et Vetera Nova Summer 2017 • Volume 15, Number 3 The English Edition of the International Theological Journal Co-Editors Matthew Levering, Mundelein Seminary Thomas Joseph White, O.P., Dominican House of Studies Associate Editors Holly Taylor Coolman, Providence College Gilles Emery, O.P., University of Fribourg Paul Gondreau, Providence College Scott W. Hahn, Franciscan University of Steubenville Thomas S. Hibbs, Baylor University Reinhard Hütter, Catholic University of America Christopher Malloy, University of Dallas Bruce D. Marshall, Southern Methodist University Charles Morerod, O.P., Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg John O’Callaghan, University of Notre Dame Chad C. Pecknold, Catholic University of America Michael S. Sherwin, O.P., University of Fribourg Board of Advisors Anthony Akinwale, O.P., Dominican Institute, Ibadan, Nigeria Khaled Anatolios, University of Notre Dame Robert Barron, Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles, CA John Betz, University of Notre Dame Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P., Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Christopher O. Blum, Augustine Institute Stephen Brock, Pontifical University of the Holy Cross Peter Casarella, University of Notre Dame Romanus Cessario, O.P., St. John’s Seminary Boyd Taylor Coolman, Boston College Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, O.P., Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Douglas Farrow, McGill University Anthony Fisher, O.P., Archbishop of Sydney, Australia Simon Francis Gaine, O.P., Blackfriars, University of Oxford Timothy Gray, Augustine Institute Nicholas J. Healy, Jr., Pontifical John Paul II Institute (Washington, DC) Russell Hittinger, University of Tulsa Paige Hochschild, Mount St. Mary’s University Andrew Hofer, O.P., Dominican House of Studies Joseph Lienhard, S.J., Fordham University Steven A. Long, Ave Maria University Guy Mansini, O.S.B., Saint Meinrad School of Theology Francesca Aran Murphy, University of Notre Dame Thomas Osborne, University of St. Thomas (Houston) Michał Paluch, O.P., Instytut Thomistyczny (Warsaw, Poland) Trent Pomplun, Loyola University Maryland Christopher J. Ruddy, Catholic University of America Richard Schenk, O.P., University of Freiburg Michele Schumacher, University of Fribourg Janet Smith, Sacred Heart Major Seminary Christopher Thompson, St. Paul Seminary Thomas Weinandy, O.F.M. Cap., Dominican House of Studies William Wright, Duquesne University Instructions for Contributors 1. Address all contributions, books for review, and related correspondence to Matthew Levering, mjlevering@yahoo.com. 2. Contributions should be prepared to accord as closely as possible with the typographical conventions of Nova et Vetera. The University of Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition) is our authority on matters of style. 3. Nova et Vetera practices blind review. Submissions are evaluated anonymously by members of the editorial board and other scholars with appropriate expertise. Name, affiliation, and contact information should be included on a separate page apart from the submission. 4. Galley-proofs of articles are sent to contributors to be read and corrected and should be returned to the Editors within ten days of receipt. Corrections should be confined to typographical and factual errors. 5. Submission of a manuscript entails the author’s agreement (in the event his or her contribution is accepted for publication) to assign the copyright to Nova et Vetera. Nova et Vetera The English Edition of the International Theological Journal ISSN 1542-7315 Summer 2017 Vol. 15, No. 3 Symposium: In Honor of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s 90th Birthday Introduction: Benedict XVI and Conciliar Hermeneutics... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stephen M. Fields, S.J. On Relativism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918-2008) On the Fourfold Sense of Scripture in Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. On the Christology of Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joseph G. Mueller, S.J. On Ecclesiology.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918-2008) On the Augustinian Roots of The Spirit of the Liturgy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael C. McCarthy, S.J. On Nature and Grace in Deus Caritas Est. . . . . . . . . Stephen M. Fields, S.J. On Method, Nature and Grace in Caritas in Veritate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vincent L. Strand, S.J. On the Continuity of Caritas in Veritate.. . . . . . . . . . . Thomas Massaro, S.J. On Social Justice, the “Regensburg Address,” and Spe Salvi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert John Araujo, S.J. (1948-2015) On the Political Order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christopher M. Cullen, S.J. On Eschatology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peter F. Ryan, S.J. On the Intermediate State of the Soul. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Gavin, S.J. 705 729 745 759 779 795 817 835 853 871 885 901 925 Book Reviews Searching Her Own Mystery: Nostra Aetate, the Jewish People, and the Identity of the Church by Mark S. Kinzer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gavin D’Costa The Heart of the Diaconate: Communion with the Servant Mysteries of Christ by James Keating... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David W. Fagerberg The “Making of Men”: The Idea and Reality of Newman’s University in Oxford and Dublin by Paul Shrimpton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dermot Fenlon Reason, Morality, and Law: The Philosophy of John Finnis edited by John Keown and Robert P. George.. . . . . . . . . . . Raymond Hain God’s Love through the Spirit: The Holy Spirit in Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley by Kenneth M. Loyer.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Justus H. Hunter 941 946 949 952 958 To Build the City of God: Living as Catholics in a Secular Age by Brian M. McCall. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joshua Schulz Introduction to the Mystery of the Church by Benoît-Dominique de la Soujeole, O.P., translated by Michael J. Miller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lawrence J. Welch 961 968 The English edition of Nova et Vetera is published quarterly and provides an international forum for theological and philosophical studies from a Thomistic perspective. Founded in 1926 by future Cardinal Charles Journet in association with Jacques Maritain, Nova et Vetera is published in related, distinct French and English editions. The English edition of Nova et Vetera welcomes articles and book reviews in theology, philosophy, and biblical studies that address central contemporary debates and discussions. We seek to be “at the heart of the Church,” faithful to the Magisterium and the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, and devoted to the work of true dialogue, both ecumenically and across intellectual disciplines. Nova et Vetera (ISSN 1542-7315; ISBN 978-1-945125-58-4) is published quarterly by St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, 1468 Parkview Circle, Steubenville, OH 43952. Nova et Vetera is distributed to institutional subscribers for the St. Paul Center by the Catholic University of America Press. Institutional subscriptions, notifications of change of address, and inquiries concerning subscriptions, back issues, and missing copies should be sent to: JHUP Journals Division, PO Box 19966, Baltimore, MD 21211-0966. All materials published in Nova et Vetera are copyrighted by St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. © Copyright 2017 by St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. All rights reserved. POSTMASTER: Please send address change to Nova et Vetera, 1468 Parkview Circle, Steubenville, OH 43952. Periodical Postage Paid at Steubenville, OH. This periodical is indexed in the ATLA Catholic Periodical and Literature Index® (CPLI®), a product of the American Theological Library Association, 300 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 2100, Chicago, IL 60606, USA. Email: atla@atla.com, www.atla.com. Nova et Vetera Subscription Rates: • Individuals: one-year $40.00, two-year $75.00 International: one-year $60.00, two-year $115.00 • Students: one-year $30.00, two-year $50.00 International: one-year $40.00, two-year $70.00 • Colleges, Universities, Seminaries, and Institutions: one-year $110.00, one-year print + electronic subscription $150.00 International: one-year $135.00 To subscribe online, please visit http://www.nvjournal.net. For subscription inquiries, email us at novaetvetera@stpaulcenter.com or phone 740-264-9535. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2017): 705–727 705 Introduction: Benedict XVI and Conciliar Hermeneutics Stephen M. Fields, S.J., Georgetown University Washington, DC Guest Editor It is a privilege for us , the Jesuit scholars who have authored the articles of this special edition of Nova et Vetera (English) on the thought of Joseph Ratzinger / Benedict XVI, to present them as a tribute to His Holiness the Pope Emeritus on the occasion of completing his ninetieth year. We do so with loyalty and esteem, extending our grateful congratulations ad multos annos. I In displaying the range of Benedict’s thought, these studies offer commentary on what likely represents the chief achievement of his pontificate: adroitly guiding the reception of the Second Vatican Council, the golden jubilee of whose opening occurred during his incumbency.1 This achievement eminently suited the pontiff precisely because his priestly life, from its early days, was focused on realizing it. From November 1962, Joseph Ratzinger exercised an active role in the Council as a peritus. Moreover, he wrote extensively on it as professor in Bonn (1959–1963), Münster (1963–1966), Tübingen (1966–1969), and Regensburg (1969–1977). Further trained while he shepherded the Archdiocese of Munich (1977–82), his experienced voice, when speaking as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine Vatican II opened on October 11, 1962, and closed on December 8, 1965. Benedict served as pope from April 19, 2005, to February 28, 2013. 1 706 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. of the Faith, influenced St. John Paul II’s magisterial implementation of the Council’s teaching.2 In 2012, his substantial writings on Vatican II were gathered in his collected works.3 Our Jesuit authors cite a variety of these writings in both the original and English translation. In order to place their articles in context, we shall review important statements on conciliar hermeneutics with which Benedict framed his papacy, together with their origins, and also comment on the debate of which they are a part. II Benedict’s famous Christmas address to the Roman Curia given in his first papal year probes into why the Council has proven so difficult to put into effect. As an answer, it distinguishes between two hermeneutics: “‘discontinuity and rupture’” and “reform,” or “renewal in continuity.”4 The first splits asunder the pre- and post-conciliar periods, stressing that Vatican II’s “innovations alone” represent its “true spirit.” This spirit is essentially divorced from the letter of the conciliar texts, which are deemed compromises designed to settle disputes among various ecclesiastical factions. Adhering to what is distinctively new, the true spirit must therefore “go courageously beyond the texts” in order to fulfill Vatican II’s legacy, however “vaguely” it might be envisaged. We see something of this hermeneutic in Massimo Faggioli’s advocating “a non-originalist reception” of the Council that, understood primarily as an event, “unleashed” dynamic energy “for the transition to a new age of Catholicism.”5 John Paul II served as pope from October 16, 1978, to April 2, 2005. Joseph Ratzinger, Zur Lehre des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils: Formulierung-Vermittlung-Deutung, vol. 7 (in two parts) of his Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Gerhard Ludwig Müller, 13 vols. [16 vols. planned] (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 2011–2016). 4 Pope Benedict XVI, “Address to the Roman Curia Offering Them His Christmas Greetings,” December 22, 2005, Acta Apostolicae Sedis (hereafter, AAS) 98 (2006): 40–55, and also at, accessed April 23, 2017, http://w2.vatican. va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2005/december/documents/hf_ben_ xvi_spe_20051222_roman-curia.html. Unless noted otherwise, all citations of magisterial works come from the versions on the Vatican’s website (http:// w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html), 5 Massimo Faggioli, Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning (New York: Paulist Press, 2012), 137–38. The problem with this view is the same raised about a non-originalist interpretation of the US Constitution. Everyone has license to interpret the text as he wishes, including those in authority to enforce their view. This makes it a recipe for fascism, whether political or ecclesiastical. The same criticism applies to the intriguing hermeneutic of Peter Hünermann 2 3 Introduction: Benedict XVI and Conciliar Hermeneutics 707 By contrast, the second hermeneutic views the Council’s true spirit as tethered not only to the letter of the texts but also, first and foremost, to “the one subject” of the Council, the Church that, while developing, always remains the same. In no sense does authentic renewal discount the tension between continuity and discontinuity in the Council’s texts, but it does posit a subtle approach to reconciling it. In fidelity to the mission given Vatican II at its convening by Pope John XXIII, the Council endeavored to express “truth in a new way,” and this entailed adhering to “the teaching of the Church in its entirety” but expounding it through the methods “of modern thought.”6 Accordingly, Benedict associates continuity with principles lodged deep within the Church’s essential patrimony and discontinuity with the letter of the text. Because discontinuity can be ambiguous, Benedict, in explaining the hermeneutic of reform, advises that we carefully discern discontinuity in Vatican II. It may represent an innovation connected or not to a principle of the patrimony. If not connected, it may be purely contingent and dispensable when proven ineffective. If connected, the principle must be grasped, affirmed, and preserved within the innovative expression that seeks to make it appropriately intelligible to a particular historical situation. Although the letter of the text possesses a certain contingency, the principle that the letter articulates is “permanent.” It always remains within the deposit of faith “as an undercurrent, motivating decisions” about how the Church in various epochs should speak it in the text’s letter. The principle embodied in the letter must therefore not be obviated in the name of a “true spirit” that seeks “courageously” to go beyond the textual novelty. As an example, Benedict refers to the Declaration on Religious Freedom (DH), whose innovation does not erroneously derive from the relativist principle that humanity is incapable of knowing the truth about God, the self, and the world. that the Council’s set of documents functions like a government constitution. Both texts, mutatis mutandis, “facilitate the realization of the values . . . that lie behind the text.” In the case of Vatican II, these values embody “the biblical revelation that Jesus saves.” But who is to interpret the biblical revelation, and by what criteria? See Grant Kaplan, “Vatican II as a Constitutional Text of Faith,” Horizons 41 (2014): 23–38, at 35. 6 Benedict cites John XXIII, “Pope John’s Opening Speech to the Council,” trans. given by Vatican Press Office and Press Office of Vatican II in Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbott, S.J. (New York: Guild Press, 1966), 710–19, at 715. John served as Pope from October 28, 1958, to June 3, 1963. 708 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. Even more important, Benedict points out that discontinuity does not result only from creatively adapting principles to changing circumstances. It can embody an authentic development that “has actually preserved and deepened” the patrimony in ways previously not understood. Although he does not mention it, we might cite the example of the term homoousios (consubstantial) used by the Council of Nicea to define the relations in the Trinitarian God between the Father and the Son. Given the fragmented references to these relations in the Scriptures, Nicea harnessed a term not found in them precisely to express their inner coherence and underlying meaning. Although this term introduced a marked discontinuity, and to the Arians a heterodox one, it was warranted under the Council’s authority to conserve the deposit of faith. Accordingly, discontinuity can be paradoxical. It can posit a faithful interpretation of a principle even when it seems at odds with it and, in so doing, require an assent of faith. III In his parting address to the clergy of Rome delivered fourteen days before retiring as pope, Benedict gave a gloss on the Christmas address of seven years earlier. His remarks on the history and significance of Dei Verbum (DV) laid out more fully his understanding of Vatican II’s true spirit that, lying in the heart of the hermeneutic of reform, bonds the Council’s texts intimately to their “living subject,” the Church.7 Identifying DV as “one of the finest and most innovative [documents] of the entire Council,” the Pontiff underscores the dogmatic constitution’s reciprocity between the Church’s living Tradition and Sacred Scripture. Scripture, the divine word, emerges only from the Tradition, which nonetheless is subject to Scripture, even as Scripture requires the Church’s enlightened voice to “speak with all its authority.” The Church’s light is received from the Holy Spirit, sent by the Incarnate Son, even as Christ was sent by the Father. If the Church, by its divine mandate, gives Scripture “ultimate clarity,” then ecumenical councils, in their exercise of the Tradition’s magisterium, become supreme interpretive authorities of Scripture. Accordingly, the spirit of Vatican II is the spirit of the Tradition, whose principles are animated by the one Spirit who guides the Church “into all the truth” Benedict XVI, “Meeting with the Parish Priests and the Clergy of Rome,” Address of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, February 14, 2013, AAS 105 (2013): 283–94. 7 Introduction: Benedict XVI and Conciliar Hermeneutics 709 (John 16:13). Because these principles can be expressed only in words, even as God expresses himself in the one Word, the letter of conciliar texts is conjoined with them.8 The teaching of DV, which affirms the person of Christ as the object of divine revelation and the Church as its living subject, provides evidence for Benedict that Vatican II’s true spirit, the hermeneutic of renewal in continuity, is grounded in “faith seeking understanding.” It seeks “to find in the word of God a word for today and tomorrow.” Against it, however, works a “profane” hermeneutic of the secular media obsessed by power and politics. It depicts in the world’s imagination a “virtual Council” that at times seems stronger than the “real Council.” For its part, this virtual Vatican II feeds the hermeneutic of rupture by obviating faith and undermining confidence in the integrity of the letter of the conciliar texts, as the Pope noted in 2005.9 IV Benedict’s conciliar hermeneutic posits an analogous relation between Vatican II’s spirit and its letter, in contrast to the equivocal relation put forth by the hermeneutic of rupture. Analogy maintains a unity within the creative tension of two opposing elements, whereas equivocation entails an unreconciled dialectic between them. Aquinas reminds us, for instance, that soul and body, the matter and form of the human person, while qualitatively different as simple and complex principles, cohere in the harmonious functioning of the single substance (Summa theologiae I, q. 76). For this reason, Karl Rahner interprets them as analogous, not equivocal, and so, as joined into a union fundamentally congenial to both.10 By similarly framing the relation between letter and spirit, Benedict heals the rift caused by the hermeneutic of rupture, thus concurring with Avery Dulles that analogy is essential to Catholic theology.11 Gerald O’Collins, S.J., argues that the dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum takes precedence in interpreting the Council (The Second Vatican Council: Message and Meaning [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014], 141f.). 9 For other hermenetuics of Vatican II, see Étienne Fouilloux, “Histoire et événement: Vatican II,” Cristianesimo nella Storia [Cr St] 13 (1992): 515–38. 10 Karl Rahner, “Theology of the Symbol,” in Theological Studies, vol. 4, More Recent Writings, trans. Kevin Smyth (Baltimore, MD: Helicon, 1966), 221–52, at 231–33. 11 Avery Dulles, “Criteria of Catholic Theology,” Communio: International Catholic Review 22 (Summer 1995): 303–15, at 305–06 and 309–10. 8 710 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. More important, both thinkers concur with DV, which defines divine revelation as a dynamic system of interlocking analogies. As we have seen, Christ reveals the Father to the apostles by his words, works, symbolic acts, and miracles (§4). In faithfully handing on their meaning, the apostles, under the Spirit (§7), generate ecclesial Tradition, which develops the community’s understanding of Christ’s message. From this understanding emerges the New Testament (§8), which regulates Tradition and, in turn, is regulated by it (9). In short, the divine reality is historically mediated in an unfolding continuity that begins in Christ and flows into his words and acts, the apostles’ words and acts, and the Church’s Tradition, which gives birth to Scripture and its authoritative interpretation. Analogous unity-in-diversity constitutes the core of Christianity precisely because it constitutes the core of Christ, whose two natures subsist “without confusion” but also “without [hypostatic] separation.”12 Although grounded magisterially in DV, the roots of Benedict’s hermeneutic extend deeper into the most important theories of doctrinal development, those of Johann Adam Möhler (1796–1838) and John Henry Newman (1801–1890). Neither influence in the Pontiff should come as a surprise. On the one hand, Ratzinger notes that the ferment caused by the Tübingen School, of which Möhler was the recognized chief, bears much of the responsibility for DV.13 On the other hand, Benedict beatified Newman on September 19, 2010, in Birmingham’s Cofton Park during the first state visit of a Roman Pontiff to the United Kingdom. V Möhler’s creative notion that an “internal force” animates the Church should be underscored as having an impact on DV and Benedict. For “The Chalcedonian Decree,” in Christology of the Later Fathers, ed. Edward R. Hardy (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1954), 373–74, at 373. For a consideration of analogy as central to Vatican II’s doctrinal development, see Stephen M. Fields, Analogies of Transcendence: An Essay on Nature, Grace and Modernity (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2016), 243–52. 13 Joseph Ratzinger, “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Origin and Background,” in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, ed. Herbert Vorgimler, trans. Lalit Adolphus et al, 5 vols. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967–1969), 3:155–66 [originally “Dogmatische Konstitution über die göttliche Offenbarung,” in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. Josef Höfer et al, 3 vols. (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 1968), 2:498–583]. 12 Introduction: Benedict XVI and Conciliar Hermeneutics 711 the Tübinger, the ecclesial community constitutes a living consciousness that, perduring in time, develops dialectically by resolving the challenges presented to it by historical contingencies. Although the Church retains its substantial identity through the successive resolution of kerygmatic crises, its doctrines and institutions, which empirically manifest its identity, must necessarily be modified.14 The internal force, which harmonizes the dynamism of renewal in continuity, cannot be reduced to human self-consciousness, although our rationality is necessarily part of it. It is derived ultimately from the Trinitarian source of Christ’s Incarnation.15 “The Church is Christ acting and manifesting himself through the ages”; it is “his permanent incarnation,” in which the Son of God continues “to appear in human form.”16 Just as humanity is “won again to God” by the merits of the Paschal Christ, which remain undivided from the God-man, so the Church derives its inner life undivided from the Son and communicates this life undivided to the doctrines and institutions that historically emanate from it.17 Möhler’s ecclesiology thus reconciles the transcendent and the immanent, divine teleology and historical contingency, by a twin ontological participation. The organic life of the Church’s internal force is derived from Christ’s organic unity with God, whereas the Church’s doctrines and institutions that appear through the ages are Johann Adam Möhler, Gesammelte Schriften und Aufsätze, ed. Johann J. I. von Döllinger, 2 vols. (Regensburg: Manz, 1839–1840), 2:273–77; cited in Edmond Vermeil, Jean-Adam Möhler et l’école catholique de Tubingue (1815– 1840) (Paris: Librarie Armand Colin, 1913), 156. 15 See Johann Adam Möhler, Die Einheit in der Kirche oder das Prinzip des Katholizismus dargestellt in Geiste der Kirchenväter der drei ersten Jahrhunderte (Tübingen, 1825), ed. E. J. Vierneisel (Mainz: Matthias Grünewald, 1925), 24; cited in Gustav Voss, “Johann Adam Möhler and the Development of Dogma,” Theological Studies 4 (1943): 420–44, at 428. See also Joseph Fitzer, Moehler and Baur in Controversy, 1832–38: Romantic-Idealist Assessment of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation American Academy of Religion Studies in Religion 7 (Tallahassee, FL: American Academy of Religion, 1974), 19. 16 Johann Adam Möhler, Symbolik oder Darstellung der dogmatischen Gegensätze der Katholischen und Protestanten nach ihren öffenlichen Bekenntnisschriften, 4th ed., 2 vols. (Mainz: Kupferberg, 1835), 1:301, cited in Hervé Savon, Johann Adam Möhler:The Father of Modern Theology, trans. Charles McGrath (Glen Rock, NJ: Paulist Press, 1966), 95; Möhler, Symbolik (4th ed.), 1:335, cited in Vermeil, Jean-Adam Möhler, 95. 17 Johann Adam Möhler, Symbolism or Exposition of the Doctrinal Differences between Catholics and Protestants as Evidenced by Their Symbolical Writings, trans. James Burton Robertson, 3rd ed. (New York: Catholic Publication House, n.d.), 178; in Fitzer, Moehler and Baur, 41. 14 712 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. derived from, and reciprocally act on, the Church’s internal force. For its part, DV, as we have seen, adapts the internal force by stratifying it into dynamic analogies, and Benedict adapts it to fuse Vatican II’s letter to its spirit, precisely as this spirit embraces the permanent principles of the deposit of faith. Moreover, Möhler’s deepened analysis of the relation between discontinuity and continuity helps us better understand why Benedict places such importance on carefully discerning discontinuity in Vatican II. For the Tübinger, doctrines are eternally true, even as they are expressed in changing forms. Accordingly, they possess both an objective and a subjective sense. The first means that the Church, at its inception, receives the immutable divine revelation in its full truth.18 This truth, the source of all subsequently formed doctrines, necessarily must evolve because the Word of God lives perpetually “in the hearts of believers.”19 The second sense means that the Church is able to unfold the objective revelation. As its self-consciousness matures, the community of faith gains clearer and more distinct insights into the truth that it receives.20 The continuing immutability of these evolving insights is guaranteed by the Spirit, who cannot admit of contradiction.21 As new insights renew the primordial revelation that abides, the Church, using its authoritative organs, articulates as doctrines what it discerns to be authentic.22 The upshot is that, when subjectively framed, doctrines represent objective revelation; the inner truth of the divine message perdures.23 The difference between the language of the Gospels about God and the Nicene dogma mentioned above is, for Möhler, formal not substantial. The difference applies only to the conceptual formulation of the revelation.24 For both him and Benedict, therefore, vitally at stake in the interpretation of councils is the extent to which their Möhler, Einheit, 24, 325, cited in Voss, “Development,” 428, 430. Möhler, Symbolik, 9th ed. (Mainz: Kupferberg, 1884), 357; Möhler, Symbolism, trans. Robertson, 5th ed. (London: Thomas Baker, 1906), 279; cited in Voss, “Development,” 428. 20 Voss, “Development,” 429. 21 Möhler, Einheit, 24; in Voss, ”Development,” 428. 22 Möhler, Einheit, 33; in Voss, “Development,” 429. 23 Möhler, Einheit, 22; Symbolik (9th ed.), 369–71; Symbolism (5th ed.), 289–90; cited in Voss, “Development,” 430–31. 24 Möhler, Symbolik (9th ed.), 368; Symbolism (5th ed.), 288; in Voss, “Development,” 434. 18 19 Introduction: Benedict XVI and Conciliar Hermeneutics 713 subjective sense is related to the Church’s objective sense. At stake, to use Benedict’s words, is discerning in councils’ subjective sense (the letter of their texts) the “undercurrent” (permanent principles of the Tradition). The undercurrent “motivates decisions” about how the Church has adapted, and should continue to adapt, in history. VI With similarities to Möhler, Newman applies his own genius to doctrinal continuity within change by developing the likeness between the Church’s deepened knowledge and that of the individual.25 The human mind receives the impression of objects in the world through the senses. Although this impression comes from a single, whole, and integral object, the senses assimilate the impression as a system of complex and manifold relations.26 Initially, these are imbibed implicitly and lodged in the imagination and memory, “vast magazines,” says Newman, of “dormant, but present and excitable ideas” (11; “Theory of Developments in Religious Doctrine” given by page no. hereafter). Only with the passing of time and the gaining of experience is such implicit knowledge rendered explicit “by the activity of our reflective powers” (ibid.). When this rendering occurs, the consequences entailed in the original idea taken implicitly from the object become clear without, however, surpassing the content of the idea, which in fact “can never be said to be entirely exhausted” (16). Developing the simile, Newman posits that “theological dogmas are propositions expressive of the judgment” that the Church “receives of Revealed Truth” (10). Revelation constitutes a divine Idea given by Christ to the community of faith. Although absorbed whole and entire, its intrinsic principles are understood only as history progressively discloses how they “imply each other, as being parts of the one whole” (20). When framed as doctrines, these parts are not adding to the original idea, but rather only clarifying “that sacred impression which is prior to them, which acts as a regulating principle [of their explication], ever present” (19). Crucially, As Newman acknowledges, he had no direct knowledge of Möhler (Owen Chadwick, From Bossuet to Newman: The Idea of Doctrinal Development [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987], 111). 26 John Henry Cardinal Newman, “The Theory of Developments in Religious Doctrine” (Preached on the Purification, 1843), in Conscience, Consensus, and the Development of Doctrine: Revolutionary Texts by John Henry Cardinal Newman, with introduction and notes by James Gafney (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 6–29, at 17; this work will be cited in the text by page. 25 714 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. as a result, Newman, presaging Benedict, asserts that the words of conciliar texts “are not a mere letter which we handle by the rules of art at our own wills, but august tokens of most . . . adorable” elements of the ecclesial Tradition (19). We shall return to Newman after selectively surveying the extended debate that surrounds Benedict’s hermeneutic. This survey will demonstrate the enduring relevance of the renowned English convert’s theory, now in its one hundred and seventy-fourth year. VII The relevance of continuity and discontinuity in conciliar hermeneutics as proposed in both Newman and Benedict is disputed in Neil Ormerod’s appeal to Longeran’s work. These terms imply a dichotomy, whereas every shift in meaning, as from Scripture to the homoousion, entails “a leap in the ‘being of meaning’” in the schemes of meaning that constitute a tradition.27 But the analogous account that we have offered of these thinkers (and DV and Möhler) affirms understanding development as a dialectical shift in the meaning of revelation. “Analogous” applies, of course, to “being.” Because development does indeed represent such a shift, our thinkers caution that we carefully discern the reality in the appearance of discontinuity. In The Way to Nicea, Lonergan complements Newman’s theory by a detailed account of the structure of “human interiority” that renders analogous “the leap in the being of the meaning” of the primordial revelation given in history.28 Although “leap” sounds like discontinuity, it entails quite the opposite. At Nicea, the leap guarantees continuity by moving from Scripture’s descriptive, culturally conditioned language to the explanatory, transcultural meaning of faith-enlightened metaphysics. Precisely this same transition concerns our thinkers when their hermeneutics account for continuity, albeit in their own distinctive ways. The upshot is that continuity, however analogous, is irreducible in Catholicism and is therefore explanatory of it. It cannot be replaced by a hermeneutic “of the authenticity/unauthenticity” of the council’s developments, as Ormerod argues, because authenticity is necessarily a function of continuity.29 Neil Ormerod, “Vatican II—Continuity or Discontinuity? Toward an Ontology of Meaning,” Theological Studies 71 (2010): 609–36, at 632. 28 Bernard J. F. Lonergan, The Way to Nicea: The Dialectical Development of Trinitarian Theology (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1976); Ormerod, “Vatican II,” 626. 29 Ormerod, “Vatican II,” 634. 27 Introduction: Benedict XVI and Conciliar Hermeneutics 715 For his part, Richard John Neuhaus focuses the Pontiff ’s opposition on John O’Malley’s What Happened at Vatican II.30 He claims that O’Malley’s perspective, “dominantly sociological and psychological,” stresses the importance of grasping the Council’s spirit that “moved beyond the ‘status quo’” of Catholicism’s Tridentine model.31 Neuhaus finds O’Malley’s view of this spirit to be “wondrously malleable . . . to the spirit of the times.” As an illustration, he observes that, whereas O’Malley identifies aggiornamento, ressourcement, and doctrinal development as the Council’s dominant themes, still “the latter two are always in the service of the first.” For this reason, he interprets O’Malley’s claim that Vatican II represents primarily a “‘language-event’” as meaning that the Council’s “style is its substance, is its spirit.” Still, he does readily acknowledge O’Malley’s bringing home Vatican II’s difference “in the long history of church councils.” This difference, Neuhaus contends, is crystallized in a series of polarities that show the true colors of O’Malley’s “hermeneutics of rupture.” Among these, O’Malley lists commands/ invitations, laws/ideals, definition/mystery, threats/persuasion, coercion/conscience, and vertical/horizontal. By contrast, Joseph Komonchak offers a nuanced reading of Benedict’s hermeneutic consistent with the account that we have presented. He notes, for instance, that Benedict’s Christmas address does not posit a sharp dichotomy: discontinuity does not necessarily entail rupture, and reform “acknowledges some important discontinuities.”32 Importantly, he observes that continuity can be examined from various perspectives: doctrinal, theological, and sociological or historical. Doctrinally, it recovers, for instance, episcopal collegiality and the priesthood of the baptized, previously displaced or neglected.33 Theologically, it bears the fruit of nineteenth- and twentieth-century renewals, as in Thomism, liturgy, and patristic studies (336). Nonetheless, historically, as an “event” extending beyond debates about its spirit and letter, the Council surely represents a break in the outlook John W. O’Malley, What Happened at Vatican II (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). 