#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

#119 Vatican II: Legacy and Hope

   With the resignation of Benedict XVI, and the prospect of a new Pope within a few weeks, it is more urgent than ever that we make the 50th anniversary of Vatican II a time of renewed clarity about and commitment to its legacy. The following is the second part of my postings from Vatican II's 40th anniversary:

   In my last post, I suggested we risk losing the legacy of Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) unless the “Vatican II Generation” convinces Catholics too young to remember the Council that Vatican II is too important to forget.  

Pope Paul VI Addresses the United Nations, October 1965

   But why do we risk forgetting Vatican II? And why is it so important to remember?

The most obvious reason for forgetting Vatican II is that 21^st century Catholicism presents a troublingly negative image for younger Catholics, especially in America. The clergy sex abuse crisis has scandalized and depressed many Catholics, and provided others with a convenient excuse to disengage from Church life. The hypocritical and dishonest leadership of Bishops caused even wider damage than the abusive behavior of priests. The result: a self-inflicted crisis of credibility that leaves church authorities powerless to command the respect and compliance of their flock—and obstructs our view of Vatican II’s great accomplishment.

But there is a larger shadow obscuring the memory of Vatican II: the papacy of John-Paul II. This is ironic, because in many respects John-Paul II’s papacy was a product of the Council, impossible to imagine except in the post-Conciliar era. But the cult of his personality has obscured the Council’s importance. For millions of younger Catholics, JP II is their Vatican II – which is to say their Catholic identity is not as “post-Vatican II Catholics” but as “John-Paul II” Catholics.

For example: it has become commonplace in the media, both Catholic and secular, to treat the history of late 20^th century Catholicism as though John-Paul II was its most important feature. As I argued last week, both John XXIII and Paul VI regarded Vatican II as nothing less than the rebirth of the Catholic Church 20 centuries after its founding—an event of much greater importance than any one man’s reign as Pope.

But assuming I am correct that (1) Vatican II is too important to forget and (2) recent events may make us forget –what exactly is the legacy that we risk losing?

Unfortunately, Catholics have floundered for the answer for 40 years. Too often Catholics have sought answers in the overwhelming volume of the sixteen documents of Vatican II. In my own view, those documents provide clear messages

about Vatican II’s reforms, but they do not send a clear, unambiguous, uncluttered message about the purpose of the Council as a whole! Beyond the reforms, everyone seems to know that Vatican II was about “Renewal” – but we have been arguing about what that means for 40 years.

For me, the most direct way to understand what “Renewal” means (and therefore understand Vatican II’s real purpose and legacy) is to listen carefully to the eloquence and unmistakable clarity of Vatican II’s chief architect, Pope Paul VI.

On October 8, 1965, Paul became the first “Pilgrim Pope” when he traveled to the New World to address the UN in New York. Vatican II would end just eight weeks later, but until now it had remained a distant blip on most Americans’ radar. Paul used this speech to announce the Council’s agenda in the most public way imaginable:

We here celebrate the epilogue of a weary pilgrimage in search of a conversation with the entire world, ever since the command was given to us: Go and bring the good news to all peoples…The hour has struck for our "conversion," for personal transformation, for interior renewal. We must get used to thinking of humanity in a new way...With a new manner, too, of conceiving the paths of history and the destiny of the world...The edifice of modern civilization must be built upon spiritual principles which alone can, not only support it, but even illuminate and animate it.

Listen to this man. He is speaking to the whole world, not just to Catholics. He says the Church has been seeking “a conversation” with that world. He says our new moment in history demands a new understanding of humanity and the human future. He says that will only happen through an inner, “personal transformation” in which spiritual principles animate the whole of our civilized life together.

This agenda goes ‘way beyond turning altars around or shifting rituals from Latin to English. It is about a new relationship between the Church and the world.

Two months later, as Vatican II ended, Paul VI showed he was not naïvely assuming that modern culture was always friendly to Christian values. Rather, he was challenging the Church to reach out to and befriend even a hostile, secular modernity. 

