volume 25, number 2 March 2013

Transcription

1 volume 25, number 2 March 2013 JOURNAL INFORMATION New Theology Review is a Catholic journal of theology and ministry. Peer-reviewed and current, it offers resources that address contemporary trends in theology and pastoral practice. It publishes essays, invited columns, and book reviews designed for clergy, religious, and laity. is an online, open-access journal published by the Catholic Theological Union through the Paul Bechtold Library. Further information, including author guidlines and instructions on how to submit manuscripts, is available at the journal website, EDITORIAL BOARD Melody Layton McMahon, Co-Editor Dawn M. Nothwehr, O.S.F., Co-Editor Antonio D. Sison, C.PP.S., Co-Editor Neomi DeAnda, Book Review Editor STAFF Christopher Meyer, O.F.M., Tech Support Elizabeth Treu, Copyeditor/Proofreader ADVISORY BOARD This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. ISBN: James A. Coriden Thomas Dalzell José M. de Mesa Ivone Gebara Philip Gibbs, S.V.D. James Halstead, O.S.A. Mary Catherine Hilkert, O.P. Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, S.J. Gilbert Ostdiek, O.F.M. Barbara E. Reid, O.P. Robert Schreiter, C.PP.S. i

2 EDITORIAL Their church is more Catholic than Roman, less monarchic and more constitutional, less doctrinaire and more dialogic, less monolithic and more mosaic, less static and more mobile, less preoccupied with the City of God and more in love with the City of man (humanity). Such was the great purport of what this great council did to the spirit and structure of the Church. 1 The above reflection, appearing in Life magazine just nine days after the culmination of the Second Vatican Council, is an astute description of the dawning of change and promise that followed the most significant event in the Catholic church in modern times. The Council ushered-in a church in a new key. On the fiftieth anniversary of Vatican II, dedicates its current issue to an examination of the continuing reverberations of the Council on theology and Catholic life. Edward Foley, Capuchin, takes a critical look at micro-hermeneutical interpretations of Sacrosanctum Concilium and asks whether theologians have been looking through the wrong end of the telescope. John Pawlikowski, O.S.M., explores the ways in which Nostra Aetate continues to offer possibilities for the reformulation of Christian thought, and consequently, a reorientation of the Christian-Jewish question. Dianne Bergant, CSA, looks at the past, present, and future of the Bible in church life through the relativizing lens of Dei Verbum. Asserting that in its deepest intent, Vatican II was a missionary council, Stephen Bevans, S.V.D., re-visits Ad Gentes and the understanding of Church as a sacramental sign to the world. From a study of the Matthean account of the Transfiguration, Clemens Sedmak identifies four types of knowledge that are relevant to mission directed knowledge, demonstrative knowledge, overwritten knowledge, redefining knowledge and traces their correlation with key conciliar concerns, namely, the normativity of the local, a second person perspective, institutional humility, and a commitment to the transformative power of the weak. Robert Schreiter, C.PP.S., underlines the importance of Gaudium et Spes as a new genre in conciliar documents in that that it defined a pastoral council as against a dogmatic one; it is a document that continues to offer touchstones for envisioning a global church. In addition, Donald Senior, C.P.S.; Leslie Hoppe, O.F.M.; Gil Ostdiek, O.F.M.; and Christine Athans, BVM, share their testimonies on the impact of the Second Vatican Council on their religious and personal lives. In the rest of the issue, William H. Johnston re-visits the 2005 U.S. bishops document Co-workers in the Vineyard of the Lord: Guidelines for the Development of Lay Ecclesial Ministry and explores the meaning of the call to cultivate a Marian spirituality. De La Salle Brother Armand Alcazar shares his formation journey towards becoming an accidental catechist in the context of US Catholic culture and the period after the Council. Kathleen Dorsey Bellow reflects on the liturgical principle of a fuller, more engaged participation in the celebration of the Mass and in the realities of daily life. Antonio D. Sison, C.PP.S., gleans wisdom from the astonishing renewal of interest in manual typewriters amid the challenges of online distractions and breakneck speed obsolescence in the digital age. Finally, in this issue, introduces a new column called New Voices, which is dedicated to the works of graduate students in theological studies who are journeying to find their own voices. Our timely debut feature is Church in the Modern World by John Christman, S.S.S., an artist and newly ordained priest who just completed his M.A. from Catholic Theological Union. Editors Note: The editors would like to apologize for the inconvenience to some readers caused by uploading past issues. Readers who receive a notification of a new issue received an for each past issue loaded. Previous to 1 John K. Jessup, New Currents Swirling around Peter s Rock, Life (December 17, 1965), 27. ii

3 uploading these, a notification was sent to ask you to temporarily turn off your notifications on the journal website. (Please turn it on again if you wish to receive notification of our next issue.) This will happen once again when we have scanned the first ten years of the journal, which were not produced digitally. We hope that the accessibility of the past issues openly on the Internet will overcome any inconvenience. We d also like to note that EPUBS are now offered for those who wish to read on their mobile devices. A complete issue will be provided for those who do not want to download each article individually. If you have more ideas for increasing the accessibility of, please let us know. iii

4 The Bible in Our Lives Today by Dianne Bergant, CSA ARTICLE Has the Second Vatican Council changed our appreciation of the Bible? The very title of this article already suggests a profound change. Before the Council, the Bible played an insignificant role in the lives of most Catholics. Very few of them were acquainted with its content, with the exception of certain Bible history stories they had learned during childhood or the epic dramas produced by Hollywood. Sermons based on the Sunday readings were rare. Preaching usually developed a catechetical, doctrinal, or moralistic theme. Many people even felt that it was dangerous to read the Bible without the explicit direction of the church. Protestants may have been steeped in biblical knowledge, but Catholics certainly were not. In fact, many considered reading the Bible a Protestant devotion. Circumstances are quite different today. Even those whose religious practice consists exclusively of Sunday or feast day liturgy have come to know quite a bit about the Bible. The liturgy itself is replete with biblical themes; often the songs sung during the liturgy are based on biblical passages, and most homilies explain some aspect of the readings of the day. The Bible certainly does play a major role in our lives today. Dianne Bergant, CSA, is the Carroll Stuhlmueller, C.P., Distinguished Professor of Old Testament Studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Dianne Bergant was President of the Catholic Biblical Association of America (2000-1) and has been an active member of the Chicago Catholic/ Jewish Scholars Dialogue for the past twenty years. The Past How did this far-reaching change come about? While it may seem that it happened almost overnight, it resulted from a rather slow and often very difficult process that can be traced back to the Council of Trent ( C.E.). That Council decreed that no one could interpret Scripture in any way that might contradict what was taught by the Church. Centuries later, the First Vatican Council, convoked by Pius IX, issued Dei Filius (Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith; 1870). Addressing the question of revelation, the document restates the teaching of Trent that supernatural revelation is contained in both the written books of the Bible and in the unwritten Tradition handed down through apostolic teaching. The first important papal document devoted entirely to Scripture was Leo XIII s encyclical letter Providentissimus Dei (On the Study of Scripture; 1893). This document was a negative response to the scientific discoveries of the day concerning the age of the earth and the newly advanced theory of evolution, theories that disputed the literal understanding of the biblical accounts of creation. In 1902, Leo XIII wrote an apostolic letter entitled Vigilantiae studiique (Instituting a Commission for Biblical Studies). The establishment of this commission, which came to be known as the Pontifical Biblical Commission, 1

5 marked a significant step toward recognizing the role of biblical interpretation in the life of the broader Church. It also recognized the need to deal professionally with some of the noteworthy currents of thought in the world at large. Though the Pontifical Biblical Commission engaged in scholarly investigation, the Church was still in a defensive posture and so its statements were more defenses of Church teaching than they were exploratory. This was the age of Vatican I with its suspicion, not that of Vatican II with its openness. Official teaching regarding the interpretation of the Bible was also promulgated by the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, the oldest of the nine congregations that comprise the Roman Curia. Before 1904 it was known as the Supreme Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, a name that still strikes fear in the hearts of many. Today it is known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In 1907, this congregation addressed the teachings advanced by the intellectual movement of the day known as Modernism. This congregation produced a decree entitled Lamentabili sane Exitu (With Truly Lamentable Results), which condemned sixty-five propositions of that intellectual movement, half of which dealt with matters of biblical interpretation spearheaded by Protestant scholars. Later that year, Pius X issued the encyclical letter Pascendi dominici gregis (On the Doctrine of the Modernists; 1907). The influence of this encyclical cannot be overestimated for, in order to ensure that traditional teaching be maintained by bishops, priests, and all teachers of theology, a compulsory anti-modernist oath of loyalty was issued. This oath remained in force until Paul VI abolished it in A quarter century after the appearance of Providentissimus Deus, Benedict XV issued the encyclical letter Spiritus Paraclitus (Commemorating the Fifteenth Century of the Death of St. Jerome; 1920). This document was quite negative toward those who questioned the historicity of biblical narratives. It was not only adamant in its support of the Church s teaching on biblical inerrancy (the claim that the Bible is free of error), but it also rejected the idea that the Bible should be interpreted according to its literary forms. This directive, along with the anti-modernist oath established earlier by Pius X, resulted in the suppression of much Roman Catholic participation in critical biblical interpretation of the day. Even in the midst of this very repressive mindset, Pius XII inaugurated the modern Catholic biblical movement with the issuance of the encyclical letter Divino afflante Spiritu (On the Most Opportune Way to Promote Biblical Studies; 1943). The document marked the fiftieth anniversary of the issuance of Providentissimus Deus, the encyclical that condemned the use of innovative methods of interpretation. In this new document, Pius XII gave permission for a limited use of contemporary critical methods, including archaeology, historical studies, and literary-critical approaches. This reversal of teaching led many to hail the document as the Magna Carta of the Catholic biblical movement. It encourages scholars to probe the deep meaning of the Scriptures. It closes with an exhortation to bishops and priests to ground their preaching in Scripture rather than doctrinal concepts, as had been the practice at that point. This document prepared the ground for the teaching of the Second Vatican Council which would follow approximately twenty years later. Despite the apparent openness expressed in Divino afflante Spiritu, Pius XII still struggled with the implications of the use of modern interpretive approaches. This became clear in a second encyclical letter issued by him entitled Humani generis (On Certain False Opinions Threatening to Undermine the Foundations of Catholic Doctrine; 1950). Here he nuanced the Church s position on evolution, clearly rejecting any form of polygenism, the hypothesis that human beings descended from various ancestors rather than from one couple, Adam and Eve, as the Bible claims. Though Pius XII s encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu (1943) opened the door to critical biblical interpretation for Roman Catholics, such efforts of interpretation did not escape the watchful eye of the Holy Office. In 1961, just 2

6 before the opening of the Second Vatican Council, that congregation issued Warning to Those Who Expound the Scriptures. Acknowledging the strides that had been made in the study of the Bible, an affirmation of critical work in general, this statement cautioned against opinions that call into question the genuine historical and objective truth of Scripture. As negative as this caution might sound, the tenor of this statement is markedly different from that of Lamentabili sane Exitu. The earlier statement was a stern condemnation; this one was a warning. It appears that the Holy Office was now exercising its oversight responsibility in a very different way. The Present In the mid-1960s, a new-found interest in Bible study swept across the church. It originated in missionary work and was located within a phenomenon known as the base Christian community. Small groups of ordinary Christians met to discuss how the message of the Bible might make a difference in their lives. Although they often had a study leader, the members themselves were seldom trained in any form of biblical interpretation. However, this did not deter them. They studied and they prayed. Various forms of liberation theology grew out of these groups. Today similar groups can still be found in parishes around the world. As these groups grew in strength and popularity, people gradually came to realize the importance of more critical biblical study. Graduate programs sprang up across the country and around the world. These programs were usually open to both women and men who were not pursuing ordination. At the same time, seminaries began to revise their courses of study. No longer was the Bible taught as a way of proving or reinforcing a particular doctrinal teaching. It was now considered a theological field in its own right and was studied from an entirely different point of view. The Second Vatican Council spearheaded a marvelous revitalization of the Bible in the church. Both during and between sessions, many council participants attended private lectures given by prominent biblical scholars. Thus they were better prepared to consider with new seriousness the biblical foundation and challenges for their deliberations. As a further consideration of the conciliar turn to the Bible, the Book of the Gospels was solemnly enthroned amid the council participants at the beginning of many general sessions. Vatican II issued a document that attested to a notable change in the Catholic Church s method of biblical interpretation. Dei Verbum (The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation; 1965) is considered one of the most significant documents of the council. It instructs Catholic interpreters to employ the critical methods that had engaged Protestant scholars for centuries but which had been previously banned in Catholic scholarship. These include both historical-critical and literary approaches. It encourages the critical study of both biblical testaments, acknowledging the importance of each testament in its own right. This directive abolishes any suggestion that the primary value of the Old Testament is as preparation for the New Testament. The document ends with a description of the importance of Sacred Scripture in the life of the Church. This particular concern highlights the almost complete reversal of thought that had held sway at the beginning of the twentieth century. Biblical understanding was now considered vital for the spiritual life and health of believers. Critical translations of the Bible, which included informative introductions, footnotes, and cross-references appeared in various languages. Commentaries written by Catholic and Protestants alike became the textbooks in Catholic schools, universities, and seminaries. Ecumenical biblical interpretation was born. The Council insisted that access to Sacred Scripture ought to be widely available to the Christian faithful (DV 22). As a result, catechetical programs grounded in Bible study were established in parishes, liturgical preaching became biblically based, and several approved translations of the Bible appeared with contemporary study helps. 3

7 The Bible itself ceased to be only a family heirloom showcased on the coffee table, if a family even possessed a Bible, and it became a well-worn, dog-eared, frequently consulted best-seller. Any claim that there is a chasm between the scholar in her or his ivory tower and the simple faithful has been put to rest. The popular media has demonstrated its interest in matters once considered the exclusive domain of biblical scholarship. The Jesus Seminar, which examined some of the historical claims of the gospel stories, caught the imagination of the American public when explanation and critique of some of its more radical points appeared in national news magazines such as Newsweek (April 4, 1994) and Time (April 8, 1996). Bill Moyers six-part public television series entitled Genesis: A Living Conversation (1986) brought Christians, Jews, and Muslims together to reflect on the influence that Genesis narratives have had on contemporary thought and life. The FRONTLINE production From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians (1998) included interviews of New Testament scholars and archaeologists and continues to be aired periodically. These are but a few examples that show that today, what once was considered the simple faith is often well grounded in critical scholarship. Where in the past reading of the Bible often divided Catholics and Protestants, the study of the Bible enjoys considerable cooperation among the various Christian churches. Differences in understanding, with very few exceptions, are more the result of the choice of method used in interpreting the Bible than of denominational affiliation. There are Catholics and Protestants alike who choose critical methods to discover the meaning of the Bible, just as there are Catholics and Protestants alike who read the texts from a more literal point of view. This ecumenical cooperation is evident in the composition of biblical translation committees and various commentary series that are popular among both scholars and ordinary church goers. Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, and sometimes Jews are members of advisory and/or editorial committees and authors of volumes of the series. Clearly, biblical studies have been embraced by the believing community generally. In a relatively recent document entitled The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (1994), the Pontifical Biblical Commission insists that, as important as it is to know what the Bible originally meant, we must also be concerned about what it might mean today in the world within which we live, a world embroiled in economic injustice, war, and various forms of discrimination. This means that in our reading of the Bible, we must be sensitive to issues of gender, race, ethnic origin, class, and other political factors that make up the real world of real people. These factors influence the way women and men perceive reality and fashion their inner and outer worlds. Such sensitivity is particularly difficult to develop when we read stories that are clearly biased in favor of one group over another. Examples include: Israelites are always chosen over the Egyptians; men are preferred to women; and physical disabilities are often considered a form of punishment for sin. One of the pressing issues facing us today is the challenge to be faithful to the religious message of the biblical narrative while at the same time sensitive to the reality of today s world. We have already come a long way in this kind of sensitivity. The liberation movement that first appeared in Latin America in the early 1970s and then spread to parts of Africa, parts of Asia, and various groups within the United States has significantly affected the way we read the Bible. The experiences of oppression and poverty have brought people to a new appreciation of the biblical stories of liberation. This in turn has inspired many people to challenge present governmental structures and policies that they deem to be unjust. The women s movement and its concern for inclusivity and mutuality on many levels have also played an important role in various translations of the Bible and in the writing of prayers that are used during the liturgy. In addition to this, feminist biblical investigation has turned the gender bias experienced by women into a tool for critiquing the gender bias within the biblical text itself. This continues to be an important issue facing the church. 4

8 The Future What can we expect from biblical study in the future? It is always much easier to describe the past and explain the present than it is to predict the future, especially when one is suggesting how one aspect of reality will influence another. However, one can certainly point out what might be considered issues of an unfinished agenda. In this vein, three topics come to mind. These are not the only topics, nor are they necessarily the most important ones. Another biblical theologian might suggest others. These are some of the ones that interest the present writer: biblical translations; the intersection of the biblical message and contemporary concerns (integrity of creation); and interfaith respect and acceptance. The apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini, issued in 2010 after the conclusion of the recent synod on the Word of God, sketched an agenda for future biblical developments. It underscored the importance of biblical preaching during liturgies, the role of biblical themes and theology as part of the celebration of sacraments, and the spiritual benefits garnered from forms of prayer, such as lectio divina or prayerful reflection on biblical themes. It also reiterated the believers responsibility to preach with their lives the message of the reign of God, as found in both testaments of the Bible. This agenda requires continued participation of religious leaders, openness of all involved to new theological insights, and steadfastness in the face of difficulty and opposition. The importance of the synodal document notwithstanding, several burning issues still remain to be faced by the church. One is the question of biblical language. While most people view this as a gender issue, it really carries far broader theological significance. It is probably true that sensitivity to gender-specific language spearheaded this concern, but it has been expanded to the point of uncovering other biased biblical expressions. For example, a passage from the Song of Songs has traditionally been translated: I am black, but beautiful (Cant 1:5). The conjunction but suggests an exception, implying that black is normally not beautiful, but in this case it is beautiful. The Hebrew conjunction traditionally rendered as but can also be translated as and, which yields a very different meaning. The traditional rendering black, but beautiful has been determined by the translator, not by the biblical text itself. Many maintain that this uncovers a racial bias. Others see it as an economic class issue because women of higher social standing were not obligated to work in the field, as women of lower class were. They were therefore not subject to the ravages of the sun as the woman in the Song was, who claims: the sun has burned me (Cant 1:6). This is just an example of how critical translations and interpretations sensitive to social issues continue to be a major biblical concern. Another aspect of biblical language is the nature of the metaphors that refer to God. The Bible characterizes God primarily as male. Changing the language of this gender characterization is a radical modification of the meaning carried by the metaphor. In the biblical world, referring to God as father implied that God was in charge as sovereign, provider, and protector. A mother, on the other hand, was subservient, with very little authority, and only valuable if she was able to produce a son. This is not meant as an argument against the use of female metaphors for God. Rather, it is a caution that a simple change of language may not be enough. Most scholars believe that the use of a range of metaphors is the best way of demonstrating that no metaphor adequately characterizes divine reality. There are many sides to this issue, and people with fervent commitment argue for each of them. Although several official statements on the matter of translations have been advanced, the struggle has not gone away, and it does not look like it will in the very near future. Another important topic that may not yet be on the horizon of the thinking of many is the biblical understanding of the relationship between humankind and the rest of the natural world. Current threats to ecological balance have forced a new look at the biblical underpinnings of much of our attitude toward the world of which we are a 5

9 part. Aspects of contemporary cosmology itself have become dinner table conversation for many. However, too often the very ones engaged in such conversations retain a literal understanding of biblical narratives that reflect ancient cosmological worldviews. The passage that is probably responsible for much of the misunderstanding of this matter is the injunction given by God in the first account of creation:... subdue it. Have dominion... (Gen 1:28). The injunction has led some to believe that the rest of the natural world is under the sovereign control of human beings, who can do with it as they see fit. This attitude has spawned attitudes of disregard for natural creation and its exploitation. Anyone who holds opinions like these has never placed this biblical passage, or others like it, in relationship with passages that sketch a very different point of view: The earth is the Lord s (Ps 24:1). The current concern for ecology has called for a reexamination of the biblical stories of creation, as well as other passages dealing with natural creation. This sensitivity has become a lens for critique and a focus for reinterpretation. It has shown us that many of our attitudes toward natural creation have been grounded in faulty or culturallybound reading of the biblical accounts. The development of an authentic biblical theology of ecology is now in its infancy. However, many believe that the development of this topic will open up an exciting field of examination and spirituality. A third area opened by Vatican II, yet still a pressing challenge, is the church s attitude toward other faiths, especially the Jewish faith. Various passages from the New Testament, particularly from John s Gospel and some of Paul s writings, have been used to justify the exploitation and persecution of the Jewish people. We need not rehearse the shameful history of pogroms called and carried out by Christians, pogroms that culminated in the atrocity known as the Shoah. Antagonism against the Jewish people has often been exacerbated by some of the exclusive claims that stem from their own interpretation of the Bible. This is principally true of passages that identify the Jews, and only the Jews, as God s chosen people and the land of Israel as rightfully theirs by divine promise. It was the Council s ground-breaking document Nostra Aetate (Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non- Christian Religions) that officially repudiated the accusation that the Jewish people generally, whether those in the past or those in the present, were responsible for the death of Jesus. Furthermore, it firmly condemned any form of anti-semitism. Since both Jewish people and Christians locate their origins and the bases of their religious worldviews in the Bible, their manner of interpreting fundamental texts has sometimes been the source of controversy. Cognizant of this, the Pontifical Biblical Commission issued a document in 2001 entitled The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible. Without compromising any principles of Catholic biblical interpretations, the document acknowledges the importance of Jewish interpretation not only for the Jewish people but for Christians as well. While this document has made remarkable strides in interfaith understanding, it has not resolved all of the differences in biblical interpretation. As is the case with the other topics mentioned above, this is an item of unfinished business. Conclusion The Second Vatican Council threw the door to biblical study wide open. Women and men, lay and ordained, have committed themselves to various forms of biblical scholarship and ministry and have been enriched and have enriched others in ways far beyond their own imagining. What does the future hold? Stay tuned! This article was first presented as an address at Lewis University, Romeoville, IL, September 28, 2012 as part of its commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Vatican II. 6

10 Mission at the Second Vatican Council by Stephen B. Bevans, S.V.D. ARTICLE A Missionary Council The Vatican Council ( ) has often been called the most significant theological and religious event of the twentieth century. 1 For the Catholic Church, the Council was a watershed moment of reform and renewal, a moment toward which much of the church s energies had moved in the fifty years that preceded it and from which the church has been nourished and challenged in the half century since the Council took place. Stephen B. Bevans, S.V.D., is Louis J. Luzbetak, S.V.D., Professor of Mission and Culture at Catholic Theological Union and co-author of Evangelization and Religious Freedom: Ad Gentes and Dignitatis Humanae (Mahwah/New York: Paulist Press, 2009). Despite much controversy and even movements of restoration in the last several decades, after Vatican II the Catholic Church and, indeed, many other Christian churches and communities would never be the same. 2 In 1864, Pope Pius IX boldly condemned any thought that the Roman Pontiff could reconcile himself with progress and the modern world. 3 Just one hundred years later, Pope John XXIII called for aggiornamento literally, updating and the Church issued a document on the Church in the Modern World. In 1928, Pope Pius XI forbade any Catholic to become involved in the growing ecumenical movement in the encyclical Mortalium Animos. 4 Some three decades later, Christian unity was held up by Pope John XXIII as one of major goals of the Council. 5 When one thinks of how the Council treated the church s mission at the Council, one naturally looks to its Decree on Missionary Activity, entitled Ad Gentes (AG) after its first two words. This would be correct, of course, but it is also important to note that mission or evangelization is really at the heart of everything that the Council was about. 6 In its deep- 1 Robert J. Schreiter, The Impact of Vatican II in The Twentieth Century, , ed. Gregory Baum (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1999), 158; John W. O Malley, What Happened at Vatican II (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 1. 2 This is a main argument of Massimo Faggioli in his books Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2012) and True Reform: Liturgy and Ecclesiology in Sacrosanctum Concilium (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2012). 3 Heinrich Denzinger and Adolf Schönmetzer, ed., Enchiridion Symbolorum Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum (Freiburg: Herder, 1967), no Pius XI, Encyclical Letter Mortalium Animos, 5 John XXIII Apostolic Constitution Humanae Salutis in The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbot (New York: Guild Press/ America Press/Association Press, 1966), For a more detailed treatment, see Stephen B. Bevans and Jeffrey Gros, Evangelization and Human Freedom: Ad Gentes and Dignitatis Humanae (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2009). 7

11 est intent, in fact, Vatican II was a missionary council. Its central theme, as it turned out, was the mystery of the church in its interior reality as a community that is a sacramental sign to the world and as an instrument of grace and wholeness in the midst of the world (see LG 1). Vatican II, unlike many, if not all, previous ecumenical councils, was not called to attend to any particular crisis in is doctrinal system or governing structure. At least on the surface, during the reign of Pius XII from 1939 until 1958, the papacy had never been stronger, and the church was growing vigorously throughout the world. Nevertheless, in a move of prophetic insight, John XXIII s reason for calling the Council was to help the church preserve and teach Christian doctrine in a more effective way in the light of major political and cultural changes in the twentieth century. Aggiornamento was not a call for change for change s sake but a call to mission. Mission is what gave the Council its basic direction. 7 Each of the Council s four main Constitutions on the church, the church in the modern world, the liturgy, and divine revelation which, said the Special Synod of Bishops in 1985, are the main documents by which the Council can best be interpreted, contain elements that illumine the church s evangelizing mission and provide a firm theological foundation for the document on missions proper. The seminal idea that the church is a sign and instrument of God s salvation being worked out in the world (LG 1); the truly radical notion that all Christians have a different but equal share in the church s mission (LG, Chapter II; LG 32); the recognition that the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of humanity are those also of the followers of Christ (GS 1); the move from an understanding of revelation as a set of propositions to a personal call to friendship (DV 2); and the great sensitivity to culture that inspired much of the reform of the liturgy (SC 37-40) all of these and more are motivated by a spirit of evangelization and mission. In addition, to single out only two other documents, those on religious freedom and non-christian religions, the Council provided a vision that has challenged traditional understandings of mission to the core and yet has offered a new, basically more evangelical, motive for the preaching of and witnessing to the gospel among all peoples. The Council s declaration that all peoples have a right to religious freedom has forever cut the ground from under any effort of proselytism in the name of the church or the gospel (DH 1). In addition, the Council s recognition that every religion contains rays of that Truth that enlightens all women and men (NA 2) opens up mission not only to a clear proclamation of the gospel message but also to a proclamation in the context of dialogue and an effort to understand the sincere beliefs of those to whom the gospel is presented. From another perspective, as church historian John W. O Malley has explained in several significant works, not only did the Council offer a different content on many issues, it also offered a new form or style. The Council eschewed the usual canonical, legal language of Roman documents, studded with power words or words of threat and intimidation, words of surveillance and punishment, words of a superior speaking to inferiors, or, just as often, to an enemy, 8 and chose the language of persuasion, more pastoral and positive in tone. Such a change in tone was emblematic of the change in the church s entire missionary commitment: the church is missionary by its very nature, not only or even primarily because Christ commanded it to make disciples of all nations (Mt 28:19) but because it is rooted in the missionary life of the Trinity (AG 2); Christians on mission respect and cherish the cultures of the people that the evangelize, as well as their religious beliefs (AG 11; NA 2); Not only do Christians have something precious to share with the world, they can learn as well from its struggles, its sincerity, and its progress (GS 43-44). If Vatican II was a missionary Council, it also set a new tone to what mission was all about. 7 Johannes Schütte, ed. Vatican II: L Activité Missionaire de l Église. Unam Sanctam 67 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1967), 120; and Mission nach dem Konzil (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 1967), 7. 8 John W. O Malley, Vatican II: Did Anything Happen? Theological Studies 67, no. 1(March, 2006): 20; see also O Malley, What Happened at Vatican II (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 8

12 The Decree on Missionary Activity The Development of the Decree Except for a virtual hiatus in explicit foreign missionary activity at the end of the eighteenth century, 9 the church has always engaged in what Pope John Paul II called mission ad gentes. Because of such a long and constant history of missionary commitment, therefore, it may come as a surprise that the Council s Decree on Missionary Activity (Ad Gentes) represents the first time in history that an ecumenical council had issued a document dedicated explicitly to the church s evangelizing mission in the world. 10 Interestingly, however, the document was almost abandoned during the course of the Council as pressures mounted to end its deliberations with the third session in The path of Ad Gentes was, as one historian of the decree put it, strewn with ambushes. 11 What follows is a brief summary of a very complex process. 12 In June 1969, it was announced that Cardinal Gregory Peter Agagianian, prefect of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide), would head the commission that would draft a document on the church s missionary activity. The fifty-four member commission was almost entirely European in makeup, and although there were several fine theologians and missiologists on it, it was dominated by churchmen who, in the words of commission member André Seumois, were stuck... in the old canonical schema... and unable to conceive a new authentically missionary schema that would really and frankly address the major missionary problems that face the church today A first draft of a document was produced that was strongly canonical, hardly theological, and took into little account suggestions submitted from bishops in Asia and Africa. It had seven chapters, beginning with the governance of the missions and moving through chapters on clergy and lay formation, questions around the sacraments and liturgy, and a finally dealing with missionary cooperation. Since there was so much material that overlapped other schemas submitted to the council, the Central Preparatory Commission (CPC) decided that only two of the chapters on governance and on missionary cooperation, along with a rather inadequate preface would be submitted for consideration of the Council. 14 This rather inadequate schema never made it to the Council floor, however. The first session of the Council was marked by a strong reaction of the Bishops against the legal, triumphalistic, and canonical tone of the documents presented for discussion, and of the four drafts discussed in 1962, three of them the document on the church, on Mary, and on Revelation were rejected outright and sent back to the drawing board. Only the schema on the 9 See Stephen B. Bevans and Roger P. Schroeder, Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2004), 194; and Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity, Volume II: Reformation to the Present (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), Thomas Corboy, A Commentary on the Mission Decree in Missions and Religions, ed. Austin Flannery (Dublin: Scepter Publications, 1968), 9; and Suso Brechter, Decree on Missionary Activity in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, vol. 4, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler (Freiburg: Herder, 1969), Jan Grootaers, The Drama Continues between the Acts: The Second Preparation and Its Opponents in History of Vatican II, Volume 2: Formation of the Council s Identity, First Period and Intersession, October 1962 September 1963, eds. Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph A. Komonchak (Maryknoll: Orbis Books/Leuven: Peeters, 1997), For a more detailed narrative, see Bevans and Gros, Brechter, and Saverio Paventi, Étapes de l élaboration du texte, in Vatican II: L Activité Missionaire de l Église, Schütte, ed., Joseph A. Komonchak, The Struggle for the Council during the Preparation of Vatican II ( ) in History of Vatican II: Volume 1: Announcing and Preparing Vatican II, Toward a New Era of Catholicism, eds. Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph A. Komonchak (Maryknoll: Orbis Books / Leuven: Peeters, 1995), 195, note See Bevans and Gros, 13. 9