31 Richard John Neuhaus, “What Really Happened at Vatican II,” First Things (October 2008), accessed April 23, 2017, www.firstthings.com/article/2008/10/001-what-really-happened-at-vatican-ii; all citations of this piece by Neuhaus come from this source. 32 Joseph A. Komonchak, “Benedict XVI and the Interpretation of Vatican II,” Cr St 28 (2007): 323–37, at 335; this work will be cited in the text by page. 33 Ibid. 30 716 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. and practice of many Catholics when viewed against the short- and longer-term preceding it.34 Komonchak’s comments enable us to give a critique of both O’Malley and Neuhaus’s response to O’Malley.35 If Neuhaus is correct that, from a doctrinal and theological perspective, O’Malley gives short shrift to the hermeneutic that accounts for the perduring truth of divine revelation, still Neuhaus too quickly accuses O’Malley of the hermeneutic of rupture. We could well argue that both of the polarities in the pairs that O’Malley mentions are embodied within the ecclesial tradition and that, when Vatican II emphasizes one pole at the expense of the other, the Council is simply recovering it for the sake of achieving balance in the tradition. Möhler reminds us, for instance, that, under pressure from forces hostile to the Church, one of its constituent elements may assume a disproportionate importance and subsequently require a curtailment.36 Indeed, in another source, O’Malley, implicitly echoing Newman’s famous adage that “to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often,” affirms that, “for believing Christians, a total shift of paradigm is by definition impossible.”37 He thus, in principle, accepts Benedict’s hermeneutic. Still, he emphasizes, Vatican II did induce a shift in some basic ecclesial assumptions that dislodged older, settled ones. In so doing, the Council bears a kinship with only two previous events in Church history: the eleventh-century Gregorian reform and the sixteenth-century Reformation. O’Malley identifies the Council’s shift with John XXIII’s definition of aggiornamento as “religion had to change to meet ‘the needs of Ibid., 336. For more, see Martin Madar, “An Alternative Middle Position: The Contribution of Joseph A. Komonchak to the Hermeneutics of Vatican II,” Cr St 36 (2015): 643–69, accessed April 23, 2014, www.exhibit.xavier.edu/cgi/ viewcontent.cgi?article=1193&context=theology_faculty. 35 Komonchak also argues that the Bologna Institute’s work of interpreting the history of Vatican II falls within Benedict’s hermeneutic of reform (“Benedict XVI,” 324–25, 336–37). 36 Möhler, Gesammelte Schriften, 2: 273–77; in Vermeil, Jean-Adam Möhler, 156. 37 John Henry Cardinal Newman, Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, in Conscience, Consensus, and the Development of Doctrine, 38–385, at 75; John W. O’Malley, S.J., “Developments, Reforms, and Two Great Reformations: Towards a Historical Assessment of Vatican II,” Theological Studies 44 (1983): 373–406, accessed April 23, 2017, www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/offices/ mission/pdf1/c7.pdf; all citations of this work by O’Malley come from this last source. 34 Introduction: Benedict XVI and Conciliar Hermeneutics 717 the times.’”38 Such a definition represents “an awareness more radical than ever before in the history of the Church,” and it is reflected in the polar pairs previously mentioned. It is not surprising, he thus argues, as precursory to Benedict’s addresses, that Vatican II should have “evoked a crisis.” This is partially due to a certain clericalism (my word): on the one hand, the laity had been ill-prepared to receive the Council’s message, while, on the other hand, some of what was done in its name, like the liturgical reform, was “autocratic,” thus defying the Council’s “conciliatory language.” With deference to Benedict’s addresses, these discontinuities, although more sociological than doctrinal or theological, cannot be blamed on a profane secular media. However much we may heartily embrace the hermeneutic of renewal in continuity, therefore, we cannot avoid O’Malley’s definition of the central issue lodged in it. In accepting “historical consciousness,” albeit from nuanced moderates like Möhler and Newman, the Council admits “contingency on a large scale.” Although historical (or sociological) discontinuity does not entail dogmatic and theological discontinuity, it does significantly complicate interpreting the Council. If we agree that the Council worked under a hermeneutic of doctrinal and theological reform, still it was released into a world sociologically entering the throes of its own hermeneutic of rupture. We need continually to inquire into what extent this secular hermeneutic holds the sacred one hostage.39 For instance, although Prudence Allen and Judith O’Brien admirably show the continuity in the Council’s advocacy of the reform of religious life, we must still admit that its call for institutes to reappropriate the charism of their founder has been answered by the withering decline of many.40 This historical fact may well indicate that a herme “The needs of the times” is an alternate translation of John XXIII’s words quoted by Benedict, cited in note 6 above. See the translation of Benedict’s Christmas address in Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition, ed. Matthew L. Lamb and Matthew Levering (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), ix–xv, at xi, citing S. Oec. Conc. Vat. II, Constititiones Decreta Declarationes (1974), 863–65. 39 Tracey Rowland deals with this scenario in the liturgy (“Joseph Ratzinger and the Hermeneutic of Continuity,” in The Hermeneutics of Tradition: Explorations and Examinations, ed. Craig Hovey and Cyrus P. Olsen [Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2014], 193–225). 40 M. Prudence Allen, RSM, and M. Judith O’Brien, RSM, “The Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of Religious Life, Perfectae Caritatis,” in Lamb and Levering, Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition, 251–70. The essays in this volume 38 718 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. neutic of rupture, whether profane and/or theological in its origins, has tended to secularize the renewal.41 Fidelity to Benedict’s hermeneutic of reform requires us to discern in the specific letter of Vatican II’s texts what is contingent (doctrine’s subjective sense) and what is permanent (its objective sense). Among recent efforts contributing to this project, Gerald O’Collins offers as a rule the analogous relation between “retrieval” and “aggiornamento.” If aggiornamento denotes adaptation to historical contingency, retrieval denotes recovering overlooked or neglected sources in the Tradition. Renewal results when those sources guide the Church’s decisions about “what should be changed and what should be introduced as pastorally desirable.”42 He thus specifies how doctrine’s subjective sense (aggiornamento) and objective sense (retrieval) correlate in conciliar hermeneutics (renewal). As a first example, he notes that Sacrosanctum Concilium, in order to give the sacred rites “new vigor” (SC, §4), reintroduced the third-century eucharistic prayer of Hippolytus and the ancient Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.43 But then arises the more complex question of whether DH represents a development of doctrine or a reversal of it when contrasted with Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors.44 On the one hand, O’Collins locates aggiornamento in DH’s intention to address the facts of contemporary social practice and governmental organization that make religious liberty desirable, even compelling. On the other hand, he locates retrieval in two of its claims: our understanding of the person’s dignity has become clearer as human reason has developed; and our understanding of the scripfocus on the doctrinal and theological continuity of each of the conciliar texts. In the main, they do not deal with the discontinuity that the texts either contain or generate. For the Decree, see Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (hereafter, DEC), ed. Norman P. Tanner, S.J., 2 vols. (London: Sheed and Ward, 1990), 2: 939–47. 41 It could, of course, indicate that, in recovering the charism of their founder, some religious institutes faced obsolescence when they discovered how conditioned by a particular period in history their charism was. 42 O’Collins, Second Vatican Council, 25–56 (ch. 2: “Does the Second Vatican Council Represent Continuity or Discontinuity?”), at 30. 43 Ibid., 27, 30. Doubt has lately been cast on the authenticity of the Apostolic Tradition as owing to Hippolytus (see Paul F. Bradshaw, “Liturgy in the Absence of Hippolytus,” The Kavanaugh Lecture,Yale Divinity School, October 10, 2002, accessed April 23, 2017, http://ism.yale.edu/sites/default/files/ files/Liturgy%20in%20the%20Absence%20of%20Hippolytus.pdf). 44 Pius IX, Syllabus attached to Quanta Cura (December 8, 1864), Acta Sanctae Sedis 3 (1867): 168–76, accessed April 23, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/ pius-ix/la/documents/encyclica-quanta-cura-8-decembris-1864.html. Introduction: Benedict XVI and Conciliar Hermeneutics 719 tural roots of religious liberty has become clearer as divine revelation has developed. Accordingly, the Council’s renewal, in more deeply retrieving the Scriptures in light of new circumstances and intellectual expansion, “can correct distorted and false traditions,” just as Möhler avers.45 The application of O’Collins’s analogical rule to religious liberty brings home forcefully why the Council evoked a crisis. If Vatican II’s acceptance of historical consciousness means that both the subjective and the objective senses of doctrine develop to produce renewal, then what remains as the guarantor of the truth of divine revelation? Does contingency speak the final word? Can we be sure that what is taught in one era will not obliquely or conversely develop in another? Ironically, it might seem that Newman’s theory, so influential in both the Council and Benedict, has strengthened the liberalism in religion that the English Cardinal spent his life opposing. By it, he means the relativism that sees our private judgments as sufficient arbiters of dogmatic and moral truth.46 To respond to these issues, let us delve more deeply into his theory. VIII Newman, like Benedict, shows sophistication in the task of interpreting what the Church declares as authoritative. No evidence exist, he readily acknowledges, to demonstrate with apodictic necessity that whatever doctrines are proclaimed do in fact authentically interpret revelation.47 In other words, although doctrinal development infers implications from the primordially received revelation, it is not the deductive proof of a geometric theorem. Nonetheless, as he says, if we first give our assent in faith to the infallible teaching charism of the Church, then our subsequent assent to the truth that it enunciates is grounded in a “certitude.” For Newman, this state of mind explains why our moral and religious convictions can be indefectible even when they are not subject to falsification under the principle of non-contradiction.48 O’Collins, Second Vatican Council, 36–39. For more, see Note A, “Liberalism,” that Newman appends to the 1865 edition of his Apologia pro Vita Sua, published in David J. DeLaura’s edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968), 216–25. 47 Newman, Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 104–05; this work will be cited in the text by page. 48 See: John Henry Cardinal Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970), ch. 7; Newman, Apologia (New York: Doubleday, 1989), 139–41). 45 46 720 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. By appealing to the Church’s infallibility, Newman is not, however, advocating a fundamentalist faith disconnected from argument and evidence. On the contrary, our moral and religious beliefs do admit of reasonable, if not rationally absolute, warrant and defense. Infallibility itself, for instance, is grounded in what Newman calls “antecedent probability.” This rule of logic means that the assent given to a particular proposition is based on the prior probability of other propositions from which it is inferred. Thus, if we first accept that God is infinite truth and goodness, that humanity has radically alienated itself from God, and that God would therefore likely act in history to overcome our sinful condition, then it is likely further to follow that God would have established an institution in history to perpetuate his saving truth free from error—an infallible Church (101–13; Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine given by page no. hereafter).49 Newman uses antecedent probability to provide empirical evidence to support the doctrines that the Church teaches under its divine mandate to safeguard the Tradition. If authentic, the later developments of a doctrine corroborate the previous trends that lead up to it. In other words, it is reasonable to believe that the doctrine’s antecedent tendencies contain its subsequent development in posse, as seminally embedded in the primordially revealed Idea (124). Understood in light of this criterion, the Nicene doctrine of consubstantiality, for example, not only recapitulates the message of the New Testament but also interprets the full authority of its meaning. Newman expands this criterion into seven “notes” that allow us to distinguish a doctrine’s authentic development from its corruption. Two of these shed light on Benedict’s hermeneutic. The first, “continuity of principles,” posits that developments ensue from a doctrine even as a doctrine embodies a principle. A development, therefore, must be faithful to both doctrine and principle. Principles tend to be “abstract and general,” and hence, opines Newman, the doctrines of Protestantism “develop” as it ramifies into different sects and denominations (180). But these doctrines themselves bear the false principle of private judgment that is opposed to the Catholic principle of Scripture’s intrinsic relation to Tradition (182). For his part, Benedict, deferring to this note of Newman’s, cautions us not to infer from Vatican II’s textual innovation a corrup See also Newman, Apologia, 319f. 49 Introduction: Benedict XVI and Conciliar Hermeneutics 721 tion that is discontinuous with an antecedent doctrine and principle of Tradition from which the innovation has developed. As we have seen, on this point, he mentions religious freedom in particular. The second “note” from Newman, “conservative action upon its past,” means that a new development both illustrates and corroborates the principle, doctrine, and previous developments from which it springs (196). To be sure, a development can represent a “real and perceptible” change, but it nonetheless protects “what was before” in such a way that, without the development, the Church’s patrimony would not be so well supported, articulated, and understood (198, 363). It may be that developments “appear at first sight to contradict that out of which they grew,” yet sober reflection shows them otherwise (365). Deferring to this note of Newman’s, Benedict cautions us that what appears in Vatican II as discontinuity may well represent the deepest of continuity. On this point, important distinctions need to be made, depending on the level of authority with which interpretations of Scripture are enunciated in the Tradition. The Nicene homoousios, for example, although appearing to many as discontinuous with Scripture, represents a dogma of the faith explicitly defined by an ecumenical council as supreme interpreter. The letter of its text is therefore not subject to replacement, although the dogma can develop within its fixed expression, as it did at Chalcedon one and hundred twenty-six years later. By contrast, Vatican II’s teaching on religious liberty is discontinuous with the Syllabus in both its letter and content (its subjective and objective senses). Because the Syllabus was an appendix to a papal encyclical and, as such, belongs to the ordinary magisterium, it might be argued that its authority is superseded by an ecumenical council. If so, this claim does not mean that Pius IX misinterpreted Scripture, only that, because Scripture is incomplete, it requires continuing interpretation. As Newman reminds us, “Great questions exit in the subject matter of which Scripture treats which Scripture does not solve” (89). Hence, Pius’s understanding of Scripture, together with his expression of that understanding, is subject to development by appropriate authority.50 See the penetrating analysis of Basile Valuet: “The discontinuity between Vatican II and Pius IX stems from the fact that the right to religious freedom [in Dignitatis Humanae] is not the ‘freedom of conscience’ condemned in the 19th century: it did not have either the same foundation, or the same object. . . . So it will always remain true that the liberalism condemned by Pius IX was condemnable”; but because Dignitatis Humanae is addressing a changed set of 50 722 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. Nonetheless, it is not unfair to say that, when magisterial discontinuities arise as the Church develops its understanding of Scripture in light of Tradition, our arguments for doctrinal continuity feel the most stretched. In light of Vatican II’s acceptance of historical consciousness, this stretching will likely give us some continuing stress. It may well be, as Bruce Marshall claims, that the Council, coming when it did, permitted the Church, whose capital was sufficiently rich, to undertake “a sweeping pastoral ‘update.’”51 But then, as Ross Douthat also observes, even after the thirty-five years during which Benedict and his predecessor emphasized the hermeneutic of reform, continuity’s “victories were not as permanent as [many] supposed” and “the future of Catholicism is still deeply contested.”52 If we hold that the future belongs to Benedict’s hermeneutic because it embodies the past of Möhler and Newman that made Vatican II possible, then the present task requires us to probe its implications and clarify its nuances. Intending this purpose, we shall now introduce the articles of this special edition. They offer us prime seats from which to view the drama of living tensions: not only between continuity and discontinuity in conciliar Catholicism, but also between Christianity and secular modes of meaning, between the earlier and later Benedict, and between critically sympathetic interpreters of one of the most original religious intellects of our time. IX As an opening, Cardinal Dulles puts Benedict’s analysis of relativism in center stage. Serving to remind us of Newman’s diagnosis of it as the nemesis of revealed religion, Dulles’s essay provides insight into the context in which the Pontiff ’s hermeneutic of reform must be both circumstances, the natural law, while continuing to be valid, “no longer applies in the same way” (“Religious Freedom. Was the Church Also Right When It Condemned It?” accessed April 23, 2017, http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/ articolo/1348041?eng=y; citing his Le droit à la liberté religieuse dans la Tradition de l’Église [Le Barroux: Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine, 2011], 676. 51 Bruce D. Marshall, “Reckoning with Modernity: Why Vatican II was a Necessary Council at Just the Right Time,” First Things (December 2015), accessed April 23, 2017, www.firstthings.com/article/2015/12/reckoning-with-modernity. 52 Ross Douthat, “A Crisis of Conservative Catholicism: Ross Douthat Delivers the 2015 Erasmus Lecture,” First Things (January 2015), accessed April 23, www.firstthings.com/article/2016/01/a-crisis-of-conservative-catholicism (emphasis removed). Introduction: Benedict XVI and Conciliar Hermeneutics 723 framed and implemented. Benedict confronts a wide range of thinkers—from Kant and Nietzsche to Troeltsch and Loisy, and Knitter and Boff—to show the variations on relativism’s central theme: reason’s incapacity to know universal truth that reduces freedom to individual choice. The Pope finds relativism particularly inimical to Vatican II because it leads to an emphasis on religious dialogue over against the forthright proclamation of Christianity’s saving Gospel. Dulles concludes by suggesting that Benedict’s reflections would be strengthened by developing, as the Council did, the distinction between relativism and salutary diversity. Focusing on the first volume of Jesus of Nazareth ( JN), two essays appear next that deal with Benedict’s innovative approach to interpreting the written word of God. JN applies the principles of Vatican II in order to compensate, as the Pontiff avers, for an exaggerated emphasis on historical criticism in post-conciliar exegesis. In so doing, Benedict develops an “ecclesial hermeneutics” that takes into account the reciprocity between Scripture and Tradition as DV defines it. If Scripture emerges from the community of faith that in turn authoritatively regulates it, then the Bible should be illuminated by that community’s normative teachings. In the first of the two essays, Joseph Koterski sensitively analyzes how the four senses of Scripture, a practice lodged in the Church’s ancient patrimony, richly nourish the Pope’s meditations. Simultaneously present in the literal sense of the words of the inspired text, the three spiritual senses consist of the allegorical, moral, and eschatological. Koterski’s study offers the additional benefit of helping us better to understand the comprehensiveness of Benedict’s notion of reform. In explicating the relation of spirit to letter in the New Testament, it encourages us to draw comparisons and contrasts with the same relation in his conciliar hermeneutic of renewal in continuity. In the second essay, Joseph Mueller adeptly shows that ecclesial hermeneutics provides Benedict with the key to interpreting the core of the New Testament’s vision of Jesus, his unique relation to the Father. In explicating this vision, the Pope must reconcile the Jesus of history, who is the basis of the Gospels, and the historically transcendent God, who is Jesus’s inner reality. It is only the Church’s dogmatic Tradition, the Incarnate Word homoousios with the Father proclaimed at Nicea and Chalcedon, that synthesizes finite and infinite and thus allows us in time and space to foster a personal relation with the universally saving Christ. Both articles attend to the 724 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. wealth of Scriptural detail that makes JN so deeply inspiring to read. Cardinal Dulles, in his second contribution, engagingly traces the development of Benedict’s ecclesiology from the more youthful Joseph Ratzinger’s eagerness for reform through its post-conciliar maturation. Dulles contends that deepened experience enabled Benedict to hold aspects of the Tradition in creative polarity. Initially, for instance, preferring the image of “People of God” over against “Mystical Body of Christ,” he came to stress “sacrament of communion” as embodying the best of both. Similarly, although concerned not to compromise the individual bishop’s exercise of his charism within his diocese by aggrandized episcopal conferences and synods, he does assign priority to the universal Church over the local community. Michael McCarthy’s erudite study examines Benedict’s retrieval of the great Father of the West in his seminal study of The Spirit of the Liturgy (SL). Two theological symmetries between the Pope and Augustine underscore that spirit’s Christological and eschatological import. “Sabbath” denotes that our public praise of God should anticipate and participate in the divine rest after creating that constitutes the goal and destiny of the groaning cosmos. “Sacrifice” denotes that, in liturgy, our surrender to God does not mean destruction, but rather transformation into the very Mystery both lauded and imbibed. McCarthy’s moving exegesis of these themes in Augustine’s Exposition on the Psalms and other works shows how the Pontiff draws deeply from the tradition to inform his contemporary vision of reforming Christian worship. Benedict’s three encyclicals generate some contention in the subsequent four articles. The first two tease out of Deus Caritas Est (DCE) and Caritas in Veritate (CV) the Pope’s implicit understanding of the relation of nature and grace. Stephen Fields responds to Tissa Balasuriya’s throughgoing critique of DCE by showing that the encyclical’s reciprocal treatment of charity and justice is owing to the Pontiff ’s firm roots in John’s Gospel, together with his retrieval of Augustine’s view of original sin and Aquinas’s treatment of the virtues. Especially renewing, Fields contends, is Benedict’s weaving of these sources into an analogy of nature capable of grounding the dialogue of Catholic social thought with “the signs of the times.” For his part, Vincent Strand argues that CV favors Communio scholars like David Schindler in the debate with neoconservative “Whig Thomists” like John Courtney Murray over the putative neutrality of democratic capital- Introduction: Benedict XVI and Conciliar Hermeneutics 725 ism to Christian revelation. CV thus introduces an innovative discontinuity into the tradition of social encyclicals. For Benedict, because economic activity concerns “integral human development,” it cannot be separated from the Christian view of the person. Noting in this union the influence in CV of Henri de Lubac’s model of nature and grace, Strand disagrees with Fields. Although both align DCE with de Lubac’s model, Fields nonetheless reads Benedict as preserving a more robust concept of nature than Strand finds in CV. Entering this vigorous exchange, Thomas Massaro, in contrast to Strand, stresses the continuity of CV with the core principles of Catholic social thought since its modern inception in Rerum Novarum (RN). These include its emphasis on the common good and the exigent duty of public authority to intervene in the private sphere to guard this good. Although also marked by continuity, Benedict’s concern for the protection of the environment does offer a fresh perspective by developing its important role in promoting world peace. Moreover, Massaro notes that, whereas CV deals again with the reciprocity between charity and justice discussed in DCE, it supplements DCE’s seemingly abbreviated treatment of justice. On this point, he disputes Fields, for whom DCE’s account of justice constitutes perhaps its strongest contribution. Robert Araujo draws some surprising conclusions in speculating about how Benedict would define social justice. Although Massaro underscores CV’s legitimation of public authority’s intervention to promote the common good, Araujo contends that Benedict would be highly wary of state-sponsored solutions to social injustice. He warrants this claim by reading the “Regensburg Address” (RA) and Spe Salvi (SS) in light of the tradition since RN. Whereas these sources insist upon each person’s duty to bring about the common good, they also emphasize that moral agency demands the discipline of virtue. It follows that social justice is intimately tied to education of the mind in the true and the will in the good. In further follows that, at root, a renewal of social justice concerns the right ordering of persons rather than the imposition of new bureaucracies. This renewal, Araujo reminds us, stands in full continuity with the Tradition’s principle of subsidiarity. Christopher Cullen, in dealing with Benedict’s views on the Church and the political order, provokes us to give deeper thought to Strand’s thesis that the Pontiff favors the Communio school over the Whig Thomists. Surveying Benedict’s writings from 1980 through 726 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. the 2010 address in Westminster Hall, Cullen concludes that the Pope has consistently carved out a position giving him common ground with both. Still, we should note that the Pope does separate himself from Thomists in his frank admission that “the victory of the theory of evolution” has impaired the Church’s ability to appeal to the natural law as the foundation of ethics.53 Nonetheless, as Cullen makes clear, Benedict does not mitigate the Church’s public role in civil society: robustly to preach the Gospel; to leaven the state as a promoter of freedom, human dignity, and morality; and to mediate transcendence and charity. Cullen leads us to wonder how this task can be done without the natural law, which the tradition uses as the bridge for dialogue between the sacred and profane realms. Similarly, he leads us to wonder whether CV represents the later Benedict’s discontinuity with himself. Has he now decisively embraced the Communio position? If so, then we might also wonder how, and even whether, the Pontiff would apply his hermeneutic of renewal in continuity to the Church’s engagement with broader cultures of meaning. Ending the collection with, appropriately, “the four last things,” two essays make clear that Benedict’s interest in eschatology extends beyond its liturgical implications explored by McCarthy. Peter Ryan considers why, for the Pope, this theme lies in theology’s heart. Beginning with a sobering meditation on the significance of death so denied even in religious milieux, Benedict retrieves biblical themes in light of Aquinas. He thereby puts forth a fresh synthesis of the human person’s perduring existence in an afterlife defined by social union with others in Christ. Moreover, Ryan clarifies how the Pontiff reconciles hell with God’s infinite mercy, on the one hand, and human free will, on the other. Concluding with his own incisive reflections, Ryan, building on Benedict, rescues the divine justice entailed in hell from the dustbin of post-conciliar theology. For his part, John Gavin focuses on Benedict’s renewal of the intermediate state of the person between death and the general resurrection. Traditionally, this state has depended on the notion of soul, roundly criticized by some contemporary thinkers as unbiblically dualistic. Others, while retaining soul, claim that eternity commences immediately at death when the perfection of the person as a union Joseph Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2006) [originally Werte in Zeiten des Umbruchs: Die Herausforderungen den Zukunft bestehen [Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 2005)], 383–89. 53 Introduction: Benedict XVI and Conciliar Hermeneutics 727 of matter and spirit obtains. Mediating between these positions, the Pontiff defends the intermediate state, even as he moves beyond a static definition of soul. He reconceives it as engaged in a dynamic dialogue with God, all the while oriented to matter. Gavin is less critical than Ryan of Benedict’s eschatology, possibly because, unlike Ryan, he views the intermediate state as sufficient to satisfy the divine justice. X Finally, a word about the genesis of the articles.They have been selected from the diversity of work initially delivered and discussed at four meetings of the Jesuit Colloquium on Papal Thought. These gathered in the month of June under the auspices of three leaders at four universities: Loyola in Chicago (2012: Robert John Araujo, S.J.), Georgetown (2009: Stephen M. Fields, S.J.), and Fordham (2007 and 2006: Christopher M. Cullen, S.J.). Subsequently reviewed and revised, the papers have been closely edited for publication. The Jesuit Colloquium has convened twelve times since 1990 and was initiated by Terrence Prendergast, S.J., now Archbishop of Ottawa, and John M. McDermott, S.J., now of the faculty of Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. The first eight sessions studied the thought of Pope John Paul II and were hosted at Marquette and Xavier Universities and at Boston and Canisius Colleges, in addition to multiple hostings at the four schools already mentioned. This special edition represents the fifth publication of the Colloquium’s work. It is preceded by four volumes, two of which were published by St Joseph’s University Press (Philadelphia): John Paul II on the Body: Human, Eucharistic, Ecclesial, edited John M. McDermott, S.J., and John Gavin, S.J. (2007); and Creed and Culture: Jesuit Studies of Pope John Paul II, edited by Joseph W. Koterski, S.J., and John J. Conley, S.J. (2004). The initial two collections appeared as Prophecy and Diplomacy: The Moral Doctrine of John Paul II, edited by Koterski and Conley (New York: Fordham University Press, 1999); and The Thought of John Paul II, edited by McDermott (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1993). In 2009, the Colloquium was named in honor of Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008), to whom our conferences owe their greatest debt of gratitude. From the second through the tenth assemblies, he contributed a major paper, two of which now come to publication for the first time. For many of us, especially Jesuits his junior, “Avery,” as we warmly called him, served as a beloved and inspiring mentor. We hold him, together with the Pope Emeritus, in honor, not only for their unfailing courtesy and generous humility, but for their tenaN&V ciously incisive intellects shaped by prayer and ecclesial zeal. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2017): 729–743 729 On Relativism Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) Fordham University New York, NY In a newspaper column after the first year of the Pope’s pontificate, John Allen wrote: “In terms of content, no one has to speculate about Benedict XVI’s most important teaching concern. He told us, the day before his election, in his homily Pro Eligendo Papa on April 18, 2005: the challenge to a ‘dictatorship of relativism’ in the developed West.”1 Allen’s prediction finds support in a long series of documents. As Prefect of the Congregation for Doctrine, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger frequently pointed to the evils of relativism. At Hong Kong in 1993, he called it “the gravest problem of our time,” and at Guadalajara in 1996, he called it “the central problem of faith for our time.”2 Ratzinger returns to the theme of relativism in several books published in English since he became pope, notably Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures and Without Roots: Europe, Relativism.3 From John L. Allen, Jr, “Pope Benedict XVI, One Year On” (cover story), National Catholic Reporter, April 21, 2006, 12–14. 2 Both these lectures are in substance incorporated into Joseph Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2004) [originally Glaube-Warheit-Toleranz: Das Christentum und die Weltreligionen (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 2003)] (this work will be cited in text and notes as “TT”). Pt. I, ch. 2 (“Faith, Religion and Culture,” 55–79) incorporates much of the Hong Kong address, while pt. II, ch. 1 (“Variations on the Theme of Faith, Religion, and Culture,” 115–37), presents a version of the Guadalajara address (quotations above are at 72 and 117). 