For Paul, charity was the Council’s “principal religious feature.” In stark contrast to the condemnations and siege mentality of past centuries, Vatican II always approached controverted issues with its mind on understanding and its heart on reconciliation. Paul chose to illustrate with the example of secular humanism:

Secular humanism…has, in a certain sense, defied the council. The religion of the God who became man has met the religion (for such it is) of man who makes himself God. And what happened? Was there a clash, a battle, a condemnation? There could have been, but there was none. The old story of the Samaritan has been the model of the spirituality of the council. A feeling of boundless sympathy has permeated the whole of it.

Over the last 25 years, the Church has implemented Vatican II’s call to reach out to the world – how else to explain John Paul II’s constant globetrotting? But even while reaching out, the Church in recent years has often seemed fearful and hostile, rather than charitable and sympathetic.

It’s understandable that many Catholics are disturbed by developments since Vatican II: the spread of legal abortion, the declining numbers of churchgoers, priests, brothers, and sisters; the growing secularization and consumerization of modern society; the rise of terrorism; the decline of “traditional moral values.”

Any of these might be reasons to abandon the positive, open, optimistic attitude, except for one thing: all the troubling developments since Vatican II pale before the horrific developments before Vatican II. Think of WWI (60,000 dead the first day at Verdun). Think of WW II, (over 30 million dead, a majority women and children). Think of the Holocaust, and its systematic attempt to wipe out a people. Think of the Cold War and the global terror it spawned while condemning most of the world to abject poverty.

Here’s the bottom line: if those horrors did not stop John XXIII and Paul VI from proclaiming their vision of a friendly, optimistic partnership between a “reborn” Church and a “transformed” world, why should we, 40 years later, fall prey to pessimism, fear, and hostility? Granted, these 40 years have not produced the kind of spiritually “illuminated” civilization that Paul envisioned at the U.N. But was anyone naïve enough to think that kind of renewal could be accomplished in a single generation?

Paul VI proposed a “conversation with the entire world” to make that vision real. Forty years later, we must ask: are we, as Church, still speaking to the world? And is the world still listening? If the answer is yes, then the conversation continues, the legacy is intact, and Renewal is still our hope for the future.

But if the answer is no, we should not be surprised if the future is bleak, and we have only ourselves to blame if we fail to retrieve the vision of Vatican II and convince the next generation to pick up that conversation anew.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2005

#299: The Culture Clash Within Our Walls

EXCERPT:
The New York Times has published a Watergate-style investigative report revealing a secret Vatican meeting in April 2000, more than a year before Boston broke, where alarmed Bishops from twelve countries challenged Vatican officials to confront the sex abuse problem.

The Vatican has so far claimed that its Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) only received the mandate to investigate abuse cases in 2001, when authorized by Pope John Paul II. But the Times reported that Philip Wilson, Archbishop of Adelaide, notified the 2000 gathering of an authorization already in force since 1922, one which he had confirmed in the 1990s with then-CDF head cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict XVI...

It now appears that John Paul II's hesitancy to acknowledge the crisis inhibited Ratzinger from exercising his own authority before 2001…Thus the Times charges that “the future pope, it is now clear, was also part of a culture of non-responsibility, denial, legalistic foot-dragging and outright obstruction.”

For me, that word "culture" jumps out. It suggests this scandal cuts deeper than I had previously realized.

I have always known that the sex abuse crisis operated on two levels. First was the immoral, even criminal behavior of the priests. Second was the mishandling of those priests by bishops...

I have always considered the cover-up to be the bigger scandal, which had the graver consequences on millions of Catholics (especially younger adults) who lost all faith in the institutional church’s credibility and moral authority.
And now I fear the spreading crisis has revealed a third level: an ecclesiastical culture of non-accountability – of immunity from scrutiny or questioning -- that borders on a totalitarian hoarding of power.

Of course, the scandal itself has always been about power rather than sex: the predatory power of priests over children and adolescents, and the paternalistic power that bishops (obsessed with protecting priests) exercised over victims and their families.

But this third level is not about personal power to prey on others, nor about official power to favor priests over people. It is about absolute power (the kind Lord Acton said corrupts absolutely) to do and say whatever one wants -- no matter how stupid or harmful -- while remaining immune to any check or balance...