13 liturgy had a positive reception and was assured of passage during the next session in There was a strong anti-curial atmosphere among the bishops, and relevant to any discussion on mission the Francophone bishops actually circulated a petition calling for the Propaganda Fide to be deprived of all power and reduced to a fund-raising body. 15 The bishops from missionary areas demanded that they themselves, not Roman bureaucrats, have an active role to play in the governance of the missions. In the intersession from December 1962 until October 1963, the commission preparing the document on mission met again but with very unprofitable results. It did manage to submit a document to the CPC entitled De Missionibus (On the Missions), but it was basically rejected and sent back for more revisions during the second session of the Council in 1963, with the hope that a document could be discussed at a third session in In the meantime, however, it was announced in April 1964 that all documents not yet discussed on the Council floor were to be reduced to a number of propositions. In this way, time would be saved, and the Council would be able to close at the end of the 1964 session. In May of 1964, therefore, although a longer revision had been written, a new document was drafted entitled On the Church s Missionary Activity. It consisted of six pages containing thirteen eventually fourteen propositions. Commentator Evangelista Villanova writes that, compared to the previous schema, this new set of propositions was even more feeble from the standpoint of theology and as a reading of the historical moment: decolonization, the globalizing of problems, and poverty remained outside its scope, as did the ecclesiological criteria recognized in the schema on the Church. 16 In this intersession period, however, a very significant move had been made. The Commission on Mission had been expanded to include more African, Asian, and North American participation, and, most significantly, Fr. Johannes Schütte, superior general of the Society of the Divine Word, had been appointed to eventually serve as vice-president. Under his leadership, together with members of the Commission of the caliber of Yves Congar and Joseph Ratzinger, a new, more adequate schema would be developed. Such a schema, however, only came about after the rejection of the set of propositions when they were presented on the Council floor. Even though Paul VI had explicitly spoken in their favor, the bishops, after several strong speeches calling for a full schema once again, called for a revision of the fourteen propositions in favor of a more adequate document on missionary activity. 17 Under the leadership of the tireless German Johannes Schütte, 18 the Commission drafted during the remaining days of the third session and in the intersession of the document that was to become Ad Gentes. The final editing of the document on mission took place at the Society of the Divine Word s continuing formation house in Nemi, just outside Rome. After a brief introduction of the text by Cardinal Agagianian on October 7, 1965, Fr. Schütte gave a long presentation on the schema, concluding that he considered the document the Magna Carta for the church s missionary activity and that it would shape the universal church into a truly missionary church. 19 From October 7 to 13, forty-nine speeches were given and many applications to speak were denied for lack of time. On October 12, the day s moderator, Cardinal Pericle Felici, called for a vote, and the results, made public the next day, were 2,070 in favor and only 15 against. Speeches continued the next day, but the schema had made it safely through the Council. The Commission members scrambled the next several weeks to incorporate what seemed 15 See Paventi, Evangelista Villanova, The Intersession ( ) in History of Vatican II: The Mature Council: Second Period and Intersession, September 1963 September 1964, eds. Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph A. Komonchak (Maryknoll: Orbis Books/Leuven: Peeters, 2000), Bevans and Gros, Villanova, Acta Synodalia S. Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II, IV, III (Vatican City: Vatican Polyglot Press, 1977),

14 like countless suggestions of the bishops who spoke or who submitted ideas in writing, but the schema was ready for the final vote on December 7, The Decree on Missionary Activity was the last document that the Council approved, and it was approved by a vote of 2,394 in favor and only 5 against the highest number of yes votes of any document approved by the Council. A new age of missionary activity had begun. The Content of the Decree Chapter I Ad Gentes contains a brief introductory statement, six chapters, and a short conclusion. Perhaps its most important and enduring chapter is Chapter I, entitled Doctrinal Principles, and the first line is perhaps the most significant statement in the entire document, although there are several other wonderful passages. The line reads: The pilgrim Church is missionary by its very nature, for it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Spirit that it takes its origin, in accordance with the decree of the Father (AG 2). With this sentence, inspired both by Protestant missiological thinking going back to Karl Barth and by elements somewhat forgotten in the Catholic tradition, the Council roots the reality of mission not in an extrinsic command of Jesus (the Great Commission of Mt 28) but in the very fountain of love (AG 2) that is God as such. In a reflection rich in scriptural quotations and patristic references, the Council speaks of creation as God s first act of mission, made explicit in the incarnation (for some reason the history of Israel is not mentioned, although it is alluded to) and handed on to the church (AG 2-5). From this general reflection on the missionary nature of the church, the document takes a crucial turn in paragraph 6, which focuses on mission in the strict sense of preaching the Gospel and planting the Church among peoples and groups who do not yet believe in Christ. In this sentence, the Council settled the debate between the Louvain (planting of the church) and Münster (salvation of souls) schools of thought. Mission is not either-or. The theology of mission in the decree takes another step forward in the sense that mission is not spoken of in a strictly territorial way although the document vacillates on this in several places but as an outreach to persons. In this way, mission is not simply confined to particular places the West to rest as was the common understanding of mission, for example, at the 1910 Edinburgh Conference and among Catholics as well. Mission might be carried out in European or Australian cities among immigrants or among unbelievers in a secularized North America with the same integrity as in the African bush or the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Another noteworthy section of Chapter I is paragraph 9, in which the Council comes as close as it could to defining the missionary endeavor: Missionary activity is nothing else and nothing less than a manifestation of God s will, and the fulfillment of that will in the world and in world history. God works out the history of salvation by means of mission, and its goal is to bring about the presence of Christ, the Author of salvation. Nevertheless, in words that sound a recurring theme of the document, Christ s presence does not destroy a culture but brings it to perfection. This is because in each culture there is a sort of secret presence of God that the gospel makes manifest as that culture is healed and ennobled. Mission, paragraph 9 and Chapter I say in conclusion, has an ultimately eschatological goal. It works toward that unity of the world and humanity that will come at the end of time. Chapter II Chapter II is entitled Mission Work Itself and lays down several important principles in the way that mission is to be carried out among the peoples of the world. Paragraphs 11 to 12 reflect on Christian witness, paragraphs 13 to 14 speak of the actual preaching of the gospel, and paragraphs 15 to 18 deal with the dynamics of forming 11

15 a Christian community as women and men respond to the gospel and commit themselves to Christ. These three activities are engaged in within three contexts, as paragraph 10 points out: among adherents to the world s great religions, among people with no religious faith whatsoever, and among people who are actually hostile to religion and belief in God. Paragraph 11 is one of the more eloquent passages in the document. It speaks of the need for Christians to witness to the gospel by their very life, lived in full participation with the culture and values of the people. As they become familiar with their national and religious traditions, they gladly and reverently lay bare the seeds of the Word which lie hidden in them. The phrase seeds of the Word is from Justin Martyr and has been often cited after the Council. It points to the fact that mission is not done in a vacuum but in the context of the already-present Spirit and mysterious presence of Christ. This is why missionaries must engage in a sincere and patient dialogue in order to discover what treasures a bountiful God has distributed among the nations of the earth. It is this basic holiness of peoples, their history, and their cultures that grounds the Council s strong and clear prohibition of any kind of proselytism that would force people to embrace the faith or would entice people by unworthy techniques (AG 13). We see echoes of the Council s discussion of religious freedom here, as well as in its insistence that all persons have a right not to be deterred from the faith by unjust vexation on the part of others (AG 13). A major goal of missionary activity is the establishment of a vibrant and vital Christian community that is as Paul VI would say ten years later in Evangelii Nuntiandi (EN) in its turn evangelizing (EN 15). In paragraphs 15 to 18, the document addresses the formation of such a community. It focuses on the importance of the lay vocation and then turns to the vocation of women and men to religious life, to ordained ministry, and to training for ordained ministry. In paragraph 16, it echoes the Constitution on the Church by calling for the restoration of the permanent diaconate if episcopal conferences deem it opportune. Finally, in paragraph 17, it focuses on the important role of catechists and their proper training. Chapter III This chapter on Particular Churches focuses on local churches that are still missions in the sense that they are not quite ready to stand on their own in numbers of Christians, local clergy, or material resources. Nevertheless, the members of the Council insisted, these are churches in their own right and should be treated as such. This is a move away from the word mission church as somehow signifying a community that is not complete. This chapter, therefore, is firmly established on the foundation of a vigorous theology of the local church. Paragraph 20 speaks of the bishop and his clergy. The bishop should be a herald of the Faith, and clergy should not only be engaged in pastoral work but also involved in the preaching of the gospel among peoples of the diocese who have not yet accepted Christ. Paragraph 21 is a powerful reflection on the laity, insisting that the church has not been really founded, and is not yet fully alive, nor is it a perfect sign of Christ among humanity, unless there is a laity worthy of the name working along with the hierarchy. The laity s main task is to bear witness in their daily lives, and the document places particular emphasis on the fact that this must be done in the context of their cultures. The Christian community, Ad Gentes asserts again and again, is not to be removed from the midst of the world but is a full participant in it and a contributor to it. The final paragraph of the chapter is devoted to the encouragement of local, contextual, or inculturated theologies, although the text does not use these terms that would be developed in the decades since. It uses rather the term adaptation. Nevertheless, in one of those beautiful phrases, echoing wording often used in the liturgy of the Christmas season, local churches are encouraged to take to themselves in a wonderful exchange all the riches of the nations which were given to Christ as an inheritance (cf. Ps 2:8) (AG 22). In this way, it will be more clearly 12

16 seen in what ways faith may seek understanding (AG 22) in the context of the philosophy, the wisdom, the customs, and the worldviews of local peoples. Chapter IV This chapter is entitled Missionaries, and, as missiologist William R. Burrows judges, it is an excellent, balanced and far-sighted chapter designed to help prepare future missionaries whether they are priests, brothers, women religious, or lay people, or whether they are foreign or indigenous. 20 Once again the text implicitly acknowledges that missionary activity is based not on geography but on particular needs of particular peoples and includes all Christians. However, while every Christian is called to do his or her part in spreading the faith in word and especially in deed (AG 23), there exists in the church a particular missionary calling by which Christians leave the countries or environments in which they were born and nurtured and cross cultures for the sake of spreading the gospel. This vocation is a gift of the Holy Spirit, but the presence of such a charism is not enough. Future missionaries also need special spiritual and moral training (AG 25) to develop their generosity, their sense of dedication, their openness, and their willingness to sacrifice. Missionaries also need training in theology, a training that takes into account both the universality of the Church and the diversity of the world s nations (AG 26). Above all (AG 26), the future missionary should be trained in missiology, both in terms of what the church teaches regarding missionary work and the history of that work. While the words are not explicitly used, the theology recommended, as well as the missiology, should be imbued with the social sciences, especially anthropology. For anyone who is going to encounter another people should have a great esteem for the patrimony and their language and their customs (AG 26). Chapter V Entitled simply Planning Missionary Activity, Chapter V is the chapter about which there was the most discussion during the preparation of the final schema. This is because the chapter deals particularly with the restructuring of the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith and aims to give local bishops in areas under its jurisdiction a greater say in their churches development. Such restructuring of the Propaganda Fide is placed in the context of a theologically-based understanding of the direction of the church s mission. Paragraph 28 begins the chapter by stating that all the Christian faithful, according to the gifts bestowed on them, are called to participate in the church s mission. But this missionary activity of all the faithful needs to have direction so that (quoting 1 Cor 14:40) all may be done in order. That direction is provided primarily by the entire body or college of bishops, as Lumen Gentium 23 teaches. And so, as a way of exercising that collegial responsibility, the Council directs that the stable Council of bishops for the entire Church, the Synod of Bishops, should give special consideration to the church s missionary activity. The Propaganda Fide, therefore, directs the church s missionary work, but as the agent of the entire church in general and the episcopal college in particular. At the end of paragraph 29, there appears the passage that caused so much controversy during the drafting of the schema as well as on the Council floor. This paragraph states that as part of the direction of the Congregation, there should be representatives of the world s bishops, moderators of pontifical institutes that support missionary work (e.g. the Holy Childhood Association), missionary congregations of men and women, and lay organization. An earlier draft had spoken of these as members of the Congregation, but this was not accepted by the Council. Nevertheless it is clear that the Council intended these groups to play an active part with a deliberative vote in the Congregation s decision-making processes. 20 William R. Burrows, Decree on the Church s Missionary Activity, Ad Gentes Divinitus, 7 December, 1965, in Vatican II and Its Documents: An American Reappraisal, ed. Timothy E. O Connell (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1986), 189,

17 This is quite a radical restructuring, but it must be noted that, sadly, this crucial directive of Ad Gentes was never put into practice. In the years following the Council, a series of documents gradually lessened the role of these non-curial groups, and in John Paul II s Redemptoris Missio we read that the world s bishops, major superiors, etc. should only cooperate fully with this Dicastery (RM 75). Ultimately, as missiologist Josef Glazik has written, practically nothing has changed from what the congregation was before Vatican II. This is a truly unfortunate development. 21 Chapter VI The final chapter on Missionary Cooperation, or how various Christians contribute to the missionary activity of the church, begins with an affirmation once more of the entire church s role in its mission. The text then goes on to outline how bishops and priests, various types of religious active and contemplative and then the laity participate in missionary activity. There is, however, a great distance between this chapter and the strong statement about the missionary nature of the local church in Chapter II. Here missions basically means foreign missions. There are home countries and mission countries. Two things might be highlighted in the chapter. First, paragraph 39 offers reflections on the intrinsic missionary dimension of the priesthood. Because priests collaborate with bishops in ordering the church, they are also in some way responsible for the worldwide mission of the church. Part of their ministry, therefore, should be involved in raising missionary awareness among the faithful, fostering missionary vocations, and asking for alms for missionary work. Second, the document emphasizes the missionary nature of contemplative orders of religious. While it is often thought that missionary work is the purview of active congregations, the Council insists that contemplatives are also an essential part of missionary activity. Because it is God who ultimately touches human hearts to open up to the gospel message, the prayers, sufferings, and acts of penance offered by groups of contemplative men and women contribute immensely to the conversion of non-christians. The text then encourages contemplative communities to establish houses in the lands of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania, so that living out their lives in a way accommodated to the truly religious traditions of the people, they can bear excellent witness among non- Christians to the majesty and love of God, as well as our union with Christ (AG 40). Ad Gentes concludes with a salutation to all missionaries, especially those who are suffering persecution. The Council once more affirms the importance of the church s participation in mission but acknowledges as well as it did in the beginning of the document that mission is ultimately the work of God. The bishops pray for the conversion of the world to the gospel through the intercession of Mary, Queen of Apostles. Any changes of law that the decree provides for, the document says in its last lines, will take effect on June 29, 1966, and the pope will issue norms for the implementation in due time. Conclusion Robert J. Schreiter writes that, although Vatican II inaugurated a period of ferment in the thinking and practice of Christian mission, it was followed soon after ironically largely because of the Council s stance on religious freedom, its respect for local cultures, and on the possibility of salvation outside the church by a period of crisis in which the very idea of mission was questioned. While that period of crisis persists in some way today, it co-exists with a period of rebirth, in which mission has taken on less of a triumphalistic character and has expanded to include elements of dialogue, justice, peacemaking, ecological sensitivity, inculturation, ministry among migrants, 21 Joszef Glazik, Kommentar, in Instruktionen der Kongregation für die Evangelisation der Völker (Tübingen: Trier, 1970). 14

18 and reconciliation. 22 Roger Schroeder and I have suggested that an attitude and practice of Prophetic Dialogue should characterize mission thinking and mission work today. 23 Many things have changed in the fifty years since the end of the Council, perhaps most radically the fact that mission is done much more in short-term commitments, more by laity, and more by women and men from traditional mission lands in the majority world. Mission looks very different today than it did in 1965 when Ad Gentes was formally promulgated. And yet there is continuity, all of which has its origins in the amazing event that was the Second Vatican Council. 22 Robert J. Schreiter, Changes in Roman Catholic Attitudes toward Proselytism and Mission, in New Directions in Mission and Evangelization 2: Theological Foundations, ed. James A. Scherer and Stephen B. Bevans (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1994), Stephen B. Bevans and Roger P. Schroeder, Prophetic Dialogue: Reflections on Christian Mission Today (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2011). 15

19 ARTICLE Looking through the Wrong End of the Telescope? Refracting Sacrosanctum Concilium by Edward Foley, Capuchin Advances in astrophysics over the past three decades have resulted in previously unimaginable developments in the design of telescopes. Land-based telescopes now have spaced-based partners. Traditional optical telescopes have been enhanced with lasers, coupled with spectroscopes, and redesigned with complex mirror segmentations. Then there are the radio telescopes and even cosmic ray telescopes that look nothing like what most amateurs point toward the stars; they are even devoid of any image-forming optical systems that have traditionally defined the very nature of a telescope! Despite all of these advances, it yet seems appropriate to employ the most common and original form of the telescope as a metaphor for the process of interpretation that has surrounded Sacrosanctum Concilium (hereafter SC) since its promulgation in Such is true not only because this author is a veritable amateur when it comes to the physics of the previously noted modern advances, but also because the misuse of a traditional refracting telescope creates serious distortions and even polar opposite readings of things and events. A poorly refracted interpretation of SC can do the same. Interpreting Vatican II Edward Foley is Duns Scotus Professor of Spirituality and Professor of pretation, reinterpretation, and debate about the reinterpretation of that Council While the Second Vatican Council ended in December of 1965, the ongoing inter- Liturgy and Music at CTU. continues in a lively way. The lines of that debate have been drawn with multiple His most recent work is vectors. One metaphor for the divisions over the interpretation of Vatican II is A Commentary on the mirrored in the emergence of two quite different scholarly journals in the wake Order of Mass: A New English Translation, for of that Council. Concilium was a Dutch-based publication that appeared in 1964; which he serves as general editor, published in had joined in the founding of Concilium (e.g., the then Prof. Joseph Ratzinger) but yet within a few years, Communio appeared, edited by some of the experts who October 2011 by the Liturgical Press. offered different appraisals of the Council, the former from what could be con- then abandoned that project over deep theological differences. These two journals sidered a neo-thomistic viewpoint and the latter from a more neo-augustinian viewpoint. 1 Shortly after his election in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI outlined more clearly the two competing interpretations of Vatican II symbolized in those journals: one a hermeneutic of dis- 1 See, for example, Massimo Faggioli, Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning, Kindle edition (New York: Paulist Press, 2012). 16

20 continuity and rupture and the other a hermeneutic of reform, of renewal in the continuity of the one subject- Church which the Lord has given to us. 2 The Pontiff clearly prefers the second. There are many methods one can employ for interpreting or reinterpreting the individual documents and overall contribution of the Second Vatican Council. In reflecting upon Karl Rahner s seminal reflection on the interpretation of Vatican II, 3 John Dadosky suggests that two different yet inextricably related approaches to interpreting Vatican II might be through what he calls a micro-hermeneutics as distinguished from what he considers a macro-hermeneutics of the Council. 4 According to Dadosky, a micro-hermeneutics is one in which scholars shift through the enormous number of sources that pertain to the sixteen documents of the council, examine their authorship, their historical context relative to previous councils, their literary style, their form, content, and so on. 5 While we did not use that specific language, this micro-hermeneutical approach was one that my colleague Prof. Dianne Bergant and I pursued a number of years ago when examining the methodological presuppositions behind some key documents of Vatican II. 6 The macro-hermeneutical approach, on the other hand, is less about examining aspects of the individual documents and more about considering the Council as a whole and how the Council reflects the Roman Catholic Church s self-understanding more broadly. In this regard, Dadosky considers Rahner s 1979 article a work of macro-hermeneutics in which Rahner emphasized the Church s coming of age as a world church, as symbolized by the way it simultaneously brought the local church and inculturation to the fore. 7 Dadosky would argue that this macro-hermeneutical approach of Rahner recognized Vatican II as an event that both had continuity with the past and also signaled a notable discontinuity, especially with previous councils. 8 Interpreting Sacrosanctum Concilium Employing Dadosky s categories, one might suggest that more authors have taken a micro-hermeneutical approach to SC than a macro-hermeneutical approach. Often this micro-hermeneutical approach limits itself to a single topic from SC for example, Anthony Ruff s rich historical, musical and theological examination of the concept of the Treasure of Sacred Music, noted in SC Recently, however, a most compelling macro-analysis of SC has emerged in the writings of Massimo Faggioli, who argues the need for linking SC with the ultimate meaning of Vatican II. He believes that only a hermeneutic based on the liturgy and the Eucharist, as developed in the liturgical constitution, can preserve the riches of the overall ecclesiology of Vatican II. 10 Thus Faggioli passionately underscores the dire need for an interpretation of Vatican II centered on Sacrosanctum Concilium Benedict XVI, Address to the Roman Curia (22 December 2005), benedict _xvi/speeches/2005/ december/documents/hf_ben_xvi_spe_ _roman-curia_en.html.. 3 Karl Rahner, Towards a Fundamental Theological Interpretation of Vatican II, Theological Studies 40 (1979): John Dadosky, Towards a Fundamental Theological Re-Interpretation of Vatican II, Heythrop Journal 49 (2008): , here Dadosky, Dianne Bergant and Edward Foley, The Beginning or the End of a Theological Agenda: Tracing the Methodological Flows through Vatican II, Gregorianum 84 (2003): Dadosky, Dadosky, Anthony Ruff, Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform: Treasures and Transformations (Chicago: Hillebrand Books, 2007), especially Part IV of the book, pp. 272ff. 10 Massimo Faggioli, True Reform: Liturgy and Ecclesiology in Sacrosanctum Concilium (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2012), Faggioli,

21 Unfortunately, as Faggioli and others have noted, instead of SC being a fundamental lens for reading the council, it is often interpreted through other documents of that Council, especially Lumen Gentium. 12 In some ways, this could be the metaphorical equivalent of looking through the wrong end of the telescope. True, Lumen Gentium is a Dogmatic Constitution while SC is only (?) a Constitution. On the other hand, in the view of the Italian jurist and Vatican II peritus Giuseppe Dossetti and Faggioli, the ecclesiology embedded in SC is not only chronologically earlier than the ecclesiology of Lumen Gentium, but also manifests its theological priority in the overall corpus of Vatican II. 13 It is one thing to offer an interpretation of SC through a document like Lumen Gentium, since both are Constitutions from Vatican II, and some could argue that Lumen Gentium carries more theological weight since it is a Dogmatic Constitution. What is more common and more problematic from my perspective, however, is the way that SC or more frequently specific teachings of SC are interpreted through documents of obviously lesser magisterial weight. This is clearly looking through the wrong end of the telescope, placing the observer further from instead of closer to SC. Ironically, instead of offering a true magnification of SC, this kind of reverse refraction often leads to not only to a minimizing of the teachings of SC but also their reversal. A glaring example of this reverse interpretation can be found in the 2001 Vatican instruction Liturgiam Authenticam (LA), On the Use of Vernacular Languages in the Publication of the Books of the Roman Liturgy. 14 Issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, this document was promulgated as The Fifth Instruction For the Right Implementation of the Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council. Despite the fact that the document itself reports that it was approved by Pope John Paul II (LA 133), it is more properly understood as an administrative rather than a legislative document. As canonist John Huels explains, The statement at the end of a curial document that the pope has seen and approved the text is not an indication of a papal mandate to issue legislation. This is pontifical approval in forma communi in general form whereby the document remains an act of executive power. 15 Huels further notes that the norms contained in such documents (what he labels General Administrative Norms ) are binding on those for whom they are drawn up but they are of lesser juridic weight than legislation or customary law [and] anything in them contrary to legislation lacks all force. 16 This would mean that, de facto, they are of lesser juridic weight than any legislative directives of an Ecumenical Council and null and void to the extent that they would contradict any legislative directives of any conciliar documents. With this information in hand, let us turn to LA and its interpretation of the right implementation of SC, especially regarding the issue of translating the texts of the liturgy into the vernacular. 12 See, for example, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger s 2001 presentation at the opening of the Pastoral Congress of the Diocese of Aversa (Italy) entitled The Ecclesiology of Vatican II, L Osservatore Romano, Weekly English Edition (23 January 2002): 5, library/curia/cdfeccv2.htm. 13 This is a position taken in his posthumous publication Per una chiesa eucaristica, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo and Giuseppe Ruggieri (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002), cited in Faggioli, True Reform, On-line at _liturgiam-authenticam_en.html. 15 John M. Huels, Liturgy and Law: Liturgical Law in the System of Roman Catholic Canon Law (Montreal: Wilson & Lafleur Ltée, 2006), Huels,

22 Reading Sacrosanctum Concilium Through Liturgiam Authenticam SC gives limited but pointed attention to the issue of vernacular translation for the Roman Catholic liturgy. While noting that Latin is to be preserved, no allows the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority to decide if and how much the vernacular is to be employed; this decision requires subsequent approval by Rome. This same article (SC 36.4) notes that the competent territorial authority needs to approve all translations into the vernacular. 17 Besides these specific norms regarding the translation of the Latin liturgy into the vernacular, SC offers other useful norms derived from the pastoral nature of the liturgy. In SC 34 the Council decrees, The rites should radiate a rich simplicity; they should be brief and lucid, avoiding pointless repetition; they should be intelligible to the people, and should not in general require much explanation. 18 This instruction follows a discussion that recognizes while the liturgy is an act of worship, it is also meant to be formative for the assembly (SC 33). In particular, the Council gives specific consideration to the prayers of the liturgy that, while spoken by the priest to God, are yet said in the name of the assembly. It concludes that all the sung, prayed, and performed parts of the liturgy are meant to be nourishment for the people (SC 33). It is precisely because of its formative, instructive, and nourishing nature that it should concise, lucid, and accessible to the faithful. Following the groundbreaking work of Ladislas Örsy, 19 Huels recognizes that legal texts contain many different kinds of statements, e.g., some may be juridical while others are theological or even factual. 20 In the same way, a conciliar constitution such as SC contains many literary forms, some theological and others factual. I would contend, however, that the should language of no. 33 cited above underscores its place as a prescriptive principle that is more than inspirational or even exhortative. If, in general, the interpretation of liturgical law must respect the critical role of SC in that process, especially its key principles, 21 the principles of concision, intelligibility, and accessibility do not appear to be dispensable. The authors of LA certainly seem to be aware of the centrality of SC in promulgating any new liturgical directives and cite the conciliar document 19 times in its 86 footnotes almost twice as many times as, for example, the Code of Canon Law. On the other hand, it seems that LA s directives on translation actually seem to contradict, even violate the fundamental principles of brevity, lucidity, and accessibility outlined in no. 33 of SC. Particularly noteworthy here is no. 27: Even if expressions should be avoided which hinder comprehension because of their excessively unusual or awkward nature, the liturgical texts should be considered as the voice of the Church at prayer, rather than of only particular congregations or individuals; thus, they should be free of an overly servile adherence to prevailing modes of expression. If indeed, in the liturgical texts, words or expressions are sometimes employed which differ somewhat from usual and everyday speech, it is often enough by virtue 17 For a general introduction to the use of the vernacular in Christian liturgy, with particular attention to the role of SC in that development, see Keith Pecklers and Gilbert Ostdiek, The History of Vernaculars and Role of Translation, in A Commentary on the Order of Mass of the Roman Missal, ed. Edward Foley (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2011), 35-72, esp Ritus nobili simplicitate fulgeant, sint brevitate perspicui et repetitions inutiles evident, sint fidelium captui accomodati, neque generatim multis indigeant explanationibus. See Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman Tanner, 2 volumes (London: Sheed & Ward and Georgetown: Georgetown University Press, 1990), II: See, for example, his Literary Forms in the Code in The Canon Law Society of America, The Code of Canon Law: A Text and Commentary (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1985), Huels, ; also his Appendix IV that provides an extensive excursus on Liturgy Forms in Canon Law, Huels,

23 of this very fact that the texts become truly memorable and capable of expressing heavenly realities. Indeed, it will be seen that the observance of the principles set forth in this Instruction will contribute to the gradual development, in each vernacular, of a sacred style that will come to be recognized as proper to liturgical language. Thus it may happen that a certain manner of speech which has come to be considered somewhat obsolete in daily usage may continue to be maintained in the liturgical context. In translating biblical passages where seemingly inelegant words or expressions are used, a hasty tendency to sanitize this characteristic is likewise to be avoided. These principles, in fact, should free the Liturgy from the necessity of frequent revisions when modes of expression may have passed out of popular usage. [emphasis added] While the preceding paragraphs of LA indicated that the content of the texts are to be evident and comprehensible even to the faithful who lack any special intellectual formation and that the translations should be characterized by a kind of language which is easily understandable (LA 25), paragraph 27 of LA makes it clear that fidelity to the Latin text trumps accessibility. While needing to be free of an overly servile adherence to prevailing modes of expression, it does appear that there should be an almost overly servile adherence to ancient Latin texts. In no. 19, LA emphasizes that such texts express truths that transcend the limits of time and space and thus are not primarily to be a sort of mirror of the interior dispositions of the faithful. Thus, they must be translated integrally and in the most exact manner, without omissions or additions in terms of their content and without paraphrases or glosses, concluding that any adaptation to the characteristics or the nature of the various vernacular languages is to be sober and discreet (LA 20). Doing so may require that words already in current usage be employed in new ways, and that new words or expressions be coined or that terms in the original text be transliterated (LA 21). Whereas SC called for concision, intelligibility, and accessibility in rite and music and text, LA promotes language that is separate from everyday speech, allows for the obsolete and inelegant, envisions the emergence of a sacred style distinctive from everyday speech, and even seems to reason for language that is excessively unusual or awkward. Given these directives, it is not surprising that the 2010 English translation of the 2008 Missale Romanum is filled with obsolete and inelegant language. Thus, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8), at the preparation of the gifts we pray about prevenient grace ; during the creed we profess Christ to be consubstantial with the Father ; during Eucharistic prayers we consistently talk about the oblation, not to mention the puzzling reference to dewfall in Eucharistic Prayer II; and on Tuesday within the Octave of Easter we pray to God who has bestowed on us paschal remedies. It is especially some of the orations that are particularly troubling for presiders to proclaim and assemblies to perceive, as this opening of an oration from the liturgy of the Word during the Easter Vigil demonstrates: O God, whose ancient wonders Remain undimmed in splendor even in our day For what you once bestowed on a single people, freeing them from Pharaoh s persecution By the power of your right hand, Now you bring about as the salvation of the nations Through the waters of rebirth Besides seeming to contradict SC s instructions about brevity, lucidity, and accessibility, LA s emphasis on the liturgical texts as a rich patrimony that must be preserved (LA 20), and thus the need for exacting translation de- 20