3 Joseph Ratzinger, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2006) [originally L’Europa di Benedetto nella crisi delle culture (Siena: Edizioni Cantagalli, 2005)]; Joseph Ratzinger and Marcello Pera, Without Roots: Europe, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, trans. Michael F. Moore (New York: Basic Books, 1 730 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) these and a few other sources, we can piece together a fairly complete description of his critique. Origins of Relativism Relativism holds that mutually opposed points of view can all be valid. According to Ratzinger, relativism is an outgrowth of the metaphysical agnosticism of Immanuel Kant (TT, 126, 135). Rejecting the possibility of metaphysics in the usual sense, Kant held that the human mind can properly know only sensory “phenomena” or what can be logically deduced from them. Knowledge is therefore conditioned by appearances, which are relative to the observer. The absolute, Kant maintained, cannot be found within history or validly deduced from it, though earthly realities may be interpreted as pointing to it. Kant himself, while denying that we can strictly know eternal and necessary principles, avoided relativism by affirming that there were universal and necessary a priori forms of the intellect and postulates of practical reason that enjoyed the same universality. Making use of these postulates, the enlightened person could, in Kant’s opinion, construct a system of morals and a viable religion within the limits of reason alone without appeal to the supernatural. But Kant continued to hold that there can be no knowledge properly so called of transcendent realities.4 Nineteenth-century thinkers in the West, sharing Kant’s agnosticism, likewise stopped short of relativism. The dominant outlook was scientific positivism, a system that attempted to account for all reality on the basis of fixed mechanical laws. This system eliminated morality as a specific category. The favored theory was utilitarianism, which assessed the goodness and badness of human acts not on grounds of transcendental precepts or intrinsic values, but on the basis of their beneficial or harmful consequences.5 Moreover, socialists of various types attempted to construct a fully scientific explanation of society. Marxism was the last great effort to found a universally valid code of behavior and to lay the foundations of a new society. The collapse of Marxism in central and eastern Europe in 1989 brought about a profound disillusionment. Relativism has filled the resulting vacuum (TT, 116–17). 2006) [originally Senza radici: Europa, relativismo, christianesimo, islam (Milan: Arnaldo Mondadori, 2004)] (this work will be cited in text and notes as “WR”). 4 Ratzinger, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, 51–52. 5 Ibid., 31. On Relativism 731 In WR, co-author Marcello Pera discusses two forms of contemporary philosophical relativism: contextualism and deconstructionism (Pera in WR, 11–22). Ludwig Wittgenstein and his followers represent the first. They maintain that different cultures have their own rules of thinking and speaking. Different linguistic universes, they say, are incommensurable. What one community holds to be true, beautiful, and good is only so according to the criteria by which that community guides its judgment. There are no meta-criteria by which to judge what is universally true, beautiful, or good. Since all the criteria are contextual, relativism, they argue, must in the end prevail. The second form of relativism derives from Nietzsche and is masterfully represented by Jacques Derrida, who deconstructs supposedly universal concepts and assertions to show that they are self-contradictory. For this school of thinkers, there are no facts, only interpretations. The meaning of a text depends entirely on the subjectivity of the reader. Wittgenstein and Derrida have their disciples and peers in the United States. The names of Willard Quine, Wilfrid Sellars, Richard Rorty, and John Caputo come to mind. But I shall not undertake to examine their work here, since Ratzinger does not deal with them at length.6 Moral Impact of Relativism Relativism brings with it a revision of many basic concepts. It rejects any universal moral law rooted in the nature of the human person.7 In a consistent relativism, morality is an existential judgment essentially linked to the particular situation. Instead of being subject to any general moral laws, individual persons are free to determine their own concept of what it means to be human. Some even speak of “moral Ratzinger deals briefly with Rorty in “What is Truth? The Significance of Religious and Ethical Values in a Pluralist Society,” in Values in a Time of Upheaval, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006) [originally Werte in Zeiten des Umbruchs: Die Herausforderungen den Zukunft bestehen (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 2005)], 53–72 [this article was originally published as “Die Bedeutung religiöser und sittlicher Werte in der pluralistischer Gesellschaft,” Internationale Katholische Zeitschrift Communio 21 (1992): 500–12, and trans. in Joseph Ratzinger, Valeurs pour un temps de crise (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2005), 23–49]. 7 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Note on “Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life” (November 24, 2002), II.2, Origins 32 (January 30, 2003): 537, 539–43, at 540. 6 732 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) freedom,” by which they mean the right to choose the moral system by which they shall live.8 Any other view, it is held, would be an undue limitation on freedom. According to the classical concept, which Ratzinger accepts, freedom means the capacity of a self-determining agent to participate in the fullness of being according to its own nature and capacities.9 Freedom, rather than consisting in mere potentiality, realizes itself in actions whereby the capacity is fulfilled. Freedom is inseparable from truth; it must be measured according to reality; otherwise, it destroys itself (TT, 248–49). Human beings cannot realize themselves if they aspire to be dogs or angels, but only if they act according to the potentialities of their nature. In the present relativist climate, which arose out of the Enlightenment, with its emancipatory anti-traditionalism, freedom has come to be understood almost exclusively in terms of its negative element: indeterminacy or liberation. Every kind of constraint, obligation, or commitment is seen as a limitation on freedom. To be free is to be able to do whatever one pleases. The good is whatever I decide that it shall be (CEP, 259–60). Ratzinger points to the work of Sartre to illustrate the radical separation of freedom from truth. For Sartre, he says: There is no truth. Freedom is without direction or measure. Yet this complete absence of truth, the complete absence of any kind of moral or metaphysical restraint, the absolute anarchical freedom of man constituted by his self-determination, is revealed, for anyone who tries to live it out, not as the most sublime exaltation of existence, but as a life of nothingness, as absolute emptiness, as the definition of damnation. . . . The anarchistic freedom, taken to a radical conclusion, does not redeem man; it makes him into a faulty creation, living without meaning. (TT, 244–45) Alan Wolfe, Moral Freedom (New York: Norton, 2001). Joseph Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Essays in Ecclesiology, trans. Robert Nowell (New York: Crossroad, 1988) [originally Kirche, Ökumene und Politik (Cinisello Balsamo: Edizione Paoline, 1987)], 198 (this work will be cited in text and notes as “CEP”). 8 9 On Relativism 733 Social and Political Implications In various books, Ratzinger considers the implications of relativism for society and for theology. We may at this point consider some of the political applications in contemporary democratic theory. According to the classical concept, democracy presupposes the existence of immutable truths and rights that are independent of society; for example, that human beings are, as the Declaration of Independence puts it, endowed by their Creator with natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In modern relativism, natural laws and rights disappear. The free society is said to be perfectly open-ended and untouched by absolutes. The citizens acknowledge that they have only fragmentary notions of what is right and true. In the procedural democracy, citizens who claim any certainty about ultimate questions are considered unreliable because they do not concede that truth and right can be determined by majority vote (TT, 117). In several of his encyclicals, Pope John Paul II asserted the classical view that democracy cannot stand without moral values that are inscribed in nature and in no way conferred by the society itself.10 Relativists complain that these encyclicals “have murderous consequences for democracy” and promote an equivalent of Islamic fundamentalism.11 Rejecting these charges, Ratzinger accepts the classical view that democracy presupposes certain rights and duties as prior to the state that are not subject to a majority vote. The relativist theory, which overlooks or denies these innate rights, creates the risk that these rights will be abrogated by the state.12 The concept of tolerance likewise undergoes a mutation. According to the classical concept, it means permitting something evil to exist, usually on the ground that its suppression would involve a greater evil. In the relativist framework, tolerance is reinterpreted as meaning the positive approval of ideas and values that are contrary to one’s own beliefs and standards. Although tolerance is sometimes carried to ludicrous extremes, universal tolerance is rare. Most people still recognize certain acts as universally unacceptable, such as, for John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus (1991) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 83 (1991): 793–867], §46. Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae (1995) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 87 (1995): 401–522], §70. 11 Ratzinger quotes Paolo Flores d’Arcais to this effect in TT, 190. 12 Ratzinger makes this criticism in many places. In Values in a Time of Upheaval, 60–64, he rejects the majority principle of Hans Kelsen and Richard Rorty, and he favors the natural law approach of Jacques Maritain. 10 734 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) example, the deliberate killing of innocent persons (TT, 117–18). Paradoxically, the cult of tolerance in its new guise tends to engender an intolerance of its own. In some countries, ministers are required by law to perform homosexual marriages; hospitals run by churches are required to perform abortions or distribute contraceptives. In Sweden, Ratzinger notes, a minister who presented the biblical teaching on homosexuality received a prison sentence (WR, 128). Nonetheless, the concept of dialogue has had a long and honorable history in contributing to tolerance. Classically, it has meant a search for truth in which conflicting opinions were tested by rational argument. But in the relativist view, dialogue ceases to aim at truth and settles for achieving the practical compromise of helping people who disagree to live peacefully together.13 Some relativists lay down the requirement that all parties entering a dialogue admit in advance that they are perhaps wrong and that their opponents may very well be right. Certainty about one’s own opinions is falsely equated with intolerance. The Second Vatican Council in its Declaration on Religious Liberty, showed that respect for religious freedom is compatible with, and indeed required by, firm commitment to the Christian faith (Dignitatis Humanae, §1). Let us now consider some theological applications of relativism. Ratzinger discusses relativism in comparative religion, Christology, ecclesiology, doctrine, and worship. Religious Pluralism In comparative religion, Ratzinger takes the writings of several contemporary authors as examples of relativism. The English Presbyterian, John Hick, takes as his starting point the teaching of Kant that we cannot know things as they are in their essential reality (noumena), but only as appearances (phenomena). The divine is therefore unknowable in itself. After a year’s stay in India, Hick was able to combine his Kantian agnosticism with the negative theology of Asia, which maintained that the divine remains veiled in absolute transcendence and shows itself only in fragmentary manifestations. The contemporary encounter of cultures, Hick believes, requires a religious relativism in which each religion discards its claim to preeminence and recognizes other Joseph Ratzinger, The Nature and Mission of Theology: Approaches to Understanding Its Role in Light of Recent Controversy, trans. Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1995) [originally Wesen und Auftrag der Theologie: Versuche zu ihrer Ortsbestimmung in Disput der Gegenwart (Einsiedeln: Johannes, 1993)], 32–34. 13 On Relativism 735 religions on the same plane as itself. This would mean that Christians entering into dialogue would have to abandon the assurance that God stands uniquely revealed in his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ.14 According to the relativist view, which is prevalent among contemporary students of religion, many or all religions are manifestations of one and the same reality. The different names and images of God can be translated into one another because they point ultimately to one and the same reality (TT, 22, 25–26). Since all religions are in principle equal, mission in the sense of evangelization can be only a kind of religious imperialism and must therefore be renounced (TT, 105). Dialogue, which finds ever new agreements, must be substituted for proclamation. As the religions grow in mutual openness, multi-religious prayer, such as that offered in the World Days of Prayer at Assisi in 1986 and 2002, becomes appropriate. Without absolutely condemning this practice, Ratzinger makes it clear that he considers it conducive to religious indifferentism, and hence generally undesirable. He particularly objects to any confusion between the personal and impersonal understandings of God (TT, 106–09). In both Dominus Jesus 15 and his presentation of this Declaration to the press on September 5, 2000, Cardinal Ratzinger forcefully rejected religious pluralism of the type he attributes to John Hick.16 “The Church’s constant missionary proclamation,” he wrote, “is endangered today by relativistic theories which seek to justify religious pluralism, not only de facto but also de iure (or in principle). As a consequence, it is held that certain truths have been superseded: for example, the definitive and complete character of the revelation of Jesus Christ, . . . the personal unity between the Eternal Word and TT, 119–23. In the National Catholic Reporter, October 24, 1997, Hick responded, contesting the accuracy of some of Ratzinger’s statements about him. But in his reply, Hick admitted that, as a religious pluralist, he regards the great religions as different ways of conceiving “the intimate reality we call God.” See also John L. Allen, Jr., Pope Benedict XVI: A Biography of Joseph Ratzinger (New York: Continuum, 2000; repr. 2005). 15 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominus Jesus: On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church (2000) (this work will be cited in text and notes as “DJ”), in Sic et Non: Encountering Dominus Jesus, ed. Stephen J. Pope and Charles Hefling (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002): 3–23, and in Origins 30 (September 14, 2000): 209, 211–19. 16 Ratzinger’s presentation of the Declaration at a press conference is reprinted in Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith: the Church as Communion, ed. Stephan Otto Horn et al., trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005) [originally Weggemeinschaft des Glaubens (Augsburg: Sankt Ulrich, 2002)], 209–16. 14 736 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) Jesus of Nazareth, the unity of the economy of the Incarnate Word and the Holy Spirit,” and many others. DJ then goes on to explain some of the philosophical and theological sources of this religious pluralism, including “relativistic attitudes toward truth itself, according to which what is true for some would not be true for others” (DJ, §4). The Declaration affirms: In contemporary theological reflection there often emerges an approach to Jesus of Nazareth that considers him a particular, finite, historical figure, who reveals the divine not in an exclusive way, but in a way complementary with other revelatory and salvific figures. The Infinite, the Absolute, the Ultimate Mystery of God would thus manifest itself to humanity in many ways and in many historical figures: Jesus of Nazareth would be one of these. More concretely, for some, Jesus would be one of the many faces which the Logos has assumed in the course of time to communicate with humanity in a salvific way. (DJ, §9) DJ continues by discussing the opinion that the Eternal Word has a salvific mission more encompassing than the incarnate Word. Although no adversaries are named, the Declaration may here be referring to Raimundo Panikkar, whose position Ratzinger had discussed at some length in his Hong Kong address of 1993. Ratzinger there insisted that Jesus of Nazareth is not just the highest manifestation of the Logos; he is the Logos in person. The Declaration stoutly affirms what it calls “The fullness and definitiveness of the revelation of Jesus Christ,” supporting this position with many quotations from the New Testament, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, the Second Vatican Council, and Pope John Paul II (DJ, title of ch. I; passim). At various points in his writings, Cardinal Ratzinger takes on both Paul Knitter, an American who teaches at Xavier University in Cincinnati, and New Age religion. Knitter has forged a link between Hick’s religious pluralism and the liberation theologies of Latin America. Conceding that we cannot know which views of God are correct, Knitter holds that all of us can, nevertheless, act in ways that promote freedom for the oppressed. Orthopraxy, he maintains, can be our guide when orthodoxy fails. Knitter’s theology of religion, according to Ratzinger, leads back into political theology. Knitter assumes some of the theses of Marxist liberation On Relativism 737 theology that are now widely regarded as incoherent (TT, 123–26). The so-called New Age religion is still another offshoot of relativism. This movement, according to Ratzinger, accepts the impossibility of overcoming relativism either by metaphysics or by orthopraxis. Nonetheless, it attempts to encounter the Absolute by a kind of dissolution of the self through ecstatic absorption into the cosmic whole. God is understood not as a personal being distinct from the world, but as a spiritual energy at work throughout the universe. We can experience the intoxication of the infinite by entering collectively into the cosmic order through music, dance, and the beguiling interplay of light and darkness. We become free not by dominating the world, but by letting ourselves be carried away and, as it were, sublimated. New Age religion, in various forms, has affinities with ancient Gnosticism and pantheism. It renounces every effort to give an intelligible account of reality (TT, 126–29). Ecclesiological Relativism Corresponding to relativism among religions is an ecumenical or ecclesiological relativism that sees the different Christian churches as mutually complementary manifestations of one and the same Church, which is present in all of them. In a number of writings, beginning with a 1985 Notification of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger attributes this view to the Brazilian Franciscan Leonardo Boff.17 The one Church of Christ, according to Boff and a number of other contemporary writers, subsists in a multiplicity of churches. According to this view, Jesus Christ did not found an institution, but only a movement, which developed after the resurrection in accordance with sociological laws. The churches, which are simply human constructions, legitimately differ in their offices, liturgies, and theologies. In opposition to this relativistic view, Ratzinger maintains that Jesus Christ founded the Church as a single visible institution, which continues to exist with all its essential features throughout the centuries as the one Catholic Church. The Church, therefore, is not something that invents itself from below. Sacramentally structured, the Church exists only in a hierarchical succession of ministers and sacraments.18 Ratzinger insists—quite rightly in my opinion—that, when Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Notification on the Book Church: Charism and Power by Father Leonardo Boff, O.F.M.,” March 11, 1985, in Origins 14 (April 4, 1985): 683, 685–87. 18 Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, trans. Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: 17 738 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) Vatican II taught that the Church of Christ “subsists” in the Catholic Church, it meant that the Church is fully present in Catholicism and not elsewhere. Elements of the true Church can, however, be found in different modes and degrees in non-Catholic Christianity.19 Dogmatic Relativism The negative impact of relativism does not affect only inter-religious and inter-church relations. It affects the inner unity and strength of the Catholic Church herself. From the relativist perspective, God (or the divine) lies in a realm that eludes proper knowledge and is not accessible except through symbol and metaphor. But the realism of the Bible and of the Christian creeds contradicts this agnosticism. The “I am” of Jesus and the “et incarnatus est” of the Christian creed make it clear that God himself acts in history. Jesus cannot be numbered among the avatars; he is the Son of God not in some mythological or poetical way of speaking, but in very truth (TT, 94). Christianity, therefore, has a very specific claim to truth. In the words of Ratzinger: Whereas myth, whether in Greece or India, does no more than multiply images of the truth, which for its part remains incomprehensible, faith in Christ, as it is expressed in its basic assertions, is never interchangeable. True, faith does not remove the essential limitations of man in his relation to the truth: it does not, in other words, eliminate the law of analogy. Nevertheless, analogy is not the same as metaphor. Analogy can always be broadened and deepened, but, within the boundaries of man’s possibilities, it declares the very truth. In this sense, rationality belongs to the very essence of Christianity in a way which the other religions do not claim for themselves.20 Cardinal Ratzinger frequently points to the connection between religious relativism and cultural relativism. Ernst Troeltsch, among others, maintained that religion necessarily reflects the culture of the Ignatius, 1987) [originally Theologische Prinzipienlehre: Bausteine zur Fundamentaltheologie (Munich: Wewel, 1982)], 295–96. 19 DJ, §16; Joseph Ratzinger, “Deus Locutus est Nobis in Filio: Some Reflections on Subjectivity, Christology, and the Church,” in Proclaiming the Truth of Jesus Christ: Papers from the Vallombrosa Meeting (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), 13–30, at 26–27; Ratzinger, Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith, 144–48. 20 Ratzinger, Nature and Mission, 56. On Relativism 739 people practicing it and that no single religion could be satisfying for people of radically different cultures. Late in life, Troeltsch came to the view that Christianity was “merely the side of God’s face that is turned toward Europe” (TT, 164, 176–77). Liberal Protestantism in the nineteenth century maintained that the great dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation, elaborated by the Councils of the first few centuries, were products of Hellenistic culture and served to obscure the Gospel of Jesus. Responding to the liberal Protestant Adolf von Harnack, Catholic Modernists such as Alfred Loisy agreed that the Gospel had undergone a series of historical transformations, but they justified this constant re-interpretation on the ground that religion must keep pace with the advance of the human spirit. They adopted, in effect, Hegel’s theory that truth itself evolves. Relativism thus leads to a new dogmatism that accepts the superiority of the present over all that comes down from the past. Every system other than relativism is dismissed as a preparatory stage of human history that is basically obsolete and deserves to be relativized.21 Ratzinger proposes a very different relationship between faith and culture. For him, the human spirit in any age is capable of transcending cultural limitations and of remolding cultures in light of trans-cultural insights. Whereas Harnack lamented Hellenization as a distortion of the Gospel, Ratzinger would argue that Christianity evangelized Hellenistic culture and gave it the capacity to express the truth of the Gospel in a new language. The truth of revelation does not have to be injected into a ready-made culture, but it enriches and purifies the culture by entering into it. The dogmas of the patristic age, consequently, do not need to be left behind, as if they were tied to one particular moment of history. They are irreversibly true, even though the language and concepts in which they are expressed may bear the mark of their time and may advantageously be revised (TT, 55–71). Exegetical and Liturgical Implications Contemporary relativism affects the Christian faith in its most basic expressions. Relativists read the Scriptures as if they were products of a rather primitive religion. Their exegetical method prevents them from seeking the word of God in the sacred text, as the faith requires one Ratzinger, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, 45. 21 740 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) to do. Once faith ceases to exert a controlling influence on exegesis, other worldviews such as scientific positivism step into the breach. Historical-critical method tends to break up the biblical books into fragments and to reconstruct hypothetical sources, as if they were the keys to the right interpretation. The authority of Holy Scripture in this way becomes relativized.22 Relativists approach the liturgy as though its true purpose were to express the religious experience of the autonomous group here and now conducting the celebration. On this theory, liturgy ought to be inventive and creative. Ratzinger, in an interview of 1985, insisted: “We must be far more resolute than heretofore in opposing rationalistic relativism, confusing claptrap, and pastoral infantilism. These things degrade the liturgy.”23 For Ratzinger, the liturgy presupposes that the heavens have been opened up and that God is coming to his people. The liturgy, therefore, must be the action of Christ in the Church—a sacred rite of the whole Christ in which the congregation is primarily receptive. Ratzinger writes: “The decisive factor, therefore, is the primacy of Christology. The liturgy is God’s work, or it does not exist at all. . . . Since the priest represents this ‘first’ of Christ, he refers each gathering to a point beyond itself into the whole.”24 This interpretation of the liturgy is at opposite poles from modern relativistic individualism. Avoidance of Absolutism I do not wish to leave the impression that Ratzinger is an unqualified absolutist. He recognizes that people of very diverse convictions have to live together and that the laws of the community must be acceptable to the citizens as a body. In the Church, he has always favored what he calls a “fruitful interplay between periphery and center, between the Joseph Ratzinger, “Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: On the Question of the Foundations and Approaches of Exegesis Today,” in Biblical Interpretation in Crisis: The Ratzinger Conference on Bible and Church, ed. Richard John Neuhaus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 1–23. 23 Joseph Ratzinger, The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church, trans. Salvator Attanasio et al. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1985) [originally a German manuscript published as Rapporto sulla fede (Milan: Edizione Paoline, 1985)], 121. 24 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, A New Song to the Lord: Faith in Christ and Liturgy Today (New York: Crossroad, 1996) [originally Ein neues Lied für den Herrn: Christusglaube und Liturgy in der Gegenwart (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 1995)], 133. 22 On Relativism 741 living multiplicity of Catholic life (represented by the episcopacy) and the unity which the primacy must protect.”25 In the realm of politics, he recognizes the necessity to provide for “the coexistence of people in whom truth and error are often intermixed” (THV, 143). It would be illusory to hope for an ideal situation within history. For this reason, he contends, “it is our task always to struggle for the relatively best possible framework of human coexistence in our own present day” (TT, 257). A certain measure of relativity is therefore legitimate, though a nucleus of common beliefs and values is necessary to hold society together (TT, 117). Ratzinger therefore takes a very nuanced position on the responsibilities of lawmakers. He strongly opposes confessionalism and theocracy, which blur the distinction between religious law and civil law.26 “The Catholic,” he writes, “will not and should not, through the making of laws, impose a hierarchy of values that can only be recognized and enacted within the faith” (WR, 128). A sound legal order need only reclaim a moral minimum accessible to reason, which all human beings share. In recent writings, Ratzinger expresses the desire that Europe may enjoy a kind of generalized Christian civil religion comparable to that which Alexis de Tocqueville found in the United States (WR, 107–13). He favors a position equally removed from the two extremes of absolutism and relativism. In a thorough discussion of relativism, it would be necessary to reclaim some elements of truth in the positions Ratzinger rejects as relativistic. The Second Vatican Council made the point that the various religions of the world often reflect rays of that truth that enlightens all peoples.27 John Paul II, in Crossing the Threshold of Hope, takes a generally positive approach toward the religions of the East, which he says, “have contributed greatly to the history of morality and culture” and enable countless multitudes to have implicit faith in Christ the universal Redeemer.28 Similar observations apply to the question of ecumenism. Vatican Joseph Ratzinger, Theological Highlights of Vatican II, trans. Henry Traub, S.J., et al. (New York: Paulist Press, 1966), 10 (this work will be cited in text and notes as “THV”). 26 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Note, §6 (p. 541). 27 Second Vatican Council, Nostra Aetate (1965) [in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner, S.J., 2 vols. (London: Sheed and Ward, 1990), 2:968–71], §2. 28 John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, ed. Vittorio Messori, trans. Jenny McPhee and Martha McPhee (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1994), 83. 25 742 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) II, in Unitatis Redintegratio, spoke of a legitimate variety in theological expressions of doctrine and observed that the separated churches of the East have often used expressions that are complementary rather than conflicting with those accepted in the West.29 John Paul II suggested that the divisions among Christians might be a path “continually leading the Church to discover the untold wealth contained in Christ’s Gospel and in the redemption accomplished by Christ.” He added: “Perhaps all this wealth would not have come to light otherwise.”30 Ecumenists such as Yves Congar have emphasized how much Catholics have to gain from living contact with the ideas and practices of other Christian churches, which contain authentic Christian insights as well as errors.31 The affirmation that the Church of Christ subsists in Roman Catholicism should not mislead us into thinking that existing forms of Catholic teaching and worship have nothing to learn from dialogue with other Christian traditions. In reacting against historical and cultural relativism, Ratzinger sometimes seems to minimize the limitations imposed upon Catholics by their temporal and geographical situation. The Catholic Church needs the abilities, resources, and customs of each people in order to achieve her full catholicity and to show forth the infinite riches that lie hidden in Christ (Lumen Gentium, §13). Here again, Vatican II can supplement the observations of Ratzinger. Pope John XXIII pointed out the need to avoid confusion between the deposit of faith and its historical expressions, which are always subject to revision. The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation pointed out that we do not only receive the revelation from the past, but also grow in our understanding of it thanks to the gift of the Holy Spirit, who leads us into all truth. Thus, “as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her.”32 Ratzinger’s critique of the vulgarization of the liturgy in the experimentation that followed Vatican II made some very necessary points, but it should be seen as a corrective. He did not intend to deny Second Vatican Council, Unitatis Redintegratio (1964) [in Tanner, Decrees, 2:908–20], §§11, 17. 30 John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold, 153. 31 Yves Congar, “Ecumenical Experience and Conversion: A Personal Testimony,” in The Sufficiency of God, ed. Robert C. Mackie and Charles C. West (London: SCM, 1963), 71–87, at 74–75. 32 Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum (1965) [in Tanner, Decrees, 2:971–81], §8. 29 On Relativism 743 the importance of simplifying the rites (Sacrosanctum Concilium, §§34, 50) and making adaptations for the sake of what the Council called “the full and active participation of all the people.”33 In his critique of the tyranny of relativism, Cardinal Ratzinger (or Benedict XVI) deftly identifies one of the most pervasive evils of our day. He correctly points out the need to re-appropriate the great heritage of philosophical reason, tutored by Christian faith, that has come down to us. He rightly judges that Western civilization cannot continue to prosper without regaining the metaphysical realism that undergirded its past achievements. Following his leadership, we must continue to challenge the reigning nominalism, empiricism, and agnosticism that are conspiring to undermine Christian faith and to weaken the civilization that was built on the twin pillars of classical reason and biblical revelation. N&V Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium (1963) [in Tanner, Decrees, 2:820–43], §14. 33 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2017): 745–758 745 On the Fourfold Sense of Scripture in Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. Fordham University New York, NY In the foreword to the first volume of his Jesus of Nazareth,1 Pope Benedict XVI explains certain crucial differences between the historical-critical method, with its tendencies to consider individual books of the Bible in light of their historical contexts and sources, and what he calls the method of “canonical exegesis,” with its tendency to read individual scriptural books in the context of the Bible as a whole. Besides varying significantly in their philosophical presuppositions, these methods also differ on the need for a faith commitment by the interpreter. The method of canonical exegesis requires an act of religious faith not necessary for one employing the historical-critical method. It is not that proponents of the historical-critical method in principle refuse to make such an act of faith (often they do have such a commitment), but no such act is required for the sake of methodology. In fact, for the scholarly purposes associated with historical-criticism, the interpreter may feel a need temporarily to bracket faith lest it interfere with the objectivity and critical analysis that the method is designed to promote. By presupposing a prior act of faith in the Holy Spirit as inspiring the various authors of the Bible, canonical exegesis becomes a Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. Adrian J.Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2007) [originally Jesus von Nazareth, vol. 1, Von der Taufe im Jordan bis zur Verklärung (Freiburg-imBreisgau: Herder, 2007)]. The work will be cited in text parenthetically by page number and abbreviated “JN” in text and notes. 1 746 Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. specifically Christological hermeneutic. It thereby allows us to see just how deeply the Old and the New Testaments belong together; this approach sees Christ as “the key to the whole” and permits us “to understand the Bible as a unity” (xix). Canonical exegesis, Benedict explains, means reading biblical books within the context of the whole. Doing so does not contravene the historical-critical approach or ignore the insights that this method can bring. In fact, success with canonical exegesis depends upon using the “indispensable tool” of historical-criticism, which understands a text so that “theology in the proper sense” may be undertaken (xix). While historical-criticism puts the focus on ascertaining, so far as possible, the precise meanings that the words of a text were supposed to signify at the time and place of their original use, a proper use of canonical exegesis appreciates the text as something genuinely inspired by God: The author is not simply speaking for himself on his own authority. . . . The author does not speak as a private, self-contained subject. He speaks in a living community, that is to say, in a living historical movement not created by him, nor even by the collective, but which is led forward by a greater power that is at work. (xx) The Four Senses As an elaboration of the faith perspective crucial to this form of exegesis, Benedict explicitly calls attention to the ancient tradition: “There are dimensions of the word that the old doctrine of the fourfold sense of Scripture pinpointed with remarkable accuracy. The four senses of Scripture are not individual meanings arrayed side by side, but dimensions of the one word that reaches beyond the moment” (ibid.). The canonical exegesis that characterizes his approach is by no means limited to the four senses, but we can regularly see the operation of these senses in other places in Benedict’s work where he implicitly adverts to them.2 Benedict refers to the fourfold sense in Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, trans. Michael Waldstein, ed. Aidan Nichols, O.P. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988) [originally Eschatologie: Tod und ewiges Leben, ed. Alphonse Auer and Joseph Ratzinger, Kleine Katholische Dogmatik 9 (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1977)], 43–45, which discusses the need to interpret Old Testament types as anticipations of the Christ who recapitulates them. 2 On the Fourfold Sense of Scripture in Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 747 In the scholarly foreword to JN that precedes its reflections on select moments of the Lord’s public life, the Pope takes note of certain distortions in the picture of Jesus that can afflict those who uncritically make some of the philosophical presuppositions of modern historical-criticism (xvi).3 An unwillingness, for instance, to accept that the Bible is God’s word, and not just the product of individuals or trends within the community, can imperil recognizing that the Scriptures can give us the true face of Christ. This search for Christ’s face, Benedict explains, is his motivation for writing JN. The closeness of Jesus to His Father is the center around which he constructs his argument: “It sees Jesus in light of his communion with the Father, which is the true source of his personality; without it, we cannot understand him at all, and it is from this center that he makes himself present to us still today” (xiv). Avoiding Eisegesis Unless one reads with the eyes of faith, guided by the Church’s tradition of interpretation, the danger arises of seeing in biblical texts only what one wants to see. Commenting on the interpretations of the Scriptures that have increasingly tried to distinguish between “the historical Jesus” and “the Christ of faith,” the Pope observes: “If you read a number of these reconstructions one after the other, you see at once that far from uncovering an icon that has become obscured over time, they are much more like photographs of their authors and the ideals they hold” (xii). For the proper interpretation of the Scriptures, we need to bear in mind both their historical reference and revealed character: “It is of the very essence of biblical faith to be about real historical events. It does not tell stories symbolizing suprahistorical truths, but is based on history, history that took place here on this earth” (xv). Precisely for this reason, he notes, the 1943 encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu and the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, together with a number of more recent Church documents, have insisted that we be attentive to the historical dimension and, thus, make a proper use of its method.4 And yet, See Eschatology, 19–21, for further comments on methodology, and 43, for the fundamental mistake of limiting an interpretation of a text merely to its earliest level. 4 Pope Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 35 (1943): 297–325]. 3 748 Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. Benedict reminds us, this method “does not exhaust the interpretive task for someone who sees the biblical writings as a single corpus of Holy Scripture inspired by God” (xvi).5 The “canonical exegesis” employed by the Pontiff is admittedly broader than the doctrine of the fourfold sense of Scripture, but for the purposes of this paper, I will concentrate on only this approach. The section that follows will review this doctrine, and then Benedict’s use of it will be examined. Ecclesial Hermeneutic Because of its centrality to the Church’s way of reading the Bible, an ecclesial hermeneutic lies in the heart of the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s treatment of Scriptural interpretation in §§101–41.6 The four senses can be a helpful antidote to an excessively fundamentalist interpretation, as well as to approaches that de-emphasize the literal sense in favor of some accommodationist hermeneutic. It is often typical of a fundamentalist reading to emphasize the need to read all of Scripture literally, despite the difficulties of being consistent when confronted with passages that do not readily conform to some preferred view of ecclesial polity or the sacraments. The key question is precisely what is meant by the literal sense, what types of humanly intended meaning it includes. This question is especially pressing when we define the literal sense as whatever is intended by the human author under divine inspiration and, thus, see its meaning as including not only historical statements but also stories, figures of speech, and the like. Accommodationist readings can easily disregard the literal sense in favor of whatever meaning the interpreter wishes to give the text. The general tendency here is not to deny that there is a literal sense so much as to emphasize the interpreter’s interests. We see something of this approach, for instance, in those more eager to construct a cultural critique or a social gospel with a biblical resonance than to discern in revealed texts the social teaching that they may contain. The point here is not that such efforts are in principle illegitimate (specific exegeses would need studying); the point is more that, as an effort to read the Bible, accommodationism is vulnerable to eisegesis. This can be curbed by insisting on the need to discern what On “the single Gospel” as heard rightly only in “the quartet” of the four Gospels, see Eschatology, 40. 6 Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994). The Catechism will be cited as “CCC” in text and notes. 5 On the Fourfold Sense of Scripture in Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 749 the revealing God has transmitted in the various levels of scriptural meaning. We find in §§101–41 of the Catechism a brief account of a sophisticated hermeneutic that has been the standard guide to biblical interpretation for much of the Church’s history. Unfortunately, this approach has often been forgotten or de-emphasized in the period since the Reformation and the Counter-reformation. The trend has increased to give attention predominantly, or even exclusively, to the literal level, as part of the debate over the claim of sola scriptura as the proper source for doctrine. Nonetheless, the use of the four senses as crucial to the proper understanding of the Scriptures extends back to the Church’s beginning.7 In fact, the use of the four senses is present within the Bible itself (e.g., Gal 4:21–31 on the “allegory” of Sarah and Hagar), and it was the mainstay of writers in the apostolic and patristic periods.8 For medieval writers, it was so revered that Dante even proposes it to Can Grande della Scalla as the key to understanding his Divine Comedy.9 The mystics of all ages have never been able to do without it, but nominalist theologians generally tended to jettison it as part of the Scholastic humanism that they wanted to replace by semantic analyses. In understanding the Scripture in the categories of grammar and logic, the nominalists seem increasingly forgetful that the Holy Spirit often teaches by image, symbol, and story, not just by logically correlated propositions.10 The Church teaches that the four senses of Scripture are: (1) the literal level, within which can be found three spiritual levels: (2) the typological sense (often called the allegorical); (3) the moral sense (sometimes named the tropological); and (4) the anagogical sense. The literal sense is not simply historical, but includes everything that the human author under the influence of the Holy Spirit intends, whatever the genre. The three spiritual levels are called “spiritual” because their meaning is derived from the Holy Spirit’s inspiration For a view of this subject and a collection of Church teachings, see The Scripture Documents: An Anthology of Official Catholic Teachings, ed. Dean P. Béchard, S.J. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002). 8 See Henri de Lubac, S.J., Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture, trans. Mark Sebanc and E. M. Macierowski, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998–2000 [French original, 1959]). 9 See Dantis Aligherii epistolae: The Letters of Dante, ed. and trans. Paget Jackson Toynbee, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967 [originally 1920]). 10 See R. W. Southern, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, 2 vols. (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001), esp. 2:14–18. 7 750 Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. of the human author, whether the human author was fully conscious of it or not.11 The literal sense is literal because it is located in the letters and words of the human author. But it is important to note that this term does not mean what some fundamentalist approaches suppose it to mean—as if every line of Scripture were the equivalent of, say, a newspaper report or a history book. The literal level certainly includes historical accounts, such as those found within the Gospels or Old Testament books like Judges or Kings, but it also includes the figures of speech that a human author uses (e.g., “The Lord is my rock” in Ps 18:2), together with a wide variety of literary genres (e.g., the creation stories, the narratives of the patriarchs, laws, moral tales, prophecies, jeremiads, visions, and laments). The literal level requires careful scholarship to establish the authentic wording of a text (e.g., in determining the proper reading from the manuscript tradition and in establishing a critical edition of the text). It is precisely these concerns that remain vital in the enduring usefulness of the historical-critical method. The Catechism teaches, for instance: In order to discover the sacred authors’ intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking, and narrating then current. “For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression.” (CCC, §110, quoting Dei Verbum §12) This concern, for instance, drove St. Jerome to collate the texts that he used to produce the Vulgate. More recently, it drove the new edition of the Vulgate.12 It is has also led to countless scholarly editions and biblical commentaries. CCC, §109: “In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words” (footnote to Dei Verbum §12). 12 Nova Vulgata Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio: Editio Typica Altera (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1979). 11 On the Fourfold Sense of Scripture in Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 751 But in addition to what the human author has written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we need to attend to the spiritual levels of meaning that can be found within the texts.13 The Catechism makes this point directly: “Since Sacred Scripture is inspired, there is another and no less important principle of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter. ‘Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written’” (CCC, §111, again quoting Dei Verbum §12). For this reason, the Church insists on several important criteria so that interpretation accords with the Spirit: (1) attending to the “unity” of the entire Bible as flowing from the divine authorship of all the Scriptures (CCC, §112), as Benedict emphasizes in his account of canonical exegesis; (2) respecting that the Scriptures are part of the “living tradition of the whole Church” (CCC, §113);14 and (3) honoring the “analogy of faith,” which entails “the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation” (CCC, §114). By observing these criteria, interpreters can be faithful to the teachings of the Church and open to discovering the three spiritual levels of meaning given by the Holy Spirit. At the heart of the “typological” sense is the notion that the life of Christ provides the preferred way to understand the entirety of the Bible. Everything before Christ leads up to him, and only he was able to open the minds of the apostles and those following them to understand divine revelation (see Luke 22:44–45). Accordingly, the Church has always held that the Old Testament contains, besides its literal sense, mysteries that have been “hidden of ages in God” For a defense of the ongoing importance of historical-critical method in biblical interpretation, see Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1993). But note also the observation of Avery Dulles, S.J., in “Vatican II: The Myth and the Reality,” America 188, no. 6 (February 24, 2003), about the need to correct a possible misunderstanding. The Biblical Commission’s work fails to quote the entirety of Dei Verbum §11, which emphasizes the Holy Spirit’s inspiration in everything that the human authors write. 14 See CCC, §113: “According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church’s heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God’s Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture (‘according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church’).” The quotation within this text is to Origen, Hom. in Lev. 5.5, in Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris: Garnier and J. P. Migne, 1857–1866), 12:454D. 13 752 Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. that are “now revealed” (see Eph 3:5, 9). The reason for calling this sense typological is the pairing of an Old Testament type with Christ as the antitype who completes what is incomplete, perfects what is imperfect, and sanctifies what is sinful. In the single lifetime of Christ, as recounted in the Gospels, he recapitulates the preparatory typology found in the whole life of Israel. Articulating the full range of this recapitulation would require a complete monograph, but one can easily see an example of the Bible’s own use of typology when it calls Jesus “the new Adam” (1 Cor 15:45).15 In JN, Benedict exhibits a frequent appreciation for the typological reading. We see this, for instance, in his repeated discussions of Jesus as the new Moses, the new Adam,16 the new Isaac, the new Jacob, and the new David.17 In turn, each Christian is expected to learn how to live and grow in Christ. Understanding how he recapitulates the life of Israel shows us how we should recapitulate his life at every stage in our own.18 Seeing the indispensable role of the Lord’s recapitulation of Israel, together with our need to recapitulate his life, step by step, stage by stage, makes this level a reliable aid for pastoral care and a source for pastoral theology. Citing the letter to the Hebrews, Benedict alludes to the legacy in history of Adam’s sin in noting that Jesus “must go through [history], suffer through the whole of it, in order to transform it” (26). This comment underscores that the typological sense is not some sort of allegory that later interpreters are imposing eisegetically on the text, but something deeply rooted within revelation as we receive it. By taking the life of Christ as the controlling principle, we can discover an order to the stages of his life that illumines the significance of human life in general. These sanctify what The most careful instance of this project to date is Paul M. Quay, S.J., The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God (New York: Peter Lang, 1995). 16 See JN, 192, for a discussion of Phil 2:6–11 as presenting Christ as the antitype of the First Adam: “While the latter high-handedly grasped at likeness to God, Christ does not count equality with God, which is his by nature, ‘a thing to be grasped,’ but humbles himself unto death, even death on the Cross.” 17 See Joseph Ratzinger, Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2000) [originally Einführung in den Geist der Liturgie (Freiburg-imBreisgau: Herder, 2000)], 140, for a discussion of Christ as the true David in Benedict’s account of the Christian interpretation of the Psalms. 18 See JN, 56: “The announcement of God’s lordship is, like Jesus’s entire message, founded on the Old Testament. Jesus reads the Old Testament, in its progressive movement from the beginnings with Abraham right down to his own time, as a single whole; precisely when we grasp this movement as a whole, we see that it leads directly to Jesus himself.” 15 On the Fourfold Sense of Scripture in Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 753 was sinful, thus showing us how to grow into human maturation in conformity with the divinely intended pattern.19 The second of the spiritual senses, the moral sense, includes not just teachings about morality, like the Ten Commandments recorded in Exodus and Deuteronomy and the “Two Great Commandments” uttered by Jesus, but all that the Scriptures disclose about God’s will for human conduct, including the lists of virtues that Paul describes in detail, the record of human sinfulness recounted in many Old Testament narratives, and the fiery denunciations of idolatry and adultery in the prophets. Benedict regularly adverts to this sense, not only in connection with Jesus as the new Moses, but also in his reflection on what the relations between the Kingdom of God and Christian hope offers us for better understanding the proper relations between Church and state. Accordingly, the Pope steadfastly refuses to allow eschatology to be turned into any form of political theology.20 The anagogical sense is named from the Greek word anagoge (“leading”) and refers to the eternal significance of the realities and events recorded in the Scriptures, especially as they lead us toward heaven, “our true homeland” (CCC, §117). This spiritual level of meaning lets us see how the sacraments are symbolic signs instituted by Christ to give the grace that they signify. The water of baptism, for instance, effects the cleansing from sin that washing suggests. But the Church’s understanding of this sacrament also makes use of the anagogical sense to link the physical sign used in it to the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea, which gave new life to the people of Israel even as it drowned their pursuers. The Church’s understanding of death to sin and entry into new life is not a mere imposition of meaning by the Church, but a discovery of the spiritual meaning of scriptural texts implanted by the Holy Spirit centuries before the practice of Christian baptism. Throughout JN, Benedict is recurringly alert to the anagogical sense when, for instance, he comments extensively on the dominant images of bread, wine, and water in the Gospel of John. See JN, 64: “From the start of his Gospel, Matthew claims the Old Testament for Jesus, even when it comes to apparent minutiae. What Luke states as a fundamental principle, without going into detail, in his account of the journey to Emmaus (cf. Luke 24:25ff.)—namely, that all the Scriptures refer to Jesus— Matthew, for his part, tries to demonstrate with respect to all the details of Jesus’ path.” 20 See JN, 34, 36, and 42, where Benedict sounds this theme repeatedly in his chapter on the temptations of Christ. 19 754 Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. Let us now allow Benedict’s treatment of Christ as the new Moses to serve as an example of the typological sense in his book. We will also take note in passing of representative instances in JN of the other senses. The Four Senses in JN The opening gambit in the book’s introduction is the Pope’s interpretation of Deuteronomy 18:15, which contains the promise of a prophet who would be a new Moses. Benedict here makes use of the typological sense: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you . . . him shall you heed” (1f). Granting that the text might at first appear to be little more than an indication that God would raise up various prophets in Israel, Benedict proceeds to show that the promise contains something far deeper. The specificity of the promise (“a prophet like me”) remains unfulfilled at the end of the period covered by Deuteronomy: “And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face” (Deut 34:10). In Benedict’s reading of Deuteronomy, the distinctive trait of the original Moses consists not in the ability to do some heroic or miraculous deed, but in speaking with God as with a friend “face to face” (3–4). Unlike ancient soothsayers and diviners, Moses proves to be the true monotheist prophet by revealing the one and only God to his people: “His task is not to report on the events of tomorrow or the next day in order to satisfy human curiosity or the human need for security. He shows us the face of God, and in so doing he shows us the path that we have to take” (4). But, of course, the text in Deuteronomy on which the Pope is commenting does generate in Israel the hope for a new Moses who will appear at the appropriate time, one whose forty days in the desert will recapitulate Israel’s own forty years of living there (29). His distinctive trait will be his immediate relation with God, a relationship that will permit him to disclose the divine will in a direct and unmediated fashion. Like Moses but more perfect, the Messiah shall testify to the will of God, for he knows the Father face to face, not merely from his solitude with God in the cloud (5). As in all biblical typology, the Old Testament type discussed here is still incomplete and imperfect. The corresponding anti-type, as a stage in the life of Christ, will complete what is incomplete and perfect what is imperfect. Respecting this pattern, the Pope On the Fourfold Sense of Scripture in Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 755 comments at length on mysterious events in Exodus when Moses requests that God display his glory (Exod 33:18). God refuses (Exod 33:20: “You cannot see my face”) and grants Moses the compensating gift of seeing God’s back from a cleft in a rock (Exod 33:23). The direct relation that Moses has to God has its limits. He may enter the cloud of God’s presence and speak to God as a friend, but he may not behold God’s face. The immediate vision of the divine, together with the ability to speak about God from seeing his face, belongs to Christ alone. He will be the mediator of a covenant greater than the one that Moses brought. The Messiah was expected to bring “a renewed Torah,” but as the new and definitive Moses, Jesus brings forth a new and definitive Torah (99–100). We have here a use of both the moral and the typological sense. The Torah, Jesus as the new Moses, delivers not just an interpretation of God’s will, but that will itself. The contemporary rabbi Jacob Neusner, whom the Pope takes as a dialogue partner in his chapter on the Sermon on the Mount, finds this claim as undeniable as unacceptable (105, 120).21 For Benedict, Jesus’s very posture used for the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew—seated in the chair of Moses teaching with plenary authority—makes clear that he is not only a trained rabbi but also a prophet greater than Moses (66). When discussing how the beatitudes are a portrait of Jesus himself, as well as a summons to every follower to recapitulate him, Benedict notes that Jesus affirms the perennial validity of the Commandments; yet as the new Moses, he paradoxically surpasses them all by his meekness (80).22 For Benedict, the prologue to the Gospel of John artfully displays the completion of the relation of type and anti-type: “No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is nearer to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” ( John 1:18). As the eternal Word and the Son of God, Jesus lives intimately in the very presence of his Father and thus fully realizes what was only fragmentarily present for Moses. Referring to Jesus’s uniqueness, Benedict probingly posits: “The question that every reader of the New Testament must ask—where Jesus’s teaching came from, how his appearance in history is to be explained—can really be answered only from this See Jacob Neusner, A Rabbi Talks with Jesus (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000), 107–08. 22 See JN, 92–96, for Benedict’s moving discussion of Christ’s “purity of heart” (the sixth beatitude) as a recapitulation of Jer 17 and Ps 1. See also JN, 80–84, for an extended consideration of Num 12:3 and Zech 9:9–10. 21 756 Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. perspective” (6). The teaching of Jesus does not result from a school of human learning or human genius; it originates in direct vision of the Father. For the pope, this vision explains the many nights when Jesus withdrew “to the mountain” in prayerful union alone with the Father. More broadly, Jesus’s uniqueness grounds the Bible’s proper Christology: “Jesus is only able to speak about the Father in the way he does because he is the Son, because of his filial communion with the Father” (7). In his chapter on the baptism of Jesus, Benedict illustrates his respect for the historical-critical method in contemporary scholarship. He gives much attention not only to the plain sense of the text, but also to the research that has combed the manuscripts for textual variants and to the archeology that has improved our historical grasp of the literal sense. Of special importance for our purpose here is Benedict’ study of the typological sense of Jesus’s genealogy recounted in Matthew. Designed to show him as “the definitive David,” it establishes that his person alone consummates the true Kingdom of God, even as the original David founded the kingdom of Israel (10). The Pope also discusses the typological sense of the Lucan genealogy that singles out Jesus as the son of Adam who recapitulates the old Adam. Moreover, deep within this chapter, we see a focus on the anagogical sense in the sacramental vision of Jesus’s Baptism. On the one hand, his immersion into the waters, considered as a symbol of death, calls to mind the annihilation brought about by the destructive power of the flood. On the other hand, the new life symbolized by the flowing waters of the River Jordan calls to mind the purification brought by an immersion that washes away the filth of past sins. This scene also implies that the whole human condition is assumed within Jesus’s own cleansing; after all, he deliberately blends into the mass of sinners waiting on Jordan’s bank (16). Admittedly, neither the moral nor the anagogical sense is as prominent in Benedict’s analysis here as the typological, but these other senses emerge periodically. The solidarity that Jesus establishes with sinners by his insistence on being baptized and by his decision to enter the desert after baptism as a way to identify with the perils that trouble humanity becomes a way to understand Scripture’s moral implications (26f ). At the heart of the first temptation, for example, the Pope finds the template for all temptation: a readiness to push God aside, as if God were something secondary or superfluous in comparison with the idols that fill our lives with such pressing urgency (28–29). On the Fourfold Sense of Scripture in Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 757 We encounter the anagogical sense in Benedict’s seeing the “Eucharistic assembly” as the Christian meaning of the Promised Land. The land promised in the third beatitude is neither some geographical territory of one’s own nor a place where there is freedom from the slavery of Egypt to do as we would like. On the contrary, it is the land of Christ’s peace, where we can discern the true Promised Land—genuine freedom for true worship. Here the Pontiff highlights for us how the Scriptures direct the faithful to the eternal Jerusalem of heaven (84). Benedict presents an explicit contrast with those modern interpretations of the baptism that emphasize it as a sort of vocational experience in which Jesus experiences an unexpectedly life-shattering calling out of a normal Galilean adolescence (23–24). In so doing, the Pope skillfully uses the anagogical sense: Jesus’s Baptism anticipated his death on the Cross, and the heavenly voice proclaimed an anticipation of the Resurrection. These anticipations have now become reality. John’s baptism with water has received its full meaning through the baptism of Jesus’s own life and death. To accept the invitation to be baptized now means to go to the place of Jesus’s Baptism. It is to go where he identifies himself with us and to receive there our identification with him. The point where he anticipates death has now become the point where we anticipate rising again with him (18). Against the possible objection that this interpretation has carried us too far from what the text intends to convey, Benedict uses the theory of recapitulation so important to the four senses: “Jesus’s Baptism, then, is understood as a repetition of the whole of history, which both recapitulates the past and anticipates the future” (20). The Pope also finds an anagogical reference to the saving efficacy of the Cross in the words of John Baptist when he first encounters Jesus: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” ( John 1:29). Benedict credits Joachim Jeremias with the insight that the Hebrew word talia means both “lamb” and “servant.” Accordingly, the Baptist is alluding to the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, who is a lamb led to the slaughter (Isa 53:7). But John is also referring to the Passover lamb, an image of Jesus as one whose crucifixion during the Passover offers a vicarious atonement for the sin of the 758 Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. world (21–22).23 Benedict sees in these allusions the wider anagogical significance for Israel. The chosen nation does not exist for itself alone, but rather creates the possibility for universal salvation by remitting everyone’s sins. In sum, this sampling of Benedict’s use of the traditional doctrine of the four senses of Scripture as part of his “canonical exegesis” permits a few generalizations. First, some of his analyses emphasize the typological sense alone. In these, the discovery of this level of meaning seems the primary means of nourishing our faith and satisfying our understanding. Second, there are a fair number of cases in which the typologies lead to the moral or anagogical sense. Of course, I see no barrier to exegeses that move directly from the literal to the moral or the anagogical sense. But Benedict’s use of the typological sense as the ground of the moral and anagogical senses is distinctively strong. One reason for this could derive from his desire to understand morality not as an autonomous natural science, but as intrinsic to a loving relationship in faith and hope with God and humanity. For Benedict, the authentically virtuous person results N&V only from a recapitulation of, and in, Christ (see ch. 3). See Joachim Jeremias, “Amnos,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel et al., 10 vols.(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964), 1:338– 40. 23 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2017): 759–778 759 On the Christology of Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 Joseph G. Mueller, S.J. Marquette University Milwaukee, WI In the forward to the first book of his trilogy on Jesus [hereafter, JN; cited below in text by page no.],1 Benedict XVI declares that his main thrust is to see “Jesus in light of his communion with the Father, which is the true center of his personality.”2 The Pope states that God “is at the deepest level the one speaking” in Scripture (xxi). The reader of Benedict’s book can therefore conclude that, through his communion with God, Jesus can address us in Scripture so as to invite us into an “intimate friendship” with him that constitutes faith’s “point of reference . . . on which everything depends (xii; see also 257).”3 In other words, Benedict writes a book developing the Bible’s presentation of the theocentric personality of Jesus precisely “to help foster the growth of a living relationship with him” (xxiv). Everything in faith depends on our innermost friendship with Jesus because such friendship brings us to Jesus’s personal core, where we meet God himself. Meeting God represents, for Benedict, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration [hereafter, JN], trans Adrian J. Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2007) [originally Jesus von Nazareth, vol. 1, Von der Taufe im Jordan bis zur Verklärung (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 2007)]. This work will be cited parenthetically simply by page numbers in the text of this article. 2 JN, xiii–xiv, citing Rudolf Schnackenburg, Jesus in the Gospels: A Biblical Christology, trans. O. C. Dean (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 322. 3 Benedict assigns to the Holy Spirit the words of the Lord’s Prayer, attributed by the Gospels to Jesus (JN, 131, citing Cyprian, De dominica oratione 2, in Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum [Vienna, AT: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1867–], 3/1:267f.). 