Interview with Phillip J. Linden By Joe Drexler-Dreis

Transcription

1 Newsletter CLT 4 (January 2013) 1 Interview with Phillip J. Linden By Joe Drexler-Dreis Phillip J. Linden Jr., S.S.J., S.T.D., Ph.D, has been a Josephite priest for 43 years and has been a professor of theology at Xavier University of Louisiana for 22 years. He is now the priest serving the St. Nicholas of Myra Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Mission in New Orleans. In his courses at Xavier, Fr. Linden teaches theology in a way that begins with the experience of the Divine in history. Fr. Linden particularly focuses on the experience of violence and social and political suffering in inner cities in the United States, where he has lived and worked for over fifty years. CLT: What experiences in your own life have influenced your thinking and your way of teaching theology? Who and what were your inspirations? In his article Poverty as a Theological Challenge, Gustavo Gutiérrez states that to understand a theology, you must go to the spirituality behind this theology. [i] The search for the Divine in the solitary way of life became the core of my spirituality. I saw priesthood as more than a call from the Church; it was a call from the victims of global violence and poverty. I committed myself to the Divine and to a radical way of life during the summer of 1968, a year before priestly ordination. What I discovered is that it is not enough to live in the ease of the priest house. No matter where I live or work as a priest, I must commit myself to pursuing the gift of the solitary life, lived out in the situation of violence and oppression. Unknown to most, this gift of self in this way came about when I made a retreat with the Little Brothers of Jesus, who lived among poor people and worked at an automobile factory in Detroit. The solitary life of Blessed Charles de Foucauld ( ) inspired the founding of the Little Brothers as a religious community. Blessed Foucauld was martyred while living as a hermit among the Tuareg peoples, in Tamanghasset, Algeria. This experience changed me forever! The charism of the Little Brothers, the solitary life, lived in the presence of the Eucharist and the violence of poverty, filled the longing in my heart. From my childhood, I had been in search of the solitary life lived in the context of the poor. I knew that I wanted to live beyond the experience of a parish priest. Choosing this life of solitude opened up the intensity of suffering associated with the violence of the USA. Since then, and until now, in my constant search for the solitary life, I intimately link the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament to the exposed life I live: exposed to the poor and to their struggle for survival. These are peoples suffering the violence of early death in povertystricken inner cities of the USA. They suffer at the hands of a society blinded by success, prosperity, and greed. My experience of living the solitary life among people who experience inner city poverty and violence continues to affect both my thinking, and my teaching of theology. Although lived out in different spaces, there is a similarity between monastic solitude and inner city solitude. The experience of monastic solitude is a total desire for God expressed and fostered in simple, yet profound ways by the prayer, study, and work of the monk. The experience of inner city solitude is also a total desire for God in the context of violence.

2 Newsletter CLT 4 (January 2013) 2 Although dominated by the cry of the street, its noise and violence constitutes a space of silence in that this violence always leaves a trail of victims who lay dying in the streets every day. The experience of solitude is an extraordinary combination of both types of silence. Living the solitary life in the inner city is a call to silence that integrates the two spaces into one. Both experiences provide insight into one another and create a balance that embodies this way of life at the level of the poor. In inner city solitude, I discover a new meaning of the priest as witness (martyr) in relation to alienation, poverty and suffering in the world. Thus, I have serious concerns about the approach of the Church in addressing the violent attacks on the life of the inner-city poor, theologically and pastorally. There is hope in bearing the sufferings of the poor in our bodies. Standing on the side of the poor in the presence of the Eucharist has become the crucible that shapes inner city solitude. I remember how the activist part of my solitary life surfaced and became full blown. I, like so many during the 1960 s to the present, became more centered on a radical interpretation of the Gospels. I initially became involved with priests and religious against the war and nuclear armament, dilapidated neighborhood housing, police brutality, inner city poverty etc. It was not long before my own radical interpretation of the Gospels deepened my service of justice as well as my commitment to the solitary way of life in the inner-city. During those times, we rejected being merely housekeepers of the limited circumstances dictated by a highly regulative approach to the city, the country, and the world. We lived as we do now: justice does not mean merely dealing with the moral and social issues void of exploring what causes the early death of people in the streets of the towns, cities, and countries of the world. In the face of all of this, life has to witness to something more. The solitary life lived at this level also functions as a challenge to the Church and society. It speaks of a connection to human suffering whereby in silence, visibly standing with victims, it witnesses to the futility of social political measures for helping. It is here where some of the contemporary critiques/challenges of liberation theologies fall short. Liberation at this level is neither political nor social. Inner city solitude witnesses in a radical but unique way to biblical and theological insights which open up a world and points to a time beyond the contemporary one. I am of the mind that the Church can find healing for itself and for victims of violence like it did in the Apostolic Period. I see the solitary way of life in the inner city as the bearing of the cross of the unhealed or unbearable sufferings of peoples. From the situation of the inner city life of solitude, bearing the cross of Christ means so much where victims have neither a political nor an economic future capable of offering hope. The thought that liberation is a failed historical project because it is powerless in influencing social and political change is problematic. This position is too easily stated by those who do not see or who do not live exposed to victims. There is hope in a person living with people who experience alienation, and experiencing the depth of how the victims of poverty feel being outside the parameters of understanding that most established people take for granted. There is also the strong opposition, even by the Church and religious communities. This is probably because living the solitary life at the level of the poor challenges the more than two-hundred-year-old history of the missionary approach by the Church to the global south and to the victims of slavery and the violence of poverty.