24 spite the difficulties such presents to contemporary worshippers also seems to challenge a fundamental theological principle of SC, i.e., the role of worshippers as subjects rather than objects of the liturgy. As previously proposed in the 1947 encyclical Mediator Dei of Pope Pius XII SC treats the active role of the laity in the midst of its definition of liturgy, which lies at the very heart of the theological exposé that opens this document. In that definition SC frames the liturgy as a Christological act, as the enacting of the priestly role of Jesus Christ (SC 7.3). It then goes on to note that liturgy has two inseparable functions: the glorification of God and the sanctification of people. 22 It concludes by teaching that in the liturgy the mystical Body of Jesus Christ is together giving completely and definitive public expression to its worship (SC 7.3) and reiterates that every liturgical celebration is the act of Christ the priest and of his body, which is the church (SC 7.4). It is this theological assertion that the baptized with Christ are actually subjects of worship that undergirds SC s fundamental pastoral principle that all believers are to be led to take a full, conscious and active part in liturgical celebrations. This is demanded by the nature of the liturgy itself; and by virtue of their baptism, it is the right and duty of the Christian people (SC 14). Thus, it is not simply for the sake of people s personal devotion or spiritual fulfillment that the liturgy must be accessible to them. Rather, the texts and tunes, rites and readings, and prayers and preaching need to be concise, intelligible, and accessible so that the faithful can fulfill their rightful and necessary responsibility of full, conscious, and active engagement that is essential if the liturgy is to be properly enacted. Conclusion In discussing the validity of any translation, the celebrated liturgist Anscar Chupungco notes that a good rule of thumb for verifying the exactness of any translation for example, from Latin to English is to translate the English back again into Latin to see how close it is to the original. 23 In a similar way, one could argue that determining the validity of an interpretation of a document like SC through a text like LA could be achieved by attempting to translate the principles of directives of LA backwards into a conciliar form. I would contend that there is virtually no way that the directives for translation outlined in LA would lead us back to the lucidity, comprehensibility, and accessibility that SC dictates. On the contrary, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope, LA seems to further us from SC s principles for active participation, instructions about the accessibility of the worship, and theological assertions about the baptized as subjects with Christ in the liturgical event. When it comes to principles for translation which are de facto principles for interpreting the liturgy for the church and for the world we clearly need different lenses, as well as the capacity to point the metaphorical telescope in the right direction. 22 These two elements are consistently conjoined when SC speaks about the nature of the liturgy; besides here in no. 7 also see nos. 5, 10, 61, and Anscar Chupungco, Excursus on Translating OM2008, in Commentary on the Order of Mass,

25 ARTICLE Vatican II s Nostra Aetate: Its Impact on the Church s Theological Self-Understanding by John T. Pawlikowski, O.S.M. Vatican II s Nostra Aetate was a complicated and contentious document during the conciliar discussions. It was complicated because, after Pope John XXIII decided to add something on the Church and the Jews to the conciliar agenda after a historic meeting with the French Jewish historian Jules Isaac, uncertainty developed as to where a statement on the Church and the Jewish people might be placed. A number of the advocates of such a statement, mostly biblical scholars and Catholics connected with resistance movements against the Nazis, favored incorporation of such a statement in what eventually became Lumen Gentium, the dogmatic constitution on the Church. For various reasons, however, this proposal was not accepted. In turn, the conciliar leadership decided on a separate statement. Eventually, because of the situation faced at home by the bishops from the Middle East, it was decided that the document should be expanded to include reflections on the Church s relationships with Islam and other non-christian religions. The heart and soul of the document, and its most developed section, nonetheless remained chapter four, which dealt with the Christian-Jewish relationship. Let me first focus on the first three chapters, which briefly cover Catholicism s basic approach to all non-christian faiths and introduce the Church to a far more positive outlook on non-christians than had been generally the case in Christianity for centuries. While these three chapters remain very underdeveloped in comparison to chapter four on the relations with the Jews, they did open the door and lay the groundwork for a far more expansive treatment of interreligious relations, including relations with specific traditions such as Islam and Hinduism in follow-up ecclesial documents. John T. Pawlikowski, O.S.M., is the Director of Catholic-Jewish Studies Program and the twoterm President and Chair of the Theology Committee of the International Council of Christians and Jews (ICCJ). He is the author/editor of more than fifteen books including The Challenge of the Holocaust for Christian Theology, The first three chapters of Nostra Aetate fundamentally refocused Catholic attitudes towards non-christians. While it did not solve some basic questions, such as missionizing people of non-christian faiths, nor reflect in any significant ways on possible theological links with these religious traditions (Islam in particular, where some biblical links exist), it did acknowledge some truth in these religious traditions and affirmed the value of dialogue with their religious leaders. This represented a marked contrast with the longstanding outlook within the Church which spoke of these religious communities with negative, sometimes even contemptuous, language and basically regarded them as enemies of the Church. The obvious challenge still remaining for Catholic Christians today is whether we can build on the groundwork laid in Nostra Aetate. Despite some lapses, even at the papal level, Catholics and their leaders now speak of other religious traditions in a positive vein and often stand ready to cooperate with them in the social sphere. But any 22

26 implications of this fundamental perspectival shift to a positive mode for theological understandings, including Christian theological self-understanding, have been largely been ignored, except by individual theologians. Ecclesial documents such as Dominus lesus, issued by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as President of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, have tended to cast a chill over such efforts. But questions about Christian exclusivity in terms of salvation and the consequent meaning of evangelization in the global interreligious context in which Christianity finds itself today remain. It is highly unlikely they will be buried. At some point Catholicism, and Christianity overall, will need to address the issues involved. Hence while the fundamental shift in perspective towards other world religions, introduced in Nostra Aetate, may appear rather simple and undeveloped, it nonetheless set the Church on a fundamentally new course that sooner or later will alter some of its traditional theological self-understandings. Turning now to chapter four of Nostra Aetate, we need to take very seriously what the Canadian theologian Gregory Baum (who may have written a very early draft of this chapter as a Council expert) said in 1986 at the annual meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America in Chicago. In a plenary address, Baum termed chapter four of Nostra Aetate the most radical transformation of the Church s ordinary magisterium to emerge from Vatican II. 1 So why did Baum make this strong assertion? In order to appreciate its full significance, we must look back at the classical theology of the Church and Judaism. A major part of that classical theological tradition, particularly in the patristic writings, understood the meaning of Christology and ecclesiology as involving the displacement of the Jewish people from any covenantal relationship with God after the Christ Event. Jews were now viewed as rejected people who never would have a homeland of their own. This situation was viewed by ecclesiastical writers both as a punishment for having rejected Jesus and putting him to death and as a warning to Christians of what would happen to those who refused to accept Jesus as their savior. This came to be known as the perpetual wandering theology and Jews, following the lead of St. Augustine, became seen as witness people in terms of divine punishment. However, Christian theology did not argue for the extermination of the Jews in the same way as subsequent Nazi ideology. It wanted to insure the continuity of the Jewish people because of their witness value, kept in a miserable state on the margins of society. We see clear evidence of this theology in such places as the papal states. 2 The classical theology of perpetual wandering on the part of the Jewish people took hold within important sectors of modern biblical scholarship, a situation that persisted well into the twentieth century. Noted exegete Martin Noth, whose book History of Israel became standard fare in many theological programs, described Israel as a strictly religious community which died a slow, agonizing death in the first century C.E. For Noth, Jewish history reached its culmination in the arrival of Jesus. His words are concise and to the point in this regard: Jesus himself...no longer formed part of the history of Israel, in him the history of Israel had come, rather, to its real end. What did belong to the history of Israel was the process of his rejection and condemnation by the Jerusalem religious community...hereafter the history of Israel moved quickly to its end. 3 Nostra Aetate, in chapter four, put forth three basic affirmations with regard to the Jewish people. The first, and the most fundamental, rejected the traditional deicide charge against the Jews. Jews could not be held collectively responsible for the death of Jesus. While some Jewish leaders may have played a secondary role, blame could not 1 Gregory Baum, The Social Context of American Catholic Theology, Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 41 (1986): 87 2 Nancy Nowakowski Robinson, Institutional Anti-Judaism: Pope Pius VI and the Edict Concerning the Jews in the Context of the Inquisition and the Enlightenment (Pittsburgh: Xlibris, 2003). 3 Martin Noth, The Laws in the Pentateuch and Other Studies (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd),

27 be extended to the entirety of the Jewish community then or now. This assertion totally undercut the basis for the perpetual wandering and witness people understanding of Jews and Judaism within Catholicism. Hence the second affirmation in Nostra Aetate: Jews remain in a covenantal relationship with God after the Christ Event and hence any Christology or ecclesiology in Christianity cannot base its perspective any longer on a notion of Jesus as the initiator of a totally new covenant with no ties to the ongoing Jewish covenant nor proclaim an ecclesiology without positive roots in Judaism. The final major assertion found in Nostra Aetate is meant to fundamentally reorient the church s theological understanding of its relationship with the Jewish people. It declares that Jesus and his disciples were profoundly influenced by parts of Jewish belief and practice at their time. Judaism was a very complex religious reality in this period with many internal disagreements. Jesus appears to stand closest to groups within the Pharisaic movement (as the 1985 Vatican Notes on teaching and preaching about Jews and Judaism asserted), 4 though the Jewish scholar Daniel Boyarin recently claimed that Jesus argued against the Pharisees because he saw some of them as threatening the integrity and continuity of Jewish Torah. 5 It is unlikely we will ever be able to precisely place Jesus relationships within the broad and complex Jewish community of his day. But with Nostra Aetate we have clearly shifted from an essentially negative view of those relationships to one that is fundamentally positive. The 1985 Notes, issued to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate, confirmed the about-face in Catholicism. Jesus was and always remained a Jew. Jesus is fully a man of his time and his environment the Jewish-Palestinian one of the first century, the anxieties and hopes of which he shared. 6 This about-face has been further confirmed by the late Cardinal and biblical scholar, Carlo Martini, S.J., who wrote in the same vein as the Notes: Without a sincere feeling for the Jewish world and a direct experience of it one cannot fully understand Christianity. Jesus is fully Jewish, the apostles are Jewish, and one cannot doubt their attachment to the traditions of their forefathers. 7 The growing awareness of the deep-seated linkage between the first century Church and the Jewish community of the time has had a major impact on how Christian scholars view both the Hebrew Scriptures, or Old Testament, as well as the New Testament. While the issue of how to name the first section of the Christian Bible has seen considerable discussion in recent years, with some urging a change to Hebrew Scriptures, First Testament, or Tanach and others insisting that the traditional term Old Testament better reflects the different approach to these writings in the Jewish and Christian communities, no resolution of the disagreement is in sight. Nonetheless, most would admit that a major perspectival change is occurring in contemporary scholarship. For centuries, the Hebrew Scriptures were generally seen in their better moments as a prelude to the New Testament and in their worse moments as a foil for supposedly superior insights in the New Testament. To a great extent, the selection of liturgical texts from the Hebrew Scriptures was based on this perspective. Interpretation of passages in the Hebrew Scriptures by Jewish scholars was generally ignored within the church. The belief persisted that correct interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures was possible only through the lens of the New Testament. 4 For the text of the Vatican Notes, cf. Franklin Sherman, ed., Bridges: Documents of the Christian-Jewish Dialogue: Volume One: The Road to Reconciliation ( ) (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist 2011), Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospel: The Story of the Jewish Christ, foreword by Jack Miles (New York: New Press, 2012). 6 Franklin Sherman, ed., Bridges, Carlo Maria Martini, S.J., Christianity and Judaism: A Historical and Theological Overview, in Jews and Christians: Exploring the Past the Present and Future, ed. James H. Charlesworth (New York: Crossroad, 1990),

28 The inferiority-superiority model of the relationship between the two testaments affected Christian theology in many areas, one of the most important being that the Old Testament moral vision was inferior to the moral outlook found in the gospels and epistles. One still finds such a contrast in the writings of some progressive Catholic ethicists, such as John Coleman, S.J. Slowly we are witnessing a significant change within biblical scholarship and, to a lesser extent, within the wider Christian theological community. A growing recognition is emerging that the Hebrew Scriptures need to be understood as a positive resource for Christian theology and not merely as a prelude or foil, in part because these writings exercised a profound impact on the teachings of Jesus. There is now an increasing willingness in Christian circles to include the interpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures by Jewish scholars in the construction of contemporary Christian theology and to regard these writings as an indispensable, ongoing resource for the understanding of key Christian theological themes, such as Christology and ecclesiology. In part because of the enhanced recognition of the role played by the Hebrew Scriptures and some post-biblical Jewish materials from the first century on the mindset of Jesus and first century Christianity, a growing number of Christian scholars have begun to paint a transformed picture of the initial relations between the church and the Jewish community and their eventual separation. For most of Christian history, the prevailing view had been that Jesus fully established the church as a separate institution from Judaism in his own lifetime. But increasingly that traditional understanding is coming under severe scrutiny. This process of taking a new look at Christian origins and how the church emerged out of Judaism is now several decades old. One of the first contributors was Robin Scroggs, who taught both at Chicago Theological Seminary and subsequently at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Scroggs emphasized the following points: (1) The movement begun by Jesus and continued after his death in Palestine can best be described as a reform movement within the Judaism of the period. There is little evidence during this period that Christians had a separate identity apart from Jews. (2) The Pauline missionary movement as Paul understood it was a Jewish mission that focused on the Gentiles as the proper object of God s call to his people. (3) Prior to the end of the Jewish war with the Romans in 70 C.E., there was no such reality as Christianity. Followers of Jesus did not have a self-understanding of themselves as a religion over against Judaism. A distinct Christian identity only began to emerge after the Jewish- Roman war. (4) The later portions of the New Testament all show some signs of a movement towards separation, but they also generally retain some contact with their original Jewish matrix. 8 While not every New Testament scholar would subscribe to each and every point made by Scroggs, the consensus is growing that the picture he presents is basically accurate. Such a picture clearly contradicts the classical depictions of church-synagogue separation held by most people in both faith communities. It should be noted that the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, an episcopal pioneer in promoting constructive Christian-Jewish relations, basically endorsed the Scroggs perspective in his own writings. 9 The biblical scholar John Meier, in the third volume of his comprehensive study of New Testament understandings of Jesus, argues that from a careful examination of New Testament evidence, Jesus must be seen as presenting himself to the Jewish community of his time as an eschatological prophet and miracle worker in the likeness of Elijah. He was not interested in creating a separatist sect or holy remnant along the lines of the Qumran community. Instead, he envisioned the development of a special religious community within Israel. The idea that this community within Israel would slowly undergo a process of separation from Israel as it pursued a mission to 8 Robin Scroggs, The Judaizing of the New Testament, The Chicago Theological Seminary Register 75, no. 1 (Winter 1986). 9 Cf. Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin, A Blessing to Each Other: Cardinal Joseph Bernardin and the Jewish-Catholic Dialogue (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1996),

29 the Gentiles in this present world the long-term result being that this community would become predominantly Gentile itself finds no place in Jesus message or practice. 10 More recently, David Frankfurter adds further to the notion of significant intertwining between Christians and Jews in the period well after Jesus death. He has insisted that within the various clusters of groups that included Jews and Christians, there existed a mutual influence persisting through late antiquity [and] evidence for a degree of overlap that, all things considered, threatens every construction of an historically distinct Christianity before at least the mid-second century. 11 Important Christian and Jewish scholars are now arguing that the actual separation between the church and the synagogue, while well advanced by 100 C.E., was not completed for several centuries after that. Scholars such as Robert Wilken, Wayne Meeks, Alan Segal, and Anthony Saldarini have uncovered continued ties between certain Jewish and Christian communities, particularly in the East. 12 Evidence of such continuing ties is apparent in the second, third, and, in a few places, even in the fourth and fifth centuries. And the ties were not just on a theoretical level. They also affected popular practice as well. John Chrysostom, for example, launched a harsh critique of Judaism partly out of frustration that Christians in his area were continuing to participate in synagogue services on a regular basis. What sort of role these Christians played in the synagogue services is unknown and likely will remain so unless some new documentation is uncovered. It would be terribly illuminating to have such information. But short of this, we can say that on the Christian side, at least some believers in Christ did not regard such belief as necessitating a break with Judaism and its ritual practices. And on the Jewish side, this openness to Christians involved some recognition that they authentically belonged to the Jewish community since no evidence exists to suggest that the Christians had to fight their way into the synagogue for such services. One important collection of essays on this topic of the gradual separation of church and synagogue has the intriguing title of The Ways That Never Parted. Within the overall Parting of the Ways scholarship, one of the most important results has been the significant re-examination of Paul s outlook on Judaism. Traditionally Paul has been viewed both in popular and scholarly circles as, in many ways, Christianity s founder. Pauline theology has played a crucial role in the formulation of Christological perspectives, especially in Protestant theology, as well as defined the foundation for Christian ethical thought. Paul has been credited with bringing about the decisive break between Christianity and Judaism through his supposed rejection of any Torah obligations for gentile converts in the first century at the so-called Council of Jerusalem. Paul has often been portrayed as espousing a view in which Christianity clearly holds a position of theological superiority over Judaism. Much of this perspective on Paul as fundamentally anti-jewish has been due to the dominance of a master narrative in Christian circles rooted in the book of Acts. This master narrative begins with Stephen s decisive break with Judaism in chapter seven of Acts. So-called Jewish Christians then began to disappear from this master narrative until chapter eleven, when they are totally removed from the storyline following Peter s revelatory vision whereby he becomes convinced to abandon his previous adherence to continued Torah observance. From that point onwards, the master narrative focuses exclusively on gentiles as the new people of God and moves the epicenter of 10 John P. Meier, Companions and Competitors (New York: Doubleday, 2001), David D. Frankfurter, Beyond Jewish Christianity : Continuing Religious Subcultures of the Second and Third Centuries and their Documents, in The Ways That Never Parted. Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, eds. Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiro Reed (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 132. Also cf. Matt Jackson-McCabe, Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007). 12 Cf. Wayne A. Meeks and Robert Wilken, Jews and Christians in Antioch in the First Four Centuries (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1978); Robert Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late 4th Century (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983); and Anthony J. Saldarini, Jews and Christians in the First Two Centuries: The Changing Paradigm, Shofar 10 (1992). 26

30 Christianity from Jerusalem to Rome. Thus in the account of Christian origins that has tended to dominate Christianity s perspective, Judaism is superseded and even annulled, with Paul being viewed as the primary messenger of this teaching. This master narrative from Acts has been especially influential in the liturgy of the Easter season, during which the church celebrates its fundamental self-identity. Continued ties to Judaism play little or no constructive role in the presentation of this self-identity. This classical perspective on Paul and Judaism was significantly reinforced in the mid-nineteenth century in the writings of F. C. Bauer. In his work, Paul the Apostle, written in 1845, 13 Bauer argued for the existence of only two factions in the early church. One was the Jewish Christians whose leader was Peter, and the other gentile Christians, who looked to Paul for spiritual guidance. The Jewish Christians, in Bauer s perspective, stood mired in a narrow legalism that blinded them to the universalistic elements in Jesus teachings that were supposedly championed by Paul. Increasingly this classical perspective on Paul is being pushed aside by insights coming from The Parting of the Ways scholarship. Paul is now being portrayed as an integral part of the complicated Jewish-Christian scene of his time, rather than someone who completely repudiated Judaism and its Torah tradition. Shortly before his death, the noted New Testament scholar Raymond Brown said in a public speech in Chicago that he had now become convinced that Paul had a very high regard for Torah, including its ritual dimensions, and that if he had fathered a son, he would likely have had him circumcised. Even Paul s more Christological reflections are seen by some scholars now as having roots in the Jewish mystical tradition of the day. What is beginning to emerge in important sectors of Pauline scholarship is the picture of a Paul still very much a Jew, still quite appreciative of Jewish Torah, with seemingly no objection to its continued practice by Jewish Christians so long as their basic orientation is founded in Christ and his teachings, and still struggling at the end of his ministry to balance his understanding of the newness he experienced in the Christ Event with the continuity of the Jewish covenant. This is quite apparent in the famous chapters 9-11 of Romans, which Vatican II used as the cornerstone of its declaration about continuing Jewish covenantal inclusion in chapter four of Nostra Aetate. A few of the biblical scholars involved in this new Pauline research even go so far as to maintain that Paul regarded Torah observance so highly that he feared that if gentiles tried to practice it, they would only corrupt its authentic spirit. Such a view admittedly pushes the envelope of scholarly evidence a bit far, but it is presently under discussion in some scholarly circles. The biblical and theological reflections that have emerged as a result, at least in part, of the fundamental reorientation on the Christian-Jewish question brought about by Nostra Aetate carry significant impact for various areas of Christian theology. I would include here Christology, ecclesiology, ethics, mission, and the Christian relationship with other religions. In terms of Christology two new imperatives arise. Firstly, the reality of Jesus deep involvement in a constructive way with segments of the Jewish tradition must be included in any discussion of his divine sonship. While we can certainly continue efforts to present Christological understanding in multicultural ways, this should not happen at the expense of highlighting Jesus Jewish roots, particularly in the interpretation of his message. There is simply no way of properly interpreting Jesus three years of preaching without setting that teaching in the Jewish context of the period. 13 F. C. Bauer, Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ His Life and Works, His Epistles and Teachings (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003). On recent thinking on Paul and Judaism, cf. Reimund Bieringer and Didier Pollefeyt, eds., Paul and Judaism: Crosscurrents in Pauline Exegesis and the Study of Jewish- Christian Relations (London and New York: T&T Clark International, 2012). 27

31 Some years ago, the prominent Asian theologian S. Wesley Ariarajah, who worked for many years in the interreligious office of the World Council of Churches, termed the effort to return Jesus to his Jewish context a futile attempt in terms of creating Christian faith expression in a non-european context. He acknowledged Jesus positive connections with the Jewish community of his day. But this linkage carries no theological significance today for Ariarajah. For him, relating Christology to the Buddhist tradition represents a far more important challenge. 14 While I am certainly sympathetic to an effort to relate Christological understanding to Buddhism and other Asian religions, we must first try to grasp what Jesus was actually saying. And that cannot be done, as the American Vietnamese Catholic theologian Peter Phan has quite properly argued, apart from investigating its original setting. 15 Doing proper contextual theology today requires doing contextual interpretation of its initial formulation in the first century. A younger Protestant theologian, R. Kendall Soulen, in contrast to Ariarajah, has got it right. Soulen sees the link to Judaism in Christian self-identity as indispensable and an essential cornerstone. The fundamental link with Judaism is important not only for interpreting Jesus specific teachings but also for the basic theological understanding of the Christ Event. The permanent link to Judaism he regards as a constant check against ever present gnostic tendencies in Christological interpretation. Soulen s unwavering affirmation of this reality is one of his singular contributions to the current Christological discussion within the Christian-Jewish dialogue. 16 The second implication of the post-nostra Aetate vision relative to Christology is the need to insure that in any attempt to state a contemporary Christology, a salvific path for the Jewish people in and through their faithfulness to their continuing covenant is clearly affirmed. This necessity was underscored by Cardinal Walter Kasper during his tenure as President of the Holy See s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. 17 And any number of theologians, such as Paul van Buren, Clark Williamson, Franz Mussner, and the contributors to the volume coming from the joint European-American study group on Christ Jesus and the Jewish people have tried to work out the specifics of Christology along these lines. 18 With regard to ecclesiology, the implications of the Parting of the Ways scholarship are crucial for articulating the understanding of the church today. Most of us grew up thinking that by the time Jesus died on Calvary, or very shortly thereafter, the church had come into being as a separate institution apart from the Jewish community. But clearly that is historically inaccurate in light of the new research. The church and the Jewish community did part company eventually. And this will remain the situation for the future, even if Meier s contention that Jesus never envisioned a totally new religious community is proven correct. But there is a need in ecclesiological presentations to portray the separation for what it actually was gradual and complex and to ask what ties ought to be restored to some extent, even within the separatist model. One possibility is to envision the church and the Jewish community as two distinctive covenantal paths that remain connected in some measure; they are distinctive paths, but not totally distinct. On the ethical front, the primary learning from the post-nostra Aetate scholarship concerns the foundation of Christian ethics. That foundation has often been presented in a way that roots it in grace rather than law. The so-called Law of Christ has been seen as standing in superior contrast to the inferior nature of the Jewish legal 14 Wesley Ariarajah, Towards a Fourth Phase in Jewish-Christian Relations: An Asian Perspective, Unpublished Paper. Conference on Christian-Jewish Dialogue, Temple Emmanuel, New York, Co-sponsored by the Center for Interreligious Understanding and the Office of Interreligious Affairs of the World Council of Churches, November Peter Phan, Jews and Judaism in Asian Theology: Historical and Theological Perspectives, Gregorianum 86 (2005): R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996). 17 Walter Cardinal Kasper, The Good Olive Tree, America 185, no. 7 (17 September 2001). 18 John T. Pawlikowski, Christ in the Light of the Christian-Jewish Dialogue (Eugene. OR: Wipf & Stock, 2001). 28

32 tradition. Much of the argumentation for such a perspective has come from interpretations of Pauline literature. Now that the perception of Paul s outlook on Jewish law has been redirected in a positive direction by a growing number of biblical scholars, Christian ethicians will have to do a major readjustment of the Christian approach to ethical thinking. Finally, post-nostra Aetate scholarship forces us to raise some major questions about how we understand Catholic Christianity s relationship with other world religions. Traditionally we have viewed Catholicism as fully complete as a religion with nothing fundamental to learn from any other religious community, Christian or not. There has been a sense of superiority over all other religious perspectives. Catholicism, and Christianity in general, in large measure defined their self-identity over against the Jewish tradition. Now that the over against model has been shown as deeply flawed, there will be a need to rethink this self-definition, first and foremost relative to Judaism but also with respect to other non-christian religious traditions. This also carries significant implications for evangelization. 19 Cardinal Walter Kasper has argued that there is no necessity for organized evangelization of the Jews because they are in the covenant and have authentic revelation from the Christian theological perspective. 20 But that discussion will need to be expanded to Islam and even beyond. In sum, Nostra Aetate and the scholarship it has generated have the potential for a major reformulation of Christian thought in the key areas outlined above. Obviously such reformulation must be undertaken with care and a respect for tradition. But it cannot be halted without undermining the process launched at Vatican II in its declaration Nostra Aetate, which defined it self-identity. 19 For a discussion of mission to the Jews cf. essays by Gavin D Costa, Edward Kessler, and myself in the September 2012 issue of Theological Studies. 20 Walter Cardinal Kasper, Christians, Jews and the Thorny Question of Mission, Origins 32, no. 28 (19 December 2002):

33 ARTICLE Joys and Hopes, Griefs and Anxieties: Catholic Women Since Vatican II by Susan A. Ross The title I have chosen for this essay speaks for itself. The experiences of Catholic women since Vatican II, as I see it, have been a mixture of exciting new opportunities and challenges along with bitter disappointments and closed doors. The fact that so many Catholic women are now professional theologians, trained alongside their brothers in faith and teaching alongside them in seminaries and universities, is one of the most remarkable changes in the last fifty years. I think it is fair to say that the face of Catholic theology has changed in ways undreamed of fifty years ago. Yet the events of the last few years, particularly those of this past spring with the Vatican investigation of the Leadership Council of Women Religious (LCWR), have also revealed how little has changed in terms of power in the Catholic Church. In this essay, I want to advance some interrelated theses. The first of these is that, to draw on Scholastic language, the accidents of magisterial Roman Catholic theology of womanhood have changed during this time but the substance has remained largely the same. Those of you familiar with the traditional theology of transubstantiation will recognize the categories I am using, and I will flesh these out in what follows. My point is that a careful reading of magisterial teaching will show that womanhood is still largely understood in maternal and subordinate terms, despite Vatican claims to affirming women s full equality. Dr. Susan A. Ross is Professor of Theology and a Faculty Scholar at Loyola University Chicago, where she is the Chairperson of the Theology Department. Her most recent book is Anthropology: Seeking Light and Beauty (Liturgical Press, 2012). She is currently President of the Catholic Theological Society of America and also serves as Vice President and member of the editorial board of Concilium: International Theological Journal. My second point is that feminist theology a term practically unknown fifty years ago has raised deep challenges to this same magisterial teaching on both imaginative and doctrinal levels, largely inspired by what I will call the spirit of Vatican II. As many of you here are well aware, the charge of radical feminism, leveled against not only the LCWR but other prominent theologians, raises the question whether feminist theology should be considered outside the boundaries of orthodox (small o) Catholic theology. As a Catholic feminist theologian myself, I want ultimately to argue that it should not, but it is necessary to consider how and why the movement of feminist theology is considered to be so threatening to the hierarchy. My third point is that the work of women in the grassroots is central to the future of the church. In a sense, these women are caught in the middle. On the one side are the official teachings of the church, which praise the dedication of these women but are clear on their limited roles. On the other are the works and example of feminist writers and activists who challenge this picture. The joys and hopes, griefs and anxieties of all women are central to understanding 30

34 the Catholic church of the present and the future. Most of the people in the pew are, we need to admit, largely unaware of the complex theological issues that keep many of us so preoccupied, and it is always a good realitycheck to ask someone at an after-mass coffee hour, or one s students, what they think of the Vatican s statement on Margaret Farley or of the conflict with the LCWR. I did this recently and was greeted with a blank stare by a young mother of two toddlers, who obviously had many other very important things on her mind. But the many women and I include here single and married women as well as women religious who educate both children and adults, prepare the music and petitions, organize the coffee hours, arrange for adult education classes, bring Communion to the sick, and in some cases run entire parishes are central to the Catholic church in the present and will be even more so in the future. These women are not stopgap workers who are needed until there are more men to take their place. And while most of these women are not trained theologians, they have been profoundly affected by feminism, in both its religious and secular forms, and many are unlikely to find magisterial images of maternal and subordinate womanhood to be convincing. So my question is whether the future of the church for the majority of Catholics women is one of joy and hope or one of grief and anxiety? Substance and Accidents in Magisterial Theology of Womanhood Let me explain what I mean by these terms. In the Scholastic understanding of transubstantiation, in which bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, the substance that is, the very essence of the bread and the wine is changed, but the accidents that is, the texture and flavor of bread and wine remain unchanged. This was an ingenious medieval way of making sense of a reality that is difficult, if not impossible, to express in words: how can what looks to the eye like ordinary food and drink become Christ in our midst? By drawing on Aristotelian metaphysics, which sees reality in terms of substances and accidents, medieval theologians could practice the craft of theology, which is making sense of the church s faith in language that relates to the present time: this is the classic faith seeking understanding. I will just note here that transubstantiation posed challenges to Reformation theologians like Martin Luther, and in the years immediately following Vatican II, a number of theologians proposed more contemporary ways of understanding the meaning of real presence. 1 I find that this somewhat archaic language is helpful in understanding magisterial teaching on womanhood. The key question is whether Catholic teaching on women has substantially changed since Vatican II. I argue that it has not, and that this is a key factor in the present situation of impasse. This teaching has been very richly developed, particularly in the work of John Paul II, but the substance of the church s traditional teaching on womanhood has not, in my judgment, been really altered. Let me give some examples here; given the limits of this article I can only give a few. Here I draw on Pius XI s Casti Connubii (CC), from 1930, and John Paul II s Mulieris Dignitatem (MD), from Vatican II took place almost exactly halfway during this time period, so it serves as a convenient marker. And even though 1988 may seem to many to be a very long time ago (twenty-four years, perhaps all or more of some of your lifetimes), in the vast chronology of church teaching, it s really about an hour ago. First, to Casti Connubii, the immediate context of CC was the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion s statement that so-called artificial contraception could be used, in serious situations, by married couples; that statement was issued in The broader context, however, was the movement for women s suffrage, greater independence for women, and the sexual revolution of the early twentieth century, inspired particularly by Freud. Perhaps familiar to those who have read the encyclical is the statement in no. 26, that there is a primacy of the husband in regard to women and children, and the ready subjec- 1 For Luther, see The Babylonian Captivity of the Church in John Dillenberger, ed. Martin Luther: Excerpts from His Writings (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961); for sacramental theology following Vatican II, see Edward Schillebeeckx, The Eucharist, trans. N.D. Smith (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968); Bernard Cooke, Christian Sacraments and Christian Personality (New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1965). 31