1 760 Joseph G. Mueller, S.J. the goal of all human history. “Among all the paths of history, the path to God is the true direction that we must seek and find” (4). Humanity can come to itself only by coming out of itself toward God.4 Of course, many prophets can show us the face of God (ibid.; see also 291–93). In order therefore to emphasize that everything depends on our friendship with Jesus, Benedict’s book has to show that human beings will fully come to God only by coming to Christ. In his personal core alone dwells the God who gives us the fullness of the divine encounter for which the world strives as its ultimate goal. From the first pages of JN, Benedict commits himself to finding in Scripture the portrayal of Jesus as the uniquely universal access point to God and hence to the center of life’s meaning. Benedict thinks that seeing the Jesus of Scripture in this way is “a genuinely historical insight” of faith that is “based upon . . . historical reason” (xiii, xix). He founds his demonstration of Jesus’s divine identity on the Church’s own act of faith, which opens people to the transcendent creator of history. Ecclesial faith, together with Benedict’s demonstration, must thus transcend historical insight, especially in historical-critical exegesis, even as historical knowledge must be kept as their basis. Benedict wishes to navigate between two shoals. On one hand, the salvifically intimate friendship with Christ would lie beyond our reach if our knowledge of him never attained a certitude greater than the merely provisional knowledge delivered by historical criticism. In that case, the Jesus we need slips from our grasp (xii). On the other hand, if we can know Jesus only through a knowledge separate from history, our friend would cease to act as God’s fleshly face saving the world precisely in it. In this way, the Jesus we grasp would not be the one we need (xv). Benedict thus grapples with the classic Enlightenment question: How do we conceive of an absolutely certain acquaintance with God that apprehends him as a human being subject to an opacity that, with time and distance, becomes so fragile? Benedict points out that Hegel’s approach to the Absolute in history, which responded to this question, incited the diverse responses of thinkers like Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, as well as the warring cultural movements that they stimulated. As a consequence, the Church’s unity has been sacrificed on the altar of disputes about the epistemic status of faith Cf. JN, 90: “In a word, the true morality of Christianity is love. And love . . . is an exodus out of oneself, and yet this is precisely the way in which man comes to himself.” 4 On the Christology of Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 761 in the Incarnate God. Their smoke has risen in wafting swirls such as the fundamentalist–liberal split, the Catholic modernist crisis, and the bitter battles over the spirit of Vatican II. Therefore, far from restricting the relevance of his book to a “me-and-Jesus” pastoral interest in the salvation of individual souls, Benedict’s promoting of an intimate friendship with Jesus attacks head on one of the major issues in the struggle for integrity in the Church and Western culture over recent centuries. His vision of a historically conditioned, theocentric Jesus is designed to lead to a recentering of society as a whole on God. The essay presented here explains Benedict’s Jesus by emphasizing four points of JN. First, the center of Jesus’s identity lies in his dialogue with the Father. Second, Jesus’s mission consists in leading all people to the Father. Third, Jesus’s way consists in the reigning of God over and in society. Fourth, Christ’s portrait offers a remedy for an age without God. Finally, I will assess Benedict’s understanding of Christian faith as the middle ground between ahistorical certitude and historical hypothesis. I will examine whether it is successful in equating “the Jesus of the Gospels” with “the real, ‘historical’ Jesus,” who claims to be “a plausible and convincing figure” (xxii). Jesus’s Identity Found in His Dialogical Unity with God My first point shows how Benedict maintains again and again that Jesus’s identity centers on his dialogue with the Father. He begins to do so in the introduction of JN by depicting Jesus as the eschatological Moses. As a prophet, Jesus, like Moses, is “granted . . . a real, immediate vision of the face of God.” This vision puts him in an “immediate relation with God, which enables him to communicate God’s will and word firsthand and unadulterated.”5 We can understand this relation as an “immediate contact with the Father,” as a “‘face-to-face’ dialogue” that implies “the most intimate unity with the Father.” In this unity, “all that we are told [in the New Testament] about his words, deeds, sufferings, and glory is anchored” (6–7). Benedict’s chapter on Jesus’s baptism tells us that this immediate vision and intimate dialogue constitute Jesus in a unity with God that gives him “equality with God” (20; also 298), together with a “communion of will with the Father,” which involves a total yes to God’s will (23; also 341). John’s Gospel shows us that this yes to God constitutes his entire subordination to the Father, as well JN, 5. See also ibid., 235–36, 244–45, and 264–68 (which all concern Jesus’s depiction in the Fourth Gospel), 304 (Peter’s confession in Caesarea Philippi), and 308 (the Transfiguration). 5 762 Joseph G. Mueller, S.J. as his equality with him (343). Indeed, Matthew 11:25–27 and Luke 10:21–22 tell us that Jesus knows the Father in a unique way, such that he can rightly say that only he knows the Father.This “perfect communion in knowledge” implies equality with the Father and “communion in being” with him (340). Benedict’s treatment of Jesus’s temptation to throw himself down from a great height in order to test God shows that Jesus’s dialogue with the Father includes the “dimension of love, of interior listening” (37). Jesus’s choice of the Twelve emerges out of his prayerful communion in dialogue with God on the mountain (170). Commenting on the blessedness of the pure in heart who see God, the Pope notes that “it belongs to [ Jesus’s] nature that he sees God, that he stands face-toface with him, in permanent interior discourse.” Benedict calls this “a relation of Sonship.”6 It reveals itself in the Transfiguration as “a profound interpenetration of his being with God” (310). Jesus’s yes to God’s will reaches its climax in his Passion, where we see most clearly that obedience defines who Jesus is (149–50). Therefore, his “special oneness with God . . . is displayed in the Cross and Resurrection” (338; also 349). This dialogical relation to God belongs to Jesus “in the strict sense”: it embraces the homoousion of Nicaea interpreted by Benedict as Christ’s “total belonging to God” (138; also 140) and as “a communion of being with God himself ” that makes Jesus and his Father “truly one and the same God in the Holy Spirit” (320; also 354–55). In Jesus, “the mystery of the one God is personally present” (348). In a comment on John 1:18, the Pope tells us, “Only the one who is God sees God—Jesus” (265). His disciples realized, to their astonishment at certain key moments before his resurrection, that Jesus is God himself. Although they were unable to use such a straightforward formulation, they expressed this realization with titles like Prophet, Messiah, Son of God, Chosen One, and finally Lord, the placeholder for the divine name (299–305). Benedict returns often to a reading of Jesus as the new Moses, especially when he interprets the depiction of Jesus at the beginning of Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount. Here Jesus’s teaching “presupposes his entering into communion with the Father, the inward ascents of his life, which are then prolonged in his descents JN, 95. See also ibid. 120, 126, and in greater detail, the whole tenth chapter (319–55), which discusses in particular the titles “Son of Man” and “Son.” 6 On the Christology of Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 763 into communion of life and suffering with men.” 7 The loving obedience that Jesus gives to the Father, who so intimately speaks with him and sends him, leads Jesus to a solidarity with suffering humanity whose apex is the Cross. Jesus’s communion with the Father makes the Cross the new form of God’s theophany, more terrible than Sinai, since it requires one who would receive the divine manifestation to suffer with Christ.8 Because his Cross and resurrection reveal the Father’s love to be like the father in the parable of the two sons in Luke 15, Jesus can justify his own welcome of sinners by evoking that parabolic father’s behavior (206–09). His dialogical “oneness with the Father’s will is the foundation of his life” (149), and an “unceasing dialogue with the Father . . . is his life” (266; also 268). Benedict ends by asserting that this dialogue simply is God (344). Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, building on the Decalogue, consists in “God . . . uttering words in history that come to us from outside and complete the interior knowledge” of his will “that has become all too hidden” in our consciences because of sin. In this teaching, Jesus develops “a revelation of the essence of God himself . . . and hence . . . an exegesis of the truth of our being” (148). In observing his miracles, the people with Jesus find themselves “immediately exposed to the presence of God.”9 His unique oneness with God constitutes the mystery of who Jesus is, and this mystery constitutes the Father’s sending of Christ, “since Jesus’s whole being is mission.”10 Jesus’s Mission to Lead All to God We arrive, then, at the second point of this essay: Jesus is sent by the Father to lead all people to the Father. Here we see that the theocentric personality of Jesus has a uniquely universal saving role. Jesus uses parables because “he has to lead us to the mystery of God.”11 Thanks to the uniquely immediate unity between Jesus and the God who sends him, “the disciple who walks with Jesus is . . . caught up with him into JN, 65–68, quote at 68. See also ibid., 303–04 and 308–09 (the meaning of this event’s taking place on a mountain). 8 JN, 67–68. See also ibid., 136, 144, 349. Especially in his death and resurrection, Jesus becomes “God’s great sign” of himself in response to those who ask for a sign of the truth of Jesus’s message (ibid., 217). 9 JN, 352 (Jesus’s walking on the water). 10 JN, 172. See also ibid., 348–49: “Jesus is wholly ‘relational.’ . . . his whole being is nothing other than relation to the Father.” 11 JN, 192. The parable of the two brothers and their father in Luke 15:11–32 “is ultimately an appeal to say Yes once more to the God who calls us” (ibid., 203). 7 764 Joseph G. Mueller, S.J. communion with God.” Passively being “caught up” is at the same time an active “stepping beyond the limits of human nature,” a move that God created us capable of doing, even as he expects it (8; also 140–41, 149–50). Accordingly, in his commentary on the bread of life discourse in John 6, Benedict affirms that, “when we encounter Jesus, we feed on the living God himself ” (268). Because Jesus “is forever receiving himself from and giving himself back to the Father,” those who come into dialogue with him who laid down his life for them, “enter into this communion of his with the Father” through a “transcendent dialogue” (283). Because only the Son knows the Father, “all real knowledge of the Father is a participation in the Son’s filial knowledge of him, a revelation that [the Son] grants.”12 Our walking with Jesus toward the Father commits us, from the moment of baptism, to sharing in his Cross and resurrection, as the Beatitudes make clear (71–74, 310–11). In the Paschal mystery anticipated in his baptism, Jesus’s dialogical equality with God involves him in saying a yes to God’s will. This enables him “to take upon himself all the sin of the world” and to suffer that sin completely, such that he frees creation from the power of evil (17, 20). By following Christ, we then step into his “communion of will with the Father” (23) brought to its summit in Jesus’s death and resurrection. Our Eucharistic “food must become an opening out of our existence, a passing through the Cross, and an anticipation of the new life in God and with God” (270). Christ “wants to draw all of us into his humanity and so into his Sonship, into his total belonging to God” (138). It makes sense, then, that “the actual core of Jesus’s word and works” is the gift of the coming of God’s Reign and the human response of conversion and faith that this gift demands (47). Benedict understands the Reign of God presented in the Gospels as “God’s actual sovereignty [Regentschaft] over the world, which is becoming an event in history . . . in a way that goes beyond anything seen before” (55, 56).13 He describes this sovereignty in terms that recall his portrait of the act of faith. It transcends each part of history, extending throughout history and beyond it. The “inner dynamism” of this sovereignty “carries history beyond itself,” while it belongs “absolutely to the present.” Its “life-shaping power” gives those who, JN, 341 (commenting on Matt 11:25–27, Luke 10:21–22, and John 1:18). See also 176. For the German word cited, see Jesus von Nazareth, vol. 1, Von der Taufe im Jordan bis zur Verklärung, 85. 12 13 On the Christology of Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 765 submitting to it, adopt its perspective an anticipated “share in the world to come” that brings the joy of the Beatitudes’ blessedness to those in affliction (57, 72). Following Christ brings our will into communion with the Father’s sovereign will of the Kingdom that “is to be found in Jesus himself ” (60; see also 146). In fact, Jesus simply is the fulfillment of God’s ongoing activity of being Lord (199). Thus, Jesus’s parables of the Kingdom of God are basically about it “as coming and as having come in his person.” Although the waste of seed strewn on the hard ground rejects him, yet a seed sprouts that becomes universally fruitful, ironically, in the total rejection and failure of the Cross (188–91, quote at 188). Because Jesus’s dialogue with the Father makes “divine life . . . present in him in original and inexhaustible fullness,” Jesus gives nothing else to people except the abundant life of the Reign of God, which is “the world having attained its rightful form, the unity of God and the world.”14 Jesus’s “whole being consists in communicating” the gift of God’s life received from the Father and given to us. His elevation on the Cross shows this paradigmatically (354). The presence in Jesus of the sovereignty of God that pervades and transcends all history makes Jesus a person of universal import. The whole world can meet in him its only Creator, Savior, and God, who is bringing it to eschatological fullness “through the love that reaches ‘to the end’” of the Cross (61, citing; 61). When this love reaches that far in the dying Christ’s prayer for his enemies, he “shows us the essence of the Father” uniquely (136). Therefore, for Benedict, when Jesus promises, at the end of the Beatitudes, a great reward to those who suffer for his sake, he establishes “fidelity to his person” as “the criterion of righteousness and salvation,” as “the reference point, . . . goal and center” of righteous living. This means that Jesus conveys openly “the message that he himself is the center of history” (90; see also 91–92, 105, 137–38). Similarly, when the Matthean Jesus contrasts the Mosaic Torah— “it was said to them of old”—with his own Torah—“but I say to you”—he puts himself in “a mysterious identification” of equality with the One who gave the law on Sinai, the God of the universe (102–03). Indeed, Benedict follows Jacob Neusner’s interpretation of Jesus’s teaching about the Sabbath, his claim to be Lord of the Sabbath, and his Jubelruf (Matthew 11:25–39). These combine to show that he Benedict takes the first quotation in this sentence from C. K. Barrett, The Gospel according to John, 2nd ed. (London: SPCK, 1978), 2:88. 14 766 Joseph G. Mueller, S.J. simply is the Sabbath that constitutes “the central expression of life in Covenant with God,” Israel’s way of being like God (106). Accordingly, both Neusner and Benedict stress the implication that Jesus is God. Benedict adds, however, that “Jesus understands himself as the Torah—as the word of God in person.”15 The Sanhedrin convicts Jesus precisely because of this claim: that he was “on an equal footing with the living God himself.” This claim forms “what was new, characteristic, and unique about his message” (303–04). Because Jesus is identically the unique Word-Creator of all and the unique Shepherd laying down his life to save all, all people can find their unity in him: his mission, which he shares with his disciples after his resurrection, is universal (284). Therefore, “all individual beings are deeply interwoven and . . . all are encompassed in turn by the being of the One, the Incarnate Son,” which his Cross makes clear. There he bears “the burdens of us all” (159–60). By handing all things over to the Son in a dialogical relationship within the Trinity, the Father makes the Son the Son, donating this Son to the whole world in the Incarnation, a gift that the love of the Cross perfects (343–44). The universality of the Jesus who leads all to the Father makes Jesus the gatherer of a group of followers called to extend everywhere. The Father sends him with a mission to “preach the Kingdom of God and thereby [to] gather people into God’s new family” (173). In giving to the children of Israel their new Torah, the Messiah’s Torah, Paul’s “law of Christ,” Jesus “opens them up, in order to bring to birth a great new family of God drawn from Israel and the Gentiles” (101). This Torah includes Jesus’s invitation to partake in his own prayer dialogue with God through the Our Father, which “embraces the whole compass of man’s being in all ages” (133).16 In commenting on Peter’s confession, especially in Mark 8 and Luke 9, Benedict notes that, upon witnessing Jesus’s unique dialogical relationship with God, some of his hearers come to know Christ with deep faith and to receive his call to discipleship. Through it, they gain new insight into God and begin to form the new universal family of the Church (290–94). JN, 110, citing Jacob Neusner, A Rabbi Talks with Jesus (Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2000), 87–88. See also JN, 155–57, 266–68, 315–17 (Transfiguration), and 325 (the Son of Man as Lord of the Sabbath). 16 Benedict does not say precisely why this prayer embraces the whole history of humanity. He implies that it does so because it originates in Jesus’s prayer with the Father that reaches to depths beyond words. 15 On the Christology of Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 767 Jesus’s Way: God’s Reigning over and in Human Society Benedict misses no opportunity to point out scriptural allusions to the universal importance of Jesus’s person and work.17 Since Christ has universal impact as divine revealer and Savior leading all people into the dialogue with God who is his substance, we can expect the way of Jesus to connect God to every form of human society. Benedict thus presents Jesus’s way as the reigning of God over and in all social life. He first manifests this way in his account of Jesus’s temptations. For the Pope, this episode represents Jesus’s recapitulation of all of human history through a “descent into the perils besetting mankind,” an “entry into the drama of human existence” (26). Every temptation in our perilous human drama points us, according to Benedict, toward the act of “pushing God aside because we perceive him as secondary, if not actually superfluous and annoying, in comparison with the apparently far more urgent matters that fill our lives.” Every temptation goads us toward “constructing a world by our own lights, without reference to God, . . . refusing to acknowledge the reality of anything beyond the political and the material, while setting God aside as an illusion” (28). Jesus rejects this temptation in part because, “when God is regarded as a secondary matter that can be set aside . . . on account of more important things . . . those supposedly more important things . . . come to nothing” (33). Thus, Jesus understands that the issue in the whole human drama comes down to “the primacy of God” as “the reality without which nothing can be good.” Things “can turn out good” only if people have good hearts that come ultimately only from God. Therefore, society will finally feed its poor only on the day when it arrives at obedience to God, which represents the first and foremost principle for a vital humanity. Jesus decides to live and teach this message in his Deuteronomic answer to the first temptation: people do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (33–34). Jesus inculcates this same message by teaching us to ask God for our daily bread so that we might oppose “the temptation that comes to us through our pride to give ourselves life purely through our own power.” This temptation makes us cold, violent, mediocre, unfree, alienated from our own humanity, and destructive of the earth (151). But when we pray to God for our daily bread, we commit ourselves to accepting our responsibility for each other through sharing what See, for example: JN, 10, 18, 22, 26, 66, 69, 81, 179–80, 198, 201, 238, 240, 247, 284, 289, 326–27, 332, 338. 17 768 Joseph G. Mueller, S.J. we have with the poor (151–52, 156). Therefore, what the human person “needs most is the Word, love, God himself. Whoever gives him that . . . releases the energies man needs to shape the earth intelligently and to find for himself and for others the goods that we can have only in common with others” (279). To embrace this truth of God’s primacy in all things, even in social life, people must appreciate the distinction between God’s Reign and all the kingdoms of the world, which Satan displayed before Jesus. They must also realize that the “perfect world” such governments, social systems, and ideologies often promise is illusory: “the total condition of mankind’s salvation” is God’s Reign not theirs. Jesus’s refusal of this illusion shows us his conviction that God’s power at work in “the humble, self-sacrificing glory” of Christ’s love constitutes “the true and lasting power” able to bring humanity to its full potential (44). In responding to this temptation, Jesus teaches that pursuing power and wealth in order to secure “a future that offers all things to all men” constitutes belief in a lie. Power and prosperity are not God, whom we must choose as “man’s true Good” (45). Thus, for Benedict, even Mark’s expression “the Gospel of God” implies that “it is not the emperors who can save the world, but God.”18 Benedict thinks that the third Beatitude, the blessing of the meek, refers to Jesus’s own meekness before God and his fellow human beings. It is reflected in his fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy of a king of Jerusalem riding on an ass (9–10). In this role, Jesus functions as the universal king bringing true peace to the world through God’s power. He renounces political and military violence, and he accepts suffering (80–81). Therefore, Jesus’s rebuke of Peter after his confession in Caesarea Philippi teaches us that the Lord’s way “is not the way of earthly power and glory, but the way of the Cross” (299). By interpreting his death in Mark 10:45 in terms of second Isaiah’s “suffering servant,” Jesus shows us that “service is the true form of rule and . . . gives us an insight into God’s way of being Lord” (332). Consequently, Christian faith is “fundamentally apolitical” and “does not demand political power but acknowledges legitimate authorities (cf. Rom 13:1–7).” However, Christianity “inevitably collides” with the claim to divine worship on the part of Roman “imperial political “The term [evangelion] figures in the vocabulary of the Roman emperors, who understood themselves as lords, saviors, and redeemers of the world. . . . The idea was that what comes from the emperor is a saving message, that it is not just a piece of news, but a change of the world for the better” (JN, 46–47). 18 On the Christology of Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 769 power.” Benedict generalizes this collision by noting that Christian faith “will always come into conflict with totalitarian political regimes and will be driven into the situation of martyrdom” (339). Benedict’s reflections on the inheritance of the land by the meek lead him to conclude that true peace comes from God and is built on human obedience and openness to God, which lead to the right ordering of the earth in true freedom (82–84). In following Jesus, the king of peace, by establishing peace for the world, people come to reconciliation with each other. In turn, this requires reconciliation with God (85). Summing up his treatment of the first two words of the Lord’s Prayer, Benedict therefore affirms, “The fatherhood that is ‘in heaven’ points us toward the greater ‘we’ that transcends all boundaries, breaks down all walls, and creates peace” (142). He explains the beatitudes of those who mourn and those who suffer persecution in terms of God’s opposition to social injustice. Sorrow at the injustice within us and at the suffering of those unjustly treated makes us more strongly resist social injustice and more deeply suffer in love for those unjustly treated. It puts us on the side of Jesus, who is the unjustly condemned one, and on the side of the God, who is love (86–87). Such resistance obeys God’s righteousness because of the demands of faith. Persecution confronts us in every age, because humanity is always trying to free itself from God’s will (89). Yet God forms the center of all social life: we can know ourselves “only . . . in light of God”; and we can know other people only when we see “the mystery of God in them” (282–83). The final pages of Benedict’s chapter on the Sermon on the Mount bring together the first three points I have made thus far (112–22). The Pope observes that, when Jesus describes his family as those who do his Father’s will (Mark 3:34–35), “Jesus’s ‘I’ incarnates the Son’s communion of will with the Father. It is an ‘I’ that hears and obeys” (117). Jesus’s very self is this intimate dialogue with God, which constitutes “his divine authority—his Sonship in communion with the Father” (120). This authority provides the foundation for Jesus’s revising of the Torah so that he can lead all people who follow him to the Father. “Communion with [ Jesus],” says Benedict, “is filial communion with the Father.” Jesus’s followers become a new family based solely on living in union with the will of God, and they thus manifest “the heart of the obedience [to God] intended by the Torah.” This family becomes “the vehicle” of Jesus’s universalization of faith in the God of Israel. Its membership no longer depends on 770 Joseph G. Mueller, S.J. blood descent, but on Jesus’s way of obedience to the God of all (117; see also 140–42). By demoting the relations of birth, which ground Israel’s juridical and social order, Jesus desacralizes all juridical, social, and political arrangements. He thus rules out theocracy by making a theocentric society founded only on obedience to God. We should search for his will on the basis of the commandments of the Torah, “a decisive point of reference” and “a signpost” (116–19, quote at 119; see also 120–22).19 Benedict’s theocentric Christology differs greatly from the theocentrism that he pushes aside in chapter 3, “The Gospel of the Kingdom of God” (53–55). This false theocentrism ejects the Church and Christ from the center of Christianity because it asserts that the Church and Christ divide people from each other (such as church members from those outside it, and believers in Christ from those who do not acknowledge him). Benedict believes that replacing Church or Christ in the central position with God (as one who does not divide people) proves unstable because not all religions are theistic. God divides theists from non-theists. Thus, false theocentrism leads to a regnocentrism focused on the ethical project of establishing a kingdom of justice and peace without a necessary link to God. For Benedict, regnocentrism proves itself “utopian dreaming” open to being coopted by “partisan doctrine.” It makes God irrelevant to the human project, turns religions into permissible customs without real significance, and subordinates faith to political goals in a post-Christian outlook resembling the temptation to political power that the devil presented to Christ. By contrast, Benedict’s Christology, which keeps God in the center of history, allows Christ to dwell concretely in time and space. Moreover, it makes the Church a vital manifestation of the universal efficacy of Christ’s salvation. Christ unites all people, leading them to God by eschewing any sacralization of political power. It thus strives to attract people to the unitive function of the God of Jesus Christ working in the Church. In sum, Benedict’s theocentric Christology offers an antidote to other programs that seek to overcome religious See also JN, 134 (the Our Father), 145–46, 166. See also his World Day of Peace message January 1, 2006, which identifies “fidelity to the transcendent order” as an essential element of peace, accessed April 25, 2017, http:// www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/ hf_ben-xvi_mes_20051213_xxxix-world-day-peace_en.html#_ftnref3, consulted 6 February 2016. 19 On the Christology of Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 771 divisions at the cost of encouraging a godless approach to religion and society. A Theocentric Jesus for a Culture without God We thus arrive at the fourth point of this essay: Benedict’s theocentric portrait of Christ addresses a culture attempting to live without God. This culture leaves people thinking that life does not completely make sense, and it leads them to treat each other inhumanely. The Pope believes that “the spirit of the modern rebellion against God and God’s law” animates this culture, which seeks to leave behind “everything we once depended on” because of a “will to a freedom without limits” (204). For him, “the logic of the modern age, of our age” declares God to be dead and makes of people the divine proprietors, the measuring standards of themselves and the world, such that they can do what they please (257). In response, Benedict’s portrait of Christ puts God at the center of Christology, and that Christology puts God at the center of society. The Pope indicates the context for his distinctive Christology in his commentary on Jesus’s giving to the Twelve the authority to expel demons. He links the power of the Twelve to exorcize with their message of monotheism. He notes that when we belong in faith to the only God who alone is Lord, all else, including the powers of evil, loses its allure. Only then can people see the world as created and saved by a divinely rational goodness that constitutes the sole power over and in it. Without this faith in the one Creator, “the indeterminable powers of chance” leave us with insoluble “obscurities . . . that set limits to the world’s rationality” (174). When this gift of faith is shared in ecclesial communion, Christians can stand up to the principalities and powers of Ephesians 6. Benedict interprets these as “an anonymous atmosphere . . . that wants to make the faith seem ludicrous and absurd” because it poisons “the spiritual climate all over the world that threatens the dignity of man, indeed his very existence.”20 On his penultimate page, Benedict tells us that God is “what it is that [man] truly needs and truly wants.” Here he makes clear the central role played in the whole book by his theocentric Christology: “What ultimately lies behind all the Johannine images . . . [is that] Jesus gives us ‘life’ because he gives us God. He can give God because he himself is one with God, because he is the Son. He himself is the JN, 175, citing Heinrich Schlier, Der Brief an die Epheser: Ein Kommentar, 2nd ed. (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1958), 291. 20 772 Joseph G. Mueller, S.J. gift—he is ‘life.’ . . . This is exactly what we see in the Cross, which is his true exaltation” (354). What the world needs, then, is a sure hold on God in Christ as the transcendent, life-giving center of individual and social life. A Traditional Jesus between Ahistorical Certitude and Historical Hypothesis To defend his theocentric Christology, Benedict must stake out ground for the Christian faith’s affirmation of Jesus’s relationship with God between ahistorical certitude and historical hypothesis. Addressing his success in this endeavor constitutes my final point. I turn now to examining how well the Pope arrives at “a historically plausible and convincing figure” in his attempt to equate “the Jesus of the Gospels” with “the real, ‘historical’ Jesus in the strict sense of the word” (xxii). Many exegetes commented on this issue soon after JN came out, and my competence permits me to add nothing substantial to their critiques. Nonetheless, leaving aside Benedict’s penchant for going out of his way to throw an elbow into exegetes’ ribs21 and the apparent errors of some of his claims in the interpretation of one or another passage,22 I will point out a few of his exegetical moves that could make some professional biblical scholars eager to criticize JN. Doing so will See, e.g., JN, 35. For a response to Benedict’s critique that historical-critical research works independently of a faith commitment, see Pierre Gibert, “Critique, méthodologie et histoire dans l’approche de Jésus. Sur: Joseph RATZINGER / BENOÎT XVI, Jésus de Nazareth. 1. Du baptême dans le Jourdain à la Transfiguration,” Recherches de science religieuse 96 (2008): 219–40. 22 There is an exaggeration at JN, 15: “there is absolutely no reason to suppose that Mark is exaggerating when he reports that ‘there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem’ (Mark 1:5).” Another example is an inconsistency: at JN, 24, he states that the biblical texts “give us no window into Jesus’s inner life—Jesus stands above our psychologizing” (German: “ins Innere Jesu . . . hineinshauen” [Jesus von Nazareth, vol. 1, Von der Taufe im Jordan bis zur Verklärung, 50],citing Romano Guardini, Das Wesen des Christentums—Die menschliche Wirklichkeit des Herrn. Breiträge zu einer Psychologie Jesu [Mainz: Matthias Grünewald, 1991]); but Jesus’s inner life is crucial for JN’s own argument, as we have seen, and the whole book aims to get to the true center of Christ’s personality (JN, xiv). Yet another inconsistency occurs at JN, 184, where he claims that historical-critical exegesis can give us no “definitive information” on the meaning of the parables, but at 183, literary comparisons of such exegesis allow Benedict to claim that the Aramaic shining through the Greek text of a parable gives us “a very immediate sense . . . of closeness to Jesus as he lived and taught,” and at 187, he asserts that Jeremias is right that “each parable has its own context and thus its own specific message.” 21 On the Christology of Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 773 help me to highlight the value of Benedict’s project from the point of view of a dogmatic or systematic theologian. Professional exegetes have demurred about what they consider a minimizing of differences in Benedict’s arguments. In his book, the pre-Paschal/post-Paschal difference about what Jesus and others knew about him seems small compared to what most historical-critical exegetes would want to assert.23 Benedict claims that, before Easter, both Jesus and some of his followers knew he was God (303, 324). Similarly, he asserts that Paul’s discourse in Acts 13 “is a typical example of early missionary preaching to the Jews” (337). By contrast, Luke Timothy Johnson avers that “no longer is it presumed that such speeches report . . . a sample of primitive preaching. The conventional wisdom now is that the speeches of Acts are entirely the work of Luke the author.”24 Besides this comparative minimizing of differences between distinct historical moments, many scripture scholars have balked at the Pope’s emphasis on the agreement among all New Testament books concerning Jesus.25 He claims, for example, that the Synoptic Jubelruf of Jesus, his praise of the Father for his revelation of things to the simple (Matt 11:25–27; Luke 10:20–21), contains all of the Johannine theology of the Son (343). Sometimes to the same effect, Benedict will concentrate a grand theological synthesis on a single point expressed in the Gospels, as he does in his commentary on the title Son of Man (333–34). Finally, a number of his interpretations come with less argument than one might normally expect or require.26 While we might wish to attribute this feature to his writing for a popular audience or his need to keep an ambitious book to a See, for example: Richard B. Hays, “Benedict and the Biblical Jesus,” First Things, no. 175 (August–September 2007): 49–53, at 51–52; Luke Timothy Johnson, review in Modern Theology 24 (2008): 318–20, at 319; Denis Campbell, review in Homiletic 32 (2007): 35–37, at 36–37. 24 Luke Timothy Johnson, Septuagintal Midrash in the Speeches of Acts: The Père Marquette Lecture in Theology 2002 (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2002), 5–11, at 5. 25 See, for example, Hays, “Biblical Jesus,” 52. 