3 Newsletter CLT 4 (January 2013) 3 Living in inner city solitude, one experiences firsthand the impact of the history of missionaries who often ostensibly were the enforcers of the politics and economics of dominance, including the vision of the slave master, both then and now. Also, the Church is fostering global capitalism, military conflict, and drone warfare to maintain the politics and economics of dominance as a solution to injustice. Simultaneously, the Church critiques/condemns liberation theology for what it describes as its being political and having Marxist tendencies. As witnesses of the Kingdom of God, the work is not just being available merely to bury the carnage of the victims, the structures of accepted forms of violence. It is vital that we become influenced by those who suffer with and on behalf of victims; by those who still live lives of radical solitude; by the biblical prophets; and by the mystery of God in Christ. CLT: Having been your student for many years, it is evident that love guides your teaching and relationships with students. This love, it seems, also motivates the way that you consider the relationship between God and those who bear the consequences of the material limits of our society. Could you say something about where this love comes from, or what motivates it? I am now in my twenty-second year of teaching at Xavier University of Louisiana. From the view of the solitary life, teaching and love are one. I am available to students at any time: day or night. Not sure how they know it; they just do. Students often refer to my love for them. I see myself as manifesting and fulfilling the love the Divine Mystery bestows. The insertion of the Divine in the person of Christ is the fullness that I desire to live out. The solitary way of life shapes my life and love in academia by opening up the Sacramentality of the teaching experience effecting what it signifies. The student is the presence of the Divine, always revealing something of that mystery. I continue to see the love involved in teaching as an enduring Sacramentality. Professor Georges De Schrijver centers on the emanation of the transcendent and its splendor in the human situation. He states, The sacred transpires in the finite, and awareness of this transparency leads to adoration. [ii] De Schrijver, in reflecting on the translucent nature of the Divine, seeks to discover a radically new Sacramentality that means the divine reveals itself in the creatures, in history, and in human existence. He pursues this, in his article for Questions Liturgues, from the classical period to postmodernity. Thus, experiencing the Divine in history regardless of what the intellectual climate, the sciences, or the politics of today dictate, the prophetic nature of living the solitary life in some way reveals the transcendent. I am not actively conscious of what students refer to as my love. I respond by saying that even in this contemporary period, my undeclared love for students could give evidence of the Sacramentality of the Divine mystery. CLT: You teach at Xavier University in New Orleans, the only historically Black and Catholic university in the United States. What has teaching liberation theology theology that seeks to reflect critically on historical reality in light of Christian faith in such a context taught you?

4 Newsletter CLT 4 (January 2013) 4 The activist side of the solitary life is a way of responding to current radical shifts taking place on a global scale. In the late 60s when the civil rights movement ended, concern for the poorest had been ineffectual anyway, except in its creation of the middle to upper-middle class blacks as the antidote to poverty. Under the civil rights umbrella, many called the Church and various other structures to task. Statistics show what happened. Percentage-wise, there was the creation of an elite, bourgeoisie-type that was compliant to the vision of dominance. The decision I have made to live exposed to the life of the poor, and to live a life of poverty as a life commitment, is a decision and a vision I inevitably bring to my courses. So in light of that, I submit my philosophy of teaching. Christian theology concerns itself with making sense of the human experience of God in history. Moreover, theology stands as the context or space for confronting social and political ills. I have two goals as a teacher of theology. First, I attempt to inspire or transmit a passion for theology. Second, I work to promote the quality of the theological pursuit at Xavier by challenging students to think from an intellectual perspective. Life itself is the setting where the learning process takes place. This means that the theological discourse must be rooted in a dialogue with the position of students. The issues operational in that situation are: 1) the source(s) and impact of public policy; 2) the pressures to succeed in the private/personal domain; 3) the onslaught of technological manipulation and management; and the recurring problems of 4) race, and 5) class. The methodology, which is a pedagogical dialogue with the situation of students, is to provide an interpretive vision for the student that is crucial to the survival of people. It provides the tools that will allow the student to go beyond their situation. It endeavors to assist students in becoming clear, independent, reflective thinkers, critical of their own thought and action, as well as provides an analysis of the thought and action of others. With this methodology, I afford tools that might broaden the horizons of students. Mediated through this approach, students must become more in touch with the Divine Mystery, with theories that undergird the issues that are influential in their world, regardless of what their life experiences might be. CLT: Drawing from your experiences, what, in your perception, would be the qualities of a good theologian today? To whom do contemporary theologians need to be listening to? Inspired by early liberation theologians, I define theology as the critical reflection on the human experience of God in history. St. Athanasius says, The word of God, incorporeal, incorruptible, and immaterial entered our world. [iii] The theologian of today must be one who seeks to incorporate the Divine Mystery beyond the material and the power that the material can have over creation. As one who has ventured into this pursuit since the early 1960s, I understand that how one lives in relation to the world empowers the theologian to speak to the world about that Divine Mystery in a new way. Such a discourse goes beyond being right. For the theologian, knowing the teachings of the Church (orthodoxy) is vital to the life and tradition of the Church. However, for the