35 tion of the wife and her willing obedience. If this statement is read without its immediate context in the document, it seems very much in contrast to the affirmations of equality that we see in so many post-vatican II magisterial documents. But if one reads carefully, the statement is almost immediately qualified by Pius XI s emphasis on the liberty which fully belongs to the woman in view of her dignity as a human person, and his listing of those situations in which this subjection is qualified; the woman is not to be treated as a child, and if the husband is irrational, then obedience is clearly not warranted. Pius also describes the man as the head and the woman as the heart, and if the man has the chief place in ruling, then the woman has the chief place in love (27-28). Pius goes on to argue that there is a false emancipation of women s lives that needs to be recognized as such (45). Here, one must note the context of the 1920s and the drive for women s suffrage in the Euro-American world. Some of us know the other familiar quotation from CC that warns of the problems that will ensue if the woman descends from her truly regal throne to which she has been raised within the walls of the home by means of the Gospel and that if this happens, she will soon be reduced to the old state of slavery... and become as amongst the pagans the mere instrument of man (74-75). There is something to be lost if women give up the place in which God has put them, and, specifically, where Christianity sees women. Yet for all this, I must say that in reading CC again, one does still find a certain measure of wisdom in some places: sex isn t everything, contrary to what popular culture tells us, and there is no declaration that women are actually inferior to men. Its major point is that women have a special place which needs to be respected. If we move to John Paul II s Mulieris Dignitatem, issued fifty-eight years later, we do find a much stronger affirmation of women s equality, but there is still, I argue, an understanding of women s distinctiveness that precludes leadership in the church and that continues to emphasize the maternal and responsive character of womanhood. The language of subordination is no longer used, but the language of responsiveness is introduced, in which the divine (and the male) initiative is always first. This is, I think, very much in continuity with what the church has taught about women throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. John Paul II s theology is much more developed, particularly with regard to the spousal character of humanity and especially of women, but it does not substantially change what it has inherited from the past. In comparison with CC, one finds in MD an argument that God s love, as it is understood in human terms, has been revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, who is male. Humanity, which receives this love, is therefore symbolized in feminine terms in this way, John Paul can say that men are, in a sense, also brides of Christ. 2 That is, the human (male or female) takes on the role of the bride who responds to the bridegroom. Precisely because Christ s divine love is the love of a bridegroom, it is the model and pattern of all human love, men s love in particular (25). Note that the role of bride and bridegroom are not interchangeable. Like CC, MD also argues against the dangers of feminine masculinization that, despite the problems of sexual discrimination, must not lead women down this dangerous pathway. There is a distinctive psychological structure to womanhood that is both virginal and maternal and which is also central to the Paschal Mystery. And in a fascinating passage in the encyclical, John Paul links even the Eucharist to the spousal character of the Paschal Mystery: Since Christ, in instituting the Eucharist, linked it in such an explicit way to the priestly service of the Apostles, it is legitimate to conclude that he thereby wished to express the relationship between man and woman, between what is feminine and what is masculine (26). There is much more that can be said about these two documents, separated by almost sixty years, with Vatican II in the middle, but, I argue, united in their understanding of womanhood. Women are created by God as essentially 2 Susan Ross, Extravagant Affections: A Feminist Sacramental Theology (New York: Continuum, 1988),

36 maternal and essentially receptive: these characteristics provide a basis for women s distinctive role in the church. Pius does not have the extensive Marian and nuptial references that are so significant in John Paul s work, but the potential for this development is there. My point, in this brief section here, is to say that it would be difficult to discern from these two documents that anything significant had happened in relation to church teaching related to women during those fifty-eight years. Of course, much has changed practically: women occupy significant roles in dioceses: as Chancellors, for example, and as parish associates and coordinators. Parish staffs look very different now than they did fifty years ago, when one would encounter women mainly as receptionists, cooks, and housekeepers in the rectories, as laundresses of altar linens for the churches, as teachers of children, and as organizers of sodalities and church socials. But I would argue that these are accidental changes, changes that do not affect substantially the theology of women. To rephrase the question of a recent book on the Council: Did anything happen at Vatican II with regard to women? My answer would be, If you read just these documents: not really. 3 The Challenge of Feminist Theology Permit me to engage in a bit of nostalgia. I was twelve years old when Vatican II began, and I still recall it vividly. During the four sessions of the Council, and in between, we prayed daily at my school and weekly at my parish for the success of the Council. My sister and I found the new openness to other Christian churches to be an inspiration for exploring previously forbidden Protestant churches, which the two of us would attend after our family went to early Sunday Mass. The nuns at my high school had us buy and assigned us to read the documents of Vatican II, and I still have my copy of the Abbott edition, priced at 95 cents. So, just nine years after the Council ended, in the fall of 1974, I applied to graduate schools in theology, inspired by the Council s vision and hoping to be a part of the future of the church, and not just as someone in the pews. Certainly, twenty years earlier, few if any Catholics would have thought it possible that a single lay woman would consider becoming a theologian, and I must say that my parents were perplexed, although quite supportive. But I was not alone. I arrived at the University of Chicago at the same time as the first (later tenured) woman faculty member there, Anne Carr, BVM. She was Assistant Dean and Assistant Professor of Theology and I was a first year M.A. student. She had studied at the University of Chicago just after the close of the Council and was part of the first generation of women theologians, many of them Catholic, who found their calling in a similar way to me. So, something must have happened to inspire so many Catholic women (and lay men) to study theology and to think of themselves as part of the church s teaching ministry. In this section, I want to spell out what that something was. As I have reflected on the juxtaposition of magisterial writing on women and on the phenomenon of Catholic feminist theology, I have found the literature about Vatican II helpful in understanding it. John O Malley writes,... the radical nature of the council has never been accepted or understood. 4 In other words, those who argue for a hermeneutics of continuity with regard to the Council have plenty of material to substantiate their claim, and in this case, it would be magisterial teachings about womanhood. Josef Cardinal Ratzinger said in 1985 that [t]his schematism of a before and after in the history of the Church, wholly unjustified by the documents of Vatican II, which do nothing but reaffirm the continuity of Catholicism, must be decidedly opposed. There is no pre- or post- conciliar church. 5 Since then, the now Pope Benedict XVI has used the language of a hermeneutics of reform rather than of rupture or continuity, but his rejection of the idea that Vatican II represented a real change in the Church remains clear. My argument here is that much did change, and those who argue for a hermeneutics of rupture, who see how much actually did change, have plenty of material as well. For this, I will draw on feminist theology as an example. 3 See David Schultenover, ed., Vatican II: Did Anything Happen? (New York: Continuum Press, 2007). 4 As quoted in Massimo Faggioli, Vatican II: the Battle for Meaning (New York: Paulist Press, 2012), Faggioli,

37 When I arrived at Swift Hall in the fall of 1975, everyone was talking about the new book that had just been published by a young Catholic theologian and member of the faculty, David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order: The New Pluralism in Theology. 6 In that book, Tracy argued for a method of mutually critical correlation between what he called the Christian fact and common human experience. One of the more significant issues in that book and its focus on method was how it highlighted human experience. And while his understanding of that category has undergone both criticism and revision, experience entered the realm of theology in a way not explicitly made before. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, women were just beginning to reflect on their own experience as women s experiences, and this was also true of women studying theology. I can still recall the moments of insight as I realized that what I had chalked up as just me or life were experiences that were shared by many other women and that had potential theological significance: some of these included the psychological impact on women of overwhelmingly male images of God, the role of gendered experience in developing theological categories of sin and grace, and attitudes toward the body and sexuality. As I read theories of religious language, I also began to think about how gendered language exercises power over our imaginations. These, I think, are really radical changes in theology as usual and continue to be controversial in the present: just read the US Bishops Committee on Doctrine s critique of Elizabeth Johnson s book Quest for the Living God to see what I mean. 7 Feminist theology has taken quite seriously the challenges of newer methods in theology. Now, by this I do not mean that feminist, womanist, mujerista, and other women-centered forms of theology have just borrowed Tracy s method. I think Tracy was identifying something that others at the same time were also recognizing; the most significant among them would include black theologian James Cone and Latin American theologian Gustavo Gutierrez. But what was crucial here was the experience of the theologian and his or her social location, a topic that Tracy took up in his next book, The Analogical Imagination. 8 Who you are, where you are from, how you have been formed intellectually and culturally all these experiences will inevitably shape how you understand your theology. Moreover, one is obligated to make sense of the Christian fact in language that is adequate to these experiences. Thus, a related development in theology has been a more self-conscious awareness of how context plays a role in theological development. Bernard Lonergan s famous distinction between classicist and historical mindedness in theological statements found its counterpart in feminist biblical and historical scholarship. 9 In the groundbreaking work of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, we find that questions about the New Testament s social location and the mores of the time have a great deal to contribute to our understanding of how biblical and historical sources need to be interpreted. 10 Both experience and context have played very important roles in the development of contextual theologies. Latin American, black, womanist, Asian, and African scholars have challenged the ways that certain ways of seeing humanity have been understood to have a timeless, a-historical nature, and this criticism has been leveled against white feminist theology as well, since white feminist theologians then and now have tended to universalize their own experience as that of women everywhere. The distinctiveness of these experiences has a 6 David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order: The New Pluralism in Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1975). 7 U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishops Doctrine Committee Faults Book by Fordham Professor, March 30, 2011, usccb.org/comm/archives/2011/ shtml. 8 David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1982). 9 See Bernard Lonergan, The Transition from a Classicist World View to Historical Mindedness, in A Second Collection, ed. William F. J. Ryan and Bernard J. Tyrrell (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), See Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1982). 34

38 theological significance, for example in the idea that we are to see ourselves as humble servants of God a point that womanist theologian Jacqueline Grant made. How is it that those who have never had to actually be humble servants can say that this is what God calls all people to do? 11 A third point, related to the first two, is the explicit recognition of theology as a constructive enterprise. This again is something that is not unique to feminist theology, but it has a particular relevance as it highlights the nature of theology as a human endeavor, not as something handed down from heaven that can only be passed on and not questioned. (I sometimes refer to this as the hot potato theory of Tradition: pass it on very quickly without touching it!) My point here is that feminist theology, very much in line with other theological movements of the last fifty years, has made these methodological shifts much more visible simply because of the fact that it includes women as subjects instead of objects of theology. In its self-conscious understanding of who does theology and what sources one draws upon, feminist theology challenges the theology of womanhood that magisterial Roman Catholicism has maintained at least over the last century and indeed all of theological anthropology the theological topic that used to be called the doctrine of man. In this sense at least, then, feminist theology is a prime example of how one can very definitely argue for a hermeneutics of rupture, or in plainer language, that something really did change at Vatican II. The question is whether or not women-centered theologies constitute part of the ongoing tradition of Roman Catholic theology. Before I attempt to argue this point, let me now turn to the women in the pews, those for whom the changes of Vatican II and feminism have unquestionably made an impact, producing both joys and hopes as well as griefs and anxieties. Catholic Women Since Vatican II One of the pleasures of working on this essay has been the opportunity to read material about women and Vatican II. Carmel McEnroy s Guests in Their Own House gives a vivid sense of the atmosphere for women at the Council. McEnroy describes the experiences of the women auditors ( hearers, in English) who included both lay women and consecrated religious who were invited to come to the council to listen, similar to the Protestant auditors who were also invited. Although Pope Paul VI was very open to women s participation, the same could not be said for everyone who participated in the Council. In one instance, a couple of Swiss Guards physically prevented one woman journalist from receiving Communion at the ecumenical liturgy to which journalists were invited (she was the only woman); 12 and in another, the French theologian Henri de Lubac commented Mon Dieu! Have we come to this? Letting in women? 13 Despite these indignities, the women who participated in the Council, particularly the women religious, took the Council very seriously. Yet, as McEnroy notes, in Walter Abbott s list of Important Dates of Vatican II, the arrival of Protestant auditors is noted, but the historical event of women coming for the first time ever to a council is not even mentioned. 14 The voices of women religious were not included in the writing of Perfectae Caritatis, the document on the updating of religious communities, and while women were eventually included in the commissions for drafting some of the important documents, such as Gaudium et Spes, they were not allowed to speak publicly. Since Vatican II, women have become the backbone of the church: in the US, 80% of lay ecclesial ministers are women. And while some scholars argue that feminism is only a North American phenomenon, as does Massimo 11 Jacqueline Grant, White Women s Christ and Black Women s Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Response (American Academy of Religion, 1989). 12 Carmel McEnroy, Guests in their Own House: The Women of Vatican II (New York: Wipf and Stock, 2011), McEnroy, McEnroy, 131. The passage to which McEnroy refers is found in Walter M. Abbott, The Documents of Vatican II (New York: Guild Press, 1966),

39 Faggioli in his otherwise insightful book on Vatican II, the concerns of women all over the world for a voice in the church counter this observation to indicate that feminism is indeed an international phenomenon. 15 In this last section, I want to identify two issues that I see as central for women in both the last fifty years and in the future: the need to include women s voices as equal participants in the church and a deeper concern for the lived experiences of all women, especially those on the margins of society, which is occupied overwhelmingly by women and children. These issues are at the heart of whether the future holds joy and hope or grief and anxiety. First is women s voices. As I note above, women s voices were not heard publicly at Vatican II, despite the efforts of the women auditors. Women were seen in St. Peter s, in the third and fourth sessions, but they lacked a say. In the fifty years since the Council, this situation has unfortunately continued. Women are described in official church documents by men in this sense, women are seen but women ultimately are represented in church governance only by men. This is also the case for women s liturgical voices. Women s voices can be heard in choirs, but women s voices are not officially permitted from pulpits, except as readers, and in this, only in an extraordinary capacity that is to say, women are not admitted even to the minor order of lector. Where the Council called for the full participation of women and men in the church, women have joyfully accepted participation in parishes, seminaries, and universities and hoped that their voices would be heard and taken seriously. In many cases, this has happened, which gives life to this hope and joy. Yet women s inability to have a real voice in governance even at the local level, where a pastoral associate can be hired or fired at will, or to have a voice in breaking open the scriptural readings by preaching has led to grief and anxiety. In these ways, the promise of women s full participation in the church has not been fulfilled. The situation of the Vatican investigation of the LCWR is a case in point. One of the main concerns of the Vatican statement was that women religious were not, in the Vatican s view, fully supportive of the bishops who, the document notes, are the Church s authentic teachers of faith and morals. 16 Women religious, the document argued, did not promote the Church s biblical view of family life and human sexuality... in a way that promoted Church teaching. 17 This is a very strong statement and needs to be taken quite seriously. But, as a number of women religious commented, the approach that they have taken is not presenting themselves as official teachers but rather as those who minister to those in need of care and support, such as women facing crisis pregnancies, those in same-sex relationships who feel alienated from the church, street children, immigrants, and migrant workers. When women religious went on record as supporting the Affordable Care Act, they were speaking in their own voices, from their own perspectives: they saw in the legislation the potential for caring for many more people than current insurance practices permit. This was not well-received by the US Catholic bishops, who opposed the legislation. So the issue of women s voices raises the question whether all must speak with the same voice or whether Catholic teaching might even be a chorus, with many different voices coming together. My second point is a deeper concern for the lived experiences of all women, especially those on the margins. As I noted earlier, it is sometimes said that feminist concerns are mostly the concerns of first-world, white, and privileged women. I think this can be a fair criticism: a focus on women s ordination, for example, may not be at the top of the list for women worldwide. But the concerns of poor women and children, as we witnessed this summer with the Nuns on the Bus and their critique of the proposed Ryan budget, are also not confined to the United States alone! As my friend and colleague Anne Patrick put it in an article about Gaudium et Spes nearly twenty-five years ago, the fact that GS failed to mention rape or domestic violence, both of which are suffered frequently by women worldwide, in its list of crimes against life and human integrity and dignity, is sadly not surprising, given 15 Faggioli, Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Council of Women Religious, csmodule=security/ getfile&pageid=55544; the quotation is from p Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Council of Women Religious. 36

40 the document s somewhat unrealistic view of women as having achieved equity with men before the law and in fact. 18 (This in 1965!) My point is that the maternal and subordinate view of women that continues to predominate in church teaching is also genuinely harmful to women, especially for those women who live in contexts where their full human dignity is not honored. Let me be clear: I do note, and applaud, the church s continued insistence on women s full humanity and equality before God. I am not questioning this and wish that it were taken more seriously by churches, governments, and societies. It is rather that the concrete conditions of women s lives and, in some cases, the surrounding cultures make following church teachings on artificial contraception, for example, actually dangerous to women s lives. Melissa Browning points out in her dissertation that married Tanzanian women are at a much higher risk for contracting HIV than their single women counterparts since single women are not caught up in the social roles expected of married couples. 19 Emphasizing women s maternal roles and their fundamentally responsive relationship with men can be dangerous for women because this fails to embody a corresponding critique of men s roles and a realistic assessment of the lived conditions of people s lives. Thus there is a rhetoric of equality and of human dignity that is qualified by the church s emphasis on women s maternal and responsive natures. Earlier this year, one of my former students, now a faculty member at another Catholic university, gave a presentation at the CTSA Annual Convention at a panel discussion I had arranged called Generations Reflect on Sacrosanctum concilium, the Vatican constitution on the Liturgy. In her remarks, she shared her agonizing over whether or not she should baptize her daughter into the Catholic Church. As a Catholic and as a feminist, she was critical of the emphasis on obedience that she found predominant in official discourse on Catholic life and mission and how, as she put it, the powers of the imagination are usurped by the hegemonic power of the hierarchy. 20 It was a powerful presentation that left the audience initially speechless. And in her February article in America magazine, Sister Patricia Wittberg, a sociologist at Indiana University, notes that young women are opting out of the church and that [n]one of the millennial Catholic women in the survey expressed complete confidence in churches and religious organizations. 21 In short, the promises of Vatican II have borne fruit in many ways, but some have also withered on the vine as the true meaning of the Council continues to be a topic of debate. Conclusion I have suggested here that while there has been much progress for women in the Catholic Church since the opening of the Second Vatican Council fifty years ago, the official Roman Catholic theology of womanhood has remained remarkably unchanged. It has been developed into a theology of complementarity, particularly in Pope John Paul II s Theology of the Body, but this theology still sees women primarily as mothers and as partners who respond to the leadership and initiative of God and of men. While there is an admirable concern for human dignity and equality before God, this theology has taken little account of women s own understandings of their experiences and is remarkably uncomfortable with women s voices, especially when they are not in unison with the hierarchy. When women s own efforts to articulate a vision of God, humanity, and the world are critical of traditional formulations and open up new ways of talking about God, they are labeled as radical feminists and sometimes subject to disciplinary action. The women in the pews who are dedicated to the church, its sacramental approach to life, 18 Anne E. Patrick, Toward Renewing the Life and Culture of Fallen Man : Gaudium et spes as Catalyst for Catholic Feminist Theology, in Judith A. Dwyer, ed., Questions of Special Urgency: The Church in the Modern World Two Decades After Vatican II (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1986), Melissa D. Browning, Patriarchy, Christianity and the HIV/AIDS African Epidemic: Rethinking Christian Marriage in Light of the Experiences of HIV Positive Women in Tanzania, Ph.D. dissertation, Loyola University Chicago, For a summary of this session, see Patricia Beattie Jung, Generations Respond to Sacrosanctum Concilium 50 Years Later, CTSA Proceedings, 2012, 21 Patricia Wittberg, A Lost Generation, America, February 20, 2012, 37

41 its social teaching, and its rich history find themselves drawn both by this rich tradition as well as by the compelling vision of women that feminist theologies offer. Granted, there are those who find the maternal and receptive picture of womanhood to be compelling; I think it is clear that I do not count myself among these, and my experience lecturing in parishes and teaching young women and men for over thirty years is that most of these women do not either. The women who have become theologians over the last fifty years were and are inspired by the vision of Vatican II and, I argue, are practicing their craft very much in accord with the spirit of Vatican II. These theologies are inspired by a love of God and of the church. They are a vision of a more just and spirit-filled world that hears the griefs and anxieties of women, as well as men, with deep concern and seeks to act in ways that will bring them joy and hope. Toward the end of the Pastoral Constitution, whose words inspired the title of this essay, there is a wonderful section that sums up what I understand that Council Spirit to embody: Such a mission requires in the first place that we foster within the Church herself mutual esteem, reverence and harmony, through the full recognition of lawful diversity. Thus all those who compose the one People of God, both pastors and the general faithful, can engage in dialogue with ever abounding fruitfulness. For the bonds which unite the faithful are mightier than anything dividing them. Hence, let there be unity in what is necessary; freedom in what is unsettled, and charity in any case (GS 92). The theologies articulated by women over the past fifty years have contributed immensely to the ever-increasing diversity of the Church and have, I would argue, expanded our vision of the beauty and mystery of our faith. My hope is that in another fifty years, when others will celebrate the centenary of this Council, that its vision will be celebrated by women and men who share power and service, engage in fruitful dialogue, and attend courageously to the griefs and anxieties of all of those who need joy and hope. 38

42 Gaudium et Spes: The Church in the World by Robert J. Schreiter, C.PP.S. ARTICLE The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, or Gaudium et Spes, was promulgated on the final day of the Second Vatican Council, December 7, It was not among the original schemata for documents for the Council; rather, it arose out of the deliberations on the Council floor. It is one of four Apostolic Constitutions of the Council, i.e., documents representing the highest authority of the Council. It is the only such Constitution called pastoral, two others being called dogmatic and one simply Constitution. Gaudium et Spes is emblematic of many dimensions of the Council as an event. It embodied the originating vision of Pope John XXIII, who convened the Council. It positioned itself vis-à-vis the world in what was then a new way. Its very composition and content bespoke a new way of doing theology. And in all this, it became a kind of blueprint for the Church recognizing itself as a world-wide Church (rather than a European institution with branch offices) for the first time. This article will trace those developments. Pope John XXIII s Vision of the Council Pope John XXIII s announcement on January 25, 1959 that he intended to convoke an ecumenical council caught everyone by surprise. It was clear that he had thought through what he intended to have happen. It was to be a pastoral council, that is, one focused upon engaging the pastoral needs of the modern world rather than one focused on issuing condemnations of errors. It was not intended to issue new dogmatic definitions of faith. He reiterated those ideas in his address to the Council Fathers at the beginning of the first session Robert J. Schreiter, C.PP.S., is Vatican Council II Professor of Theology at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago. He has published seventeen books in the areas of inculturation, world mission, and reconciliation. on October 11, There, in Gaudet Mater Ecclesia (Let Mother Church Rejoice), he spoke out against what he famously called the prophets of gloom who took an unremittingly negative view of the modern world. The first session dealt with the proposals that had been developed in the preliminary commissions which bore the heavy stamp of the thinking of the Roman Curia, who were at best skeptical about the need for such a pastoral council. Indeed, a good deal of frustration among the Council Fathers was increasingly evident. It came to a head on December 4, when a speech by one of the four Council Presidents, Cardinal Leo Suenens of Belgium, called for developing a document that addressed the face of the Church toward the world. The proposal was met with thunderous applause in the aula. volume 25 number 1, September

43 Pope John s encyclical letter, Pacem in Terris, appeared on April 11, In many ways, this letter was the Pope s final testament. (He died two months later.) In it he set out his vision for world peace. There the Church embraced the modern concept of human rights for the first time and supported the development of international institutions to secure peace among nations. Most notably, each section of the encyclical made reference to the signs of the times, a phrase that comes from the Scriptures (see Mt 16:3 and parallels). Starting in the 1920s, it was used in both Catholic and Protestant social action circles to speak of the analysis of current reality as a starting point for theological reflection. The French Dominican theologian Marie-Dominique Chenu is credited with introducing it into conciliar circles. It would become one of the watch words of Gaudium et Spes: At all times the Church carries the responsibility of reading the signs of the time and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel, if it is to carry out its task. In language intelligible to every generation, she should be able to answer the ever recurring questions which men ask about the meaning of this present life and of the life to come, and how one is related to the others. We must be aware of and understand the aspirations, the yearnings, and the often dramatic features of the world in which we live (GS 4). The positive engagement with the world rather than focusing on things to be condemned marked this encyclical and had a profound effect on those drafting what was to become Gaudium et Spes. Indeed those very opening words of the Pastoral Constitution joy and hope bespoke the tenor that the Constitution was to take: The joy and the hope, the grief and the anguish of the men of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joy and the hope, the grief and the anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts (GS 1). Pope John died June 3, But his spirit continued to animate the efforts that would bring about the Constitution Gaudium et Spes. The Church and the World or The Church in the World? The concerns for a genuinely pastoral Council reached well beyond the drafting of Gaudium et Spes, but this Constitution represented a kind of lightning rod for a broader question: how was the Church to position itself in regard to the modern world? Since the seventeenth century, it had been in a defensive position as a result of the attacks arising out of the French Enlightenment. And for more than a century, it had turned its face away from the world in response to the political upheavals in Europe the French Revolution, the Revolution of 1848, and the demise of the Papal States. Pope Pius X had sealed this policy with his attack on what was known as Modernism all those movements (political, social, intellectual) that had moved Europe away from its traditional roots and political arrangements. The front against Modernism was directed not only at the Church s stance toward the world; it was operative in policies that systematically silenced theologians who suggested any accommodation to the modern world, as well as movements and institutions that supported such ideas. It is well known that some of the major theological architects of the final documents of the Council had been silenced by the Vatican in previous years. The stance toward the world ran deeper than politics. It was a theological one as well, mirrored especially in the nature and grace debates of the first half of the twentieth century. At stake in those debates was the relationship of the natural to the supernatural world and the presence of God s grace in the natural world, apart from grace 40

44 mediated through the Church. By the later 1950s, a theology of earthly realities that asserted the autonomy of the world in the divine economy would begin to be articulated. It would come to be echoed in Gaudium et Spes: If by the autonomy of the world we mean that created things and societies themselves enjoy their own laws and values that must gradually be deciphered, put to use, and regulated by men, then it is entirely right to demand that autonomy (GS 36). Such a position meant that the Church must take the world seriously as a conversation partner. In other words, the relationship would need to be framed as the Church in the modern world rather than the Church and the modern world. This idea was to be reaffirmed in the beginning of the pontificate of Paul VI. In his inaugural encyclical letter Ecclesiam Suam, he proposed that dialogue would be the cornerstone of his papacy. The sending of the Son and the Spirit into the world was rooted in God s great dialogue with humanity. There were voices that nonetheless urged condemnation of certain modern movements, notably atheism and Communism. While especially atheism would be addressed in Gaudium et Spes, the tone was much more one of engagement rather than outright condemnation. By taking such a stance, the Church was committing itself to listening to what the world had to say and then responding out of the Gospel. This did not preclude a critical stance toward the world. But it did preclude an a priori rejection of voices in the world as the Church pronounced its judgment on the world. Thus, dialogue and solidarity would become key terms for describing this engagement with the modern world. The question that follows on this, however, is just how to bring about this engagement with the world, both theologically and practically. Developing a Pastoral Constitution What did it mean to develop a pastoral constitution? Dogmatic constitutions, as a genre, were clear enough. In such a document, the teaching of the Church would be set out in a coherent way to address contemporary need. But pastoral constitutions had never been promulgated from a council before. The most commonly used sense of the term pastoral had a clear enough meaning. It entailed extracting from dogmatic statements the behavioral implications, as it were, for day-to-day church life. Thus, the bulk of moral theology could be translated into practice for the confessional by indicating the gravity of individual sins. Pastoral had to do with the concrete application of doctrine to life. What in the later twentieth century would come to be known as practical theology, a realization that every theory has practical implications and every practice is theory-laden, had not yet surfaced in Catholic theology. Early drafts of the schema that was to become Gaudium et Spes continued to use this twofold distinction between doctrine and practice. What was envisioned was a dogmatic statement about the Church in the modern world, followed by a series of adnexa, i.e., questions or issues that needed to be addressed in the modern world from the perspective of Catholic doctrine. Debate continued about what the content of the dogmatic statement should include, as well as the list of adnexa to be addressed. What was at stake here was the larger question about what was the point of departure for theology. Neo-Scholasticism had left a heritage of deductive thinking in which theology was always seen to proceed from defined teaching of the Magisterium that was then presented in an apologetic or polemical form of argument against errors. This method was born in the medieval disputatio and only sharpened in the polemics with the Reformers from the sixteenth century onward. At issue was the teaching, set in an ahistorical context. Theology seen in this way was 41

45 the preserve of the clergy. Debates continued up to the time of the Council as to whether theology could even be taught to the laity. For them, rather, a watered-down, catechetical approach was preferred. What had been emerging in the decades immediately before the Council was another kind of approach. One approach, favored among German-speaking theologians, was a philosophical one, wherein a philosophical analysis of the human being would form a framework for interpreting Christian teaching. The philosophical analysis would give a coherence to Christian faith that would resonate with contemporary human beings understanding of themselves and their existence in the world. Karl Rahner s work was a sterling example of this. Among French-speaking theologians, a slightly different approach could be discerned. A phenomenological or even sociological account of contemporary human life would serve to ask the questions about existence that the Catholic tradition was to answer. This more inductive approach privileged individual human experience as a prime source of theology. This was indeed a new approach in Catholic theology, inasmuch as the experience of fallen human nature was deemed an unreliable guide to truth. Marie-Dominique Chenu and his most famous student, Edward Schillebeeckx, are examples of this approach. It was among these two ways of thinking one more deductive, the other more inductive that the development of Gaudium et Spes was argued out. Although there were (and continue to be) differences between these two approaches, they share one common assumption: one has to begin with a generally pastoral approach an experience and analysis of the world in which contemporary men and women live. The legacy of these discussions continues to influence how Catholic theology is being done today. In the final redaction of the document, something of the older twofold approach of dogmatic statement and adnexa is still in evidence. Part One (GS 11-45) looks at the Church and the human vocation; Part Two (GS 47-90) addresses Some Urgent Problems. But the dichotomy of doctrine versus application has been blurred. Gaudium et Spes begins by invoking the necessity of reading the signs of the times. Then in Part One it presents a theological anthropology or understanding of the human being in the light of faith, rather than a series of propositions to be adhered to. It ends by situating the Church in the modern world, building upon the vision of Church presented in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium. Part Two does not present so much a practical applications as it does a continued theological reflection based on Part One as it pertains to the questions of marriage, culture, economics, politics, and peace. Here a new paradigm for doing theology is presented. In this paradigm, one cannot do a theology that is addressing the world without hearing the voices of that world, as dissonant or discordant as they may be. They constitute the context in which the Church must function. Those voices are not heard uncritically, but they are to be heard sympathetically. Second, implied in the human vocation is the idea that theological reflection is not just the province of trained specialists or the bishops. Returning again to Lumen Gentium, to do theological reflection is part of the vocation of all who are baptized. There are still gradations within the theological endeavor; there is a difference between the work of an academic theologian and the member of a base community. But this does not obscure the fact that all the baptized have a contribution to make to theological reflection and practice. It is part of the participation of the entire People of God on their way to the Reign of God. Toward a World Church Only about seven hundred bishops attended the First Vatican Council. Two-thirds of them were from France and Italy. Participation at the Second Vatican Council at times exceeded 2300 bishops, coming from every part of the world. As many people have noted subsequently, this was the beginning of Catholicism becoming a world-wide 42