26 See, for example, JN, 215 (in Luke 16:19–31, Jesus “unequivocally” affirms “the idea of the intermediate state” between death and resurrection), 226 (the identity of the author of the Fourth Gospel), 229 (the Fourth Gospel claims to have rendered correctly the “substance” and “decisive content” of Jesus’s discourses), 321–35 (interpretations of the Son of Man sayings), and 336 (Psalm 2 discards the myth of divine begetting of kings in favor of the notion of divine election of the Israelite king). 23 774 Joseph G. Mueller, S.J. manageable length, it can easily look like a weakness in a work that clearly intends to construct a persuasive argument. Why, then, does Benedict cut across the grain of historical-critical standards in these ways? The reason is this: He does not think we need settle with trying to bring to fruitful unity two sterile alternatives—either an ahistorical religious connection to God, whom we can never really appreciate as incarnate, or a merely hypothetical historical-critical acquaintance with Jesus, whom we can never really appreciate as God, or even as a friend. According to Benedict, in order for people to perceive God— which is precisely the goal toward which he draws his reader—all the energies of their existence have to work together. Pure affections can guide a purified intellect and will, even as our spirit must discipline our body (92–93). A person living integrally can engage in the love that, paradoxically, amounts to “an exodus out of oneself ” and yet constitutes the means of coming to oneself (99; see also 343). Wherever people believe in the love of Christ, they become sources for others of the life that Christ gives them (247–48) and they become those through whom others can hear Jesus’s voice (276–77). This love empowers a self-giving until it hurts, or even brings us to death, and it includes a “patient steadfastness,” no matter what the vicissitudes may be, that allows for God’s gift of our “deep, pure Yes of faith” to remain (261–62, 268–69). As a result, people can come to a relationship with Jesus characterized by both a mutual inner acceptance of each other’s freedom and a loving mutual gift of self. Such a relationship gives people an analogous share in Jesus’s relationship with his Father. These relationships with Jesus and the Father enable people to support each other in mutual knowledge, acceptance, and love, and through these, we can lead each other to God (280–83). At the same time, mutual support among Christians requires them to know God in Christ. Indeed, “it is only by becoming part of the ‘we’ of God’s children that we can reach up to him beyond the limits of this world” (129).27 These important claims asserted in JN constitute elements of a See also JN, 130: “Our praying . . . can and should be a wholly personal prayer. But we also constantly need to make use of those prayers that express in words the encounter with God experienced both by the Church as a whole and by individual members of the Church. For without these aids to prayer our own praying and our image of God . . . end up reflecting ourselves more than the living God.” 27 On the Christology of Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 775 theology of tradition. Indeed, for Benedict, neither historical-criticism nor ahistorical knowledge of the absolute can deliver us friendship with Christ. What can do so is precisely the Christian tradition with Jesus at its center. It brings us into his dialogue with the Father by coming to address us through those who, throughout history, have been caught up in the love of Christ. It is these people, living and dead, who address us in life’s various circumstances and contexts, especially in the liturgy, which Benedict highlights on JN’s first page (ix). Indeed, helping Christians to mediate Christ to each other and to those outside the fold represents one of the purposes of baptism, ordination, and all the sacraments (283). Because this abiding tradition brings us to intimate friendship with Christ, Benedict depends on it as he reads the Gospels. They become a manifestation, even an institution, of this tradition of mutual love and acceptance between God and people centered in Jesus centered in God. Benedict finds in the Gospels, therefore, the Christ of Christian tradition, the Son of the homoousios, the Word of God, whose resurrection manifests his divinity so luminously that it renders comparatively unimportant the difference between the pre- and post-Paschal Christ, between the early Christian missionary speeches and Luke’s later authorial constructions in Acts, and between the Synoptic and the Johannine portraits of Jesus. The cogent completeness of exegetical arguments thus loses some interest for Benedict. Instead, he favors a presentation of their conclusions that will attract people to enter more fully into the ecclesial tradition of mutual love among the sheep and between them and the Shepherd, a tradition that brings us to live in what alone can fulfill human persons and societies: the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his treatment of the Sermon on the Mount, Pope Benedict makes one of his rare explicit gestures toward an understanding of the links between the biblical text and the tradition of mutual knowledge and love. In his discussion of the poverty of spirit taught in the Beatitudes, he notes that the meaning of a biblical passage “becomes most intelligible in those human beings who have been totally transfixed by it and have lived it out.” Thus, biblical interpretation is not merely a historian’s enterprise, because “Scripture is full of potential for the future, a potential that can only be opened up when someone ‘lives through’ and ‘suffers through’ the sacred text” (78). Benedict then discusses Francis of Assisi after having discussed the ascetics of Church history more generally. In the rest of the book, 776 Joseph G. Mueller, S.J. he infrequently mentions such witnesses. If Benedict implies here that tradition is the best interpreter of Scripture, he does not stop to discuss how to relate such interpretation to a healthy grounding in historical-critical method and its brand of reasoning. Had he engaged more deeply in this discussion, he might have forestalled some of the exegetes’ critiques. Would he then, however, have risked turning his book into a fundamental theology, rather than writing the traditional Gospel portrait he set out to do? Perhaps this formula “traditional Gospel portrait” best summarizes the Pope’s approach. For him, the Christ of Christian tradition forms the skopos, the central intended message and meaning, that should guide our interpretation of any and all biblical texts (xix).28 It is not that we need to know Jesus through tradition before we come to the Bible to find him. Rather, we need the Bible in order to know Jesus because treasuring Scripture constitutes a central, God-given form of the tradition. By it, Christians, in their mutual knowledge and self-sacrificing love, let Christ bring them into mutual knowledge and love with him so he can share with them his knowing and loving filial dialogue with God his Father. JN’s traditional Gospel portrait of Jesus constitutes, therefore, a “historically plausible and convincing figure,” precisely because it offers authentic divine and human friendship to a society bereft of God but not yet comprehending its own hunger for God. The concrete judgment that such a friendship answers this hunger ties a tradition-grounded reading of the Gospels to historical reason more fundamentally, for Benedict, than does historical-critical exegesis. A tradition-grounded reading represents an exercise of historical reason because its object, friendship with people, occurs in history. Even our friendship with God is historical. First, although God is not bound by history, the people with whom he has a friendship are thus bound. Furthermore, the God who befriends us becomes incarnate in history. Moreover, the authenticity of the divine and human friendship expressed in a traditional Gospel portrait of Jesus represents an exercise of historical reason, since coming to certitude about the bond of any friendship arises from a historical process. It requires time spent in observation, reasoning, and the making of choices. Even if it implies a certitude not always susceptible of explicit For this ancient ecclesiastical sense of skopos, see T. F. Torrance, Divine Meaning: Studies in Patristic Hermeneutics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), 235–39, 278–80, 376–77. 28 On the Christology of Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 1 777 justification, its ground in historical reason goes beyond tentativity: a friend can sacrifice, even to death, for a friend. No one lays down his or her life for a friend on the basis of a mere hypothesis. Thus, a traditional Gospel portrait of Jesus achieves its plausibility on the basis of an exercise of historical reason that avoids evanescing into the ahistorical, even as it breaks through the hypothetical into certainty. The exercise of reason that achieves these goals finds its completion in a friendship received and returned among people and between them and God. The ability to share the divine with each other in history accounts for the many nations arising from Abraham and Sarah, even as it explains Mary Magdalene’s resurrection finding of him whom her heart loved. It stands to reason, therefore, that Benedict’s addressing Christians in an age that organizes its social life without God makes tradition-grounded faith the source of the historical plausibility of JN’s theocentric Jesus. On this faith rests the Pope’s claim to have depicted “the real, ‘historical’ Jesus in the strict sense of the word” (xxii). Benedict does not mention the fragility that characterizes the knowledge of the Gospel Jesus to which Christian tradition gives us access. This fragility forms part of the certitude that characterizes the knowledge. Fragility obtains in the certitude proper to friendship, even and especially the inner friendship with Jesus, the ultimate goal of Benedict’s book. Trust founds the certitude that someone is our friend, not argued demonstration from solid evidence or certain first principles. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that the certitude of our friendship with God lies on the same foundation. In both the Scriptures and the history of God’s people since biblical times, we see how fragile that foundation can become as the trust that God’s people put in him waivers time and again. Our tradition-grounded knowledge of the Gospel Jesus is fragile in other ways. Tradition can forget to pass on some of what it receives.29 Another aspect of fragility comes from tradition’s dependence on the sacred scriptures themselves. They confront us with difficulties that require resorting to historical investigation for their resolution. This resolution often attains only the merely probable, although some results can reach virtual certitude.30 How the certitude On this fragile certitude, see Joseph G. Mueller, “Forgetting as a Principle of Continuity in Tradition,” Theological Studies 70 (2009): 751–81. 30 See for example, Gibert, “Critique.” The Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, discusses the need to use 29 778 Joseph G. Mueller, S.J. of our traditional friendship with Christ can abide when it is affected by fragilities like these is an important question that we should not expect a traditional Gospel portrait of Jesus to resolve exhaustively. Nonetheless, it is fair to observe that Benedict did not undertake the argument that my final section offers here. I built it from elements, some explicit and some implicit, scattered throughout JN. It represents one response to what Richard Hays requested the Pope to do in a subsequent volume of his triology: “to set forth more clearly how the practice of history writing should be done in the new world revealed by incarnation, cross, and resurrection.”31 Benedict’s groundbreaking theocentric Christology would have gained in force N&V had he himself answered Hays.32 historical methods to understand what God wants to tell us in Scripture (§12) and then refers, by implication, to the human weakness (infirmitas humana) of the language (sermo) in Scripture that God uses to express himself (§ 13). 31 Hays, “Biblical Jesus,” 53. 32 The closest he comes to doing so is when, in the third volume, he describes how Matthew and Luke wrote history in their narratives of Jesus’s birth and early life (Joseph Ratzinger/Benedikt XVI, Jesus von Nazareth: Prolog; die Kindheitsgeschichten [Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 2012], 27–30). Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2017): 779–793 779 On Ecclesiology Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) Fordham University New York, NY Images of the Church Pope Benedict XVI has written on a very wide range of topics, but his writings on the Church are perhaps more voluminous than those on any other theme. His doctoral dissertation, completed in 1953, dealt with the images of People of God and House of God in the works of St. Augustine, two images of what we call the Church. Ever since then he has shown a consistent interest in ecclesiology. Although the Church appears in the titles of many of his books, he has not written a treatise on ecclesiology. Here I shall try to give the outlines of what such a treatise might look like, if he were ever to compose it. At the time when Joseph Ratzinger began to write, there was, at least in Germany, a certain reaction against the description of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ, the term that Pius XII had privileged in his important encyclical of 1943.1 The primary objections were two. In the first place, some theologians protested that the idea of the Mystical Body did not sufficiently respect the autonomy and possible sinfulness of the Church’s members. It tended to present the Church too triumphalistically as a mere organ through which Christ acted. Secondly, the image of the Mystical Body as explained in the encyclical made it difficult to see how baptism could incorporate Christians who were not Catholics into the body of Christ. Because of these two problems, the young Ratzinger, before and Pius XII, Encyclical Letter Mystici Corporis Christi (1943) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 35 (1943): 193–248], accessed May 5, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/ pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_29061943_mystici-corporis-christi.html. 1 780 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) during the Second Vatican Council, was inclined to prefer the image of the Church as the People of God, another biblical term. “The People of God” is a flexible term that admits of many degrees and modalities of incorporation or affiliation. It is made up of men and women who may or may not be faithful to the Lord. They, rather than Christ, are responsible for their shortcomings. Responding to these difficulties, Vatican II, in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium [hereafter, LG], seemed to subordinate the image of the Mystical Body to that of the People of God.2 Although the young Ratzinger was at first enthusiastic about the change of emphasis, he has since become reserved in speaking of the Church as People of God. He points out that the image has a slender basis in Scripture. There are only two texts in the New Testament, it seems, that use this designation for the Church. The image captures the continuity between the Church and the old Israel, but not the novelty of the Church of Christ. Unlike the old Israel, the Church is not sociologically one people. It becomes one people only because it is the Body of Christ, whose Spirit unites peoples of many nationalities and ethnic characteristics. Thus, in some ways the metaphor of the Body of Christ better expresses the real nature of the Church.3 In the years since Vatican II, Cardinal Ratzinger (as he became in 1977) relied increasingly on another image of the Church prominent in the documents of Vatican II: the Church as sacrament of communion or sacrament of salvation. This image conveys that the Church is a sign and instrument of salvation and that she carries within herself the grace that she confers. The Church is the Church because God dwells in her, giving unity to her members, even though they are not sociologically one people. Because the idea of sacrament is somewhat complex and technical, we should not be surprised that Joseph Ratzinger, Theological Highlights of Vatican II, trans. Henry Traub, S.J., et al. (New York: Paulist Press, 1966), 46–48 (this work will be cited in text and notes as “THV”); Ratzinger, Das neue Volk Gottes: Entwürfe zur Ekklesiologie (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1969), 96–101. 3 Joseph Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Essays in Ecclesiology, trans. Robert Nowell (New York: Crossroad, 1988) [originally Kirche, Ökumene und Politik (Cinisello Balsamo: Edizione Paoline, 1987)], 17–28 (this work will be cited in text and notes as “CEP”); Ratzinger, The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church, trans. Salvator Attanasio et al. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1985) [originally a German manuscript published as Rapporto sulla fede (Milan: Edizione Paoline, 1985)], 47 (this work will be cited in text and notes as “RR”); Ratzinger, Volk, 81, 97. 2 On Ecclesiology 781 this image of the Church is somewhat neglected in popular works about ecclesiology.4 Ratzinger was also ready to speak of the Church as a communion, if that term be rightly understood. He does not mean by it a friendly gathering of like-minded persons, but a grace-given interior union with God, and consequently with all other members of the Church. Communion in that sense is participation in the divine life. It has its source especially in the Holy Eucharist, which is the sacrament of communion.5 While approving of the term “communion” in this eucharistic and ecclesial sense, Ratzinger felt obliged to warn that the term has been unduly horizontalized in some recent literature and has become what he calls a “buzzword” for amicable relationships without any particular reference to God.6 He also notes quite correctly that the idea of the Church as communion is not central to Vatican II (PFF, 129). In summary, we may say that the Church is, for Ratzinger / Benedict XVI, a sacrament of communion that opens up the members of the Church to divine life, thereby molding them into a single people, the Body of Christ. A balanced idea of the Church must therefore include aspects of all four images: Body of Christ, People of God, sacrament, and communion. The Four Creedal Attributes In the creed, we declare our faith in the Church as one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Ratzinger not only accepts these four attributes, as do all believers, but he explains them in ways that reflect the special characteristics of his own theology. The Church, he says, is not a self-enclosed entity. Her unity has its unfailing source in Christ, her head. The Church is so united in CEP, 19; Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, trans. Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1987) [originally Theologische Prinzipienlehre: Bausteine zur Fundamentaltheologie (Munich: Wewel, 1982)], 44–55 (this work will be cited in text and notes as “PCT”). 5 Joseph Ratzinger, Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today, trans. Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1966) [originally Zur Gemeinschaft gerufen: Kirche heute verstehen (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 1991)], 76. 6 Joseph Ratzinger, Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith: the Church as Communion, ed. Stephan Otto Horn et al., trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005) [originally Weggemeinschaft des Glaubens (Augsburg: Sankt Ulrich, 2002)], 132 (this work will be cited in text and notes as “PFF”). 4 782 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) him that she becomes with him one mystical person, bound to him by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love. Indivisibly one, the Church is not fragmented by the sins of her members or even by schism and apostasy. As a young theologian, Ratzinger was convinced that the Church, as Body of Christ, is more inclusive than the Roman Catholic communion.7 But in more recent years, he insists, in opposition to Leonardo Boff and a number of ecumenical theologians, that the Church is not something that exists in a divided manner, partly in the Catholic Church and partly in other churches and communions.8 Vatican II taught that the Church “subsists” in the Roman Catholic communion (LG, §8). By this technical term, the Council meant that the Church of Christ is present in Catholicism as a complete subject, in her full integrity, although some elements of the Church may be found outside her visible limits.9 Christians who are not Catholics are in imperfect communion with the Church of Christ.10 Sharing the Lord’s concern for the unity of all his followers, Catholics continue to pray and labor so that the elements of the Church found in other communions may be incorporated into Catholic unity. Such unification, while it may to some extent be assisted by ecumenical dialogue, cannot come about except as a gift from God (CEP,134; PCT, 199–203). The second attribute of the Church is holiness. In his earlier work, at least through the 1960s, Ratzinger was willing to say that the Church herself is sinful as well as holy,11 a position still held by many theologians. She is holy, he declares, because the Lord’s power of sanctification dwells in her, bestowing holiness in the midst of human unholiness. In these texts, he is not content to say that, since the sins of the members are contrary to the inner nature of the Church, the Church is not defiled by them. But this early position of Ratzinger Ratzinger, Volk, 235. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Notification on the Book Church: Charism and Power by Father Leonardo Boff, O.F.M.,” March 11, 1985, in Origins 14 (April 4, 1985): 683, 685–87. 9 Joseph Ratzinger, “Deus Locutus Est Nobis in Filio: Some Reflections on Subjectivity, Christology, and the Church,” in Proclaiming the Truth of Jesus Christ: Papers from the Vallombrosa Meeting (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), 13–30, at 24–27; PFF, 144–49. 10 Ratzinger, Volk, 100. 11 THV, 47; Ratzinger, Volk, 244, 255–60; Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, trans. J. R. Foster (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970) [originally Einführung in das Christentum (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1968)], 263–64. 7 8 On Ecclesiology 783 appears to be bound up with his preference for the image of the Church as People of God. The images of the Church as sacrament, Body of Christ, and communion, preferred by the later Ratzinger, are not easily reconciled with the idea of the Church herself as sinful. However that may be, Ratzinger certainly ascribes the holiness of the Church primarily to the holiness of the elements that belong formally to the Church—the word of God, the sacraments, and the sacred ministry. Thanks to sacramental baptism, all the members are consecrated to God, and thereby receive a certain ontological holiness. The Church is the great sacrament that symbolically contains the divine holiness and confers a share of it upon those who submit to her ministries. The Church is most of all herself in the saints, who put up no obstacles to the grace of God. The third attribute of the Church, catholicity, has both a qualitative and a quantitative sense. Qualitatively, it means that the Church has the fullness of Christ’s perfection within her; quantitatively, in means that she has a missionary dynamism as wide as the world. The Church is for all peoples and all cultures.12 The ministry of the Apostles was catholic in the sense that they as a group had responsibility for, and authority over, the universal Church. The Lord did not assign them to be pastors of particular dioceses or regions. The sacraments, by their nature, affect our relationship, not to the particular, but to the universal Church. By being baptized and confirmed, we are inducted or incorporated more deeply into the Church as a whole (PFF, 141–42). The whole Church and every part of her is catholic because all the members are in communion with one another. Catholic unity, says Ratzinger, consists in adherence to the word of God and the sacraments and in submission to the hierarchical leadership of the pope and the body of bishops.13 Although Ratzinger as a young theologian welcomed the rediscovery of the local church at Vatican II, he was already, at that time, conscious of the danger that local churches would isolate themselves and fall into mutual disunity (THV, 121–22). A few years ago, he had a controversy with Bishop (now Cardinal) Walter Kasper on the question of whether the universal Church was or was not prior to the local church. Ratzinger took the position that the Church is first of Joseph Ratzinger, On the Way to Christ, trans. Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005) [originally Unterwegs zu Jesus Christus (Augsburg: Sankt Ulrich Verlag, 2004)], 131–33. 13 Ratzinger, Introduction, 67–68. 12 784 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) all universal (and in that sense catholic). Only subsequently and, one may say secondarily, does it become a multiplicity of local or regional churches. What Jesus founded was a single Church governed by the Apostles with and under Peter as their head. The development of particular churches within the Catholic communion occurred later, as the Church expanded through missionary activity. Eventually, the Church had bishops assigned to govern particular churches or dioceses. The idea of the Church, however, does not itself imply the existence of particular churches. Even today, people must be members of the universal Church in order to belong to a particular church. Thus, the reality of the universal Church is both historically and logically prior to that of particular churches. It is simply wrong, Ratzinger believes, to hold that particular churches are prior to the universal Church (PFF, 133–43). The fourth attribute of the Church, apostolicity, means that the Church continues to be what, in essence, she was when Christ ascended into heaven and left her in the hands of the Twelve. The Church is not a product of human creativity; she does not become whatever the leaders and members wish to make of her. The Church is prior to all human initiative; we can only receive as a gift what God has been pleased to bestow. A Church constructed by the efforts of men and women like ourselves would not be worth having. It would not be capable of mediating salvation.14 The apostolic deposit of faith, sacraments, and ministry have been bequeathed to all generations of believers. As the original companions of Jesus, the Apostles received the call to participate in his mission and were given authority to act in his name. Through the sacrament of ordination, bishops become successors of the Apostles, carrying on the ministry of the Twelve. They are not powerful in the sense of having a mandate to remake the Church; they are bound to obedience and fidelity in adhering to the legacy that has been committed to them. But as custodians of the deposit of faith, sacraments, and ministry, the bishops have supreme authority in the Church, always in union with the successor of Peter, their visible head.15 Apostolic succession, for Ratzinger, involves the abiding presence of the word of God in witnesses who are its commissioned bearers.16 The bishops, as successors of the Apostles, are collectively responsi RR, 45–46; Ratzinger, Called to Communion, 136–40. Ratzinger, Called to Communion, 94–103. 16 Ratzinger, Volk, 115. 14 15 On Ecclesiology 785 ble for the direction of the universal Church. The see of Rome, as the Apostolic See par excellence, is the touchstone of the apostolic succession. Other churches must be in communion with the bishop of Rome in order to stand in the succession.17 The notions of catholicity and apostolicity are at the heart of a dispute that Cardinal Ratzinger had with Edward Schillebeeckx. The Belgian Dominican, together with several other theologians, maintained that, in the absence of an ordained priest, the local community could designate one of its own members to preside at the Eucharist. Ratzinger insisted that the congregation cannot bestow the Eucharist on itself. It becomes a church only by being received into the universal Church. Because the Eucharist is a sign of the unity of the whole Church, both synchronic and diachronic, the priest-celebrant must receive through ordination the power to act in the name of the Church. The Eucharist, therefore, is essentially linked to priesthood, and priesthood depends upon apostolic succession. A Eucharist celebrated outside the apostolic succession would be invalid (PCT, 286–87, 293; PFF, 143–44). Structures of the Church The Church exists in the world as a structured society, but she is more than that. According to Cardinal Ratzinger, she cannot be adequately understood by the categories of sociology or political theory. In a study of primacy and collegiality, he suggests that all errors in this matter rest ultimately on the tendency to apply profane constitutional models to the Church, overlooking her divine origin.18 Governed by Christ her Lord, the Church is neither a monarchy, nor an oligarchy, nor a democracy. She is not an organization comparable to multinational corporations, nor is she governed by a bureaucracy taken up with paperwork.19 As a sacramental reality, the Church needs to be understood in light of personal responsibility and sacramental ministry. “The more administrative machinery we construct, the less place Ibid., 126–27; Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger, The Episcopate and the Primacy, trans. Kenneth Baker et al. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1962) [originally Episkopat und Primat (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 1961)], 54–59. 18 Ratzinger, Volk, 169. 19 Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World: A Conversation with Peter Seewald, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2002) [originally Gott und die Welt: Gaubens und Leben in unserer Zeit. Ein Gespräch mit Peter Seewald (Stuttgart: Deutsche-Verlags-Anstalt, 2000)], 342–43. 17 786 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) there is for the Spirit, the less place there is for the Lord, and the less freedom there is.”20 The divinely instituted structures of the Church, Ratzinger contends, are sacramental and, therefore, hierarchical (RR, 49). This is preeminently true of the Eucharist, the sacrament of sacraments, which the Lord gave to the Church at the Last Supper. The Eucharist may be said to make the Church. In instituting this sacrament, the Lord also established the apostolic ministry, empowering it with his words to the Apostles: “Do this in memory of me.”21 The ecclesial Body of Christ, since it originates from Christ’s bodily presence in the Eucharist, is material and visible; it is not a mere moral unity like a business corporation.22 The bishops, as successors of the Apostles, preside over the Church and the sacraments. Every Eucharist is celebrated in union with the local bishop or ordinary, who must be in communion with the whole college of bishops. The idea of collegiality, taught by Vatican II, implies that the bishops as a group teach and govern in moral unity, together with, and never without, the successor of Peter (THV, 50–52). Because the Lord gave Peter a unique role in the apostolic college, he alone among the Apostles has successors of his own. No one in the Church today is successor of James or John, of Paul or Barnabas (CEP, 36). The apostolic succession gives priority to those particular churches that were founded by Apostles and especially to Rome, where Peter and Paul, the leading Apostles, ministered and were martyred. Ratzinger draws a contrast between apostolic theology, which he favors, and the later patriarchal theology that arose in the East in the fourth century. Patriarchalism, he holds, is a post-Constantinian development that places too much emphasis on administrative factors, such as the proximity of the imperial court at Constantinople.23 Under the influence of this patriarchal theology, Western theologians began to regard the pope as the “patriarch of the West.” But in the 2006 edition of the Annuario pontificio, Benedict XVI expunged this title from the official list of the offices of the bishop of Rome.24 Ratzinger, Called to Communion, 146. Ibid., 75. 22 Ratzinger, Volk, 47, 84–89. 23 Ibid., 133. 24 See United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “On File,” in Origins 41 (March 30, 2006): 688. 20 21 On Ecclesiology 787 While recognizing the importance of communion or fellowship on every level, Ratzinger attaches no less importance to the principle of personal government in the Church (CEP, 32; RR, 60–61). His experience has taught him that, when popes or bishops rely on anonymous committees, they cease to teach with boldness and conviction as their office demands (RR, 61). Each regional bishop, Ratzinger believes, is personally responsible for his own diocese, and the pope is personally responsible for directing the whole Church. This responsibility cannot be delegated to, or limited by, other agencies. It would be a mistake to think of the college of bishops as a kind of parliament that would restrict the primatial power of the pope by majority vote. It works together with him, never against him. It has no constitutional or other power to limit the discretion of the pope, who is always free to make decisions on his own authority, in accordance with what he knows to be the teaching of Scripture and the tradition of the Church.25 In an early article on the theology of councils, Professor Ratzinger explained that councils were meetings of those members of the Church, the bishops, who had responsibility to teach and govern. Ecumenical councils are valid when approved as such by the pope and are infallible in articulating the faith of the People of God. Ratzinger took issue with the proposal of Hans Küng that the Church could hold a general council consisting of representative priests, religious, and lay people in addition to bishops. He also rejected Küng’s suggestion that the Church herself is a kind of permanent council. This idea, if implemented, would turn the Church into an incessant debating society, raising ever new questions to be discussed and decided.26 During Vatican II, Paul VI established the Synod of Bishops, a new organ that meets in plenary assemblies in Rome once every two or three years. There have been conflicting opinions about the status and authority of the Synod. At the time of the Council, Father Ratzinger hailed the Synod as “a permanent Council in miniature” and something that introduced an element of collegiality into the permanent structure of the Church (THV, 142). But in his later writings as a cardinal, he pointed out that the Synod, though it has Joseph Ratzinger, “La collégialité, développement théologique,” in L’Église de Vatican II: Études autour de la Constitution conciliaire sur L’Église, ed. G. Baraúna, vol. 3 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1966), 763–90, at 778–81; Ratzinger, Volk, 187–90. 26 Ratzinger, Volk, 147–70. 