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By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate
editor October
10, 2015
Prefacing remark by Blogger: I believe that Pope Francis is the “ hermeneutic of continuity”
with Benedict XVI. Continuity of what? Continuity in seeing being
– what we take to be “the real” – in a new way. That is, the meaning of “Being”
is relational , not in-itself substantial. This change is so profound, so
extensive and so explosive, that certainly neither the writings, nor the
personality of Benedict XVI could get it across (although he lived it and wrote
it). And so, the Spirit brings Francis to do the job. There is a perfect
continuity between the mind of Benedict XVI and Francis. The short answer:
Sanctity, becoming Christ Himself, “divinization,” become the ordinary, the “natural,”
the constitutive of the human person. The goal of the human person is to be out
of himself. The failure of the human person is to be turned back on self and
living for self. Thus, the pre-consistory remarks of Francis: “Evangelizing pre-supposes a desire in the
Church to come out of herself. The Church is called to come out of herself and
to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential
peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and infd
ifference to religion, of intellectual cur rents, and of all misery.
“When the Church does not come out
of herself to evangelize, she becomes self-referential and then gets sick…”[1]
Consider this in the light of the core of the
mind of Joseph Ratzinger :
“With
the insight that, seen as substance, God is One but that there exists in him the
phenomenon of dialogue, of differentiation, and of relationship through speech, the category of relation gained a completely new
significance for Christian thought. To Aristotle, it was among t he ‘accident
s,’ the chance circumstances of being, which are separated from substance, the sole
sustaining form of the real. The experience of the God who conducts a dialogue,
of the God who is not only logos but
also dia-logos, not only idea and
meaning but speech and word in the reciprocal exchanges of partners in conversation
– this experience exploded the ancient division of realit y into substance, the real thing , and accidents,
the merely circumstantial. It now became clear that the dialogue, the relation, stands beside the substance as
an equally primordial form of being.
“With
that, the wording of the dogma was to all intents and purposes settled. It expresses
the perception that God as substance, as ‘being,’ is absolutely one. If we
nevertheless have to speak of him in the category of triplicity, t his does not
imply any multiplication of substances but means that in the one and
indivisible God there exists the phenomenon of dialogue, the reciprocal
exchange of word and love. This again signifies that the ‘three Persons’ who
exist in God are the reality of word and
love in their attachment to each other. They are not substances, personalities
in the modern sense, but the relatedness whose pure actuality (‘parcel of waves’!)
does not impair the unity of thie highest being but fills it out. St. Augustine
once enshrined this idea in the following formula: ‘He is not called Father wit
h reference t o himself but only in relation to the Son; seen by himself he is simply
God.’ Here the decisive point comes beautifully to light. ‘Father’ is purely a
concept of relationship. Only in being for the other is he Father; in his own
being in himself he is simply God. Person is the pure relation of being related,
nothing else. Relationship is not some thing extra added to the person, as it
is with us; it only exists at all as relatedness.
“Expressed
in the imagery of Christian tradition, this means that the first Person does
not beget the Son as if the act of begetting were subsequent to the finished
Person; it is the act of begetting,
of giving oneself, of streaming forth. It is identical with the act of
self-giving. Only as this act is it person, and therefore it is not the giver [Blogger:
as a substance in which
giving inheres as an accident]… In
this idea of relatedness in word and love, independent of the concept of
substance and not to be classified among the ‘accidents,’ Christian thought
discovered the kernel of the concept of person, which describes something other
and infinitely more than the mere idea of the ‘individual.’ … Therein lies
concealed a revolution in man’s view of the world; relation is discovered as an
equally valid primordial mode of reality. It becomes possible to surmount what
we call today objectifying thought;’ a new plane of being comes into view. It
is probably true to say that the task imposed on philosophy as a result of
these facts is far from being completed
- so much does modern thought depend on the possibilities thus
disclosed, without which it would be inconceivable.”[2]
John L
Allen, Jr.
“ For Catholics
accustomed to traditional ways of doing things, Pope Francis is undeniably a
shock to the system.
A summit of bishops from around the world over
which he’s currently presiding in Rome is a classic case in point, because
Catholics just aren’t used to seeing differences among their leaders play out
so publicly and, at times, with such a sharp edge.
The Oct. 4-25 meeting in Rome, called a Synod
of Bishops, is the second such event Francis has convened in the past two years
to debate matters related to family life. There are 270 bishops taking part,
most elected by their national bishops’ conferences, along with 90 experts,
contributors, and delegates from other Christian churches.