5 Newsletter CLT 4 (January 2013) 5 theologian, orthopraxy or doing right (martyrdom), namely witnessing with one s life to the presence of the Divine, is of greater value in the midst of the capitalist materialization of the Mystery than being right. Gustavo Gutiérrez, in dealing with the central role of historical praxis as a response to the challenges of suffering in the world, emphasizes the eschatological dimension in theology as opening us up to the future. Engaging theology in this way: we orient and open ourselves to the gift which gives history its transcendent meaning: the full and definitive encounter with the Lord and with other humans. Then he goes on to state that the Gospels call us to do the truth. In other words, the command is that we actively engage in the Christian (Catholic) life.[iv] Likewise, in discussing the rediscovery of the eschatological dimension in theology and the place and role of praxis in this endeavor, Gutiérrez states that: if human history is above all else an opening to the future, then it is a task, a political occupation, through which we orient and open ourselves to the gift which gives history its transcendent meaning: the full and definitive encounter with the Lord and with other humans. [v] When theologians open themselves in such a way, they take the side of the victims when approaching contemporary questions in a multidisciplinary way, both within the discipline and collaborating with others, and combining life with an experience of God. In carrying out this approach to theology, over and above a serious life of prayer, the theologian of the future needs to be interdisciplinary. I do not mean just for theologians to be experts in various disciplines or fields of study. I mean for the theologian to discover the Divine Mystery as creating and recreating the world, in the human situation, in all its various dimensions. CLT: What do you consider to be the most important task for liberation theologies today and in the near future? What further evolutions do you see on the horizon for liberation theologies? Although liberation theology has undergone various attacks both from within and beyond the Church, it remains the task of liberation theology today to continue engaging in critical reflection on the human experience of God in history. Liberation theology refers to this process as historical praxis. Previous comments on the meaning of historical praxis refer to not just remembering a past event, but refer to rereading that past event in light of the present. For example, the situation of poverty and oppression reread in light of/through the lens of the Gospels is a way of giving hope to victims of oppression the Divine Mystery is transforming the earth. However, connecting to that rereading of history entails also reading into that past event the causes of the social, political, and economic oppression. I appreciate how Jon Sobrino, in his discussion of what he refers to as the setting of theology, points to what he calls the Real Situation. He reflects on the theoretical dimensions of rereading past events. He sees this situation as the particular historical situation in which God and Christ are believed to be continuing to make themselves present. He calls this the theologal setting. In this situation, the meaning of God and Christ becomes manifested anew in the situation today. For him, it is particularly among the suffering victims.[vi] Seeing the

6 Newsletter CLT 4 (January 2013) 6 Christ event from the theologal situation has meaningful implications for suffering peoples. Sobrino dedicates this book to his fellow Jesuits and Julia Elba and Celina Ramos after witnessing their martyrdom (1989). This insight has meaning for people who witness murder on a daily basis in my neighborhood. It means the extension of the dying of Jesus into the present situation as more than a past event. The rereading of the immediate experience of almost daily violent death in inner city New Orleans has Christological significance when we connect the violent attack on innocent lives in this situation to the death of Jesus. Many who oppose liberation theology see it as a historical project that attacks the central doctrines of Christian faith, and consider it a failed project. In focusing on several major truths of the faith, liberation theology brings these truths to bear on areas beyond the situation of suffering among peoples who have no voice or who are silenced because their voices expose the limitations of oppressive political economic systems. Therefore, I do not agree that liberation theology sees secular historical progress as its sources. On the contrary, the violence of poverty, Sacred Scripture, and tradition are the sources for liberation theology. [i] Gustavo Gutiérrez, Poverty as a Theological Challenge, in Mediations in Theology: Georges DeSchrijver s Wager and Liberation Theologies, eds., Jacques Haers, S.J., Edmundo Guzman, Lope Florente Lesigues, and Daniel Franklin Pilario, C.M., Leuven: Peeters, 2003, pp , at p.181. [ii] Georges De Schrijver, Experiencing the Sacramental Character of Existence: Transitions from Premodernity to Modernity, Postmodernity, and the Rediscovery of the Cosmos, in Questions Liturgiques: Studies in Liturgy, Extrait, Leuven: Litugisch Instituut, Faculteit Godgeleerdheid. Vol.75: 1994/1-2, pp , at p. 12. [iii] St. Athanasius, Sermon on the Incarnation of the Word. [iv] Gutiérrez, Poverty as a Theological Challenge, p [v] Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, rev. ed. trans. Sister Caridad Inda and John Eagleson, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1988, p. 8. [vi] Jon Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator: A Historical-Theological View, Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1993, pp