46 Church. By the mid-1970s, the population center of Catholicism had shifted from Europe to the Southern hemisphere. Catholicism began to become a world-wide Church but in what way? Many commentators have noted that the agenda and procedures that followed continued to mirror the European Church. Secularization and Communism were seen to be the major threats to the Church at the mid-twentieth century. While such were real issues for Europe, they did not reflect what were often more important issues on the agenda of what would come to be called the Global South the churches of Africa, Asia and Latin America. In Africa especially, independence from colonial rule and economic and social development were more burning matters. Poverty was a major issue in nearly all of these settings. Apartheid, military oppression, and underdevelopment were issues shared across the Global South. Asia grappled with Christianity being a religious minority amid ancient religious traditions. Realizing the differences between Global North and South, the Council did make provision for smaller sessions where such concerns could be heard. Poverty as an issue did make some inroads, thanks to the advocacy of some European prelates, such as Cardinal Lercaro of Italy. But Global South issues did not make a significant impact on the agenda, nor did they get much time on the aula floor of the general sessions. It was more in subsequent actions that the impact of the thinking of the Council was to gain traction in other parts of the world. The second conference of CELAM, the Council of Episcopal Conferences of Latin America, held in Medellín in 1968, translated the tenor of the Council documents into a Latin American idiom and had a profound effect on the Church there for several decades thereafter. The meetings of the Synod of Bishops in 1971 (on justice) and 1974 (on evangelization) had worldwide impact as the voices of bishops from the Global South were heard more clearly. Both the letter and the spirit of Gaudium et Spes came to life for the World Church, therefore, subsequent to the Council. The forging of Gaudium et Spes consumed a great deal of the energy of the Council. Its potential could not, however, be realized within the confines of the Council itself. That was to continue through the next two decades. In doing so, it changed that way the Church did theology and how the Church saw itself in the world. Conclusion A half century after the first session of the Council, we see two things. First of all, we can place the Council more in its historical context. In wishing to respond to the world of its time, it inevitably would show some of the characteristics of its time. The twin modes of apprehension and optimism were in evidence. The Council opened at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was as close as the twentieth century came to witnessing a third World War. But it was also a time of economic expansion in Europe and North America and optimism about a third way between capitalism and socialism in the newly emerging nations of Africa. The anxiousness to address and engage the world may have led to a too sunny view of the world, as subsequent commentators (not least among them, then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) would aver. But it did allow a forward movement that few would have predicted in the first half of the twentieth century. Second, the forces that contended at the Council are still very much with the Church today. The debates over the Council s continuity or discontinuity with the past are still among us. Defining what the true spirit of the Council is remains a polemical undertaking. What should the Church s stance be toward the world? Should she be deeply engaged in the world? Should she create a haven for a world in crisis? The debate goes on. 43

47 Beyond the high-level attempts to favor one position or the other, we might look more closely at how the New Evangelization is being carried out in different parts of the world. There we can see what kinds of thinking are prevailing. In doing that, Gaudium et Spes will continue to give guidance. This is an abridged version of an address given at CTU as part of the celebration of the anniversary of the beginning of the Council. 44

48 Mission as Transfiguration: Commemorating the Second Vatican Council by Clemens Sedmak ARTICLE Introductory Comments Clemens Sedmak is F. D. Maurice Professor of Theology at King s College, London. He is the author of Doing Local Theology: A Guide for Artisans of a New Humanity (Orbis, 2002). In the summer of 1962, Pope John XXIII reflected in his famous spiritual diary upon the large audiences: They were perhaps too crowded, as they included representatives from every country in the world, but full of spiritual and religious fervour, and a sincere and pious enthusiasm which is edifying and encourages optimism. 1 He continued with a reflection on the visitors coming to Rome to encounter either the sacred or the profane, the sacred being Rome as the capital of Catholicism and the profane being Rome as a city of ancient ruins and the whirlwind of the secular. All this however with mutual respect among the various human elements, and no unfriendliness between Italians and non-italians. 2 Here, one could say, we can see the Council s main concerns, enthusiasm and encounter. John XXIII talked about an atmosphere of fervor and enthusiasm, about edification, encouragement, and optimism. There is a sense of vitality and vibrant joy. And he described cultures of encounter between Italians and non-italians, and between visitors of the sacred and visitors of the profane. Father Louis J. Luzbetak commented on the Second Vatican Council in the second edition of The Church and Cultures and made three key points: (1) It was the first time that the Church had manifested herself as a supra-cultural World Church, conceived as an entity with a very clear task: It must be at home with every way of life and every mentality. 3 (2) He read the signs of the times (the Council being one distinctive sign) as pointing towards contextualization, inculturation, and incarnation. 4 The task of the Church is to care about cultural relevancy and the distinctiveness of local churches. (3) Father Luzbetak also reminded us of the primacy of the Holy Spirit and the primacy of spirituality in missionary activities: The most important and most desirable ingredient in a person engaged in mission is genuine and deep spirituality. 5 The effectiveness of mission is not to be sought in human cleverness. It has to have its foundation elsewhere. It is a spirit-driven, spiritual undertaking; it is theocentric by its very nature. Here again, we have the basic concerns of the Second Vatican Council in a nutshell we could summarize this approach as to be moved by the Spirit to be at home in the World. The Second Vatican Council was an invitation to allow the Church to be moved by the Spirit, to become everything 1 Pope John XXIII, Journal of a Soul (London: Geoffrey Chapman 1965), Pope John XXIII, Louis J. Luzbetak, The Church and Cultures in New Perspectives in Missiological Anthropology (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), Luzbetak, Luzbetak, 2. 45

49 to everybody, and to be at home in the world. The message to be at home in the world is especially relevant if one compares pre-vatican II approaches towards the relationship between the Church and the world to post-vatican II developments. There is a certain temptation to talk about the Second Vatican Council in our day and age commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of its official opening in a language of an ethics of memory that lays down what we ought to remember and what we must not forget. This approach is perhaps misleading, since it treats the Council as a past event, a closed chapter in a book, or a piece of news no longer new. There is also a temptation to frame discourse on the Second Vatican Council with the language of a politics of theology, using insights and topoi of the Council to discount theological positions or to protect certain theological points of view. This attempts to instrumentalize the Council as if it were a device to be brandished in theological battlefields instead of a tool encompassing the deep hermeneutical challenge all of us are faced with, wherever we may find ourselves on the theological map. For the purposes of this lecture, I propose viewing the Second Vatican Council not as a past event or an instrument for attack or defense but as a point of reference that helps us to find orientation and put things in perspective; I suggest that we embrace the Council as a source of inspiration and as a fountain that continues to energize us. The Second Vatican Council can be understood as enthusiasm, encounter, and commitment to be moved by the Spirit to be at home in the world. It is with this in mind that I would like to open a biblical window into these concerns. Ad Gentes (AG) defines mission as a manifestation of the divine: Missionary activity is nothing more and nothing less than an epiphany (AG 9). Where can we find a biblical window into mission that considers enthusiasm, encounter, the dynamics of being moved by the divine, a feeling of being at home in the world, and the experience of epiphany? I would suggest we look at the account of the transfiguration. I will focus on the version of this story (notably absent in the Council documents) as found in St. Matthew (Mt 17: 1-9). I will further suggest that the topos of the transfiguration is key to open the doors towards an understanding of mission in the tradition of the Second Vatican Council. The story of the transfiguration is well known. Matthew s account contains the following key points: after six days, Matthew tells us, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John, the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them, his face shining like the sun and his clothes becoming as white as light. Then Moses and Elijah appeared and talked with Jesus. At this point, Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three dwellings/tents one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. Peter was still speaking, when a bright cloud covered/overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him! When they heard that the disciples were terrified and fell to the ground. Jesus came, touched them, and told them to get up: Do not be afraid. When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself, alone. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed/ ordered them not to tell anyone what they had seen. It is against this background that I propose three claims: (1) Mission is an invitation and a commitment to the transfiguration of the Church and the World; (2) mission happens through people who have experienced the transfiguration of Christ; and (3) mission is an invitation to allow people to experience the transfiguration of Christ. I will now examine Matthew 17:1-9 epistemologically this is to say that I suggest looking at this passage from an epistemological perspective, analyzing the epistemic status of the people involved and looking at the epistemic situation we encounter. In other words, I put forward this question: What knowledge is generated before, during, and after the transfiguration, according to the passage in question? I will distinguish four kinds of knowledge generated in the situation described above, and I will suggest, of course, that these four kinds of knowledge are 46

50 all relevant to understanding mission in the tradition of Vatican II. These four kinds of knowledge are directed knowledge, demonstrative knowledge, overwritten knowledge, and redefining knowledge. Directed Knowledge There is a kind of knowledge that we could call directed knowledge. It is knowledge that is imposed upon rather than chosen or construed by the subject. Jesus carefully selects three disciples and calls them to share this experience. He leads them to a high mountain. Furthermore, Matthew notes that this happens after six days, which may indicate a moment of new creation and new divine action. Maximus Confessor, in his interpretation of this passage, emphasizes the idea of a new creation and points out that the three disciples symbolize the key virtues of faith (Peter), love (John), and hope (James). 6 Directed knowledge is knowledge based on and generated via experience the experience of being guided. The epistemic subject is drawn to or into an experience. Directed knowledge partly overcomes a subject. The experience of transfiguration leads the three disciples to directed knowledge, knowledge that they cannot control or construe. They are exposed to dynamics that change their epistemic situation. In trying to gain a better and deeper understanding of this kind of knowledge, it may be helpful to turn to two twentieth century philosophers who have both explored such knowledge: Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch. Simone Weil, who suffered from migraine and was afflicted by ill health during her short life time, and died from exhaustion in 1943, aged 34, talks about beauty and affliction as two main sources of knowledge that teach us about the laws of the world. Simone Weil sees beauty and affliction as two primary routes to truth. The experience of beauty is an experience of the order and depth of the universe. It attracts and guides our attention; it leads us into knowledge. Affliction does the same, maybe even more so, but is different from mere suffering. In her text L Amour de Dieu et le Malheur ( The Love of God and Affliction ), written in 1942, one year before her death, she characterizes malheur (affliction) as something overwhelming: It takes possession of the soul and marks it through and through with its own particular mark, the mark of slavery There is not real affliction unless the event which has gripped and uprooted a life attacks it, directly or indirectly, in all its parts, social, psychological, and physical. 7 Affliction directs individuals to experiences and to exposure to the world that the person would otherwise not have had. It is an uprooting of life; it brings about a particular state of mind that is unknown to those who have not experienced affliction. Affliction deprives a person of certain sources of identity. It transforms the relationship between a person and world. It is in the state of affliction that a particular revelation can take place, as we can see in the book of Job. Affliction opens doors to the soul, allowing an experience to touch the center of the soul and penetrate its depths. The same applies to joy and beauty: through joy, the beauty of the world penetrates the human soul and imprints itself. One striking example of beauty is mathematics. It is a manifest appearance of reality what is beautiful in mathematics is that which makes abundantly clear to us that it is not something which we have manufactured ourselves. 8 Mathematics leads, directs, guides us and, in doing so, produces a particular knowledge. Mathematics gives us a sense of something independent of ourselves. Mathematics makes us feel the limits of our intelligence. 9 Directed knowledge implies an experience of something that pushes us to our limits and sets boundaries. This experience evokes a sense of humility. Simone Weil sees a connection between the study of mathematics and the love of God solving a geometry problem, where we have to follow set rules and laws, offers us an insight into 6 Questions in St. Maximus Confessor, Questions and Doubts, trans. D.D. Prassas (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2010); see also Andrew Louth, Maximus Confessor (London: Routledge, 1996), 67-69; 92ff; 105f. 7 Simone Weil, The Love of God and Affliction in The Simone Weil Reader, ed. George A. Panichas (New York: David McKay, 1977), , 439f. 8 Simone Weil, Notebooks, vol. 2, trans. Arthur Wills (London: Routledge/Kegan Paul, 1956), Weil,

51 a fragment of eternal Truth. Thus, beauty and affliction generate directed knowledge that leads a person away from herself. Directed knowledge also plays an important part in the moral philosophy of British philosopher Iris Murdoch. For Iris Murdoch, the moral challenge does not consist of identifying universal truths or impartial reasons but of attending to the reality of others to allow oneself to be directed by others. Similar to Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch considers aesthetic perception as key in being taught modes of selflessness. The ego is overcome by the experience of beauty and the true experience of the other. A self-interested ego is the major obstacle in the way of truly seeing other. Loving a person is connected with seeing the other. In order to love a person, one has to push beyond boundaries of oneself and move outside of oneself. One has to seek and accept, so to speak, directed knowledge. Murdoch emphasizes the unselfing of the ego and the importance of being able to see in the right way. Vision or perception is the primary moral faculty for appropriating, understanding, and knowing the Good. If we get connected with what is real, we understand Good by responding to the real world with all its messy situations. This is not a matter of abstract principles or rules but a matter of obeying the demands reality makes upon us. Murdoch insists that human beings have a fundamental ability to learn and seek a more perfect way of responding to reality. The loving regard of a person leads to knowledge that is based on a response similar to obedience. In a frequently quoted passage, Iris Murdoch compares loving a person with learning a foreign language: If I am learning Russian, for instance, I am confronted by an authoritative structure which commands my respect. The task is difficult and the goal is distant and perhaps never entirely attainable. My work is a progressive revelation of something which exists independently of me. Attention is rewarded by a knowledge of reality. Love of Russian leads me away from myself towards something alien to me, something which my consciousness cannot command, swallow up, deny or make unreal. 10 The independence of the other can only be grasped by our obedient attention. Humility, patience, attention, and an understanding of otherness are key to loving a person, as well as to learning a foreign language. It is in this sense that realism can be seen as a moral achievement based on directed knowledge. 11 These sources give a sense of what acquiring directed knowledge can mean. Directed knowledge is knowledge engendered by forces outside of the epistemic subject that lead it into particular situations of learning and experiencing, bringing about a sustainable and significant transformation of the subject s epistemic status that the knowing subject cannot construe or control. We see directed knowledge in the transfiguration story, developed through the leadership of Jesus, who chooses his companions and leads them to a high mountain to undergo a particular experience. We could then ask, in the light of the missiological orientation of this lecture, what is the possible relevance of directed knowledge for mission? Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch make the point that it is by being led by reality that directed knowledge is rooted. Humble attentiveness towards an order beyond an epistemic subject s control brings about directed knowledge. The Second Vatican Council calls for a culture of encounter; mission as encounter can be seen as exposure to particular contexts and to particular cultures. A 10 Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (New York: Schocken Books, 1970), 89. It may be of interest that exposure to praxis can also be understood as producing directed knowledge. Matthew Crawford in his philosophical defense of working with our own hands quotes this very passage by Murdoch within the context of the command of the material. In any hard discipline, whether it be gardening, structural engineering, or Russian, one submits to things that have their own intractable way. See Matthew Crawford, The Case for Working With Your Hands (London: Penguin, 2009), 65. There is a finality about material realities that forces people into humble submission. Skilled manual labour entails a systematic encounter with the material world and leads to a kind of knowledge, acquired through disciplined perception (Crawford, 23). Here again, we see the dynamics and force of directed knowledge. There is no doubt that this thought is relevant for missionary activity with its sharing of praxis as well. The famous monks of Thibirine, for instance, acquired directed knowledge, by being led to experience a particular understanding of their (more and more dangerous) Algerian village context. 11 Cf. Carla Bagnoli, The Exploration of Moral Life in Iris Murdoch, Philosopher: A Collection of Essays, ed. Justin Broackes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012),

52 person who shares life and culture with other people will be molded, formed, and changed by this experience; she will receive directed knowledge, and be led by the culture to particular epistemic places. These dynamics can also be seen in the famous final verses in the Gospel of St. John. Peter is reminded that he will be led: When you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and take you where you do not want to go (Jn 21:18b). Jesus indicates that living as a follower of Christ means trusting in messy situations, as well as accepting and appropriating directed knowledge. Two telling examples of lives spent witnessing to Christ under adverse circumstances are Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Alfred Delp, S.J., who were sent to prison; they both acknowledged that they learned so much about life in prison and neither gave up a sense of service and dedication. They interpreted their experience as directed knowledge that opened up new ways of encountering God, thereby creating a path they would not have chosen themselves. There are countless examples of missionaries who, finding themselves in adverse circumstances that they would not have opted for, grew in recognition of the challenge. Directed knowledge, we could say, means, in the context of mission, the readiness to be exposed to a particular cultural reality and to trust in messy situations. Demonstrative Knowledge The transfiguration story tells us about a second kind of knowledge. The disciples are witnesses of a scene that can only be described in metaphorical and comparative language, e.g., like the sun and as white as light. They are exposed to a powerful and extraordinary event that tells them something by its very nature. They are taught a lesson without words. Jesus does not talk to them. He is transfigured. Jesus does not provide them with knowledge based on propositions; they are exposed to something that is shown to them. In other words: the scene described in the second verse of Matthew 17 is not about saying, but about showing. Ephrem the Syrian, in his Sermon on the Transfiguration of our Lord and God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, points out that Jesus wanted to show his disciples his glory. He wanted to show them his true identity. He interprets the transfiguration story as a story about identity and the challenge of accepting the transformation of identities. This lesson is given not by saying but by showing. The disciples are led into an experience that left an impression. The point of the experience, according to Ephrem, was to show them something and thus to teach them. Let us call this kind of knowledge, generated by showing rather than by saying, demonstrative knowledge. It is knowledge on the basis of being shown something rather than having been told something. It is non-propositional rather than propositional knowledge. It is knowledge based on witnessing rather than analyzing. An important interlocutor to help us get a deeper sense of demonstrative knowledge is the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. The distinction between saying and showing is, of course, famously associated with Ludwig Wittgenstein s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In the famous passage 6.54, Wittgenstein writes, My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. This is the penultimate proposition in Wittgenstein s text and gave rise to a particular reading of the Tractatus. Philosophers such as James Conant, Cora Diamond, Juliet Floyd, and Michael Kremer suggest a particular resolute or therapeutic reading of the Tractatus in light of this key passage. 12 According to a therapeutic reading, Wittgenstein does not intend to present a view or theory but a way of speaking and looking. The Tractatus provides us with, we could say, demonstrative knowledge. 13 It reminds us that philosophy is the practice of an activity and not the construction of theories. Clarification 12 This reading is distinguished from a positivist reading (Wittgenstein is seeking to construe a theory that would enable him to provide a method to expose metaphysical sentences as nonsensical and to demarcate the meaningful from the meaningless) and an ineffability reading (Wittgenstein distinguishes misleading from illuminating nonsense whereby the illuminating nonsense shows what cannot be said). 13 James Conant and Cora Diamond, On Reading the Tractatus Resolutely: Reply to Meredith Williams and Peter Sullivan in Wittgen- 49

53 is to be understood as the aim of philosophy. Diamond and Conant ask the question: What does the Tractatus say about the status of its own propositions? They make the claim that the form of the Tractatus is connected with its philosophical ambition and with what it wants to express. The key term in the resolute reading of the Tractatus is elucidate; Wittgenstein s text is regarded as an exercise in elucidation. The sentences used have succeeded in elucidating when we recognize them as Unsinn (non-sense). An important premise underlying the Tractatus is the idea that our deepest confusions manifest themselves in confusions about meaning. The most important image to understand the Tractatus is the image of the ladder. On this reading, first I grasp that there is something that must be; then I see that it cannot be said; then I grasp that if it cannot be said it cannot be thought (that the limits of language are the limits of thought); and then, finally, when I reach the top of the ladder, I grasp that there has been no it in my grasp all along (that which I cannot think I cannot grasp either). 14 Hence, the elucidatory strategy of the Tractatus consists of inviting the reader to engage in traditional philosophy up to a certain point. The results are not doctrines but elucidations. And the attainment of this recognition depends upon the reader s actually undergoing a certain experience. 15 The reader is invited to experience something that teaches her that language shows what language is about. One has to fully enter the experience and climb the ladder: the person entering the experience cannot treat the ladder like an elevator. The sentences of the Tractatus serve as the rungs of a ladder. The reader is drawn into the illusion of having a perspective which has to be abandoned precisely in working through these sentences. It is in this sense that the Tractatus can show something: not in the sense of a quasi-propositional content but in a genuine sense, one not built on saying. Demonstrative knowledge, gained by entering into an experience completely and step by step, suggests that there are no short cuts. If we go back to the transfiguration story, we will also find hints of demonstrative knowledge knowledge that cannot be translated into propositions. The comparisons like the sun and as white as the light express the limits of language. The transfiguration story uses language as metaphor. Ted Cohen has argued that the ability to imagine self as other is an important ability, and that this ability implies a talent of identification that is key in using, developing, and understanding metaphors. 16 Demonstrative knowledge invites imagination and the capability to creatively connect separate discourses and different spheres. Demonstrative knowledge cannot be expressed in propositions with a clear truth value. It is conveyed through stories and poetry rather than treatise and report. Again we can ask in a missiological context: What is the relation between demonstrative knowledge and mission? Demonstrative knowledge emphasizes that it is entering into an experience that provides those dynamics and conveys a kind of non-propositional knowledge, one based on showing and being shown. The role of non-propositional knowledge in mission can be better understood by looking at the role of convivenza, the experience of sharing life beyond doctrine. 17 Ted Cohen reminds us of the metaphor skills needed in mission, skills of going beyond a superficial understanding of culture based on face value. Mission is about entering a dialogue with experiences that show truths that cannot be expressed in a propositional way. It is the truth about what it is like to be in a particular situation. Mission is an invitation to draw people into an experience of transfiguration; hence, it is an invitation to share life, to invite people to come and see (Jn 1:39). Mission is about allowing people to show you something and is about showing people truths of life through the testimony of life. stein s Lasting Significance, eds. Max Kölbel and Bernhard Weiss (London: Routledge, 2004), 46-99; James Conant, The Method of the Tractatus in From Frege to Wittgenstein: Perspectives on Early Analytic Philosophy, ed. Erich H. Reck (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), Cora Diamond, Ethics, Imagination and the Method of the Tractatus in The New Wittgenstein, eds. Alice Crary and Rupert Read (London: Routledge, 2000); Cora Diamond, Throwing Away the Ladder, Philosophy 63 (1988) 243: Conant, Conant, Ted Cohen, Thinking of Others: On the Talent for Metaphor (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). 17 Cf. Edmund Weber, Die Freiheit des Einzelnen und die Religion der Freiheit als Bedingungen interreligiöser Konviven, Journal of Religious Culture 92 (2007):

54 Overwritten Knowledge Peter expresses a sense of well-being and his desire to stay by saying: Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah. (Mt 17:4). Peter is still speaking when he is interrupted by a bright cloud and by a voice. The cloud is bright but the disciples experience darkness since the cloud has covered them. Here we have an experience of an abrogated knowledge claim. Peter s desire to stay is frustrated. His speech is not only interrupted but also disrupted. He is moved into darkness by a bright cloud. The claim of knowing the dynamics of the situation we are here and we could stay here together with Jesus and the two prophets is overwritten; we could call the knowledge that Peter and the other two disciples obtain through this experience overwritten knowledge. It is knowledge that replaces another knowledge claim; it is knowledge that re-validates the map of knowledge claims and renders certain claims invalid. John Chrysostom, in his commentary on Matthew s gospel, highlights Peter s frustration. He has understood so little. He wants Jesus to be safe and secure and invites Jesus to stay so as not to suffer in Jerusalem. He is clearly moved by his love for the Lord but fails to understand some key points. He suggests building three dwellings as if Jesus were on the same level with Moses and Elijah. It was necessary for Peter to learn the painful lesson of overwritten knowledge, teaching him that Jesus is not to be kept and that Jesus, as the Savior, is superior to the prophets. The key point of overwritten (or even abrogated) knowledge is its disruptive nature. Susannah Ticciati develops an account of disruption as a way of revelation in her reading of the book of Job. 18 She shows that disruption can be understood as God s self communication. The book of Job lends itself to interpretation through the lens of overwritten knowledge. Job has to learn that there is yet another language than that of justice and Tun-Ergehen- Zusammenhänge. He has to learn that there is not only prophetic justice but also the experience of the mystery of God. God revealed his divinity by way of disruption. The experience of a disruptive God was also part of the painful experience C. S. Lewis went through after the death of his beloved wife. In his account of his grief, he recognizes God as iconoclastic: My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? 19 C. S. Lewis has to learn and accept what it means to be in an epistemic situation of disruption where grief feels like a loss of foundations and where the sense of life one has is like entering a permanently provisional state. He was happy in his marriage and ready to say, It is good to be here. While he was still experiencing this comfort, the experience was taken away, and his life situation was disrupted. This is overwritten knowledge. It is not only knowledge acquired, it is knowledge painfully replacing other knowledge, establishing itself as an alternative to a well received and well accepted, even loved, knowledge claim. Overwritten knowledge is at the same time about something and about the frustrated knowledge of something; overwritten knowledge is not only knowledge that p but also knowledge that the knowledge claim q is wrong. It is in this sense conflictual knowledge, obtained through a letting go. What is the meaning of overwritten knowledge for mission? It tells us something about the authority of the found, the authority of what has been encountered, or the authority of experience that tells a much more complicated story than systematic doctrinal accounts. Mission is also a mission towards disruption the disruption of perceptions, judgments through experience, and established patterns. Charles de Foucauld is an eminent example of a missionary whose life plan was frustrated and whose claims to know about efficacy of mission were disrupted and overwritten. A missionary is not only a person who is able to offer hospitality but is also a person ready to come and see. We have seen that this readiness leads into contexts of directed and demonstrative knowledge. This 18 Susannah Ticciati, Job and the Disruption of Identity: Reading Beyond Barth (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2005). 19 C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (London: Faber and Faber, 1966), 55f. 51

55 knowledge, by its very nature, overwrites established knowledge claims. We could also cautiously ask whether mission experience could not also serve as a source for abrogation of established theological claims. Redefining Knowledge The disciples fell face down to the ground. They were terrified. Jesus came to them, touched them, and told them not to be afraid and to get up. They looked up, saw only Jesus, and were told not to tell anyone what they had seen. This is a story of redefining relationships. The experience redefined the relationship of the three disciples to Jesus; it also redefined the relationship between the three disciples and the other members of the inner circle. It may also have transformed the relationship between Peter, James, and John, since they shared a significant experience. The knowledge conveyed in experiences of relational transformation could be called redefining knowledge. It is a knowledge that establishes a new quality in relationships. Leo the Great, in his sermon on the transfiguration, makes the point that Jesus wanted to prepare his disciples to accept and face his suffering and passion by allowing them to experience the transfiguration. The experience served to redefine the relationship between Jesus and his disciples. This experience of transformation was based on the experience of vulnerability (e.g., falling to the ground and being overwhelmed by fear). Transfiguration reminds us of the transformative power of knowledge. One of the deepest thinkers about the transformative power of knowledge is Jean Vanier. Jean Vanier discovered the transformative power of vulnerability for himself when, in 1964, he gave up his academic career and set up a group home, the first of what would later become L Arche. In starting his first shared community, he invited two people with severe developmental disabilities to share his home with him. He knew he was letting himself in for a life with people who were especially vulnerable and who, in the social hierarchy, were at the very bottom. He wanted to enable these individuals to discover their own sense of self-esteem. His whole understanding of being and self was transformed over the next few years of day-to-day living with two very vulnerable individuals. Jean Vanier realized that, in discovering his own vulnerability and in recognizing the mystery of each person, he was moving towards an understanding of human dignity. He experienced a redefining of his own self-understanding and concept of self, as well as a redefining of his insights into what it means to be human. The driving force behind this transformation process is the belief in the mission and mystery of each person: There is a meaning to every life, even if we cannot see it. I believe that each person, in her unique beauty and worth, lives out a sacred story. 20 Jean Vanier sees each person as having a particular secret and mystery, a particular journey, or a particular vocation to grow. The deepest identity that we can discover is a sense of our own worth. 21 This worth is not to be realized in spite of our vulnerability, but because of it. It is through our vulnerability that we can overcome roles and masks and face ourselves and our mystery. A deep understanding of vulnerability as experienced by the disciples, helps to redefine identity and relationships. In recognising our vulnerability, we discover our fundamental unity and our common humanity. The recognition of the vulnerability and the mystery of a person lead to the basis of what we share as humans. The acid test for the quality of relationships and social structures is how the most vulnerable members of that society are treated. Vanier speaks from his own experience: People with disabilities who have been rejected or abandoned rise up with new energy and creativity when they feel loved and respected... The presence of someone who loves them reveals to them their value and importance. 22 This was the experience of the disciples in the transfiguration account. What would redefining knowledge mean for mission? If mission is about transformation, the generation of redefining knowledge is key to missionary activity. Understanding our own vulnerability is critical to transformation 20 Jean Vanier, Our Journey Home: Rediscovering a Common Humanity Beyond Our Differences (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1997), Jean Vanier, Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John (New York: Paulist Press, 2004), Vanier,

56 and redefining knowledge. The missionary who knows about his or her vulnerability, both as a human being and as an epistemic subject making knowledge claims, is prepared for transformation. It is then that the missionary can be deeply touched by a culture, a community, and people. One way of expressing this sense of vulnerability can be seen in the account of the transfiguration: silence. The disciples are invited to a ministry of silence. There may be more space for this ministry of silence, listening, and not making claims or giving positions. The Second Vatican Council The four types of knowledge outlined above are obviously relevant for mission. How can we connect these insights into missiological knowledge with the project of Vatican II? Directed knowledge reminds us of the local as a source of normativity; local tradition and local context take us to the road less travelled and confront us with an external authority. British development expert Robert Chambers defended the status of local knowledge. 23 It has to be given authority. This is a reminder of a core issue that we can also find in the Second Vatican Council the documents use one key word to underline the openness to the directive authority of local knowledge: adaptation. Religious institutions are called upon to adapt to the circumstances and demands of culture (Perfectae Caritatis 3). The Church has to adapt to changing circumstances and to modern conditions (PC 2,20). The Church has to adapt to the needs of the times, and the people of the Church have to realize that we are faced with a new set of circumstances (Christus Dominus 13; AG 6). The local is to be recognized as a source of normativity and direction. If we want to adapt to a local context, we need to acknowledge the localness of the context as a signpost. Demonstrative knowledge bases the transformation of epistemic situations on encounter and the experience of being shown something important. AG states, Missionary activity is nothing else and nothing less than an epiphany, reminding us that mission is a practice nourished by the encounter with God (9). Demonstrative knowledge is knowledge generated through a second person perspective a thou -perspective, to use Martin Buber s terminology. A second person perspective gives us the resistance of a dialogue partner and enables us to enter into a dialogue that shows us contents and concerns beyond propositional knowledge. Knowledge generated in encounters can be expressed by way of narratives rather than treatises and proposition. 24 Mission, after all, is about telling stories about God and telling one s own story with the living God. This second person in mission is oriented towards God, as well as towards the world and particular human beings. Missionary activity is based on the love of God and the concern for the other. If we take to heart the idea that we are invited to try to make God s plan a reality, the very idea of mission is that of following the plan of our great Thou (AG 9). Mission is not a human enterprise. It needs to be shown the way by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and be moved by love of God (PC 2; AG 7). The key word characterizing missionary activity is, again and again, encounter. The Church is called to converse with human society (CD 13). The Council emphasizes the importance of engaging in conversations with others, whether they are believers or non-believers (Apostolicam Actuositatem 31). Mission is based on a fraternal dialogue with non-christians (AG 16). It is in need of cooperation and is not carried out by isolated individuals (AG 27). It becomes clear that mission is not mainly about exchanging propositions and claims but about building a shared and common practice that shows truths by experiencing encounter and a shared form of life. Overwritten knowledge is an epistemic experience that reminds us of institutional humility. The transfiguration scene shows that Peter, the rock of the Church, experiences the abrogation of his knowledge claims (n.b. after he 23 Robert Chambers, Rural Development: Putting the Last First (New York: John Wiley, 1983), ch For the idea of a second person perspective in theology see Eleanore Stump, Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); and Eleanore Stump, Second-Person Accounts and the Problem of Evil in Faith and Narrative, ed. Keith E. Yandell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 53