25 788 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) a permanent secretariat, is not permanently in session. It meets only occasionally, when the pope convokes it. It has no legislative or doctrinal authority, but is advisory to the pope in the exercise of his primatial office. It serves also for an exchange of information among the bishops. It is not a permanent synod, nor is it an organ of collegial government (CEP, 46–61). Another organ that has received institutional status since Vatican II is the episcopal conference, which is regional and, in many cases, national. During and immediately after the Council, Ratzinger seemed to think that these conferences had a kind of legislative or doctrinal authority of their own.27 But the experience of the conferences over the past fifty years has persuaded him to change his mind. Since the early 1980s, he has taken the position that the conferences have no theological basis; they are purely practical instruments to facilitate cooperation among the bishops of a region (RR, 58–66). The ministerial structures of the Church, according to Ratzinger, exist for the sake of advancing the holiness of all the members, the overwhelming majority of whom are laymen and laywomen. There is no limit of the sanctity to which lay persons can rise; all are called to be holy (THV, 55–57). Priestly ordination is not for the personal sanctification of the ordained, but for service to the whole People of God.28 Pope Benedict has not as yet presented a full-orbed theology of the laity. He clearly does not see them as having a necessary role in the Church’s threefold mission to teach, sanctify, and govern. Lay persons may, of course, assist the clergy in church affairs, such as being readers at Mass and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion. They can also offer valuable advice to the clergy in their tasks of teaching and governing the People of God. But their primary task is to sanctify the temporal order, including the family, the neighborhood, the marketplace, and the public square, rather than to engage in ministry within the Church.29 THV, 57; Joseph Ratzinger, “The Pastoral Implications of Episcopal Collegiality,” trans. Tarcisius Rattler, O.S.A., in The Church and Mankind, ed. Edward Schillebeeckx, Concilium: Theology in an Age of Renewal 1 (Glen Rock, NJ: Paulist Press, 1964), 39–67, at 64. 28 Ratzinger, Called to Communion, 79. 29 Pope Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est (2005) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 98 (2006): 217–52], §29 (this encyclical will be cited in text and notes as “DCE”), referring to John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (1988), Acta Apostolicae Sedis 81(1989): 393–521, at 472. See also 27 On Ecclesiology 789 Mission of the Church The Church is missionary by her very nature. In founding her, God made her his instrument for gathering the People of God from all nations into union with the Lord and visible unity among themselves.30 Although the Church may surely assist in the salvation of her members, Ratzinger seems never to have regarded personal salvation as the principal motive for missionary activity. He emphasizes the Church’s service toward the unity of the human family.31 Vatican II’s Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity, Ad Gentes Divinitus [hereafter, AG], on which the young Ratzinger collaborated, linked missionary expansion particularly with the attribute of catholicity. Missionary proclamation, it declared, is not only an injunction laid upon the Church by her divine Founder but also an inner demand of the Church’s catholicity. The Decree also states that missionary activity is necessary for the Church to pursue her goal of proclaiming and establishing the kingdom of God everywhere (AG, §1). Ratzinger is willing to say that the Church exists for the sake of the kingdom of God, but he cautions that the kingdom is not extrinsic to the Church; it is already present, at least inchoatively, in the Church herself. As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger took occasion to reprimand theologians such as Paul Knitter, who tend to separate the kingdom of God from the Church (DJ, 18). Consistent with Vatican II, Ratzinger divides the mission of the Church, like that of Christ, into three ministries: teaching, sanctifying, and ruling. In his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, Benedict translates these into the threefold ministry of doctrine, sacraments, and charity (kerygma, leitourgia, and diakonia) (DCE, §25). The formulation of doctrine and the ministry of the sacraments are primarily committed to the hierarchy, but the ministry of charity or service is common to all Christians. Charity, as Pope Benedict understands Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Note on “Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life” (November 24, 2002), §1, L’Osservatore Romano (English), January 22, 2003, 5; Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994), §1939. 30 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominus Jesus: On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church (2000), §22 (this work will be cited in text and notes as “DJ”), in Sic et Non: Encountering Dominus Jesus, ed. Stephen J. Pope and Charles Hefling (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002): 3–23, and in Origins 30 (September 14, 2000): 209, 211–19. See also Ratzinger, Called to Communion, 76. 31 Ratzinger, Volk, 103–04. 790 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) it, is not just another form of social assistance, but a distinctive work (an opus proprium) of the Church (DCE, §29). To show how it differs from social and political programs, he explains that charity addresses immediate human needs in concrete situations; it proceeds from faith active in love and is independent of parties or ideologies. Charity, as Pope Benedict here explains it, refrains from proselytism; it does not seek to make converts out of its beneficiaries. The Pope does, however, note that pure and generous love, insofar as it offers an outstanding witness to the presence of God, frequently draws people to the Church (DCE, §31). DCE contains a noteworthy discussion of justice and charity. Justice, the Pope believes, is not a work distinctive to the Church; it is a concern that the Church shares with all members of society. The Church seeks to motivate her own members to pursue justice, but they could and should aspire to be just even if they were not Christians. The formation of just social structures, therefore, is the task of politics; it is not the duty of the Church as such (DCE, §§28–29). Keeping her distance from politics, the Church does not normally engage her authority in teaching what measures will, in the concrete, advance or impede the cause of justice. To do so would be to confuse the proper tasks of the Church and the State. In her social teaching, the Church lays down certain norms to guide the faithful, but she leaves to secular governments and citizens the task of applying the norms to particular concrete situations. In this way, the Church leaves intact the role of the State and the freedom of the laity who engage in politics.32 But the encyclical is problematic insofar as it lends itself to being interpreted as though charity should be left to the Church and justice to the State. I do not interpret the Pope as implying that the Church may ever be unjust or that the State should refrain from being charitable. Church and State On questions of Church and State, Benedict XVI comes surprisingly close to approving the American principle of separation. I say surprisingly, because he has the reputation of being an Augustinian and a conservative. The American system is more Lockean than Augustin DCE, 28; cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Libertatis Conscientia (1986), §80, accessed May 5, 2015, http://www.vatican.va/roman_ curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19860322_freedom-liberation_en.html. 32 On Ecclesiology 791 ian, more liberal than conservative. Pope Benedict frequently quotes Alexis de Tocqueville with approval.33 He does not hearken back to the nineteenth-century papal statements on the desirability of establishing Catholicism as the religion of the State. Fundamental to the thought of Benedict is the saying of Jesus, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matt 22:21). This saying of the Lord, for Benedict, establishes what was at the time a revolutionary principle: namely, that there are two distinct societies with different spheres of responsibility. The State has responsibility for public order but not for religion; the Church has responsibility to strive to bring people to eternal life but not to regulate their secular affairs (CEP, 160–61). The State has the power to impose civil penalties; the Church has the power to impose only canonical penalties, such as exclusion from the sacraments (CEP, 161). This dualism of competences means that neither the Church nor the State can exercise absolute control over human existence. In rejecting absolutism, the separation of Church and State protects human freedom. Whenever one of the two societies arrogates to itself both the religious and the secular roles, human freedom is imperiled (CEP, 162). Sometimes in the past, one of the two powers has sought to perform the work of the other. In the Middle Ages, the Church frequently tried to control civil society, and in the days of absolute monarchies, the State sought to settle religious questions and regulate the religious life of citizens. Addressing contemporary questions, Pope Benedict is critical of the political theology of Johann Baptist Metz and of the liberation theology that has been popular in Latin America. Both of these movements, he believes, overextend the role of the Church in secular matters, which ought to be the responsibility of the State.34 Particularly noxious, in his view, is the political CEP, 238; Joseph Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2006) [originally Werte in Zeiten des Umbruchs: Die Herausforderungen den Zukunft bestehen (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 2005)], 51 (this work will be cited in text and notes as “VTU”); Joseph Ratzinger and Marcello Pera, Without Roots: Europe, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, trans. Michael F. Moore (New York: Basic Books, 2006) [originally Senza radici: Europa, relativismo, christianesimo, islam (Milan: Arnaldo Mondadori, 2004)], 108–09 (this work will be cited in text and notes as “WR”). 34 Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, trans. Michael Waldstein, ed. Aidan Nichols, O.P. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America 33 792 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (1918–2008) messianism that liberation theology borrows from the Marxists (CEP, 189–90). The Church should not be depicted as an instrument for ushering in the utopian society of the future. As an Augustinian, Benedict is convinced that the city of man can never become the city of God. Great harm has been done by states seeking to build utopias here on earth, as Lenin and Stalin tried to do within recent memory (CEP, 213). The dualism of powers should not amount to a divorce. The Church can and should teach moral principles that are binding on the State. Moral education pertains to the doctrine of salvation and, therefore, falls within the Church’s competence. In her social teaching, the Church sets certain limits beyond which the State may not go without violating the law of God. For example, the State has no right to enact laws that violate basic human rights, such as the authorization of genocide or infanticide (VTU, 69, 72). For human rights to be secure, they must not depend upon the discretion of any human authority, even that of the State, as their source and guardian. They must have a transcendent source and guarantor. But the State is not competent to discern the transcendent; Church and State must therefore collaborate. The State needs religion in order to uphold the natural rights and duties that underlie its laws. Religion needs the State to make and enforce laws that effectively secure the rights of the citizens (CEP, 163; VTU, 59). The State has no competence to pronounce on truth and falsehood in religion. Without adopting any one religion as official or established, the State can properly recognize that certain religions motivate the citizens to perform their civic duties more conscientiously. In order to perform its own task, therefore, the State should encourage the religious life of the citizens. Because the eclipse of the transcendent would be harmful for the State itself, the State would be well advised to allow religious groups to be present on the public scene rather than to allow religion to be weakened by banishment to the sphere of privacy (CEP, 219–20). Many modern philosophers, influenced no doubt by Kant, hold that the Church has no role in public life and that public life should Press, 1988) [originally Eschatologie: Tod und ewiges Leben, ed. Johann Auer and Joseph Ratzinger, Kleine Katholische Dogmatik 9 (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1977)], 57–60 (this work includes two appendices written after the appearance of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Letter on “Certain Questions Concerning Eschatology,” May 17, 1979). On Ecclesiology 793 be regulated by reason alone. But a religion of pure reason, Pope Benedict maintains, would lack specific content and moral power. Revelation enables reason to grasp the implications of the moral law with greater clarity and certitude. In most parts of the world today, no one religion commands a consensus. But even in a situation of religious pluralism, the State can encourage its citizens to find the transcendent through religions that uphold the moral law. As mentioned above, public order is better maintained if citizens have moral principles based on their religious convictions and training (WR, 109). Conclusion As a young theologian at the time of Vatican II, Ratzinger displayed a sharp intelligence but still lacked the balance and circumspection shown in his later theology. In his enthusiasm for reform, he was too one-sided in opting for the model of the People of God and in favoring the decentralization effected by local churches and conferences of bishops. In his mature writings, he has corrected these imbalances and has given reliable leadership in “reforming the reform” that has been erroneously attributed to Vatican II. He presents a rich and full-orbed vision of the Church derived from the images of People of God, Mystical Body, sacrament, and communion in confluence. He recognizes the necessity of collaboration among pastoral leaders but balances such collegiality with an emphasis on the personal responsibility of popes and bishops. He continues to oppose excessive centralization, but at the same time, he supports institutions and symbols that reinforce visible unity. While requiring continuity with the past, he disavows restorationism as unrealistic. Above all, he is concerned to subordinate the Church to Christ her sovereign Lord. Without separating the Church from the world, he strives to keep the Church free from secular entanglements and never tires of recalling her to her specific mission of holiness and salvation. In the end, he presents the Church as a divine mystery that surpasses human comprehension and control. Revering the Church as God’s loving gift in Christ, he instills in his readers a N&V like sense of reverence and loyalty. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2017): 795–815 795 On the Augustinian Roots of The Spirit of the Liturgy Michael C. McCarthy, S.J. Fordham University New York, NY In January and February of 2008 , Pope Benedict XVI used his general audiences to give five addresses on the life and thought of St. Augustine of Hippo. The practice of speaking on important post-apostolic figures had begun in the second year of his pontificate. “And thus,” he said, “we can see where the Church’s journey begins in history.”1 When he came to Augustine, however, the Pope introduced him as the greatest of all Latin-speaking Church Fathers, “who was able to assimilate Christianity’s values and exalt its extrinsic wealth, inventing ideas and forms that were to nourish the future generations.”2 In his works “all the thought-currents of the past meet . . . and form the source which provides the whole doctrinal tradition of succeeding ages.”3 It is hardly surprising that Benedict would give Augustine so much attention. Not only did the Bishop of Hippo leave behind a literary output that massively influenced the thought of all Western Christianity, but it was on Augustine’s ecclesiology that the future Pope would cut his theological teeth at the beginning of his own academic career. Young Ratzinger’s 1953 dissertation, “The People 1 2 3 Benedict XVI, Church Fathers: From Clement of Rome to Augustine; General Audiences, March 7, 2007–February 27, 2008, trans. L’Osservatore Romano (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008) [originally I Padri della Chiesa nella catechesi di Papa Benedetto XVI (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2008)], 7. Ibid., 167. Ibid., 168, quoting Paul VI, “Inaugural Address at the Patristic Institute of the ‘Augustinianum,’” L’Osservatore Romano (English edition), May 21, 1970, 8. 796 Michael C. McCarthy, S.J. and the House of God in Augustine’s Doctrine of the Church,” draws on Augustine’s theology to assert the nature of the Church as the sacramental body of Christ uniting the whole people of God in one communion.4 The later Ratzinger would indicate that the notion of the People of God united in the Body of Christ grounds the ecclesiology of Lumen Gentium, yet this prevailing theology of Church had long been anticipated by a rediscovery of patristic traditions, whose most eminent voice was that of Augustine.5 By the time he introduced The Spirit of the Liturgy on the Feast of St. Augustine in 1999, Cardinal Ratzinger had so absorbed the ideas of this fifth-century thinker that he could exhale them. To consider the correspondence between the thought of Augustine and Benedict on liturgy, therefore, is less a matter of identifying conscious points of dependence than of exposing large theological symmetries. Furthermore, just as Ratzinger assimilated so much of Augustine’s teaching, the bishop of Hippo himself reflects considerable debt to his predecessors. What Gerald Bonner, the eminent patristics scholar, has remarked about Augustine could equally be applied to the pope: “[His] originality is not iconoclastic. Rather, he amplifies and enriches the thought and feeling of earlier generations. No Christian thinker is more aware of and more concerned to follow, the tradition of the Catholic Church.”6 Any study of the relationship between the two on the subject of liturgy will reveal the effects of “traditioning,” a process that includes a long, slow transmission of skills (in this case theological) through personal example and imitation.7 If Benedict’s thought on liturgy has Augustinian underpinnings, it is in his most fundamental conception of the Church as an ecclesial communion and a pilgrim people that we hear the deepest patristic undertones. In worship, the Church becomes what God intended it to be: “the Church lives in Eucharistic communities. Its worship is 4 5 6 7 Later published as Joseph Ratzinger, Volk und Haus Gottes in Augustins Lehre von der Kirche (Munich: Karl Zink, 1954), 324. For an exposition of Ratzinger’s ecclesiology, see Maximilian Heinrich Heim, Joseph Ratzinger: Life in the Church and Living Theology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), esp. 244–50 (“The Patristic Interpretation of Corpus Christi as the Point of Departure”). Gerald Bonner, “The Doctrine of Sacrifice: Augustine and the Latin Patristic Tradition,” in Sacrifice and Redemption, ed. S.W. Sykes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 101. On “traditioning,” see Avery Dulles, The Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System (New York: Crossroad, 1996), 93–98. On the Augustinian Roots of The Spirit of the Liturgy 797 its constitution.”8 Although Augustine left no extended treatise on liturgy as such, not only his theological writings but even more his homilies in liturgical contexts reveal a dynamic Christo-ecclesiology that imagines the liturgy, both the Eucharist and the Divine Office, as a place of exchange between God and humanity. Through its incorporation into the “whole Christ,” the Church receives the gift of participating in the divine life. True worship, for Augustine, possesses an eschatological orientation. It looks forward to the fulfillment of creation and the divinization of persons made possible only on account of Christ’s assumption of humanity.9 Such divinization is realized, however, through participation in Christ’s perfect work of compassion, the final and universal sacrifice where Christ, head and body, is fully offered to God the Father. Like Augustine’s centuries earlier, Ratzinger’s understanding of liturgy depends centrally on a theological reading of Scripture that regards all of salvation history as leading up to the coming of Christ into the world and, through him, to the consummation of all things, when “God will be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). Ancient worship looks forward to its fulfillment in the New Covenant and intimates a future freedom in God. For both Augustine and Ratzinger, therefore, any discussion of liturgy is only meaningful against the background of an interpreted biblical narrative and a range of biblical concepts that condense core beliefs about God’s plan of salvation. In this essay, I will focus specifically on two such concepts that, in the theology of Augustine and Ratzinger, especially underscore the Christological and eschatological matrices of Christian liturgy: “Sabbath” and “Sacrifice.” First, I will focus briefly on Spirit of the Liturgy10 [here Joseph Ratzinger, “The Ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council,” in Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Essays in Ecclesiology, trans. Robert Nowell (New York: Crossroad, 1988) [originally Kirche, Ökumene und Politik (Cinisello Balsamo: Edizione Paoline, 1987)], 8. 9 Although the concept of divinization is frequently associated with the Greek patristic tradition, Augustine echoes that tradition in, e.g., Sermon 192.1 (see note 31 below on the Sermons) and Enarrationes in psalmos 49.1.2 (see note 11 below on En. In ps.). As Gerald Bonner notes, for Augustine, divinization is nothing more and nothing less than St. Paul’s sonship by adoption (“Deification, Divinization,” in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999], 265–66). 10 Spirit of the Liturgy [hereafter, SL], trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2000) [originally Einführung in den Geist der Liturgie (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 2000)] . 8 798 Michael C. McCarthy, S.J. after, SL and cited parenthetically by page no.], which he does not intend as a scholarly treatise but as “an aid to the understanding of the faith and to the right way to give the faith its central form of expression in the Liturgy” (8). The first three chapters of the book, which constitute a section entitled the “Essence of the Liturgy,” offer a comprehensive liturgical theology that resonates with the thought of Augustine at the most profound levels. I will argue that the concepts “Sabbath” and “Sacrifice” emerge as two central concepts grounding Ratzinger’s understanding of liturgy. At greater length, then, I will turn to Augustine’s more expansive treatment of these same themes so as to amplify the importance, not only of a strongly Christological ground of Christian worship, but also of an eschatological horizon. Sabbath and Sacrifice in “The Essence of Liturgy” The three chapters that make up “The Essence of Liturgy” presume a theological anthropology in which, by nature, human beings seek the final vision of God. This eschatological orientation determines true worship, and in chapter 1 (“Liturgy and Life: The Place of Liturgy in Reality”), Ratzinger argues that liturgy must always be centered in God, always anticipate God’s own self-revelation, and always lead to living in accordance with God’s will. Like children’s play, worship is a kind of preparation for later life. Thus, “liturgy would be a kind of anticipation, a rehearsal, a prelude for the life to come, for eternal life, which St. Augustine describes, by contrast with life in this world, as a fabric woven, no longer of exigency and need, but of the freedom of generosity and gift” (14). True worship engenders and imprints on daily life a longing for such future freedom. Unlike self-generated forms of idolatry, liturgy opens us up and “implies a real relationship with Another, who reveals himself to us and gives our existence a new direction” (22). In his second chapter (“Liturgy—Cosmos—History”), Ratzinger challenges the assumption that, whereas the cult in “nature religions” reflects a basic concern about one’s place in the cosmos, worship in Judaism and Christianity tends to concentrate on the forward-moving process of salvation in history. While biblical faith does indeed stress the narrative of God’s action in time, it does not exclude the more cosmic aspects of human concern, even in worship. Given his conviction that liturgy is grounded in the eschatological orientation of the human person, Ratzinger cites the Genesis account to argue that “creation moves toward the Sabbath, to the day on which man and the whole created order participates in God’s rest, in his free- On the Augustinian Roots of The Spirit of the Liturgy 799 dom” (25). Although Genesis 1:1–2; 4 does not explicitly speak of worship, the Sabbath is a “vision of freedom,” a moment of relief from relationships of subordination and a day of rest from work. Yet the Sabbath points beyond such social liberties to the raison d’être of creation: the full enjoyment of the relationship between God and humanity. His explanation is worth quoting at length: To understand the account of creation properly, one has to read the Sabbath ordinances of the Torah. Then everything becomes clear. The Sabbath is the sign of the covenant between God and man; it sums up the inward essence of the covenant. If this is so, then we can now define the intention of the account of creation as follows: creation exists to be a place for the covenant that God wants to make with man. The goal of creation is the covenant, the love story of God and man. The freedom and equality of men, which the Sabbath is meant to bring about, is not a merely anthropological or sociological vision; it can only be understood theo-logically. (SL, 26) Being in covenant with God is the foundation of all freedom, equality, and dignity among people. As the day of worship and “inward essence of the covenant,” the Sabbath thus corresponds with the goal of creation articulated from the beginning of SL: divinization. As a portion of creation, a human being is the result of God’s freedom, and the natural movement of a creature is therefore a return to its home. Yet Ratzinger conceptualizes this exitus from and reditus to God in terms of sacrifice. Sacrifice, the “heart of worship,” consists of the handing over to God the reality most precious to human beings. True surrender does not entail destruction, but union with God. “Belonging to God has nothing to do with destruction or non-being: it is rather a way of being” (28). Here Ratzinger relies specifically on Augustine to suggest that true sacrifice is the civitas Dei, a humanity transformed by love, a creation divinized so that God is all in all: “That is the essence of sacrifice and worship” (ibid.). Moreover, this transformation that comes with true sacrifice heals and redeems us: “If ‘sacrifice’ in its essence is simply returning to love and therefore divinization, worship now has a new aspect: the healing of wounded freedom, atonement, purification, deliverance from estrangement” (33). Redemption, however, requires a Redeemer, and for a broken person, assimilation with God entails “the Other who alone can 800 Michael C. McCarthy, S.J. extricate me from the knot that I myself cannot untie” (ibid.). Ratzinger ends his discussion in chapter 2 by asserting the centrality of the Incarnation. Precisely by assuming our nature, the Wordmade-flesh carries us back to God. In him, the reditus is open, and the sacrifice that is at the heart of worship specifically takes the form of the Cross of Christ, “of the love that in dying makes a gift of itself ” (34). Ratzinger again notes that this sacrifice has nothing to do with destruction but is “an act of new creation, the restoration of creation to its true identity” (ibid.). By virtue of the self-gift of God in Christ, liturgy is identified with the Cross: All worship is now a participation in this “Pasch” of Christ, in his “passing over” from divine to human, from death to life, to the unity of God and man. Thus Christian worship is the practical application and fulfillment of the words that Jesus proclaimed on the first day of Holy Week, Palm Sunday, in the Temple in Jerusalem: “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself ” ( John 12:32). (ibid.). In his third chapter (“From Old Testament to New: The Fundamental Form of the Christian Liturgy—Its Determination by Biblical Faith”), Ratzinger turns directly to the issue of sacrifice specifically in the biblical context. In order to argue that worship in Israel leads logically to fulfillment in Christ, he notes the inadequacy of sacrificial systems. Although the only real gift that a person could give to God is one’s self, “representations” of oneself are made in sacrifice. Frequently, however, such representations degenerate into the terrible replacement of one victim with another. In the case of Abraham, God stops the horrific slaying of Isaac by giving a representative lamb that, in turn, is given back to God (de tuis donis ac datis) (38). In the institution of the Passover, the lamb replaces the firstborn, who represents all Israel, yet the prophets consistently complain that holocausts are insufficient, that the external offerings and temple practice are inadequate: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6) (39). Ratzinger thus notes that, with the Resurrection, a new temple begins in the living body of Christ, in which all Christians are incorporated. This same Body of Christ is sacrificed, but as a living sacrifice, since the Son of God, the Lamb of God, the first-born of all creation, gathers into himself all worship of God (44). Not only does this sacrifice of the first-born include in itself the whole of existence, On the Augustinian Roots of The Spirit of the Liturgy 801 but anyone who conforms to the Logos and, through faith, assimilates to the Logos participates in “the true sacrifice, the true glory of God in the world” (46). Patristic writers saw the Eucharist as a sacrifice in the Word, but because the Word took flesh, the Logos is more than a meaning behind all things. The Incarnate Word “takes up into himself our sufferings and hopes, all the yearning of creation, and bears it to God” (47). In Jesus’s self-surrender on the cross, therefore, the Word, together with everything united in that Word, no longer functions as a replacement cult but as the condition of true divinization. For the theologian who would become bishop of Rome, therefore, the essence of liturgy lies in the self-offering of Christ, who redefines the very meaning of sacrifice on account of his own union with God. Through such a sacrifice, he makes possible the transformation of all creation so as to find its rest in the divinizing participation in God alone. However, this articulation of the essence of liturgy as always seeking the “Sabbath” of final union with God made possible by the “Sacrifice” of the Word assuming all humanity into himself was not original, but echoes deeply the thought of the fifth-century bishop of Hippo, who himself culled together the thinking of earlier Christians. Augustine on Sabbath Just as SL begins with the notion of play as preparing for eschatological reality, so Augustine compares liturgy to games that point always to the furthest horizon of an eternal Sabbath. We recall how, as a boy, Augustine was enthralled by shows and held by the “love of games” that even motivated adults under the pretext of “business” (Confessions 1.9.23). As a bishop, the spectacles at Hippo serve as a shadowy image of the beatific vision to which God invites us. For instance, in his sermon on Psalm 64:2 (“A hymn to you in Zion is fitting, O God”), he explains that both Jerusalem (which he translates as visio pacis) and Zion (speculatio) refer to our patria, where we enjoy the vision and contemplation that is our end: “Some great spectaculum is promised to us, nothing else but God himself, who founded that city.”11 Those who participate in Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 64.3: “Nescio quod nobis magnum spectaculum promittitur; et hoc ipse Deus est qui condidit ciuitatem”; see Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina [hereafter, CCL], ed. E. Dekkers and J. Fraipont (Turnhout, BE: Brepols, 1990), 38:825; English translation in Expositions of the Psalms, trans. Maria Boulding, 6 vols. (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2000– 2005), 3:267. All citations of En. in ps. are from CCL vols. 38–40 and follow Augustine’s numbering system, explained in Michael Cameron, “Enarrationes 11 802 Michael C. McCarthy, S.J. the liturgy already have their desire in Jerusalem, as if anchored in that country. Participation in the future vision of God begins now by cultivating a life of asceticism and contemplation that provides the larger community with a foresight of lasting rest. In commenting on Psalm 39:5–6 (“Blessed is the one whose hope is the Lord, who has no regard for empty things and lying foolishness. You have wrought many wondrous deeds, O Lord my God; deep are your thoughts and no one is like you”), Augustine interprets the “empty things” as fascination with chariot races and other contests. A struggling soul may complain that he cannot keep up the pilgrimage without the pleasure of watching shows, but Augustine insists that Christians themselves provide spectacles (demus pro spectaculis spectacula).12 Whereas a convert used to be amazed at the way a charioteer would control his horses, now he is edified at how a Christian controls his passions. Moreover, God watches on our own agonistic events shouting: “I am watching you. Fight bravely: I will help you; win, and I shall crown you.” Indeed, Augustine urges those who want to watch games: “You want to watch spectacles? Very well, be a spectacle yourself ” (Spectare vis? Esto spectaculum).13 The end of such a life consists of the eschatological victory of seeing God, who even now cheers us on. On some occasions, Augustine contrasts the liturgical act that takes place inside the walls of the Church with the spectacles taking place outside. For instance, in explaining the title of Psalm 80 (“For the olive presses”), he compares the dregs at the bottom of an olive press to the crowds on the street. His congregation, on the other hand, resembles the pure oil oozing. The cathedral office constitutes an event far more valuable than cheap shows: “This is a wonderful spectacle: focus your attention on it. God never fails to provide us with sights which fill us with joy. Could any of the crazy things displayed in the circus compare with a show like this? Circus shows are like the dregs, but this one is like the precious oil.”14 Towards the end of the same homily, Augustine again tells his audience that, in Christ’s in Psalmos,” in Fitzgerald, Augustine through the Ages, 290, and unless otherwise noted, all English translations are from Boulding’s edition. 12 En. in ps. 39.9 (CCL, 38:432). 13 En. in ps. 39.9 (CCL, 38:432; Boulding, 2:205–06). 