűng noted, for example, that Francis did not add a “+” or “pp” when he signed his name to a personal letter to Kűng: a small sign of Francis’ willingness to forgo customs he finds unnecessary.

“He has already overturned the style, language, protocol, and tone of the Vaticanesque culture” in Rome, said Kűng.  This shift in style, Kűng thinks, clearly heralds a shifting agenda: “He will not put obstacles in the way of John XXIII’s reforms from Vatican II.” Again, this is an implicit critique, reflecting Kűng’s longstanding and well-known conviction that both Benedict and John-Paul II had blunted the reforming impact of the Council.

Asked if Francis would bring “continuity” or “rupture” to Catholic life--a loaded question, since Benedict had long championed “continuity” and blames people like Kűng for causing “rupture”-- Kűng dodged deftly:

He will bring neither.  Already we can see that he keeps to the substance of the faith.  But it is a new paradigm for how the faith should be expressed at all levels.

The interviewer asked: does that mean that, as one bishop has already suggested, Francis will be a “revolutionary pope”?

“Yes,” Kűng replied.  “But a prudent revolutionary.” He will, Kűng continued, change what needs changing but not force changes without considering their impact on the people.  “After all, he is not an autocrat.  He is a pastor.” Again, Kűng’s pleasure with Francis reflects his displeasure with Benedict, whom he believes never displayed real pastoral leadership.

These samplings confirmed what I’ve heard from the many people I interviewed during my time in Paris: that while the French media had not flooded them with accounts of the new pope, still all the news they did read was good news.

The general theme that emerged from my interviews and my reading was that people find Francis a refreshing change, and they are hopeful (but not yet confident) that in tackling a wide range of urgent reforms he will succeed where both Benedict and John-Paul II failed.

  © Bernard   F. Swain PhD 2013

#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

#297: Does Credibility = Conformity?

EXCERPT:
It is always tough to take issue with Emmanuel Charles McCarthy. But I have a problem with his recent critique of Hans Kung’s April 17 letter calling for Church reform (see the site http://www.jesusradicals.com/a-credibility-crisis-reform-by-emmanuel-charles-mccarthy/ for his article “A Credibility Crisis? Reform?). He complains that Kung overlooks the problem of Church support for war and violence. For McCarthy, justifying killing as "faithful discipleship" amounts to a "severe credibility crisis" that "most of humanity sees as obvious."

The Church’s problem, he says, comes from "the discordance between what Jesus teaches and what the Church teaches on violence and enmity." For him, real "reform" requires "restoring conformity to what Jesus command that the church to teach and to obey," and thus "following what Jesus taught by word and deed."

This idea of conformity to Jesus in all respects is so obvious to McCarthy than any other views seems simply irrational. Indeed, McCarthy believes that Jesus' example offers, not just a good way to do things, or an ideal way, but "the only way of doing what he did."

Now, I have no problem with McCarthy’s take on the gospels. Nor do I quarrel with his history. I do not even have a problem with McCarthy’s ethics--I lean toward some form of Christian pacifism myself,and I regard non-violence icons like Dorothy Day, Gandhi, M.L. King, and Nelson Mandela as the moral giants of our day.

My problem is with his whole underlying notion that a credible Christian faith requires conformity in all respects to Jesus and his immediate followers. That is his entire basis for arguing that only a commitment to non-violence can constitute credible reform.

There is a strong case to be made against the just war theory, and an equally strong case to be made for Christian non-violence. But McCarthy has made neither case, and he does both our credibility and faithful discipleship a disservice by equating them with rote conformity.

I simply reject the idea that faithful discipleship equals rote conformity. The problem is this: not only is such a restoration a practical impossibility, but even its most ardent champions (including McCarthy himself) refuse to consistently carry it out.

The simple truth is: for such conformity to be consistent, that would require us to treat Jesus and the first Christians, not as people of their times, but as timeless arbiters of our ethical, spiritual, and even intellectual standards.

This would mean that, to be credible Christians and faithful disciples, we must embrace whatever they embraced, accept whatever they accepted, tolerate whatever they tolerated, and reject whatever they rejected. In short, we must accept the boundaries of their outlook and practice as our own boundaries.