57 had been made the rock of the Church). Peter has not lost his role, but he has undergone a humbling experience. This indication of abrogation could transmit a sense of institutional humility. The Council underlines this sense of humility by pointing out that the Church is not there to seek earthly glory, but to proclaim through practice humility and self sacrifice (Lumen Gentium 8). We are reminded that Christian charity looks for neither gain nor gratitude, and we are told that humility and self sacrifice are key to mission (LG 12, 8). Peter had to sacrifice his own knowledge claims in the transfiguration account. He had to accept that he had to let go of cherished ideas, personal plans, and missions. He had to accept that his will was not God s will. We could ask the painful question: What would it mean for us to accept institutional humility as a lesson from the transfiguration story, and what would it mean to express such institutional humility in an authentic way? Mission is not the expression of an ecclesia triumphans possibly motivated by external motives and recognition, but the humble expression of an inner necessity by which the Church is moved to mission (AG 1). Redefining knowledge can remind us of the need for transformation; the transfiguration experience transformed the three disciples, their relationships with Jesus, with one another, and community. This transformation was the basis of the disciples accepting Jesus way and his suffering. They were transformed in order to be prepared to transform communities. Mission is not an activity that brings a message without changing the messenger. The key of mission is the testimony of the lives of the faithful (LG 36). Mission is a practice of self-involvement, transforming the people involved. The Council reminds us that one s own example is the best tool for missionary activities (PC 24). We are called to show Christian identity by our own example (AG 11). We are ambassadors of the mystery of Christ (AG 24). This self-involvement also includes the sick and the suffering, who can support missionary activity through their prayers (AG 38, 40). We see a commitment to the transformative power of the weak just as the weak disciples, who fell to the ground, were filled with the power to transform communities in their missionary work. There is space for an option for the poor also in mission, by acknowledging the transformative power of the weak, the suffering, and the poor. Four Practical Suggestions Enthusiasm and encounter, or the idea of being moved by the Spirit to be at home in the world, can be seen as the key ideas of mission according to the Second Vatican Council. Against this background, I would like to make four practical suggestions: (1) Jesuit priest Alfred Delp, who was arrested in July 1944 and killed on February 2nd, 1945, reflected upon the future of the Church in his prison cell. He was very clear that there is no future for the Church without a clear commitment to Diakonie, a diaconical dimension and engagement; there is no future for the Church without companionship, encounter, and dialogue. 25 How can we build a culture of dialogue that responds to the needs of society? Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg developed his Copenhagen Consensus by inviting economists to prioritize world problems in a dialogue process. I would like to suggest, using Delp s warning and Lomborg s practice, organizing a Council involving as key speakers two groups that are very often under-represented in public debates: young people and of the suffering and dying. The two groups should be invited to discuss priorities and to ask the question: What does our society need? Young people have a sense of possibility, what Austrian poet Robert Musil called a Moeglichkeitssinn. They look at life from the perspective of the non-realized. Joseph Cardinal Bernardin showed by the example of his life that the suffering and the dying 25 Die Rückkehr in die Diakonie; in den Dienst der Menschheit. Und zwar in einen Dienst, den die Not der Menschheit bestimmt, nicht unser Geschmack oder das Consuetudinarium einer noch so bewährten kirchlichen Gemeinschaft Es wird kein Mensch an die Botschaft vom Heil und vom Heiland glauben, solange wir uns nicht blutig geschunden haben im Dienste des physisch, psychisch, sozial, wirtschaftlich, sittlich oder sonstwie kranken Menschen, A. Delp, Gesammelte Schriften IV, ed., R. Bleistein (Frankfurt/Main: Josef Knecht, 1984), 319; and further: Rückkehr in die Diakonie Damit meine ich das Sich-Gesellen zum Menschen in allen seinen Situationen mit der Absicht, sie ihm meistern zu helfen Damit meine ich das Nachgehen und Nachwandern auch in die äußersten Verlorenheiten und Verstiegenheiten des Menschen Damit meine ich die geistige Begegnung als echten Dialog. Delp,

58 have an authority and a sense of what is essential. (We could call this Wesentlichkeitssinn). I would like to suggest bringing these two groups of people together to answer the question of what is it that our society needs and to set priorities. (2) If we take institutional humility seriously, we could think of a new literary genre of papal documents, namely, prayer epistles letters addressed to God, expressing concerns that seem doctrinally rigid but pastorally challenged. These would be public prayers, expressions of concerns, or confessions about difficulties. We could, for instance, conceive an epistle to God stating that while the ideal of the indissoluble marriage is valid and important, in the light of many marriages that fall apart after painful struggles, the Church might, with God s permission, move cautiously in another pastoral direction. (3) Mission is about enthusiasm and encounter. I would suggest actively seeking to build a culture of encounter by setting up intellectual base communities where ethical issues (such as abortion, euthanasia, and same sex marriage) can be discussed in a climate of friendship. There is as yet little real encounter between Church members and representatives of positions that cannot be reconciled with the Church. The basis for dialogue is a shared life, and common ground. Within the framework of a shared form of life, where people come together regularly, chances of understanding will increase and mission as encounter can take place. (4) The Second Vatican Council reminds us that mission is transfiguration, based on encounter with the living God. The key is prayer. Prayer is as difficult as it is intimate. Teach us to pray is a very delicate request, and in the light of the importance of a second person perspective, I would like to suggest setting up schools of prayer that explore ways to encounter God as part of mission practice (Lk 11:1). Concluding Comments Mission as epiphany, and transfiguration is friendship with God. The Second Vatican Council reminds us again and again of the importance and the beauty of friendship. The Council reminds us that God speaks to human beings as friends (DV 2). It exhorts teachers to assist their students with advice and friendship (Gravissimum Educationis 8); the laity is invited to a culture of friendship, to promote a culture of Christian friendship and to give spiritual help to one another through friendship (AA 4, 17); the bishops are called to foster friendship and to see the priests as friends (Christus Dominus 13, 16, 28). Ministers are described as friends of God (LG 41). It is through our friendship with God that we can act, (following? accepting/taking up?) the invitation in John 15:13 (GS 32). Mission as transfiguration is an expression of a culture of friendship, friendship with God, friendship with human beings. One of the greatest gifts of the great scholar and first holder of the L.J. Luzbetak Chair, Professor Steve Bevans, is the gift of friendship. This does not only make him a wonderful person, but also a great missionary with the gift of transfiguration. This article is based on Mission, Hope, and the Depth of Life: Commemorating the Second Vatican Council, the lecture he delivered as the featured speaker of the 13th annual Louis J. Luzbetak, S.V.D., Lecture on Mission and Culture held on October 8, 2012 at the Catholic Theological Union. 55

59 REMINISCENCE Reminiscences of Vatican II by Mary Christine Athans, BVM At a gathering of BVMs (Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary) a few years ago, Helen Maher Garvey, BVM, Carolyn Farrell, BVM, and I were reflecting on the changes in our lives since Vatican II. When we first entered religious life in the 1950s, there was no way we could have dreamed that one day Carolyn would be Mayor of Dubuque, Iowa, I would preach sermons in synagogues, and Helen would kiss the pope! Vatican II had a momentous impact on our lives. Carolyn, an administrator at Clarke College (now University) in Dubuque, Iowa, was elected to the City Council of Dubuque ( ) and served as Mayor in 1980 in the very city where our founder, Mary Frances Clarke, had relocated in Mother Clarke established our motherhouse there. Little would she have imagined that one of her daughters would one day be mayor. I became deeply involved in ecumenical and interfaith activities in Phoenix, Arizona after I was assigned to teach at Xavier High School (now Xavier College Prep) in From I served as executive director of a cluster of five Protestant churches, one large Catholic church, and two synagogues (one Conservative and one Reform), known as the North Phoenix Corporate Ministry. My delightful challenge was to coordinate the interfaith activities of twenty-five priests, ministers, rabbis, and the lay people of these congregations as we worked together in education, social justice, liturgy, and communications. I lived at Xavier Convent and had my office at one of the Protestant churches. Part of my role was to teach and preach in the various congregations. I am still amazed that I preached my first sermon in a synagogue in 1970! Helen, who had taught and studied in New York, served as vice-president of the BVMs and then president from During her tenure she was elected President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). When Pope John Paul II made his second trip to the United States in 1987, Helen, as president of the LCWR, represented US women religious and addressed the pope at an assembly of Sisters in the Cathedral in San Francisco. At the end of her speech, she walked over to the pope, who was seated on his throne, to greet him. He smiled at her warmly, and she leaned over and lightly kissed him on the cheek. Yes Helen did kiss the pope! Who would have believed in the 1950s that Carolyn would be Mayor of Dubuque, I would preach sermons in synagogues, and Helen would kiss the pope! Mary Christine Athans, BVM, Ph.D. is professor emerita at the Saint Paul Seminary School of Theology of the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) and adjunct faculty at the Catholic Theological Union and Loyola University Chicago. 56

60 In reflecting upon these remarkable experiences, I recall that the excitement of Vatican II was enhanced by a few books that I still treasure. One that had a huge impact was The Nun in the World by Leon-Joseph Cardinal Suenens of Belgium. 1 He questioned rules of silence and a strict order for the day if these did not make nuns available to do the works of mercy. He noted that the habits we were wearing did not always contribute to our mission and were far removed from the garb of our founders, which was usually the simple dress of their era. Early members wanted to be inconspicuous to identify with the poor. Our habits made us anything but inconspicuous! Many of his ideas, such as recovering the charism of our founders, were basic to the document Perfectae Caritatis (Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of Religious Life). To even discuss changing from the long black habit was almost unthinkable in the early 1960s. For a prince of the church to suggest these things was both exciting and mindboggling. The other book was The Council, Reform and Reunion by Hans Küng. 2 I was teaching at Our Lady of Peace High School in St. Paul, Minnesota ( ) and working on an M.A. in history at the Catholic University of America in the summers. To have the councils of the church put in historical perspective was very valuable. Küng did not present an idealized version of the church and offered interpretations from an ecumenical perspective. Pope John XXIII stated that the unity of the church was a major goal of Vatican II. Those previously labeled heretics were now our separated brethren a radical change from when we were not even allowed to attend Protestant services. In a convent of thirty-five nuns, there were two copies of the book which were to remain in the superior s pew in the chapel. Any Sister could use one for her half-hour of spiritual reading. When she finished, she returned it to the pew so it would be available for another Sister. Küng s book was well-worn in a short time! The idealistic version of the church faded further as I studied. For example, I was amazed to learn that at the Council of Ephesus (431), factions in the hierarchy condemned each other and civil leaders often influenced key decisions. The early councils were called by the emperors, and not one pope ever attended any of the four great ecumenical councils which defined key dogmas and promulgated the creeds. True, a papal legate was present, but there was enormous political intrigue a new portrait of the church indeed! Our superior/principal wanted us to be up-to-date when teaching religion. Theologians came for weekend workshops to acquaint us with new approaches to biblical studies such as salvation history. We attended conferences about liturgical renewal. Articles were assigned for discussion. Although I cannot now recall the author, I was excited to lead a discussion with another Sister, who was getting her Ph.D. in philosophy of education at the University of Minnesota, on an article titled Existentialism and Religious Life. It opened up a new world for me. We received copies of The Documents of Vatican II right off the press after the Council concluded in I assigned The Decree on the Laity and sections of The Constitution on the Church to my high school juniors in spring I was fascinated by ecumenical and interfaith dialogue probably because of my Greek Orthodox-Irish Catholic background. My dad was born in Greece and raised Greek Orthodox, although he became a Catholic when he married my beautiful Irish mother in Chicago. The meeting of Pope Paul VI and the Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem in 1964 brought tears to my eyes. I knew that theologically there were few differences and longed to see more unity in the church. I was the only nun who became acquainted with the Episcopal priest at the church across the street from the convent and the Ukrainian Orthodox priest in the church down the block. I asked the superior/principal if we could invite them and their wives to our spring concert. She agreed. When I gave them the 1 See Leon-Joseph Suenens, The Nun in the World: Religious and the Apostolate, rev. ed. (New York: Newman Press, 1963). 2 Hans Küng, The Council, Reform and Reunion (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1962). 3 Walter Abbott,S.J., ed., The Documents of Vatican II (New York: America Press, 1966). 57

61 complementary tickets, one would think I had given them tickets to Carnegie Hall! They had never been inside our Catholic school although we had lived across from each other for many years. In the spring semester of 1966, when I became familiar with the document Nostra Aetate (The Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions) with its important Article 4 on the relationship of the Catholic Church to the Jewish people, I asked another Sister on the faculty if she would be interested in having the students in our religion classes visit a synagogue. She was delighted. I phoned the nearest synagogue, Temple Mount Zion, and spoke with Rabbi David Goldstein. He was very welcoming and we set a date. One lovely spring afternoon in 1966, about eighty Catholic high school girls in navy blue uniforms walked two-bytwo, followed by the other nun and myself in long black habits, the four long blocks down Summit Avenue. It was the first synagogue I ever visited. I loved it when the rabbi took the Torah scroll from the Ark and explained parts of the service to us. That was the beginning of my involvement in Jewish-Christian relations. I left St. Paul in 1966, never dreaming of my future interfaith experiences in Phoenix. During the summers I did an M.A. in theology at the University of San Francisco, writing my thesis, entitled Two Covenants or One? The Relationship of Judaism to Christianity within the Ecumenical Movement, under Avery Dulles, S.J. Later, I did a doctoral dissertation on theological roots of anti-semitism. In 1984 I returned to St. Paul to teach at the Saint Paul Seminary (now the School of Divinity of the University of St. Thomas). On the first day of class, as I dashed excitedly across the campus in my red and white polka dot dress, I reflected with amazement: I left Our Lady of Peace High School a nice young nun in a long black habit in 1966 and returned in a red and white polka dot dress to teach at the seminary in 1984! My involvement in Jewish-Christian relations continued, and I have preached in other synagogues. Most significant, however, was when I was invited to preach at Temple Mount Zion in 2001 thirty-five years after my first trip there in that long black habit! Those two experiences at that synagogue on Summit Avenue are like bookends on a certain part of my life. Regarding Vatican II, I can only say in my heart to God in Hebrew todah robah! thank you very much! 58

62 Vatican II: Some Reminiscences After Fifty Years by Leslie J. Hoppe, O.F.M. REMINISCENCE I was an eighteen-year-old novice when Vatican II began. My attention and energy, and that of the twenty-three others in my class, were focused on our new life as Franciscans. But we were aware that something momentous was happening in the Church s life. Every day we said the prayer for the success of the Council requested by Pope John XXIII. Displayed in our classroom was a poster with photographs of all the Franciscan bishops who were participating in the Council. Still, we wondered what the events in Rome had to do with us. Our novice master tried to put matters into perspective when he told us that it would take many years before we would feel the effects of the Council s decisions in our lives. In the meantime, he said, life would go on in the Church and the Order and in our novitiate. Neither our novice master nor we had any idea how quickly and dramatically Vatican II would change our lives. During the novitiate, we were cut off from most contacts with the world outside the novitiate no telephone calls, no newspapers, no radio or television. Our parents were permitted to visit us only on the Sunday after Christmas and the Sunday after Easter. We could correspond with our parents but not with other relatives or friends. But we did have one outlet to the world : the Catholic press. America, Commonweal, The Critic, and Heythrop Journal were our guides to the deliberations in Rome. Also, in 1962, almost all religious communities of men published a magazine; among those were Ave Maria, The Sign, St. Anthony Messenger, St. Jude Messenger, The Liguorian, and The Franciscan Message. They kept our attention on the Council. We did not have access to the New Yorker, but we became acquainted with the lively and provocative reports on the Council by Xavier Rynne (Francis X. Murphy, C.Ss.R.), which appeared there since those reports garnered a lot of attention in the Catholic press. After I completed the novitiate, I moved to my Province s college seminary. While we still did not have access to newspapers, we did have a much broader selection of periodicals available to us, including Time and Newsweek. In reading accounts of the Council, I was intrigued by the differences between the progressives and the conservatives. I was surprised that bishops differed with each other on significant matters such as the Scripture and Tradition, the liturgy, other Christian Churches, other world religions, and freedom of conscience. All this stimulated my curiosity; I needed to learn about the issues facing the bishops. Fortunately, our library had very helpful resources and I began with the liturgy, ecumenism, and Scripture. One consequence of the attention that the Council devoted to the issue of Divine Revelation was the addition of introductory courses on Scripture to the curriculum of our college seminary. Our teacher was a young friar who Leslie J. Hoppe, O.F.M., is a Professor of Old Testament Studies at Catholic Theological Union and the General Editor of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly. His latest book is Isaiah in the Collegeville Biblical Commentary series. 59

63 was working on his doctorate in New Testament studies. His familiarity with the issues at the heart of the conciliar debates on the role of Scripture in shaping the faith and life of the Church made for some exciting classes. The Council s call for religious women and men to reclaim the charism of their founders led us to abandon some the monastic practices that had crept into Franciscan life: the discipline (self-flagellation), the chapter of faults, precedence, and clericalism. We stopped calling our houses monasteries and began referring to them as friaries. We then moved on to more substantive matters, examining our order s Constitutions in order to have them better reflect Franciscan spirituality. Provincial Chapters became less concerned about legislation and more focused on enhancing the bonds of fraternity. The engines that moved the renewal along were fraternal dialogue and consultation. Like the rest of the Church, we friars first felt the Council s effects in the area of liturgy. We had some experience with liturgical changes. Just before the Council, the Divine Office had undergone a simplification, a new calendar of saints feast days was introduced, and the rituals of the Sacred Triduum were modified. Even before the vernacular was introduced into the Mass, we were permitted to sing English Eucharistic hymns in place of customary Latin hymns during Benediction. While today that change seems minor almost insignificant it was difficult to remain unmoved the first time we were able to conduct the entire Benediction service in English. The introduction of English in the celebration of the Mass was preceded by careful preparation in our friary. We had several Missae siccae, literally dry Masses, in which we did a full dress rehearsal of the liturgy but without the sacramental elements. While the canon of the Mass and some other prayers remained in Latin, it was a beginning. We were no longer singing Gregorian chant from the Liber Usualis but were singing English hymns and chants from The Friends of the English Liturgy hymnal. It is difficult to convey in words what the introduction of the vernacular meant for us. Certainly the most dramatic liturgical event I experienced was the first concelebrated Eucharist in our friary. Religious communities were authorized to experiment with concelebration. We were given general guidelines to follow. We were asked to report on how the celebration went, describe any unforeseen problems, and offer suggestions for the development of the ritual in its final form. The experimental concelebrated liturgy took place during our annual retreat. About thirty priests participated. All were fully vested and they stood behind a long altar made up of folding tables. Together they recited the Roman Canon aloud and in Latin. They sang the doxology at the end of the canon and when we responded, I realized, for the first time, what liturgists were referring to when they spoke of the Great Amen. While English was introduced into the Mass, it was another matter with the Divine Office. Those who said the Liturgy of the Hours privately were permitted to pray in English; however, those religious communities that had choral obligation, i.e., the obligation to pray office every day in common, were required to pray the office entirely in Latin. Several times the Ministers General of the Friars Minor, Conventuals, Capuchins, and Third Order Regular together petitioned the Holy See for permission to use the vernacular for the recitation of the Office in common. Each time they were refused. Eventually we Friars Minor dropped the choral obligation from our constitutions so it became possible to pray the Office together in English. The shift from Latin to English was a welcome move for most friars and a problem for a few. But for all, it was a highly emotional experience. Even those who were fluent in Latin felt a new surge of intimacy with God when they were able to celebrate the liturgy in English. But certainly the most moving experience I had in making the transition to English did not happen in the friary. It happened in the Catholic chapel at Southern Wisconsin Colony in Union Grove, Wisconsin. Southern Colony is a state institution for developmentally disabled children and adults, many of whom also suffer from physical disabilities. I was one of several friars who assisted the Catholic chaplain 60

64 at this institution. When the Mass was entirely in Latin, we had to do our best to keep the children occupied by saying the rosary and singing hymns while the chaplain offered a Low Mass in Latin. We prepared the children for the introduction of the vernacular by having a Missa sicca with them. The chaplain asked me to take the role of the commentator and recite the proper parts of the Mass and read the epistle. The ritual for the Mass at the time of the introduction of the vernacular was still that of Pius V, the so-called Tridentine Rite. My first task was to recite the Introit, psalm verses that were sung or said at the beginning of the Mass. Psalm 47:1 served as the Introit of our Missa sicca: All you peoples, clap your hands and shout to God with songs of joy. Before I could finish that verse, the children began clapping and shouting. They understood. They responded. They were active participants in the Church s liturgy. I was totally surprised by their response, but I should not have been. The psalmist invited them to clap their hands and indeed they did. The psalmist invited them to shout for joy and indeed they did. The chapel was in an uproar, but it was a joyful noise. The introduction of English into the celebration of the Mass made it possible for God s special children to worship as only they could with the joyful abandon that comes with the innocence that they possess. When the Council began, our novice master advised us that it would take many years before we would feel its effects. He could not have been more mistaken. In the fifty years since the bishops convened in Council, the lives of all Catholics have been transformed in ways no one foresaw. It has been an exciting fifty years. 61

65 REMINISCENCE Vatican II and Beyond by Gilbert Ostdiek, O.F.M. A Day to Remember It was a beautiful autumn day. The rain which had fallen continuously the day before and through the night gave way that morning to bright sunshine and warm temperatures. Surely an omen befitting so historic a day! It was October 11, 1962, the day Vatican II began. At 9:00 that morning, almost 2500 Council Fathers from around the world made their way from the Apostolic Palace into the sunlit colonnade surrounding St. Peter s square. It was a grand procession. Imagine a flat-bottomed U. The procession began at the top of shorter right arm, turned right at the bottom, crossed into the square, and then turned right again on the longer left arm that led to the entrance to St. Peter s Basilica. Four-by-four they processed, some clad in the red robes and white miters of Roman Catholic cardinals and bishops, others in the variegated robes and distinctive headdress of prelates of Eastern Christianity. It was thrilling and awesome to witness this solemn entrance procession of church leaders from around the Christian world. I was standing midway along the bottom of the U, amid the hundreds of thousands who thronged the square. It took an hour for the procession to pass by where I stood. I wondered how the prelates (including some who were quite elderly), swathed as they were in layers of garments and vestments, could bear the heat as they marched a processional route that was over an eighth of a mile long. As the procession made its way toward the Basilica, I wondered what thoughts, what sense of history, filled the minds of those who walked that path. They mounted steps flanked by heroic-sized statues of Sts. Peter and Paul, pillars of the early Church. The Basilica s façade above them was surmounted by statues of John the Baptist, Christ, and the Apostles the precursor of Christ, Christ who founded the Church, and the college of apostles, the foundation on which it was built. Majestic doors welcomed them into the Basilica at the heart of the Catholic Church and its history, into the solemn ceremonies which would open the twenty-first ecumenical council. Pope John XXIII, seated on the sedia gestoria (a portable throne), brought up the procession. His face was wreathed in a joyous smile as he blessed the cheering crowds. It was a shining moment for him, the realization of his dream for a Council that would energize the faith of the Church, invite Christians into closer relations, and open the Church to the world of today. It was a day to remember. Gil Ostdiek, O.F.M. is Professor of Liturgy at Catholic Theological Union. He is the winner the Michael Mathis Award for contributions to the liturgical renewal, Notre Dame Center for Pastoral Liturgy, 1998 and the Georgetown Center for Liturgy Award for outstanding contributions to the liturgical life of the American Church,

66 A Path-Opening Debate Two days later Vatican II began its working sessions. Despite some initial expectations that the Council s work could be completed within one year, that work would continue for four years. The Council met during the autumn of each of those years for a period of three months. I was a doctoral student in Rome during the first two periods, in 1962 and Providentially for my future work, the Council s agenda for those two years opened a new path for the teaching ministry for which I was preparing. More importantly, it also opened up an unexpected path for the Council itself. At the request of Pope John, the document on the liturgy had been moved to the head of the Council s agenda. It was the first document to be taken up for conciliar debate. Many of the Council Fathers saw it as the document most ready for debate; others saw it as a way to make an immediate impact on the Church at large and to establish firmly the pastoral character of the Council. The next item on the agenda was the document on the Church. The debates on the liturgy document were the major agenda item during October and through much of November. There were vigorous exchanges over such things as liturgical dance, drums, and the vernacular. The more significant outcomes of the debates, however, were embedded in the first paragraphs of the document. These included the centrality of the Paschal Mystery in the liturgy, the baptismal insertion of the faithful into that mystery, and the fourfold expression of Christ s presence in the liturgy (in the assembly, the proclamation of the word, the person of the presider, and the eucharistic species). Also of great significance was the pastoral principle that full, conscious, and active participation of the faithful is the pastoral aim to be considered above all else. To enable that participation, there were pastoral decisions to simplify the rites, to allow some use of the vernacular, and to provide liturgical catechesis. These debates and decisions were to have profound meaning for the remainder of the Council and for the life of the Church. In them the Council subtly envisions a new kind of ecclesiology. Liturgical celebrations in which the entire assembly, priest and people, celebrate the liturgy, along with Christ their Head, manifests the Church as the People of God. Liturgical celebration adapted to the language and arts of a people implies an ecclesiology of the local church with a measure of decentralization. It also signals that reform is to be an ongoing feature in the life of the Church. Those implications became apparent when, in late November of 1962, the Council turned its attention to the document on the Church. During the months that followed the close of the 1962 session of the Council, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (CSL) underwent some final adjustments and refinements. These changes were approved in the next period in autumn of 1963, and a final vote was taken on November 22. The Constitution was formally promulgated at the closing general session of this period on December 4, A Life-Shaping Event What have these conciliar developments meant for me? How have they shaped my life and my ministry? The momentous events of the approval and promulgation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy in 1963 coincided with my last days in Rome. I had completed my doctoral defense in late November and was about to return home to take up teaching in my province s theology seminary in January of To my great delight, I was able to buy a Latin copy of CSL in the last days before I left Rome. I read it avidly on the flight home, discovering for the first time the full details of the coming renewal of the liturgy. The adventure of celebrating the reformed liturgy and teaching others about the liturgical renewal still lay ahead as I boarded the plane. 63

67 I had already had a first taste of celebrating that reformed liturgy during the month of November, I was among twelve students at our university in Rome, one of many such places, chosen for an experimental celebration and assessment of the proposed rite of concelebration before it was finalized. The rite used was the familiar 1962 Latin Rite; the only difference was that we proclaimed some parts of the Eucharistic prayer in unison, much like the Mass celebrated at the rite of ordination. Analysis of the rite of concelebration was to become an area of research and publication for me later on. The first changes in the Mass were the provisional introduction of English prayers, first some of the collects, and by 1967 the Eucharistic Prayers. I discovered two things during these years. One was my reaction to using English. I had celebrated Mass in Latin since ordination in Sixteen years of studying and using Latin in my seminary and doctoral studies had given me an ease and fluency in reading, writing, and speaking Latin. Even so, when celebrating Mass in Latin I could easily be distracted during the prayers of the liturgy. To my amazement, I discovered that those distractions vanished when I began to preside in English. Even intrusive coughing fits and babies crying in the assembly did not break my concentration. By contrast, as the full reform of the ritual actions and gestures was introduced in 1973, I experienced an unexpected bodily discomfort. Through seminary training and years of practice, my body had learned to perform these actions in the inward-looking, carefully detailed manner prescribed by the rubrics. When the new rubrics said simply, the celebrant proclaims the prayer with arms extended, how was this to be done when no other details were prescribed? It took hours of thoughtful practice to arrive at meaningful liturgical gestures that ultimately became embedded in muscle memory free of self-monitoring. There were similar adjustments in teaching about the liturgical renewal. During January of 1964, when I began teaching, and in the years immediately after that, we did not yet have the advantage of knowing what exact shape the reformed liturgy would take. My seminary and doctoral studies had approached the sacraments in abstract, neo-scholastic terms (primarily Aristotelian) with very little attention to the rites themselves. In light of the conciliar call for reform of the rites and the priority of active participation, that was clearly inadequate. It was only when the new shape of the rites began to emerge that teaching could become more performance-oriented. The first revised rites, those of infant baptism and marriage, were issued in English in The fully revised Eucharistic rite did not appear in English until Teaching before then had to be content with imparting information about the future pastoral directions proposed in the Constitution. After 1973, one could take full account of the ways in which the ritual signs and symbols signified the effects which the sacraments were to bring about, as CSL had taught. The celebration of the liturgy itself became first theology. In addition, the Constitution had directed that liturgy was thereafter to be ranked among the compulsory and major courses in the seminary curriculum. That meant that teaching liturgy would not just be one of several areas for which I would be responsible but the principal one. In the early 1970s, I began to realize that the catechetical preparation called for by Vatican II and offered to people about the liturgical changes was often minimal and ineffective. (In my mother s parish it had consisted of a short letter from the bishop asking people to accept and obey the pope s decision to implement the new liturgy!) I began realize that liturgists had a pastoral responsibility for a fuller liturgical formation of the faithful, and so I began to offer workshops for liturgical ministers and parishioners. My goal was to help them understand not just the external changes but also the deeper spiritual meaning of the Vatican II liturgy. In the course of those sessions with ordinary worshippers, I discovered that just giving input was insufficient. I began to develop an approach which first elicited the people s experience of the liturgy, helping them to name it and reflect on what that might mean for future practice and for life. Input from history and theology could be interspersed in the process. Providentially, I discovered the approach which Thomas Groome had developed for adult education and made it my own. This experience eventually led to my publication of a book on liturgical catechesis, which appeared in 1986, and to a 64