The first edition of the synod last October
featured intense and sometimes acrimonious debate over several hot-button
matters, including:
· Whether Catholics who divorce and remarry
without an annulment of their first marriage ought to be able to receive
Communion.
· Whether Catholicism needs a more positive
approach to gays and lesbians, one that doesn’t repeal Church teaching, but
nonetheless gets across a sense of welcome and inclusion.
· Whether the Church can recognize positive
values in couples living together and other non-traditional family
arrangements, rather than wagging its finger and expressing disapproval.
Now that the bishops have come together for
the second time, there’s little indication that they have found common ground
on those matters. Instead, a fundamental clash remains between those who
believe in outreach and dialogue, meeting people where they are, and those
worried that the Church must not lose its capacity to call sin by its real
name.
Complicating matters further is that some of
the rule changes and appointments Francis has made for the synod have produced
charges of stacking the deck, especially among conservatives who fear the
opposition has been given the upper hand.
Those charges have had enough of an echo that
Francis felt compelled last week to give an impromptu address to the synod
warning the bishops against succumbing to “conspiracy theories.”
(Only in the Vatican, by the way, could a pope
issuing such a warning generate a conspiracy theory of its own. Synod sessions
are closed, and in this case the Vatican’s official spokesman didn’t relay the
pope’s comment during the daily news briefing. Instead, it was tweeted out by
an Italian priest and a fellow Jesuit, prompting speculation about whether
Francis had actually said it, and whose agenda was being served by allowing it
to be released this way.)
The raucous nature of the synod captures in
miniature the spirit of Francis’ papacy. From the very beginning, he’s been a
break-the-mold kind of pope.
Americans got a reminder of that during his
recent visit when he defied conventional left/right divisions by meeting Kim
Davis, the face of opposition to gay marriage in the United States, as well as
a longtime friend from Argentina who is in an openly gay relationship.
It was vintage Francis. He exudes a
talk-to-everyone ethos, emphasizing that Catholicism needs to get out into the
street, even at the risk of getting dirty, in order to make itself relevant.
That approach has given Francis enormous popularity inside and outside the
Church — including, despite what one might think from some media coverage,
generally strong support among the world’s bishops and inside the Vatican
itself.
Yet every so often, perhaps especially for
Catholicism’s base — meaning staunchly loyal believers, driven to defend the
faith against what Friedrich Schleiermacher once called the “cultured
despisers” of religion — Francis can be just too much.
Related
For some in that group, Francis represents a
break with Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. They charge that Francis has
exacerbated the Church’s internal divisions, with some even floating the
prospect of a “schism,” meaning a formal splintering into rival camps.
A leader of one of Catholicism’s most
important internal movements (for the record, a non-American) told me last week
that he finds such sentiments among his own following, and therefore has had to
think carefully about how to respond.
His answer? Francis is not the repudiation of
Benedict XVI, but the “radicalization” of his predecessor’s legacy.
Benedict, he says, understood that a growing
rupture between faith and culture has left Catholicism in a deep crisis, and he
laid an intellectual basis for rethinking how the Church can engage a
post-modern secular age.
Francis, as he sees it, is now jolting the
Church out of long-established patterns to allow the rethinking Benedict wanted
to occur — not at the price of diluting the Church’s teaching, but in order to
revive its capacity to win hearts and to shape history.
In other words, Francis is basically shock
therapy for the Church.
Such therapy is notoriously painful and
unsettling, often causing patients to experience confusion and disorientation —
both of which are palpably present in some circles of Catholicism these days.
Yet there are times when it’s the only way to jolt the patient out of a funk.
Psychiatrists will tell you that shock therapy
should be used only as a last resort, and it doesn’t always work. It’s
effective only about half the time, and even when it does succeed, its effects
often wear off over time.
Viewing Pope Francis this way, however, might
at least have the side-effect of reassuring anxious elements of his base that
he’s not out to harm Church teaching and tradition. He’s actually trying to
save it.
* * * * *
[1] These
words are from a document given to Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega – Cardinal of
Havana, Cuba, - by Pope Francis
outlining the speech he gave during the pre-conclave General Congregation
meetings of the Cardinals. Cardinal Ortega received permission from Pope
Francis to share t he information.
[2]
Joseph Ratzinger, “Introduction to Chr istianity,” Ignatius (2004) 183-184.
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