Such a theological principle quickly leads to absurd results--for if, to be credible Christians, we must consistently conform ourselves this way, then we must, like them:

Expect Christ's imminent return and reject any long-term vision or strategy for life on earth; become practicing Jews; abstain from all involvement in politics; not resist our oppressors or occupiers; be silent about slavery and be content to convert slaves to the Christian faith; be silent on many cruelties typical in the Roman Empire, among them torture and crucifixion; share all goods in common and have no private property; regard marriage as a last resort for those unable to maintain celibacy until Christ returns; blame the “Jews” for rejecting Jesus; drop teachings they did not proclaim, such as Christ’s two natures or even the Trinity; drop practices they did not practice: Christmas, infant baptism, ecumenical relations; have bishops and deacons but no priests and no parishes; observe the Jewish Sabbath in synagogue or temple, and then break Eucharistic bread in homes; have no churches; not promote practices or policies they did not have: priests (men or women), acceptance of gays, contraception, etc.

Instead of all this, Christians believe that, as historical conditions change and offer new insights, they may develop their teachings and practices in ways that outstrip the boundaries set by Jesus, the Gospels, and the early Christians. We believe, in other words, that Jesus and his followers were, like us, people of their times -- whereas our faith in Him is a faith for all times.

So we proclaim Christ as the second person of the Trinity, a claim neither he nor his disciples ever made. And we commit the faith to building a better world over the long haul of history (already 100 generations since Jesus, and still counting)--something they never imagined. In fact, Christians began adding and dropping and changing elements of the Christian life as early as 100 AD.

Was Jesus committed to non-violence? Yes. Were the early Christians "pacifists"? Probably yes, at least in some sense of that term. Is Christian non-violence a good and important principle even today? Absolutely!

Can you make a case that all Christians should be pacifists? Sure -- but not by simply arguing that conforms to Jesus.

Can you also claim that Christians who reject pacifism are “not credible Christians”? No -- that is, not unless you are prepared to abandon much of what we today call Christianity and sign up at your local synagogue. But in that case, be prepared to hear someone mention "an eye for an eye"!

#292: Hans Kung's Call to Arms

EXCERPT:

By now Kung and Benedict have become iconic figures representing two distinct "takes" on Catholic life. Depending on your viewpoint, Kűng embodies either the courageous voice of authentic Catholic renewal from Vatican II, or the arrogant, even spiteful dissenter who would make a better Protestant. Similarly, Benedict XVI personifies either the heroic defender of authentic Catholic identity, or the backsliding, lapsed conciliarist bent on propping up a discredited pre-conciliar version of Catholicism.

Inevitably, then, either man's public pronouncements provoke both fervid praise and heated criticism. Kűng’s latest piece is no exception.

I have no particular interest in defending Kűng, but since he is calling on bishops to act, it makes sense to assess what such action might mean.

My own opinion: Kűng’s critique of Benedict's papacy includes some powerful truth, some personal attack, and some debatable history. But the letter’s importance depends less on these and more on his practical proposals, where he urges the Bishop to six actions. While much of Kűng’s letter earns the controversy he is provoking, a lot of the commentary strikes me as distracting us from these proposals. For once, it may be helpful to consider them out of context:

1. “Do not keep silent.” Does anyone doubt that the hierarchy’s age-old habit of silence has done more harm than good? Even when Bishops keep horrifying secrets only to “protect the Church from scandal,” they only cause worse scandal. Perhaps Kűng’s advice will fall on deaf ears if no bishops agree with him. But if they do agree, don't we hope they have the courage to say so?

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4. "Unconditional obedience is owed to God alone." As a layperson, I do not always understand the constraints felt by clergy who have promised obedience to their superiors. But too often those constraints have allowed bad practices and even scandalous behavior to persist. Kűng’s point reminds us that, even in a hierarchy like ours, officials who fail to do the right thing will earn no sympathy by claiming "we were only following orders."

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6. “Call for a Council.” More than 50 years after John XXIII called for Vatican II, the case for Vatican III grows stronger by the day. I can see three main arguments for convening the world's bishops: (a) the momentum of Vatican II's renewal has flagged, and passing on the torch of renewal to the next generation may require a rekindling that only a council can supply; (b) our growing global crisis of authority and credibility needs to be addressed at the highest level -- which is a council -- if the Church is going to recover its good public name in the foreseeable future; (C) the Europe-dominated hierarchy which gathered at Vatican II no longer reflects a Church that has gone global on all levels; a new council would be a more representative gathering that could put this global Catholicism on the map.

So while Hans Kűng’s critique of Rome and Benedict XVI are admittedly (and deservedly) controversial, his practical proposals seem good, constructive ideas that could only benefit the Church. It remains to be seen if he will be heard.