68 continuing interest in mystagogical reflection on the liturgy, especially the Eucharist. That interest has become a current writing project for me. At that same time, I also began to reflect on the quality of the 1973 English prayers. There was much to commend in their more authentic English style, their accessibility, their pithy and concise manner of expression, their contemporary feel, and their freedom from the archaic devotional diction of the previous decades. I also became aware of their mixed quality, from poetic to banal, and their limited capacity to engender memorable phrases that resonated in the memory of people and engaged their religious imagination and faith. I began to explore other channels of communication in the liturgy actions and objects, gestures and postures, times and seasons, liturgical space. A year of sabbatical study in the late 1970s spent exploring what social psychologists were saying about non-verbal communication confirmed my intuition that liturgy communicates largely through a broad range of channels, of which words may not always be the most effective. At that same time I found supportive colleagues in the North American Academy of Liturgy s annual seminar, in which we explored what the various social sciences had to say about ritual. Drawing on those ritual studies has become for me a constant feature in teaching about the liturgy. In the mid 1980s I was drawn back into the area of liturgical language when I was invited to join the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL). For the next fifteen years I served on ICEL s Advisory Committee, chaired the Subcommittee on Translation and Revision of Texts, and was a member of the General Editorial Committee for the revision of the Sacramentary. There were some 2,500 texts to be translated from the Latin for that project. From the other translators and general editors I learned the nuances of shaping English prayer texts that were theologically accurate, faithful to the Latin original, and attentive to the needs of public proclamation for English-speaking people. The other two editors with whom I worked were both experts in the oral rhythms of English dating back to the Elizabethan period. Our goal was to shape texts that embodied the best of that tradition and to bring it into service of the public prayer of the Church. Our work on the Sacramentary was completed in It was set aside when Rome issued a new editio typica of the Roman Missal and changed the principles used to guide a new translation. Involvement in this aspect of the liturgical renewal also led to publications on liturgical language and contributions to two commentaries on the 2011 Roman Missal, which were published recently under the auspices of the Catholic Academy of Liturgy. There is one final path which the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy opened up for me. As noted above, I had learned through my experience in adult education that the liturgy speaks to people not only through words but also through a wider array of non-verbal languages. Among these are the languages of liturgical arts and liturgical space. For several decades the meetings of Form/Reform, a conference on liturgical arts and places of worship, drew my avid participation, often as a presenter. Liturgical space in particular claimed my attention. It coincided happily with my early experience in working with my father and brothers during my high school and college years as our own construction firm, building houses and farm buildings in rural Nebraska. As the liturgical renewal continued to sink deep roots, it had become clear to me that the revised shape of the liturgy and its ministries needed a space specifically designed to support the reformed liturgical rites, a space designed to house the People of God at prayer. I have come to believe that places of worship are in fact a built theology of liturgy, a built ecclesiology. They are integral to liturgy as first theology. I welcomed the invitation extended to Catholic Theological Union by the Chicago Archdiocesan Office of Divine Worship in the mid 1980s to design a program to prepare people to serve as liturgical consultants for communities renovating or building places for worship. The Institute for Liturgical Consultants (ILC) welcomed its first participants in 1988 and continued to serve that need for almost twenty-five 1 These texts can be found online at 65

69 years, and I was delighted to serve as its director. Working with colleagues in Form/Reform and ILC led naturally to my involvement in a related area, the formation of the Association of Consultants for Liturgical Space (ACLS), a professional organization for those working to renovate and build places of worship. Vatican II has truly been a life-shaping event for me. Little did I dream, standing in St. Peter s square on that memorable day in October, 1963, that the Council then opening would shape my work in the field of liturgy in so many new and exciting ways. One of the gifts the Council has given me has been to find myself in a position to be a bridge between the pre-vatican II liturgy and that of Vatican II. I live in hope that the amazing liturgical renewal set underway by the Council will continue to bring God s People into an ever deeper and richer experience of what it means to offer God praise and petition in and through our one mediator, Jesus Christ, and in his name to speak his amen, God s amen, to our world in its yearning for peace, justice, and liberating grace for all. 66

70 The Impact of the Second Vatican Council: A Personal Odyssey by Donald Senior, C.P. REMINISCENCE Celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Vatican II has had a much stronger effect on me than I had anticipated. Recalling the days of the Council and reviewing its documents have brought back to me a lot of memories and, more importantly, made me more aware of the profound impact the event of the Council has had on my life. In many ways, my adult life, including my life as a priest, a religious and a professor and administrator at Catholic Theological Union, have been profoundly influenced at every turn by the Council. Pope John XXIII was elected in October of 1958 and announced his inspiration to convene the Council in January That summer, after my second year of college, I entered the Passionist Novitiate nestled in the cornfields of St. Paul, Kansas. Even in the confines of the novitiate we learned of the new Pope s exceptional warmth and open spirit, including his enthusiastic reception at the Vatican of our newly elected president John Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline (the Pope greeted her as Jackie! and opened his arms to embrace her much to the consternation of his aides). We also knew he had convened the first ecumenical council in a century but as a novice I had little awareness of what this would mean for the Church, much less for me. In the summer of 1960 I went from Kansas to Chicago where we had our philosophy program. All during the three years I was there we heard of the exciting events beginning to unfold at the Council. Copies of Xavier Rhynne s tell-all articles that appeared regularly in The New Yorker magazine were passed around and read eagerly. I can remember vividly the sense of deep sadness in June 1963 when we gathered around a radio (the television set was wheeled out only for momentous occasions such as President Kennedy s famous speech on October 22, 1962 concerning the Cuban missile crisis) and heard the announcement of Pope John XXIII s death. His famous dying words, My bags are packed and ready to go seemed to exemplify his serene and beautiful spirit. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, who was everybody s favorite to be the successor, was elected as Pope Paul VI, and people were relieved that the Council would be reconvened and keep on track. During my four years of theology ( ), first at the Passionist theologate in Louisville, Kentucky and then the final two years at St. Meinrad School of Theology, the documents of the Council began to appear one by one and became a powerful override on our theological studies. The decree on the liturgy, on the church, on divine revelation, on the church in the modern world, on relations with non-christian religions these were like glorious eruptions that made our faculty scramble to incorporate these new and exciting formulations into our theologi- Donald Senior, C.P. is the President of Catholic Theological Union, Chicago. He has been a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission since 2001, is General Editor of The Bible Today and The Catholic Study Bible. 67

71 cal training. The impact of the Council took a very personal turn in early 1964 when one of our own Passionist faculty, Barnabas Ahern, C.P., a professor of New Testament, was recruited by Archbishop Meyer of Chicago to be his personal peritus or theological advisor. Because of his extraordinary teaching skills and deep piety, Barnabas became a trusted advisor to the ensemble of American bishops at the Council and had a profound impact on their becoming comfortable with the changes being proposed by the Council. As fate would have it, the hole left in our Passionist biblical faculty led to my provincial assigning me to graduate biblical studies. Like an arranged marriage, I was not asked if I wanted to do this but told this was my destiny! In fact, although I had never contemplated a teaching ministry, I am forever grateful for this assignment and, in a strange way, can credit Vatican II for making it possible! I began my preparation for this post-ordination assignment during the summers of my major seminary years sweating out intense courses in Hebrew at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati and Arabic at Harvard University. After my ordination in 1967 I pursued full time graduate studies in theology and Scripture at the University of Louvain in Belgium. Even though the Council ended in 1967 it was very much alive at Louvain. Several of the most influential theologians who had a direct role in the Council had come back to Louvain s theology faculty: Gerard Phillips and Gustav Thils, who were major contributors to Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes, Louis Janssens and Philip Delhaye, whose writings on moral theology also were key for such documents as the Decree on Religious Liberty and the documents on the Church in the Modern World, Frans Neirynck, who was a consummate biblical scholar and advisor to Bishop Emiel-Jozef DeSmet, bishop of Brugge, one of the prime movers of the Council who had led the charge on making sure the document on Divine Revelation would be successful. Professor Neirynck would become my doctor father and I learned from him some of the contention and suffering that was also part of the cost of the Council. Opponents of Bishop DeSmet s reform agenda took it out on the young biblical scholar who was his theological advisor a wound that Frans Neirynck never fully recovered from. After receiving my doctorate in 1972, I was assigned to the faculty of the newly formed Catholic Theological Union which itself came into being as a direct result of a stirring address by Cardinal Leo Josef Suenens, primate of Belgium and one of the great figures of the Council. His address at the University of Chicago in May 1964 envisioned the seminaries of the future as being located in the heart of the city, being in connection with great universities, and having an ecumenical spirit. It was that speech that ultimately led to the founding of CTU and the merging of three religious order theologates (Franciscan, Passionist, and Servite) in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago in So even where I eventually would exercise my assigned ministry of teaching the New Testament was in an institution born out of the Council! Later I would have the privilege of serving as CTU s president for twenty-three years; never once in all that time could I have forgotten the spirit of the Council that is deeply embedded in this beloved institution. Over the past fifty years the Church has also experienced no little turbulence in the implementation of the Council, with deepening polarities of some on the right who feel that the reforms of the Council were going too far and some on the left decrying what they see as retrenchment and a suspicion about the motives of those calling for reform of the reform. Historians with a longer view tell us that it is not surprising for a global Church to take a long time to digest something as momentous as an ecumenical Council. For me personally, though, the teachings of the Council have been transformative and have been the most important influence on my Christian life. For example, the Council s impetus for an extraordinary and sweeping biblical renewal has influenced my spiritual life, shaped my way of thinking and viewing the world, informed my vocation of teaching, and given me a deep trust in the Church itself. One of the hallmarks of the Council s and subsequent papal and magisterial statements 68

72 about the Scriptures is that there is no intrinsic contradiction between the Word that comes to us through the Scriptures and the historical and scientific pursuit of truth. Likewise, the Council s call for renewal of religious life has led to enormous changes in virtually every religious community by far, most of them to the good. My own Passionist congregation, for example, was able to free itself from some devotional practices that had a weak theological basis and in some instances were unhealthy and, instead, to rediscover the strong biblically and theological basis of our original charism of promoting the memory of the Passion of Jesus Christ. The fresh air (to use John XXIII s famous image) brought into the Church through the Council has also profoundly shaped my understanding of the what the Church was to be: the people of God called to holiness; a Church drawn together in prayer and in union with the Risen Christ by the beauty and power of its liturgy; a church where there is no clerical arrogance but mutuality and respect for the complementary vocations of priest, religious and laity; a communion of faith that is welcoming and hospitable to all; a community that does not fear the world but is in deep connection with its beauty, its suffering, its frailty and sinfulness (I think of the inspiring opening paragraph of Gaudium et Spes!); a Church that is not turned in on itself but is animated by its mission of evangelization to the world; a Church committed, in this increasingly pluralistic world, to dialogue and respect for other religious traditions. These consequences of the Vatican Council s vision of the Christian life will, I pray, stay with me for the rest of my life. It is a vision not only communicated to me by the rich conciliar documents and subsequent implementations of the Council s directives, but also experienced in my teaching, in the robust and hopeful spirit of the Institution I have been blessed to be part of, and in the tenacious hopes of so many men and women that I have come to know as friends and co-workers and who also have been profoundly influenced by the Council over the past fifty years. Some, I know, fear that the reforms of the Council will be suppressed or severely compromised in the years ahead. But I remember the challenging words and strong advice of Pope John XXIII at the opening of the Council on October 11, 1962: do not listen to the prophets of doom but trust in the power of God s Spirit. The Church s struggle to keep faith with the Council is, in the Pope s own metaphor, the sign of dawn breaking upon a new day for the Church of the future. 69

73 ARTICLE A Marian Spirituality for Lay Ecclesial Ministers by William H. Johnston When the US Catholic bishops called for cultivating a Marian spirituality in the spiritual formation of lay ecclesial ministers, 1 what did they have in mind, and how might it be done? This essay proposes to explore these questions in four steps, considering in turn: (1) several reasons for cultivating this form of spirituality among lay ecclesial ministers today; (2) six possible themes and sources to draw on; (3) a few practices with which one could begin or deepen this form of spirituality; and (4) a selected bibliography of resources in this field of study whose literature is virtually unlimited and ever expanding. Cultivating a Marian Spirituality Among Lay Ecclesial Ministers To understand why the bishops have called for lay ecclesial ministers to cultivate a Marian spirituality a call applicable as well to ordained ecclesial ministers and, indeed, to all Catholics let us consider the matter from four perspectives: historical, pastoral, scriptural-devotional, and ecclesial. First, there are the historical reasons. Interest in and devotion to Mary have been part of the church s life throughout its history. There is evidence for this in first century New Testament literature, in second century extra-canonical literature, and in every century since then, up to our own era. If we give this historical fact due weight and trust that so many Christians for so many generations across so many cultures did William H. Johnston is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Dayton, a Marianist university. He has served on the Board of Directors of NALM (the National Association for Lay Ministry), with terms as Vice-Chair and as Chair. not fundamentally get it wrong, this can move us toward cultivating or confirm a Marian spirituality as well. We will with good reason accept that, despite excesses which should also be noted and avoided, in general the theological insights, devotional spirit, and prayer customs pertaining to Mary that developed over the centuries can have something valid and worthwhile to offer us today. For the sake of being broadly and fully Catholic, it is well and fitting for lay ecclesial ministers not only to know this history but to share in this devotion in some way themselves. Secondly, there are pastoral reasons for cultivating a Marian spirituality today. Building effective pastoral relationships in many ministerial contexts today can be aided by having, as persons in those contexts do, a living awareness of the communion of saints and a sense of relationship with Mary in particular. Lacking such a shared experience could hinder the formation or weaken the strength of one s relationships with, for example, many Latino/a Catholics or contemporary young adults who have discovered forms of Marian devotion. If only 1 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord: Guidelines for the Development of Lay Ecclesial Ministry (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2005),

74 for the sake of sharing common ground with many of the people of the Catholic Church in the early twenty-first century United States, lay ecclesial ministers would want to have and cultivate a Marian spirituality. Third, there are scriptural-devotional reasons for incorporating this spirituality in lay ecclesial ministry formation. Think, in a devotional spirit, of the Jesus the gospels present to us; think behind the text of the gospels to the actual family life that helped form him into who he became as an adult. How did Jesus get to be that kind of person? How might his family, and specifically his mother, have influenced the development of his fully human maturity and character? Think, for example, of his encounters and relationships with women: with the woman at the well (Jn 4); the Canaanite woman (Mt 15:21 28); the women who followed him and supported him out of their means (Lk 8:2 3); the woman caught in the act of adultery (Jn 8:3 11); Martha and Mary whom he loved (Jn 11:5); the woman who came so close as to wash his feet with her tears and dry them with her hair, kissing his feet and anointing them with ointment (Lk 7:38); the women who followed him to Jerusalem and to his crucifixion, watching from a distance (Mk 15:40 41) or from close by (Jn 19:25) all quite remarkable. The question naturally arises: did his mother have anything to do with his ability to relate so freely and so well with women? Did he learn this from her? If so, and if lay ecclesial ministers developed their own relationship with her through the practices of a Marian spirituality, would her formational influence on them be similarly liberating and life-giving? In particular, what could men in ministry today (lay and ordained) learn from Mary, as well as from Jesus, about relating to women? And what could women in ministry learn from her about relating to Jesus? Imaginative, devotional reflections along these lines could be illuminating and helpfully formative. Finally, we can see an ecclesial reason to cultivate a Marian spirituality in lay ecclesial ministry formation with the potential to open up a more fruitful connection with that still pivotal and seminal event in the church s recent history, the Second Vatican Council. How best to understand that event is a matter of some discussion and even contention in the church today. Debate centers around two differing approaches, described by Pope Benedict XVI in his Address to the Roman Curia on December 22, One way to interpret the council and its documents is what the pope calls a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture. This approach characterizes the council as a source of newness understood specifically in its difference from or even repudiation of what went before. Conciliar passages emphasizing continuity are viewed as compromises more or less antithetical to the genuine intentions of the council; such passages are best discounted so as to build the church s theological and pastoral agenda more properly on texts mandating new directions. Pope Benedict considers this approach overly one-sided, to that extent misguided, and, if followed unrelentingly, misleading and divisive. He recommends instead an alternate approach he thinks more true and fair to the council s texts and intentions and more historically, theologically, and pastorally defensible. He calls this approach a hermeneutic of reform, which entails as he describes with some nuance, providing historical context and illustrative examples a combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels, promoting in this way a process of innovation in continuity. Both hermeneutics recognize newness and innovation as the legitimate fruit of the council, but they do so in ways that yield distinctive theological and pastoral priorities, styles, and effects. The call of the US Catholic bishops for a place for Marian spirituality in the spiritual formation of lay ecclesial ministers can be seen as a theological endorsement and pastoral implementation of Pope Benedict s hermeneutic of reform. If it is the case as I think the pope and bishops would maintain that Marian devotion went into a significant decline in Catholic life and practice in the postconciliar era; that such an outcome was not in fact what the council called for in its documents or intended to bring about; that this was instead an instance of the impact of the 2 Benedict XVI, Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia Offering Them His Christmas Greetings, vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2005/december/documents/hf_ben_xvi_spe_ _roman-curia_en.html. All citations in this and the following paragraph are from this text. 71

75 hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture; and that, as we are now in what could be called the post-postconciliar era, ameliorative measures in the spirit of the hermeneutic of reform are timely and to be desired, then one such measure could be the promotion and cultivation of a sound Marian piety among lay ecclesial ministers. Thus there was a paragraph on this topic in the spiritual formation section of Co-Workers. These reasons may help explain why the bishops would consider the cultivation of a Marian spirituality among lay ecclesial ministers a sound, timely, and fruitful development, not only in initial and ongoing formation programs but also by implication in the regular practice and lived experience of lay ecclesial ministry. But how would one go about doing this? What forms would it take, and what sources would it draw from? Six Forms and Sources of Marian Spirituality Among the many ways one could give shape to and resource a Marian spirituality, let us look at six that suggest something of the range of possibilities. Biblical Scripture is foundational for all forms of Marian spirituality, for all must ultimately base themselves on the Marian passages in the New Testament, read in the context of the full biblical revelation. To study these passages is to encounter Mary in her historical, cultural, and religious context. To pray with these passages is to form and sustain a relationship with her that can assume a rich diversity of dimensions and dynamics. Both study and prayer are important. The Pontifical Biblical Commission s 1993 statement, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, offers guidance regarding methods of study. Some traditional methods of prayer with scripture are noted below, in the section on Practices. Magisterial Lay ecclesial ministers can read and learn from church documents on Mary, finding her presented as, for example, a model of how to listen and respond to God s call or of how to be a person attentive to others needs and creative in responding to them. The Marian chapter of the council s dogmatic constitution on the church is the foundational text here. (LG 8, 52 68) Particularly helpful as well is Pope Paul VI s apostolic exhortation, Marialis Cultus (1974); in this work he speaks to that immediately postconciliar thought-world which, to some degree, is yet extant, explaining in ways that are still helpful the conciliar reforms regarding Mary and showing how Marian piety is a thoroughly legitimate postconciliar practice. Attention should also be given to the US Catholic bishops pastoral letter, Behold Your Mother (1973). Finally, Pope John Paul II provided a theological reflection on Mary in Redemptoris Mater (Mother of the Redeemer, 1987) and gave encouragement to use the rosary as a means of Christ-centered contemplative prayer in Rosarium Virginis Mariae (On the Most Holy Rosary, 2002). All of these sources provide rich food for thought for the development of a sound and well-informed contemporary Marian spirituality. Hispanic One way to understand, respect, and form community with Latin@ Catholics is to understand, respect, and share in Marian devotions. As the US Catholic bishops have said, authentic and consistent devotion to Mary, the Mother of God is a value particularly cherished by Hispanic Catholics. 3 Because the church in the United States is increasingly Hispanic, these traditions and forms of Catholicism have a particular salience for those in pastoral ministry. 3 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, The Hispanic Presence: Challenge and Commitment (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1984), no. 3.e. 72

76 It is important to note there are many Marys throughout the Hispanic world, and lay ecclesial ministers should be willing to learn, from those whom they serve, the unique story and charism of their experience of Mary. At the same time, however, some attention to Our Lady of Guadalupe makes sense for all formation programs because of the prominence of Catholics from Mexico in the United States, because of the many celebrations in her honor on her liturgical feast day of December 12, and because of her title as Patroness of the Americas. In Our Lady of Guadalupe we can find, as John Paul II did, an impressive example of a perfectly inculturated evangelization. 4 She embodies vividly a true preferential option for the poor and oppressed, manifesting not only a spiritual presence to them but an actual personal identification with them. Such points as these can offer lay ecclesial ministers food for thought, inspiration for personal action, and a sense of direction in discerning ministerial priorities. Devotional There are many ways to cultivate a devotion to Mary, the woman who is the Mother of God (an ancient title) and Mother of the Church (a more recent one). One can develop a strong relationship through use of the rosary, for example; with icons, entering into the rich Orthodox tradition of devotion to Mary; or by learning about a religious community whose charism is related to Mary for example, the Marianists (S.M.) or the Congregation of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (I.H.M.). The 2002 document from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, provides very helpful general principles which apply in varying degrees and modes to all Marian devotions: they should have Trinitarian, Christological, pneumatic, and ecclesial dimensions; be in touch with Scripture and Tradition; and give consideration to ecumenical, anthropological, eschatological, and missionary concerns. 5 Following these guidelines will keep any Marian devotion well-grounded and balanced. Feminist In the process of doing theological reflection, when tradition and experience come together, sometimes tradition enlightens or critiques our experience, and sometimes our experience questions or critiques tradition. In a similar way, a feminist perspective on Mary and all things Marian in the church s tradition may at times be informed by tradition and at times may offer insights that illuminate, question, or raise objections that critique it, perhaps even severely. Feminist readings of the tradition may, for example, point out that the image of Mary most obedient has been used to keep women silent and submissive; Mary ever-virgin can translate into repression of sexuality; or the Mary who intercedes but has no authority and makes no decisions. Hispanic women writers speak also of the problem of marianismo, a counterpart of male machismo when men are abusive, women are to endure. 6 Out of the six sources discussed here, it is perhaps in the feminist sources where the hermeneutic of suspicion is most in play. Every culture and tradition needs this hermeneutic so as not to begin to overlook, even if inadvertently, the powerless and disadvantaged. Every culture and tradition has its blind spots, and a voice of critique or opposition can serve to clarify and broaden its vision. Assessing when that opposition goes beyond helpful to counterproductive is always a judgment call, but a society without such a voice lacks access to the life-giving, justice-serving, prophetic word. One aspect of Marian spirituality the feminist sources (not those sources alone, but those in particular) keep to the fore is the sense of Mary as one of us, as one with whom we can identify because she has fully shared our human 4 John Paul II, Ecclesia in America, no Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, no. 186 a paragraph in Chapter Five, Veneration of the Holy Mother of God, nos Elizabeth A. Johnson, Truly Our Sister: A Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints (New York: Continuum, 2003),

77 lot, even to the worst of suffering and sorrow. A comparison of two titles helps to illustrate the point. The US bishops document on Mary is Behold Your Mother a sound title, a biblical phrase (Jn 19:27), and yet, one s mother is still one s mother. Somehow a whole world of possibility for close relationship with Mary is opened up with a different perspective: Truly Our Sister, the marvelous title of Elizabeth A. Johnson s book. It is interesting to observe the way some concerns shared by feminists and others were addressed within a decade of the Council s close by Paul VI in his apostolic exhortation, Marialis Cultus, in particular in the section on anthropological guidelines (34-37). This section speaks of the contrast between advances in our understanding of the human person and society on the one hand and a certain type of devotional literature on the other; what Pope Paul says is that the latter must change in light of the former (34). Noting that women today seek and expect to exercise decision-making power in the affairs of the community, he recalls Mary s dialogue with God and her active and responsible consent in a decision impacting the history of humanity. 7 He insists her choice of virginity was for the sake of God s plan for her and in no way rejects the values of married life and love. He refers to certain lines in the Magnificat to show Mary as far from being a timidly submissive woman but rather one who did not hesitate to proclaim that God vindicates the humble and the oppressed, and removes the powerful people of this world from their privileged positions (cf. Lk 1:51 53). That she, just as so many others throughout history and today, experienced exile, poverty, and suffering cannot escape the attention of those who wish to support, with the Gospel spirit, the liberating energies of man and of society. He also describes her as a woman concerned not only for her son, Jesus, but for his mission and his disciples; she was a woman whose action helped to strengthen the apostolic community s faith in Christ. Pope Paul concludes this section by writing: These are but examples, but examples which show clearly that the figure of the Blessed Virgin does not disillusion any of the profound expectations of the men and women of our time but offers them the perfect model of the disciple of the Lord: the disciple who builds up the earthly and temporal city while being a diligent pilgrim towards the heavenly and eternal city; the disciple who works for that justice which sets free the oppressed and for that charity which assists the needy; but above all, the disciple who is the active witness of that love which builds up Christ in people s hearts. Again, all of these observations make fruitful points for reflection by lay ecclesial ministers and for application in their ministries. Protestant In the context of some ecumenical relationships or dialogues even today, Mary may still be a divisive issue, but the situation has been changing. What Vatican II said about Mary helped clear away the traditional Protestant fear that Catholics worship Mary or give her too great a role in the work of salvation. The council affirmed that the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix, but then came a significant and clarifying sentence: This, however, is so understood that it neither takes away anything from nor adds anything to the dignity and efficacy of Christ the one Mediator (LG 62). With that clear affirmation of the sole efficacy of Christ in the work of salvation, Protestants began to feel they had a basis for conversation with Catholics. Another factor has been a growing awareness among Protestants of all kinds that their traditional approach to Mary has been questionable. Mary does have a role in the gospels, and to ignore it is, actually, unbiblical. Attention to the verse Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed (Lk 1:48b) has begun to raise the question 7 Paul VI, 37. All citations in the remainder of this paragraph are from Marialis Cultus,

78 among some Protestants as to why they do not more evidently and readily do what the verse says in biblical study, theological reflection, devotional practice, and public worship. And so, recent years have seen a growing Protestant body of publications dealing with Mary. The very fact of this interest can be instructive for Catholic lay ecclesial ministers who may have a residual sense that making a place for Mary in their spirituality or ministry is somehow unconciliar and will create an ecumenical barrier; on the contrary, it may be a gift in ecumenical dialogue and an aid in strengthening ecumenical ties. Practices for Beginning or Deepening a Marian Spirituality It is one thing to point to various sources useful for cultivating a Marian spirituality; it is another thing actually to cultivate it. In this section we look at four ways of doing so. Theological Reflection The basic way proposed here for incorporating a Marian spirituality in the practice of lay ecclesial ministry is through theological reflection, a practice Co-Workers repeatedly recommends for lay ecclesial ministers. Any of the well-known methods can be adopted or adapted including, I would suggest, the daily examen of consciousness to help one relate Mary and one s ministerial practice in enriching ways. When lay ecclesial ministers engage in theological reflection on their day or week in ministry, they look for resonances between their experience and Christian tradition and revelation. When their minds and imaginations have been thus nourished by the practices and the sources of a Marian spirituality, then the fruits of that practice are available to speak to that ministerial experience and help illuminate it. They become better equipped and able to see God s presence and action in their ministerial life through a Marian lens and to shape their ministerial hopes and efforts to conform to God s purposes and collaborate in God s work as faithfully as Mary did. Meditation on the Word of God The scriptural passages on Mary are an essential resource and for the purposes of spiritual formation can be used with any method of praying with scripture. One such method is lectio divina, in use since the early church and frequently recommended by Pope Benedict XVI. In this approach, the words of the biblical passage speak to one s mind and heart as one quietly repeats and ponders them, occasionally turning to God in prayer, perhaps being led into wordless contemplation. 8 This practice opens a person of faith to the Spirit of God through the inspired word of God, allowing a gradual transformation to take place which can then bear fruit in one s life and ministry. Another method is an Ignatian way of reflecting on biblical passages, incorporating an active use of one s baptized imagination to enter into the biblical scene by becoming a participant in the story sometimes simply being there or sometimes taking an active part by being spoken to or speaking and by responding to or initiating some action. 9 Once again, the practice opens persons to the working of God s Spirit using the faculty of imagination, and when the gospel scene used for prayer includes Mary, their understanding of and relationship with her can be enhanced. The Rosary The rosary, one of the most widely used devotional practices of the second millennium, saw a certain decline in use in those immediately postconciliar years but more recently is the subject of renewed interest. Best understood 8 See, e.g., New Melleray Abbey, A Primer on Monastic Spirituality, especially sections 6 ( Lectio Divina: Theory ) through 11 ( Contemplation ), at 9 See John A. Veltri, Just As If I Were There : On Gospel Contemplation, in Orientations, Volume 1: A Collection of Helps for Prayer, Revised (1993), 75

79 and practiced as a contemplative form of prayer, it can be very fruitful for theological reflection on ministry. Here are two ways of doing this. The traditional mysteries (the joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries, accompanied now by the mysteries of light) can serve as a framework for meditation on one s ministry. One might find that while meditating on these mysteries, an event from the ministerial day comes to mind a meeting or conversation, a challenge or joy or question. In the prayerful juxtaposition of the two realities, the rosary mysteries might suggest a way of seeing more deeply into or feeling differently about the event, shedding some gospel light on it, and inviting a response of faith. Perhaps a lay ecclesial minister feels some apprehension or resentment at having been given responsibility for a significant new ministerial task; this may appear in a different light when viewed through the lens of the mystery of the Annunciation and Mary s response to Gabriel s words. A hurtful, cutting remark spoken by another might resonate differently as one watches in prayer Christ being scourged with whips or crowned with thorns and mocked by soldiers. If one were suffering from a sense of loss, anger, or defeat at the failure or even sabotage of a major ministry project dear to one s heart, consider how the power of the paschal mystery could be at work if today one meditated on the experience in light of Jesus passion, crucifixion, and death, and tomorrow in light of his resurrection. Or if one seeks renewed energy or perhaps new boldness in ministry, this can be pondered and prayed for when reflecting on the sending of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, the more one continues with this practice, the more it may emerge that even unlikely juxtapositions of rosary mysteries and pastoral experiences can surprisingly prove revealing, enlightening, consoling, and encouraging. A second way to use the rosary follows a suggestion made by the US Catholic bishops in Behold Your Mother. They wrote, Besides the precise rosary pattern long known to Catholics, we can freely experiment. New sets of mysteries are possible. 10 John Paul II did precisely this in developing the five mysteries of light, proposed and described in his apostolic letter on the rosary. 11 What if lay ecclesial ministers did the same for their own ministry? Are there four or five or six (the exact number is not sacrosanct) passages from the scriptures that could be uniquely relevant? A catechetical minister might choose, for example, Jesus as a boy in the temple listening to and questioning the teachers (Lk 2:46 47, on being a student), Mary who kept all these things and pondered them in her heart (Lk 2:19,51, on learning from experience), the beatitudes (Mt 5:1 ff., Jesus core message), the parable of the sower (Mk 4:1 ff., the diversity of those who hear and respond to the message), the washing of the disciples feet (Jn 13:1 17, on teaching by example), and the Emmaus story (Lk 24:13 35, on engaging learners at the critical point of their experience and illuminating that experience scripturally and christologically). Whatever one s particular ministry, it could be a revealing spiritual exercise to search the scriptures for appropriate and life-giving passages and then a fruitful spiritual practice to use those passages, with the meditative technique of the rosary, to let the word of God provide light and strength for one s ministry. A Marianist Method Religious communities whose charism is in some way linked with Mary may have resources applicable or adaptable for the spirituality of lay ecclesial ministers. I teach at the University of Dayton, a Catholic university founded and operated by the Marianists (The Society of Mary, S.M.), and I have learned to appreciate the charism of this 10 US Catholic Bishops, Behold Your Mother, John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 19 and