This culture of immunity, with its disconnect from reality and its blindness to power’s abuse, may well cause more harm to the Church than either the abuse itself or its mishandling by Bishops. In this day and age, such a culture repels almost everyone except those who benefit from its privileges -- and that number shrinks daily.

To the extent that such a culture pervades Catholic life, we will alienate younger generations far into the foreseeable future. They will leave ashamed of their own Church and heritage…

The sad irony is that Catholicism moved to establish a radically different culture of accountability almost 50 years ago…Vatican II (1962-1965) …called for a wide variety of gatherings -- synods, conferences, and councils -- on all levels of church life.

The idea was to disseminate decision-making so the challenges were addressed as locally as possible...Vatican II’s vision for collective decision making at all levels offered precisely the kind of participatory culture that builds confidence among members of any institution. It ensures that authorities at all levels must answer to others for their actions.

But that vision has faded to the degree that the Roman Curia has restored its pre-conciliar role as the all-purpose arbiter, often pre-empting the proper role of bishops, pastors, and even laity. This restoration of a culture without accountability clearly clashes with the cultural program of Vatican II.

Benedict XVI has said that the real threat to the Church now comes, not from outside, but from within. He’s right, but the threat is not primarily priestly misbehavior, or even the bishops’ cover-up, but an entire institutional culture of immunity...

I now fear that this cultural clash within the Church, along with the scandal itself, has become the main story of the post-Vatican II era. Unless this clash is resolved, it may be a long time indeed before people regain confidence in their Church.

How long, O Lord?

#294: Timidity and Transparency

EXCERPT:
When Boston Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham charged local Catholic officials with “moral timidity,” she named the difficulty many Catholics have had with their own leadership in recent years.

Abraham was commenting on the case of a child removed from a parochial school because her parents are lesbians. The principal made the initial decision, which was supported by her pastor. The Archdiocese of Boston then apologized to the family and offered to place the child in another school. This triggered criticism by some insisting the Church should stand up for its teaching against homosexuality, and citing Denver Bishop Charles J. Chaput, whose policy is to refuse enrollment to any child with homosexual parents. Boston’s Archbishop Sean O’Malley subsequently blogged in support of everyone at once, saying (1) the Church welcomes all and discriminates against none, (2) the pastor had only acted in the child’s best interest, and (3) the Denver policy would be given serious consideration.

We often find conservative leaders like Archbishop Chaput behaving as if they (and only they) occupy the high moral ground, with the courage to stand firm on right values while others yield to the pressures of a secularized society.

Sometimes this leads to unseemly (not to say un-Christian) displays of self-inflating presumption. Case in point: C.J. Doyle, head of Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, questioned why couples whose lives are at odds with Church teaching would want to send their children to Catholic schools – as if his own inability to understand was somehow the parents’ problem to solve!

But such self-righteous people, with their knee-jerk instinct to withdraw Catholicism’s benefits from those less worthy, often gain undeserved traction by presenting themselves as the courageous ones, willing to defend good against evil. Perhaps some militant conservatives see us progressive Catholics lacking the courage of our convictions, and this fuels their own self-serving posture as faith’s lone heroes.

I believe it’s time to say the emperor has no clothes. Such self-righteous posturing is cowardly, not courageous. And such posturing threatens to corrupt Catholicism’s message to the world.
…

As early as 1968, Joseph Ratzinger fled his teaching post when confronted by student protests. His flight has become symbolic of a whole new generation of post-conciliar bishops, clergy, and church leaders who, confronted by values and practices they cannot accept, withdraw from the encounter even while proclaiming themselves firm defenders of the faith. But however gifted they may be at articulating their faith and values, they are preaching to the choir – a choir chanting over increasingly empty pews. The rest of us–especially the increasingly alienated generation of post-boomer Catholics–see this façade of courageous convictions for what is: a return to the fortress, pulling up the drawbridge and refilling the moat.

In these scandal-ridden times, Catholics sick of cover-up welcome their leaders’ promise of greater transparency. But the transparency we seek is about honesty and accountability, not this: an all-too transparent attempt to cloak one’s cowardly fear of modernity in the guise of righteous convictions, and to rationalize even discriminatory practices with the lame excuse of “protecting the innocent.” At best such claims provoke deserved skepticism; at worst, they render the hierarchy a laughingstock.