80 community. Let me offer just one example of a Marianist method that can speak to the condition of those serving in ministry. Quentin Hakenewerth, S.M., wrote A Manual of Marianist Spirituality for persons considering or in process of becoming Marianists, but most of his teaching and suggestions are useful for anyone seeking to give a Marian dimension to their Christian calling or ministerial life. His chapter on Going Beyond Mediocrity: Purification, for example, is an encouragement not to be held back by any obstacle that may keep us from giving our all to Christ, as may happen through settling for what is routine, letting good enough be good enough, or starting that slide into cynicism all dangers that long-term lay ecclesial ministers may face. He offers an image for dealing with such obstacles. The image comes from Blessed William Joseph Chaminade, founder of the Marianists. Chaminade compares himself to a quiet brook that, encountering an obstacle, makes no effort to remove it. It is the obstacle itself that causes the stream to grow wider and deeper until it overflows the obstacle and continues on its way. That is the way of purification. 12 This Marianist way of dealing with an obstacle in ministry is not to make strenuous efforts to move it, get rid of it, or avoid it; rather, we grow in virtue until we overflow it. 13 A lay ecclesial minister could think what that might mean for an obstacle one is currently facing. What or who is the obstacle? What kind of strength or virtue would, if it grew, have the capacity (that is to say, build within one the capacity) not to avoid or even precisely to overcome the obstacle but simply to overflow it? Hakenewerth gives six examples of the kinds of obstacles one might face and how to deal with each. These obstacles include having doubts and uncertainty, limits/weaknesses, inclinations to egoism, opposition/contrarieties, suggestions to quit, and temptations. 14 Other chapters of the book describe additional practices that could foster a Marianist spirituality within those who serve in lay ecclesial ministry. Conclusion In the postconciliar era, the church seemed to need a pause or a break from the intensity and at times excesses of its preconciliar Marian devotion. In our post-postconciliar era, and in response to the US bishops call to cultivate a Marian spirituality, let us realize and accept that the time has come again for a ready spirit of openness to this woman, the Mother of God, Mother of the church, our mother and sister. Whether as lay ecclesial ministers, formation directors, spiritual directors or formators, let us listen and learn from what she can say to us about loving and understanding her Son, trusting and following him without reserve, and serving him, his people, and his mission in the church and the world today. Bibliography Benedict XVI. Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia Offering Them His Christmas Greetings (December 22, 2005). Buby, Bertrand. Mary of Galilee, Volume 1: Mary in the New Testament. Staten Island, NY: Alba House, Mary of Galilee, Volume 2: Woman of Israel Daughter of Zion. Staten Island, NY: Alba House, Quentin Hakenewerth, A Manual of Marianist Spirituality (Dayton, OH: North American Center for Marianist Studies, 2000), Hakenewerth, Hakenewerth,

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83 Feminist Levine, Amy-Jill, ed., with Maria Mayo Robbins. A Feminist Companion to Mariology. London: T&T Clark International, Callahan, Sydney. Mary and the Challenges of the Feminist Movement. America 169, no. 20 (December 18, 1993): Conn, Joann Wolski. Dancing in the Dark: Women s Spirituality and Ministry. In Handbook of Spirituality for Ministers, Volume 1, edited by Robert J. Wicks, New York: Paulist Press, Johnson, Elizabeth A. Truly Our Sister: A Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints. New York: Continuum, Warner, Marina. Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary. New York: Knopf, Protestant/Ecumenical Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission, II. Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ (2004). vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/angl-comm-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_ _marygrace-hope-christ_en.html. Butler, Sara. The Anglican-Roman Catholic Agreed Statement: Mary, Grace and Hope in Christ. Ephemerides Liturgicae 55 (2005): Daley, Brian E. Woman of Many Names: Mary in Orthodox and Catholic Theology. Theological Studies 71 (2010): Perry, Tim. Mary for Evangelicals: Toward an Understanding of the Mother of Our Lord. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, Smith, Rachel Hostetter. The Trouble with Mary?: Considering the Person and Place of Mary in Christian Theology and Personal Devotion A Personal Essay. Christian Scholar s Review 37 (2008): Thurian, Max. Mary: Mother of All Christians. New York: Herder and Herder, Unterseher, Cody C. Mary in Contemporary Protestant Theological Discourse. Worship 81 (2007): Theological Reflection Aschenbrenner, George A. Consciousness Examen. Review for Religious 31 (1972): 14 21; also Gallagher, Timothy M. The Examen Prayer: Ignatian Wisdom for Our Lives Today. New York: Crossroad, Jesuits of the New Orleans Province. The Examen of Consciousness. Killen, Patricia O Connell, and John de Beer. The Art of Theological Reflection. New York: Crossroad,

84 Kinast, Robert L. Let Ministry Teach: A Guide to Theological Reflection. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, Making Faith-Sense: Theological Reflection in Daily Life. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, What Are They Saying About Theological Reflection? New York: Paulist Press, Whitehead, James D., and Evelyn Eaton Whitehead. Method in Ministry: Theological Reflection and Christian Ministry, Revised Edition. Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, A variety of other resources can be found at The Marian Page of The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute, University of Dayton, at 81

85 COLUMN : Catechesis and Faith Formation An Accidental Catechist Pre-Vatican II The Catechists by Armand D. Alcazar, F.S.C. I have never thought of myself as a catechist. As a typical Catholic baby-boomer, I was baptized as an infant. My formal faith formation was through the Sisters of Providence in grade school, followed by the De Lasalle Christian Brothers in high school. Faith formation was all around me, and those women and men who wore religious habits were the ones who were in charge of this catechizing. Of course, learning the catechism was one way I was formed. However, the relationship with the sisters, brothers, and priests in our very Catholic neighborhood was a less obvious but equally compelling piece of my Catholic formation. Speaking of being less aware of my Catholic formation, I should mention my home life. I lived within an extended family, and my grandmother was my religious mentor in the organic sense: she lived her faith. I saw her pray the rosary or from her prayer book; heard her speak positively and fondly; and experienced her love through her attention, warmth, and cooking every day. Her example of living life was also my faith formation. Naturally, all of the religious and priests, the more formal catechists, were themselves educated and formed within the faith. But some of them were quite young and sometimes experts in fields other than Religious Education. Regardless, nearly every nun and brother taught religion. The Catechumens As a child and young adult, I probably met less than a handful of people who were not baptized. Just about everyone in the neighborhood I grew up in was Catholic and just about all of the Catholic kids went to Catholic schools. For the one or two who did not attend Catholic school, there was CCD 1 on Wednesday afternoons. We all learned the basics about the Church and God through the recitation and memorization of the Baltimore Catechism. Since we, as Catholics, practiced infant baptism, the training was preparing not for baptism but for Eucharist, then for Confirmation, and, ultimately, salvation. In many regions of the United States, the Catholic school system was im- 1 The Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) organization was formed to provide the systematic presentation of the Catholic Faith in catechetical form to children, youth, and adults. Brother Armand is a De Lasalle Christian Brother and professor in the Theology Department at Lewis University in Romeoville, IL. His interests lie in spirituality, the Catholic intellectual tradition, and Lasallian themes. Each year he presents at the International Association of Lasallian Universities in Rome, Italy. 82

86 pressive. US Catholic school enrollment reached its peak during the early 1960s when there were more than 5.2 million students in almost thirteen thousand schools across the nation. 2 The Catechism The catechism was straightforward, secure, and sure. There was no gray area or wishy-washy waffling. The instruction was the instruction for everyone, no matter the circumstances. A typical lesson looked like this: Question: Who made us? Answer: God made us. Question: Why did God make us? Answer: God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven. The Baltimore Catechism had three parts, thirty-eight sub-categories, and 499 questions and answers in all. The catechism was taught in grade school religion class, and we were quizzed and even had contests to see who could stand up the longest answering correctly, much like a spelling bee. In high school we studied religion from the tried and true Living with Christ series from St. Mary s Press that was widely used by Catholic high schools throughout the country. There was one book for each year in high school. Basically, this was the catechism through story form. Again, we all knew what was required and were all taught the same material. What it meant to be Catholic was very clear. Then, along came the Council of Vatican II. National Events Influencing the U.S. Culture As noteworthy as the Council was, it was given credit or blame for huge shifts in the entire Catholic culture in the United States. But there were other events that moved the culture: the birth control pill was approved by the FDA; the Berlin Wall was built; Andy Warhol, the Beatles, Peter, Paul and Mary, Woodstock, and the musical Hair influenced the arts; we landed on the moon; JFK, Bobby Kennedy, and MLK were assassinated; we engaged in both the Vietnam War and mass draft protests; the civil rights bill was passed; and the sexual revolution was born. After Vatican II The Catechists Unaware of the exodus from religious life and the priesthood soon to come, Lumen Gentium acknowledged the laity: These faithful are by baptism made one body with Christ and are constituted among the People of God; they are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly functions of Christ; and they carry out for their own part the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the world. 3 When in grade school in the 50s and 60s, I had only three lay women as teachers: in second grade, Ms. Henley came into our classroom for spelling as our home teacher, Sr. Mary Pauline, S.P., went into Ms. Henley s class to teach religion. In third and sixth grade I had laywomen teachers, but a sister came into class to teach us religion. Similarly, while in high school, there were nearly forty De Lasalle Christian Brothers who each taught religion 2 Catholic School Data, National Catholic Education Association, 2010, 3 Lumen Gentium 32, cited in John W. O Malley, What Happened at Vatican II? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2008),

87 the first period of the day. In contrast, today Catholic elementary and secondary schools combined have a total of 3.3% of the faculty members who are nuns, brothers, or priests. The laity, the People of God, are now doing the catechizing, and many of them are degreed in theology, though not all. In some schools, religion is still taught by good Catholics, whereas positions in other disciplines require a degree. Nevertheless, the laity has responded to the call to step forward to help in the leadership of the Church. For example, in my own order, we went from a glut of vocations to the brotherhood in 1965 with ninety-one postulants in our district alone to zero entrants by By the mid-eighties other countries had begun with some leadership training sessions for the laity around the life of our founder, the patron of teachers, St. John Baptiste De Lasalle. Cautiously, perhaps skeptically, we in the United States began offering such programs by the late 80s. Much to our surprise, lay people poured in to learn of the history, educational principles, and spiritual life of our founder. These graduates went on not only to be teachers and catechists but also to be the leaders of our institutions as principals and presidents. These new vocations or new responses to old calls, quadrupled the numbers who joined the Brotherhood in the 1960s from nearly 20,000 Brothers world-wide to nearly 88,000 Lasallians worldwide today. The Catechumens How does one determine who is a Catholic? Because of its measurability, oftentimes Mass attendance seems to be the criteria for determining Catholicity. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) indicates that in 2012, 24% of Catholics self-identify as going to Mass weekly, whereas Mass attendance was at its height in the mid-50s at around 75% attendance. 4 In 1975, 3.5 million students attended Catholic schools in the United States. In 2012 that number became 2.1 million. During that same time period, the percent of non-catholics who attended Catholic schools went from 2.7% to 15.4%. From the year 2000 to 2012, enrollment in Catholic schools up through senior year decreased by 24%. 5 I show these statistics to point out that fewer and fewer Catholic youth are engaged in some type of formal religious education. My own classroom enrollment reflects the above statistics. In a typical class of twenty-five, fourteen might say they are Roman Catholic; four are from differing Protestant affiliations; three are from non-christian faiths such as Hinduism, Islam, Bahai, or Judaism; and four identify themselves as either agnostic or atheist. But these numbers don t tell the whole story. Of the fourteen or so who say they were baptized Catholic, only five say that they are practicing Catholics; the other nine neither attend Mass nor engage in any practices they would identify as Catholic. This seems to lend credence to the statistic that the second largest denomination in the United States is former Roman Catholic. Although the above numbers are anecdotal, Pew Research reports that over one third (34%) of those between the ages of are religiously unaffiliated. 6 Soul Searching is a study of the religious knowledge and spiritual practices of US teens. One of its conclusions is: The greater the supply of religiously grounded relationships, activities, programs, opportunities, and challenges available to teenagers, other things being equal, the more likely teenagers will be religiously engaged and invested. 7 Catholic teens scored very low in this study; so low that the authors dedicated an entire chapter to 4 Frequently Asked Church Statistics, Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, Georgetown.Edu., CARAServices/requestedchurchstats.html. 5 NCEA, The Pew Forum, Nones on the Rise, PewForum, Christian Smith and Melinda Denton, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenager (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005),

88 Catholic teens. One reason given for low Catholic scores was that simply put, the U.S. Catholic Church appears in its institutional infrastructure to invest fewer resources into youth ministry and education than do many other Christian traditions and denominations in the United States. 8 Finally, the study indicates that most teens have a difficult to impossible time explaining what it is that they believe. It seems that when the engagement and education of youth by their religious communities is weak, then the faith of teenagers in those traditions tends to degenerate into Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. 9 There is a lengthy description and listing about what entails Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. Basically, it is that a nice God created a nice world. If we re nice now, when we die we ll go to heaven, where it s very nice. Anecdotally, I find all of the above findings true. By and large the students that I have in my undergraduate classes admit to a lack of church attendance and a lack of formal religious education. I am recognizing that a good percentage of the new catechumenate are now in undergraduate Catholic universities. I began this article saying that I never considered myself a catechist. But now, after teaching for over forty years, I understand what our founder meant when he said, The Brothers are catechists by vocation. Many of the new catechumens are now college age. The Catechism The Catholic school system worked. Millions were educated to such an extent that their children and their children s children would require more than memorized answers to their questions about the great questions surrounding birth, death, love, conscience, sin, joy, forgiveness, and suffering. 10 Unless the faith relates to real life of the believer, there does not seem to be much tolerance, let alone interest, in today s believers. In the words of the Mission Congress of Bangkok in 1962, How can we speak about salvation to people who feel no real consciousness of a need for salvation? This congress shifted to a serious theological study of the relation of human conditions to the Gospel message. Gabriel Moran, a leading catechetical writer during Vatican II, put it another way: Catechists are and have to be concerned primarily with people. We start and end with people because that is where God is. 11 Before Vatican II, some described the catechism more as a litmus test for orthodoxy than a window into the heart of Jesus. On the one hand, familiarity with the catechism did not necessarily lead to a familiarity with Jesus. Catholics rarely invoked the name Jesus. As a participant observer at the Bishops Synod, Brother Alvaro Echeverria, F.S.C., Superior General of the De Lasalle Christian Brothers, offered this intervention: The New Evangelization for our youth and for those who accompany them must be a call to return to the Gospel and to discover that the central nucleus of our faith is a personal encounter with Jesus Christ which leads us to become a community of disciples. Our mission with regard to the young is that of being companions in the search, humble guides who help them to discover a journey and give meaning to their lives. Rather than masters who teach from on high or judges who judge or condemn from the outside, we are called to be brothers and sisters who accompany from within Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, Smith and Denton, Soul Searching, James Keenan, S.J., Moral Wisdom: Lessons and Texts from the Catholic Tradition (Lanham, MD: Sheed & Ward/ Rowman & Littlefield, 2010). 11 Brother H. Raphael Erler, F.S.C., Winds of Change: Saint Mary s Press from (Winona, MN: St. Mary s Press, 2010), Brother Alvaro Echeverria, Summary: Vatican Young People and the New Evangelization, LaSalle.Org The Lasallian Family Portal, 85

89 On the other hand, the catechism somehow seemed more alongside life without necessarily being a part of everyday living. Again, Brother Alvaro wrote: It is important to begin with life, so that the young will not lose interest in the Christian message because it has been presented to their intellect as an ideology imposed upon them in an authoritarian way or, inferentially, has originated from principles that have no relation to their real life. This is why our principal role is to help every young person feel loved, appreciated, blessed, important and necessary for others. 13 Vatican II moved us to want To Teach as Jesus Did, the title of the American Bishops Pastoral of If we are teaching the catechism meaningfully today, our students will echo the disciples on the road to Emmaus: Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us? Or, to quote the patron of teachers, St. John Baptist de Lasalle, To touch the hearts of your students is the greatest miracle you can perform. Perhaps, when any of us touch the hearts of students at any age, then, indeed, we are catechists Echeverria, Summary: Vatican. 14 Meditation Feast of St. Peter, in Meditations by John Baptist de La Salle, eds. Augustine Loes, F.S.C. and Francis Huether, F.S.C (Lasallian Publications, 2007), 86

90 The Church in the Modern World by John Christman, S.S.S. Imagine you re in Chicago, the third most populated city in the United States. Imagine you re in Chicago, with all of its diverse cultures and traditions. Imagine you re in Chicago, with its mixture of opulence and poverty. Imagine the sound of the blues weeping and swaggering out of Buddy Guy s Legends club. Imagine the Magnificent Mile covered in glowing red and green Christmas splendor under a soft dusting of fresh snow. Imagine the homeless man in a wheelchair, sitting on a corner across from the magisterial Art Institute of Chicago with his cardboard sign, and jingling coins in a plastic cup. Imagine the endless line of cars on the Dan Ryan Expressway vying for every inch of cement as they creep along at ten miles an hour. COLUMN: New Voices Now imagine you re on the CTA Green Line headed toward Cottage Grove. The rusted iron-grey wheels are clackclacking as ten different conversations in Spanish and English go on all around you. Up on the left you see St. James Church. The priest has to stop preaching when the train goes by. The whole church acts like a big reverberating amplifier to the train s whine and thump. Cold blue skies lurch overhead, blanketing everything in a lucid fervor. It s December 12 th, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mexico s white, red, and green are proudly displayed as a devout and heartfelt Las Mañanitas is sung to guitar and trumpet. The guy next to you on the train is checking the current Nasdaq numbers on his iphone. Pre-modern, Modern, Post-Modern, secular, sacred you re racing right through the midst of Chicago s confusion and splendor; The Church in the Modern World. 1 Or imagine you are in Badulla, Sri Lanka. Imagine Sri Lanka, with its dense and voluptuous fruit trees. Imagine Sri Lanka, with its staggering and awe inspiring gleaming white Buddhist stupas. Imagine Sri Lanka, with its innumerable military checkpoints and patrolling soldiers. Now imagine you are riding in a tri-shaw through Badulla. The bright colored buildings, which are open to the heat and rain, are covered with advertisements for Nescafé and Coca-Cola. 1 Theologian Richard McCarron commented on this painting, remarking on its pre-modern elements in addition to the modern and postmodern. As I consider this painting now, after painting the image and writing this accompanying text, I am reminded of an introductory chapter to a book on postcolonial theology that begins with a similar experience of diverse people riding on a subway in New York City. Cf. Introduction: Alien/nation, Liberation, and the Postcolonial Underground in Postcolonial Theologies: Divinity and Empire, ed. Catherine Keller, Michael Nausner, Mayra Rivera (St.Louis: Chalice Press, 2004), Fr. John Christman is an artist and a member of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament. He obtained his M.A. in Theology degree from Catholic Theological Union in The Chicago piece of his Church in the Modern World series is this issue s cover image. 87

91 The Church in the Modern World St. Mary Cathedral Badulla, Sri Lanka. Watercolor, Acrylic & Pencil on Paper, 15in x 11in. Dried fish and coconuts are piled in baskets ready to be sold. You zip past the Cathedral and its drab, yellow-ochre, weather beaten exterior. The sound of a Sinhala hymn drifts to your ears on a hot breeze. You catch a glimpse of a Buddhist monk in his saffron robe talking on his cell-phone. The lovely pink and red lotuses are in bloom, quietly attesting to the passing nature of all things and showing the way to enlightenment. You re riding in an emerald green tri-shaw, imported from India at a good price, and buzzing through it all; The Church in the Modern World. The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, or Gaudium et Spes, is a document that was promulgated by the Second Vatican Council. Its opening words, so farsighted and compassionate, still continue to inspire: The joys and hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men (and women) of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these too are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ (GS 1). For all of my love of church art and architecture, Gaudium et Spes showed me that the Church is also firmly rooted in the day-to-day experiences of people throughout the world. I used to paint images of churches. I was fascinated with their grandeur and the profound mysteries they attested to. I was on the outside looking in. After I read Gaudium et Spes, I remember riding on a train in Chicago. The lights, the colors, the sounds, and the people and their beautifully complex and complicated lives filled with joys and hopes griefs and anxieties all filled me with a new kind of wonder. The Church was here too. I was now on the inside looking out. But to say that the joys and hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these too are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ, (GS 1) is one thing. To see it, to actually experience it, is quite another. There is life in all its specificity: a trishaw driver making his living driving people through the streets of Badulla; a little girl sitting on a scrap of cardboard outside of Santa Cruz Church in Manila; the policemen working increased security outside St. Patrick s Cathedral in New York on Christmas Eve; a man riding a bicycle in China, hauling unruly piles of discarded cardboard. These lives are monumental. To see them; to reflect upon them (socially, politically, theologically); and to portray lives like theirs in their complexity, ambiguity, and most especially in their beauty is a theological act. It is a theological act rooted in the vision of Gaudium et Spes profound commitment to the dignity of the human person. The Church in the Modern World St. Joseph Cathedral Beijing, China. Oil on Canvas, 4ft x 3ft. 88

92 These paintings then attempt to make the complexity of our shared world visible, from the ivory tower to the homeless shelter. Gaudium et Spes, through the wide range of subjects it addressed, provided the foundation for such a willingness to attempt to see unencumbered the forces and influences at play in the world around us. It spotlighted realities both local and global. It looked intently both to the heart of the human person and to society as a whole. And through all of this it presented the conviction that the Church and the world are engaged in a relationship, a relationship that, through grace and discernment, can contribute to the betterment of both the Church and the world. 2 Fifty years later, the world has become even more cross-pressured, to use Charles Taylor s term. 3 Secularism, globalization, and technology affect our lives in ways that the council members may never have imagined. And in this milieu, images are becoming more and more the lingua franca. But in this seemingly endless torrent of images, people can easily be de-humanized or robbed of their visibility entirely. William Cavanaugh tells a powerful story about a group of religious protesters in Chile under the Pinochet regime who bravely came together in public spaces and directed attention to situations of torture. 4 He speaks of the transformative effect of their brief appearances: Suddenly the silence and invisibility under which the torture apparatus operates are shattered, interrupting its power. In an astonishing ritual transformation, clandestine torture centers are revealed to passersby for what they are, as if a veil covering the building were abruptly taken away. 5 He explains further, Victims are thus transformed into martyrs, and their names are spoke as a public witness against the powers of death. 6 In many ways, the situation Cavanaugh describes is far removed from the subjects of my paintings. But Cavanaugh s point about the transformative ability of making something visible is terribly important. To rescue from invisibility, this is a profound commission for artists. 7 The making visible of what is invisible (whether it is made so deliberately or has for some reason been obfuscated, overlooked, or forgotten) is something art can do with exceeding grace and effectiveness. Whether the invisible realities are spiritual, cultural, or political, their visual depiction can open transformative possibilities of redemption, healing, understanding, reconciliation, and transcendence. The Church in the Modern World series then shines a light upon local people and realities as they interact with ideas, powers, and perspectives from around the world. Each painting adds another perspective, another experience, and another layer of meaning. It is my hope that many of the themes of Gaudium et Spes can be seen in their lines, shapes, and splashes of color. I hope the paintings succeed in evoking some of the joys and hopes [and] griefs and anxieties of the people of the world as God s grace shines through the sometimes bewildering and sometimes delightful cacophony of it all. 2 Cf. Gaudium et Spes, Part I, Chapter IV. 3 Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), William Cavanaugh, Torture and the Eucharist (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), 275. Here Cavanaugh is speaking of The Sebastián Acevedo Movement against Torture. 5 Cavanaugh, Torture and the Eucharist, Cavanaugh, Torture and the Eucharist, In his own manner theologian Sigurd Bergmann positively speaks of this making visible the invisible as he writes of The Invisible Visualized an Apophatic Pictorial Interpretation of God the Liberator. Sigurd Bergmann, In the Beginning is the Icon: A Liberation Theology of Images, Visual Arts and Culture, trans. Anja K. Angelsen (London: Equinox Publishing, 2009), 130. In many ways his soteriological focus resonates with Cavanaugh s theological emphasis. Cf. Bergmann, In the Beginning is the Icon,

93 COLUMN : Signs of the Times Typewriter Redivivus in the Age of the ipad by Antonio D. Sison, C.PP.S Don t look now, but a particular kind of lo-tech has been making a comeback in the age of the ipad (or rather, the ipad Mini). It s the machine that was both boon and bane to writers and students who had found a mechanical ally that printed their ideas on paper but so did sans spell-check, word count, copy-and-paste, hyperlink, and other digital tools today s rather spoiled generation takes for granted. I m referring, of course, to the manual typewriter, that revolutionary writing machine that rapidly found a global market when, on June 23, 1868, Milwaukee-based inventor Charles Latham Sholes and his team acquired a patent for the first commercial typewriter. As a phenomenon, typewriter redivivus has been noted through, ironically, a virtual community of bloggers known as the typosphere. With a membership consisting of typewriter enthusiasts of varying nationalities, age groups, and socio-cultural backgrounds academics, students, artists, and aspiring writers, among others typospherians type their blog entries on one of their manual typewriters and then scan them for posting in what has come to be known as typecasting. Typecasting represents the marriage of analog and digital; it is not surprising that a typospherian might have both a 2013 Macbook Pro with Retina display and a 1952 Olivetti Studio 44 semi-standard typewriter (one of playwright Tennessee Williams favorites) on his or her work desk. Of late, over a hundred typewriter blogs have joined an omnibus site simply called Welcome to the Typosphere, which serves as the community s online headquarters. Evidently, other typewriter enthusiasts do not blog and have not been directly linked to the typosphere, but they are there. Easily the most famous among them is Hollywood star Tom Hanks, who has, on occasion, posted photos of himself typing on one of the machines from his reputedly sizable collection. In a more concrete, communitarian sense, typospherians also organize annual gatherings called typeins where participants bring their machine of choice and type in medley, usually in a public venue to encourage curious onlookers to participate. Related to this wave of interest is the continued presence of online merchants who sell typewriter paraphernalia, such as refurbished ink ribbons and vintage spools, and the survival of a few typewriter repair shops that continue to thrive though the zeitgeist warrants extinction. The media have noted the growth of this subculture, which has taken off mainly in the United States and, to some extent, in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Australia. Both local and national print media such as the New York Times, New York Magazine, L.A. Times, and Chicago Tribune have done feature stories on the typewriter revival; a fairly recent news video produced by CBS News bannered it as A Typewriter Renaissance. One question begs to be answered: is the typewriter renaissance merely a cultural anomaly born out of a group of retrophiles nostalgic attachment to a bygone era, or can it be viewed as writings on the wall in an age of breakneckspeed technological obsolescence and fragmentation that has precipitated from a digital world? Antonio D. Sison, C.PP.S. is a theologian, typewriter enthusiast, and co-editor of New Theology Review. 90

94 Typospherian Ryan Adney, an English teacher at Alhambra high school in central Phoenix, would undoubtedly answer the latter. In 2010, Adney launched The Classroom Typewriter Project, in which he seeks to have his young students do creative writing on typewriters for a sustained period and then determine its impact on their ability to focus, organize their thoughts, and write competently: The Classroom Typewriter Project is designed to get children to write without distraction. Computers have become distracting, annoying machines that can do everything poorly and nothing well. The typewriter is still the perfect machine for getting ideas neatly presented on paper. Moreover, the typewriter requires the author to be aware of GUMS (grammar, usage, mechanics, and spelling) because there is no talking paperclip to help. This is writing without a net. 1 The click-clack of typewriter keys in Ryan Adney s classroom helps kids spell right. Inarguably, writing without a net and using a single-use machine is the antithesis of what can be aptly described today as writing with the Net, in which students, or, more accurately, most of us, not only do online searches in-between writing but also check Facebook accounts, or watch viral videos on YouTube should the assignment at hand get too boring. Thus far, Adney s findings indicate that there were higher spelling assessment scores among those who have used typewriters; the same group also felt that there was greater value in the writing they had done, precisely because it required more focus and rigor. Moreover, the students were unanimous in saying that writing on a manual typewriter is fun. Another typospherian who believes in the value of the typewriter as a writing tool in the digital age is Richard Polt, current chair of the Philosophy department at the Jesuit-run Xavier University in Cincinnati. Acknowledged as the guru of the typosphere with his wide-ranging historical and technical knowledge of typewriters and with an astonishing 280-strong collection of museum-quality manual typewriters, Polt has recently volunteered to work as the typewriter guy for WordPlay, a non-profit writing and tutoring center dedicated to helping children find their voice through literacy and creative expression. Describing it as his dream job, Polt is responsible for the upkeep of several typewriters a few of which he donated himself that serve as the main writing tools for children at the center. On the WordPlay website, executive director Libby Hunter describes the typewriter s role in inspiring children to love writing: The kids love them, they are almost magnetic even the most reluctant writers are drawn to these relatively simple, elegant machines. The very basic, physical task of tapping out a story and not needing to hit the print button is somehow mesmerizing for our young writers. Two of our regular after-school kids even tote in their own personal typewriters every week, working on their stories and homework, offering to share their treasured possessions with fellow students, all motivated by that mechanical, tactile, simple process 1 Ryan Adney, About the Project in Magic Margin: The Classroom Typewriter Project (blog), 91

95 that is so un-computer age and yet so totally cool according to our students-in-theknow. 2 It s interesting to note that for both the Typewriter Classroom Project and WordPlay, it is the members of Generation Next, children who were born in the digital age, who are finding renewed relevance for typewriters; it is not nostalgia but the draw of a more engaged mode of writing that motivates these children to want to write using it. This mode of writing gives back to them, as human agents, some key functions in the writing process that had atrophied since digital technology had taken over. It is, as earlier described, writing without a net. Be that as it may, typewriter redivivus is not some misplaced romantic campaign to convince people to eschew digital technology and to wean them back to using manual typewriters. As mentioned previously, typospherians are comfortable with both hi-tech and lo-tech; there s no denying that they are grateful for the many opportunities and blessings that have come through advancements in digital technology. What the typewriter phenomenon does offer is a modest but meaningful signpost, one that reminds us that the fastest and most able runners in the blistering race to keep up with digital technology are not always the victors. Various spiritual practices teach us time and again that those who slow down, pay attention, and ponder are likely to have chosen the better portion. As theologians, teachers, and ministers, we hope we have learned that lesson well. At WordPlay, Cincinnati, kids find creative expression one key at a time. Photo credits: The Classroom Typewriter Project: WordPlay, Cincinnati: 2 Libby Hunter, The Typewriter Guy in WordPlay (October 21, 2012), See also Richard Polt s blog Writing Ball, 92