14 En. in ps. 80.1: “Intendite ad magnum hoc spectaculum. Non enim desinit Deus edere nobis quod cum magno gaudio spectemus; aut circi insania huic spectaculo comparanda est? Illa ad amurcam pertinet, hoc ad oleum” (CCL, 39:1120; Boulding, 4:152). On the Augustinian Roots of The Spirit of the Liturgy 803 name, God has produced “divine entertainments [divina spectacula]” that have held them spellbound but in a salubrious, edifying, and non-destructive way because they contribute to faith in the true and eternal God.15 This God we hope to enjoy fully in the Beatific Vision. This vision is the goal of all human activity and should thus be reflected in Christian worship. Just as SL argues that all creation moves toward the Sabbath, so Augustine’s work consistently emphasizes the natural end to which all things gravitate. His anthropology presumes that, by their very nature, human beings tend toward rest in God. The Confessions, for instance, begin with the famous prayer that “you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you” (Confessions 1.1.1). Yet the same Confessions also end with reference to the eternal Sabbath. After three long books in which he offers an exegesis of the Genesis account of creation, Augustine asks God for the “peace of the Sabbath.” For the seventh day “has no evening and sinks toward no sunset, for you sanctified it that it might abide forever.”16 For Augustine, God’s rest on the seventh day after completing the “exceedingly good” world serves as a foreshadowing of our final rest in God: You willed your book to tell us this as a promise that when our works are finished (works exceedingly good inasmuch as they are your gift to us) we too may rest in you, in the Sabbath of eternal life. And then you will rest in us, and your rest will be rest through us as now those works of yours are wrought through us.17 In his early writing, Augustine seems to have regarded the Sabbath as a symbol of the rest that saints will have on this earth, but by the time of his ordination as a bishop, he had abandoned this millennialist interpretation in favor of a fully eschatological understanding of Sabbath: “There that precept will find fulfillment: ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’ That will truly be the greatest of Sabbaths; a Sabbath that has no evening, the Sabbath that the Lord approved at En. in ps. 80.23 (CCL, 39:1135). Noting that maritime games are scheduled for the following day, Augustine calls his congregation back to Church, where they have a portum in Christo. 16 Augustine, Confessiones 13.36.51, in The Confessions, trans. Maria Boulding (New York: New City Press, 1997), 379. 17 Confessions 13.36.51–37.52 (Boulding, 379). 15 804 Michael C. McCarthy, S.J. the beginning of creation.”18 Thus, in the final lines of City of God, he describes the Sabbath as the day whose end is not evening but the Lord’s Day, when, at perfect rest, we shall in stillness see God: “There we shall be still and see; we shall see and we shall love; we shall love and we shall praise. Behold what will be, in the end, without end! For what is our end but to reach that kingdom which has no end?”19 A deep awareness of this end grounds much of Augustine’s understanding of the relationship between liturgy and life. An extended reflection on Sabbath, for instance, is the keynote of his sermon on Psalm 37. Commenting on the title of the psalm (“A Psalm for David Himself, for a Remembrance of the Sabbath”), Augustine notes that nowhere in Scripture is David said to have “remembered the Sabbath.” Indeed, since David would have observed the Sabbath every seven days, “remembering the Sabbath” must be referring to some deeper reality. “What Sabbath is this,” Augustine asks, “that is remembered with the groaning we find in the psalm?”20 The Sabbath is rest the speaker longs for as he suffers greatly, and “his own words leave no doubt what turmoil he is in.”21 Indeed, he complains, “there is no soundness in my flesh” (Ps 37:4), for he endures great bodily pain and illness or is wounded with love for God’s Word. Still, he lives in hope that he shall one day enjoy redemption, even as he endures present pain. Augustine avers that a person who is wounded with love of God’s Word will not suffer forever, for the same Word constantly reminds us of a state of rest we may anticipate: Your words have found their mark in my heart, and lodging there they have made me remember the Sabbath. But recalling the Sabbath without as yet having a secure hold on it makes me realize that I cannot rejoice yet. It shows me that the health I now have in my flesh is not yet true health, nor does it deserve to be called so in comparison with the health I shall enjoy in everlasting rest, when this corruptible nature has been clothed Augustine, De civitate Dei 22.30, in City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson in Saint Augustine (London: Penguin, 1972), 1090. On millennialism, see Jean Danielou, S.J., The Bible and the Liturgy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1956), 276:81; G. Folliet, “La Typologie du sabbat chez saint Augustin,” Revue des études augustiniennes (1956): 371–91; Brian Daley, The Hope of the Early Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 133. 19 De civitate Dei 22.30 (Bettenson, 1091). 20 En. in ps. 37.2 (CCL, 38:83; Boulding, 2:146–47). 21 En. in ps. 37.3 (CCL, 38:383; Boulding, 2:147). 18 On the Augustinian Roots of The Spirit of the Liturgy 805 in incorruption, this mortal nature in immortality. Compared with the health I shall have then, the health I have now is no better than disease.22 Throughout his exposition of the psalm, Augustine contrasts the present reality with the future rest for which one hopes. Although “my bruises have rotted and festered” (Ps 37: 6), those who remember the Sabbath run toward the Bridegroom breathing in the scent that awaits us and saying, “Let us run toward the fragrance of your ointments” (Song of Songs 1:3).23 The speaker of the psalm complains, “I am afflicted with miseries and bowed down to the very end” (Ps 37:7), yet Augustine notes that the affliction yields health: by remembering the Sabbath, one lives out of a desire to attain it. “When did the psalmist begin to take stock of his condition?” Augustine asks; “Only when he began to remember the Sabbath. As long as he remembers something he does not possess, do you wonder that he goes about very sad?”24 The hermeneutical principle governing exegesis of this psalm, however, is that of the voice of the whole Christ. The agony suffered by the speaker is one shared by Christ, who assumes us in himself. Therefore, the liturgical practice of praying the psalms unites the vulnerable body of Christ with its head: “Whenever you hear the voice of the body, do not separate it from the voice of the Head; and whenever you hear the voice of the Head, do not separate him from the body; for they are two no longer but one flesh.”25 It is such union of the whole Christ, head and body, that is forged in worship and provides our hope for anticipating the Eternal Sabbath. In his homily on Psalm 91, Augustine comments on the title, “A Psalm to be Sung on the Sabbath Day.” Noting that his own congregation was gathering on the Sabbath, which Jews are celebrating bodily with rest from good works, he suggests that members of his congregation are resting from wrongdoing. God appoints the Sabbath for Christians as well as for Jews, but Augustine asks what kind (quale) of Sabbath they are to keep. “Consider above all where it is to be kept. Our Sabbath is within, in our hearts.”26 A person with a bad En. in ps. 37.5 (CCL, 38:386; Boulding, 2:150). En. in ps. 37.9 (CCL, 38:388; Boulding, 2:153). 24 En. in ps. 37.10 (CCL, 38:389; Boulding, 2:154). 25 En. in ps. 37.6 (CCL, 38:387; Boulding, 2:51). 26 En. in ps. 91.2: “Primo ubi sit uidete. Intus est, in corde est sabbatum nostrum” (CCL, 39:1280; Boulding, 4:346). 22 23 806 Michael C. McCarthy, S.J. conscience cannot keep the Sabbath, since he can never enjoy true internal rest. A person with a good conscience, on the other hand, enjoys significant peace: And this tranquility is itself the Sabbath of the heart. Such tranquil persons keep their eyes on God’s promise; even if they have to struggle at present, they stretch out in hope toward the future. For them all clouds of sadness clear away, for, as the apostle says, they are forever ‘rejoicing in hope’ (Rom 12:12). This tranquil joy, born of our hope, is our Sabbath.27 The psalm he is about to discuss teaches Christians how, in the face of every trial and pain, they may celebrate the Sabbath in the heart. They must begin by attributing good to God and bad to oneself, for “twisted, disturbed persons who are not keeping the Sabbath attribute their bad actions to God and their good ones to themselves.”28 Like cedars and palm trees in the storm, they are not disturbed by the apparent flourishing of evil-doers. In their tranquility they may proclaim “that the Lord God is upright and there is no injustice in him” (Ps. 91:16).29 In his sermon on Psalm 92 (entitled “A Song of Praise, for David Himself, for the Day before the Sabbath, on which the Earth was Established”), Augustine returns to a familiar theme of his writing: we are living in the sixth of seven ages of the world, when the Word took flesh. The age is still going on, from the time of John until the day after this sixth day, when we shall have our rest. Augustine notes that God’s pattern in Genesis reflects the pattern of the ages: “There was good reason for this arrangement of the days, for the ages were destined to roll past one by one in the same way, until we find rest in God. But we rest only if we have first performed good works; and so a pattern was held before us when scripture wrote of God, ‘God rested on the seventh day’ (Gen 2:2).”30 All liturgical action, then, takes place in anticipation of this final Sabbath. In a famous sermon to catechumens on the Lord’s Prayer, Augustine suggests that the “daily bread” received in Eucharist sustains Christians while on pilgrimage. When there is just eternal En. in ps. 91.2 (CCL, 39:1280; Boulding, 4:346–47). En. in ps. 91.3 (CCL, 39:1281; Boulding, 4:347). 29 En. in ps. 91.14 (CCL 39:1289; Boulding, 4:358). 30 En. in ps. 92.11 (CCL, 39:1290; Boulding, 4:360). 27 28 On the Augustinian Roots of The Spirit of the Liturgy 807 day, however, there will be no talk about bread given for just this day, for there will be only one day: “We talk about ‘daily’ now, when one day passes and another comes. Will there be any talk about ‘daily,’ when there will be just one eternal day?” Augustine insists that, when we come to Christ himself, reigning with him forever, there will be no need for the Eucharist, for the readings, the hymns sung and words heard: “These are things we need on our pilgrimage. But when we finally get there, do you imagine we shall be listening to a book? We shall be seeing the Word itself, listening to the Word itself, eating it, drinking it, as the angels do now.”31 Participation in the liturgy, and especially the Eucharist, assimilates us into Christ himself, digests us into his members, so that on that singular day, through him, with him, and in him, we shall be at rest gazing at the Truth Itself in one vision of the Eternal Sabbath. Augustine on Sacrifice Although Augustine never wrote a work on the Eucharist as such, he does provide a full discussion of sacrifice that, like SL, adapts the theme for Christian worship. From the very beginning of Christianity, theologians have struggled to define an appropriate “Christian sacrifice” distinct from both pagan and Hebrew practices and rooted centrally in Christ’s death on the Cross. Reflection on sacrifice continues to this day.32 As Frances Young asserts in her study on sacrifice in the early Church, sacrifice is a universal religious phenomenon in the ancient world.33 Late in the nineteenth century, Hubert and Mauss, in a classic work on the nature and function of sacrifice, maintained that, in spite of the diversity of forms, the traditional “procedure” of sacrifice is ubiquitous and “consists in establishing a means of communication between the sacred and profane worlds through the mediation of a victim, that is, of a thing that in the course of the ceremony is destroyed.”34 This “communication” presumes a prior condition of alienation of sinful humanity from the all-holy God that can be bridged only through Augustine, Sermon 57.7, in Sermons, trans. Henry Bettenson (New York: New City Press, 1991), 3:112. 32 See Robert J. Daly, S.J., Sacrifice Unveiled: The True Meaning of Christian Sacrifice (London: Continuum, 2009). Daly’s career has focused on asserting a Trinitarian view of sacrifice rather than one centered on violence and destruction. 33 Frances Young, Sacrifice and the Death of Christ (London: SPCK, 1975), 21. 34 Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function, trans. W. D. Halls (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964) [originally “Essai sur la nature et la function du sacrifice,” L’Année sociologique 2 (1898): 29–138], 97. 31 808 Michael C. McCarthy, S.J. God’s own initiative. As D. R. Jones notes, “Sacrifice is normally the indispensable means of overcoming the alienation, but also some sort of sacrifice remains necessary to maintain the relationship between God and man.”35 For Augustine, following a line of interpretation that goes back at least as far as the letter to the Hebrews, Christ’s death on the cross is the final sacrifice, consummating all previous sacrifices and rendering further sacrifices superfluous.36 Since he offered his own blood, he enters the sanctuary once and for all. 37 And yet, by virtue of his assimilation with sinful humanity, members of his body continue to send up his sacrifice. Both in the Eucharist and in the liturgy of the hours, we conform to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, becoming obedient to the will of God.38 Rather than a cultic affair practiced in accordance with the old dispensation, sacrifice in this sense becomes the expression of total self-giving owed to an all-holy God. Furthermore, such self-giving in Christ includes the transformation of sinful patterns. Some of Augustine’s most important treatments of sacrifice appear in his explanation of the Psalms. That some form of cultic sacrifice lies behind the religious world of the Psalms should be obvious even to the most casual reader, and so Augustine’s interpretation is all the more interesting. Psalm 19:4 prays that God will be “mindful of all you sacrificed, and may your holocausts be rich.” Psalm 105, narrating the infidelities of Israel, notes that they worshiped Baal of Peor and ate sacrifices to lifeless gods (Ps 105:28). Infant sacrifice is mentioned in 105:38–39 as a horrific example of idolatry.39 The temple figures D. R. Jones, “Sacrifice and Holiness,” in Sacrifice and Redemption, 16. Cf. J. Lécuyer, “Le sacrifice selon Saint Augustin,” in Augustinus Magister (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1954), 906–07. On Augustine’s doctrine of sacrifice, see also Bonner, “Doctrine of Sacrifice,” 101–17. 37 See En. in ps. 109.18 and 130.4. 38 On obedience as the perfection of all righteousness and wisdom, see En. in ps. 71.6; 118(22).8. In En. in ps. 70.1, Augustine assimilates our obedience with following the divine physician, whose own obedience reversed the effects of Adam’s disobedience. 39 Ps. 105:30: “Et immolauerunt filios suos et filias suas daimoniis; et effuderunt sanguinem innocentem, sanguinem filiorum suorum et filiarum suarum,quas sacrificauerunt sculptilibus Chanaan”; see Augustine’s gloss in En. in ps. on Ps.105:30. Although we do not read about this form of child sacrifice in Deuteronomy, Augustine asserts that the psalm does not lie, as prophets and other texts are not silent about nations having this custom (“Neque prophetae . . . habuisse uero istam consuetudinem gentes, nec earum litterae tacuerunt”). 35 36 On the Augustinian Roots of The Spirit of the Liturgy 809 heavily as a center of worship to which the Psalmist frequently turns (Pss 5:8; 17:7; 26:4; 27:2; 137:2). References to holocausts (Pss 19:4; 39:7; 49:8; 50:18, 21; 65:13,15), oblations (Pss 39:7; 50:21), immolations (Pss 26:6; 49:14; 106:1), and victims (hostia) (Pss 26:6; 95:8; 115:8) occur throughout the Psalter. If cultic sacrifice may lie behind the Psalms, however, the psalm verses introduce a new note: the need for a conversion of heart prior to the physical sacrifice. Indeed, the Psalms themselves often use the language of sacrifice figuratively. It is a sacrifice of justice (e.g., sacrificium iustitiae in Ps 4:6) urged by the Psalmist. Only then are physical sacrifices acceptable (Pss 50:18–19, 21; cf. 39:7; 49:5). More frequently do the Psalms render sacrifices of praise ( Ps 106:22; 115:8), and while actual offerings may accompany prayers of thanksgiving, the Psalms consistently call from the worshiper a grateful heart rather than merely the flesh of bulls or the blood of she-goats (Ps 49:8–23). Prayer itself, with uplifted hands, becomes “an evening sacrifice” (Ps 140:2). For Augustine, of course, Old Testament sacrifices prefigure things to come. They are antitypes of the “true sacrifice,” which includes not simply Christ’s historical death on the Cross but our own self-sacrifice in Christ to the Father.40 His exposition on Psalm 50 includes a rather characteristic, spiritualizing explanation of David’s “sacrifice.” Augustine inquires into the implications of the statement “If you had wished sacrifice, I would certainly have offered it” (Ps 50:18). Although David lived at a time when animal sacrifices were common, he regarded them as prefiguring the “one saving sacrifice [unum salutare sacrificium].” David recognizes that God takes no pleasure in holocausts, and so Augustine asks his congregation: “Are we to offer nothing, then? Are we to approach God like that? How shall we propitiate him?” He then asserts that one should indeed offer sacrifice but one that comes from within: “Do not purchase incense from somewhere else . . . do not seek outside yourself some animal you can slay.” What God wishes is a contrite spirit, and if a person offers that in sacrifice, God draws near.41 While this figurative aspect of sacrifice highlights the historical relationship between Old Testament types and their fulfillment in See Lécuyer, “Le sacrifice,” 905–12. En. in ps. 50.21: “Cor contritum et humilatum Deus non spernit. Nostis quia excelsus est Deus; si te excelsum feceris, longinquabit a te; si te humiliaueris propinquabit ad te” (CCL, 38:614; Boulding, 2:428). 40 41 810 Michael C. McCarthy, S.J. the New Testament, fundamental to Augustine’s exegesis is his sense of the relationship of what is visible and exterior to what is invisible and interior. In a section of City of God, Augustine defines sacrifice as a sacred symbol (sacrum signum), a visible sacrament of an invisible sacrifice (uisibile inuisibilis sacrificii sacramentum).42 It is in this sense that he encourages his congregation to offer as sacrifice “what you have in yourself,” just as David did. Any flesh-and-blood sacrifice, within Augustine’s theology, is efficacious only to the extent that it signifies the interior gifts that God both gives and receives: the self-gift of the Incarnation and the Passion and our own participation in that gift. Thus, Psalm 55:12 (“The good things I have vowed to give you, and the praise I will render you are within me, O God”) assumes great significance: “From the coffer of your heart bring forth the incense of praise, and from the store of good conscience the sacrifice of faith.”43 Augustine concludes that the interior riches that no thief can touch are the most precious of all, for “God himself had given what was now being given back to him.”44 In his discussion of salvation in book 4 of De Trinitate, Augustine also trades frequently on the correspondence between the “inner” and the “outer” person. Christ’s death is itself an exemplum for the latter and a sacramentum for the former. This means that, in dying, Christ teaches his disciples through example not to be excessively frightened of bodily death. Yet as sacramentum, Christ’s death signifies the transformation of a Christian who seeks interior renewal through daily habits of repentance, prayer, and self-discipline.45 This same sacramental principle, whereby an external sacrifice represents an interior offering, applies not just to the Eucharist but to all prayer. The liturgy of the hours comprises both sacrifices of justice and sacrifices of praise, both in their exterior words and in their interior effect. David’s exclamation that “a sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit” becomes a leitmotif for the interpretation of many psalm verses.46 In his early exegesis of Psalm 4:6 (“Offer a sacrifice of justice and hope in the Lord”), Augus De civitate Dei 10.5. En. in ps. 55.19: De cordis arca profer laudis incensum, de cellario bonae conscientiae profer sacrificium fidei. (CCL, 40:691; Boulding, 3:99). 44 En. in ps. 55.19: “O diuitiae interiores, quo fur non accedit. Ipse dederat Deus unde accipiebat” (CCL, 40:692; Boulding, 3:99–100). 45 Augustine, De Trinitate 4.3.6. See Basil Studer, “Sacramentum et exemplum chez saint Augustin,” Recherches Augustiniennes 10 (1975): 89–93. 46 Ps 50:19: “Sacrificium Deo spiritus contribulatus; cor contritum et humilatum Deus non spernit.” 42 43 On the Augustinian Roots of The Spirit of the Liturgy 811 tine notes that the sacrificium iustitiae is that spiritus contribulatus to which David refers in 50:19. Those who repent for their sins offer a sacrifice of justice that yields a spiritual rebirth. “The mind, now washed clean, offers itself and places itself on the altar of faith, to be consumed by the divine fire, that is, the Holy Spirit.”47 In his explanation of Psalm 41:9 (“My prayer to the God of my life is within me”), Augustine explains that, to offer supplication, he need not offer exotic gifts but only the incense within him. Trials endured prove, in this context, to be training in the manner of Christ on the cross (“My God, my God . . .”).48 Similarly, the “contrite spirit” of Psalm 50 explains the reference to sacrifice in Psalm 95:8 (“Bring to the Lord the glory due to his name. Lift your offerings and enter his courts”).49 Sacrifice is made through participation in Christ, and praying the psalms (as the Eucharist itself ) implies such participation. In Enarrationes in Psalmos 130.4, Augustine comments on verse 1 (“O Lord, my heart is not exalted”). Noting that sacrifice requires a priest, he asserts that his congregation is secure in the priest in heaven, who intercedes with us to the Father. “He has entered into the holy of holies, beyond the veil, where in the liturgy of the figurative temple the high priest entered once a year.”50 Because the Lord offered himself once and for all, further sacrifices are rendered unnecessary: “The place where we must offer our sacrifice is where he is.”51 On Psalm 140:5 (“The just man will correct me with mercy and will rebuke me”), Augustine tells his congregation that, since they are in the Body of Christ, they should execute justice against themselves. Adverting once more to Psalm 50, he notes that God accepts only the kind of sacrifice made by David: “Humble your heart, bruise your heart,” he says, so that what displeases God in you will displease you too.52 Thus will the Christian offer sacrifice and unite himself to the will of God. So too Augustine comments on Psalm 146:2–3: “The Lord is building up Jerusalem and gathering the dispersed of En. in ps. 4.7: “Se offert ipsa anima iam abluta, et imponit in altare fidei, diuino igne, id est, Spiritu sancto comprehendenda” (CCL, 38:17; Boulding, 1:89). 48 En. in ps. 41.17 (on v. 9): “Apud me oratio Deo uitae meae” (CCL, 38:472). 49 En. in ps. 95.9 (on v. 8): “Afferte Domino gloriam nomini eius. Tollite hostias, et introite in atria eius” (CCL, 39:1349). 50 En. in ps. 130.4: “ Intrauit enim in sancta sanctorum, in interiora ueli, quo non intrabat sacerdos in figura nisi semel in anno” (CCL 40:1900; Boulding 6:141). 51 En. in ps. 130.4: “Ibi offeramus et hostiam” (CCL, 40:1900; Boulding 6:141). 52 En. in ps.140.14: “Humila cor tuum, contere cor tuum, crucia cor tuum; hoc in te tibi displicet quod et Deo” (CCL, 40:2036; Boulding, 6:315). 47 812 Michael C. McCarthy, S.J. Israel. He heals the bruised [contritos] of heart.” Quoting both Psalm 50:18–19 and Psalm 33:19 (“The Lord is close to those who have bruised their hearts”), Augustine asks who such people are. They are not the naturally righteous, but rather the humble, who have dashed their hearts “so that having been bruised it is healed” through the grace of Christ.53 The correction of heart that Augustine envisions, however, does not consist simply in following a set of ethical principles extrinsically imposed, the high-flown ideals of Christ’s teachings. Rather, noting that holocaust means something “entirely consumed by fire,”54 Augustine insists that the “humbled heart” is one that has been wholly incinerated by the fire of divine love. Such a holocaust of the heart in charity must precipitate any change in ethical behavior.55 In Enarrationes in Psalmos 64.4, he exhorts his congregation to be seized with the fire that blazes in Jerusalem, to burn with love “until all that is mortal in us is consumed, and whatever has fought against us goes up to the Lord in sacrifice.”56 While true sacrifice has an eschatological, transcendental focus, its altars are firmly erected now in the interior man. Thus, on Psalm 65:15—“As my mouth spoke amid my tribulation, I will offer you holocausts with marrow”—Augustine explains that the marrow is love for God structured deep within him and that the one who prays the psalm wishes this above all: “I want to hold your charity deep within me. . . . The love I have for you will be in the innermost part of me.”57 It is precisely this holocaust that God desires, for “when God looks into the very marrow of a person, he accepts the offerer whole and entire.”58 En. in ps. 146.5 (CCL, 40:2125; Boulding, 6:425). En. in ps. 49.15: “Quid est autem holocaustum? Totum igne absumtum” (CCL, 38:588; Boulding, 2:396). 55 En. in ps. 49.15: “Est quidam ignis flagrantissimae caritatis: animus inflammetur caritate, arripiat eadem caritas membra in usum suum, non ea permittat militare cupiditati, ut totus exardescat igne amoris diuini qui uult offerre Deo holocaustum” (CCL, 38:588; Boulding, 2:396). 56 En. in ps. 64.4: “Arripiat ergo nos ignis, ignis diuinus in Ierusalem: incipiamus ardere caritate, donec totum mortale consumatur, et quod contra nos fuerit, eat in sacrificium Domino” (CCL, 39:826; Boulding 3:269). 57 En. in ps. 65.20 (on v. 15): “Et locutum est os meum in tribulatione mea. Holocausta medullata offeram tibi): Intus teneam caritatem tuam; non erit in superficie, in medullis meis erit quod diligo te” (CCL, 39:853; Boulding, 3:302–03). 58 En. in ps. 65.20: “cuius autem medullam inspicit, ipsum totum accipit” (CCL, 39:853; Boulding, 3:302–03). 53 54 On the Augustinian Roots of The Spirit of the Liturgy 813 Such acceptance of the offerer “whole and entire” comes only through the mediation of the high priest, and it is prayer in him that makes our very marrow transparent to God’s sight: “totum corpus Christi loquitur; hoc est quod offert Deo. Incensum, quid est? Oratio [It is the whole body of Christ that speaks here, stating what it is offering to God. What does incense represent? Prayer.]”59 Elsewhere Augustine alludes to the Eucharist as the place where Christ’s sacrifice is re-presented in the Church throughout the world, but here he suggests that the entire prayer of the Church, not just Eucharist, is a sacrifice participating in the one sacrifice of Christ.60 The prayer of Psalm 140 (“I have cried to you, O Lord, hear me. Let my prayer rise like incense before you and the raising of my hands be an evening sacrifice”), beyond merely prefiguring Christ’s passion, re-presents the passion, in which we, in our humanity, are offered and redeemed.61 Precisely by virtue of our configuration to Christ, the head, the prayer of the body is graciously accepted, as from a heart purified: “Every prayer purely directed from the heart of a believer rises like incense, as from a holy altar. Nothing is more delightful than this fragrance of the Lord. May all who believe send forth the same fragrance.”62 Through the mediation of such a priest, whose sacrifice is most fragrant, the offering of the believer is made pleasant as well. Ritual language of priest, sacrifice, and victim recurs throughout Augustine’s interpretation of the psalms.63 On Psalm 149:2 (“Let Israel rejoice in him who made it, and let the children of Zion exult in their king”), Augustine, after briefly noting that Christ is “a king who seemed to be conquered, but in reality conquered,” asks a question about the messiah’s identity that seems to fascinate him even more: “But in what sense is he a priest?”64 Augustine answers that En. in ps. 65.20 (CCL, 39:853; Boulding, 3:302–03). En. in ps. 75.15 and 106.13. See Gerald Bonner, “The Church and the Eucharist in the Theology of St. Augustine,” Sobornost 7, no. 6 (1978): 448–61; repr. in Bonner, God’s Decree and Man’s Destiny (London:Variorum Reprints, 1987). 61 Ps. 140:1: “Dirigatur oratio mea tamquam incensum in conspectu tuo; eleuatio manuum mearum sacrificium uespertinum.” 62 En. in ps. 140.5: “Oratio ergo pure directa de corde fideli, tamquam de ara sancta surgit incensum. Nihil est delectabilius odore Domini: sic oleant omnes qui credunt” (CCL, 40:2029; Boulding, 6:305). 63 Cf. De Trinitate 1.20, 4.6, and 4.19, where Christ, in his work of salvation, is presented as both priest and sacrifice. 64 En. in ps. 149.6: “Unde autem Sacerdos?” (CCL, 40:2182; Boulding, 6:497). 59 60 814 Michael C. McCarthy, S.J. Christ is a “pure priest” who “offered himself for us” by purifying our otherwise “defiled conscience.” In him, we ourselves can slay our hearts as worthy victims.65 Because no believer can enjoy complete freedom from sin, no offering of self can be completely free of the pride that has convicted the human race since the fall. While the worshiper may have an authentic desire to become a true holocaust to God, his motivations will always be mixed with a kind of self-love. All sacrifices to God, then, as all prayers made to God, cannot be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect. In Augustine’s conception of the Psalms as the voice of the whole Christ, though, our very action of praying the Psalms, to whose voice the high priest has attached himself, transforms us into him. In his own pure self-offering, we have been transfigured. This self-offering that is re-presented via the unique intervocality of the psalm prayers reveals God, who is Trinity, even as it saves. Conclusion Sacrosanctum Concilium [hereafter, SC], the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy promulgated at Vatican II, begins with key principles for understanding the nature of liturgy. Central among them we find the themes discussed in this article through the concepts “Sabbath” and “Sacrifice.” “In the liturgy on earth,” it says, “we are sharing by anticipation in the heavenly one, celebrated in the holy city, Jerusalem, the goal towards which we strive as pilgrims, where Christ is, seated at God’s right hand, he who is the minister of the saints and of the true tabernacle” (SC, §8).66 In the liturgy, we hope to share the eternal celebration that the saints now enjoy. Furthermore, SC notes that Eucharist is a sacrifice not En. in ps. 149.6: “Quia se pro nobis obtulit. Date Sacerdoti quod offerat. Quid inueniret homo quod daret mundam uictimam? Quam uictimam? Quid mundum potest efferre peccator? O inique, o impie! quidquid adtuleris immundum est, et aliquid mundum pro te offerendum est. Quaere apud te quid offeras; non inuenies. Quaere ex te quod offeras; non delectatur arietibus, nec hircis, nec tauris. Omnia ipsius sunt, etsi non offeras. Offer ergo illi mundum sacrificium. Sed peccator es, impius es, sed inquinatam conscientiam habes. Poteris forte aliquid mundum offerre, purgatus; sed ut purgeris, aliquid pro te offerendum est. Quid ergo pro te oblaturus es, ut munderis? Si mundatus es, poteris offerre quod mundum est. Offerat ergo seipsum mundus Sacerdos, et mundet. Hoc est quod fecit Christus” (CCL, 40:2182; Boulding, 6:497). 66 English translations from SC are taken from Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner, S.J., 2 vols. (London: Sheed and Ward, 1990), 2:820–43. 65 On the Augustinian Roots of The Spirit of the Liturgy 815 only because the person serves as the minister but also because Christ associates the Church with himself in this great work. Through him, it offers worship to the Father. In the liturgy, therefore, “the mystical body of Jesus Christ, that is the head and the members, is together giving complete and definitive public expression to its worship” (SC, §7). As should now be clear, the theology grounding the Council’s understanding of liturgy has deep roots in Augustine and had been re-emphasized in the work of Benedict XVI prior to his election as pope. A renewed and healthy appreciation of both the eschatological scope of liturgy and its participation in the offering of the whole Christ will deepen our sense of Church as a people on pilgrimage to God. Although I do not share the view that efforts should be made to return liturgical celebrations physically ad orientem, I also recognize the validity of concerns lying behind this view (74–84).67 In practice, Christian liturgy (as theology) must always negotiate the tension between an immanent moment, whose excess may tend toward self-absorption and narrowness, and a transcendent moment, whose excess may tend toward an “other-worldliness” detached from worshipers’ needs and experience. Attention to the concepts of Sabbath and Sacrifice as articulated in the liturgical theology of Augustine and Benedict will keep horizons open so that our worship may always be oriented to the one to whom we will say: “Our hearts N&V are restless until they rest in you.” 67 Thomas M. Kocik offers patristic texts supporting ad orientem worship, including Augustine, in “Liturgical Renewal and Eschatology,” Homiletic & Pastoral Review, October 2003, 22–27. In my reading, however, Augustine says little about this practice, with the exception of the one text cited by Kocik (De serm. Dom. in monte 2.15.18). My own feeling that such a change should not be effected has less to do with theology or tradition than with a conviction that, at this moment in history, it would be received in a way that has seriously adverse pastoral consequences. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2017): 817–833 817 On Nature and Grace in Deus Caritas Est Stephen M. Fields, S.J. Georgetown University Washington, DC Received with wide acclaim, Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical Deus Caritas Est [hereafter, DCE] lays out paradigms for the relations between eros and charity and between charity and justice.1 Striking is the Pontiff ’s sensitivity to the nuanced reciprocity that structures both relations. Disputing, for instance, the well-known thesis of the Lutheran bishop Anders Nygren (1890–1978), he argues that eros and charity are analogical, not equivocal.2 God’s redeeming activity is the prime analogate of both loves. In the incarnate Word, eros and charity are perfectly conjoined. They flow forth from God as universal self-sacrifice, on the one hand, and as passionate yearning to save sinful humanity, on the other. For its part, the eros between husband and wife mirrors the divine charity when it comes to completion in conceiving children, nurturing a family, and spreading further to embrace neighbors and friends. In relating charity and justice, Benedict delves deep into four themes: the nature of the human person, the meaning of prudence, the relation between social justice and ideology, and the relation between Church and state. In exploring these themes, this essay will first lay out Benedict’s argument in the second part of his encyclical. Then it will summarize a major critique of the paradigm that the encyclical develops. It will respond to this critique by drawing more widely on Benedict’s thought. Finally, it will discuss the rela I gratefully acknowledge permission of the editors at the Catholic University of America Press to adapt this article from my Analogies of Transcendence: An Essay on Nature, Grace and Modernity (Washington DC, 2016), 90–101, 128–33. 2 Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, trans. Philip S. Watson (London: SPCK, 1953). 1 818 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. tion of nature and grace that implicitly governs Benedict’s vision. This vision, we shall see, interprets the Second Vatican Council by creatively retrieving touchstone sources of Christianity: the Gospel of John, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas. Deus Caritas Est Part II of the Pontiff ’s apostolic letter is entitled Caritas. Its thesis contends that charity, for the Church, “is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others. Charity is a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being” (§25). The work of charity is, in fact, sacramental in a broad sense. It is both a sign and an instrument of the Church’s essence. The Church’s “service of charity” is the overflowing of the life of the Spirit, whose “energy transforms the heart of the ecclesial community, so that it becomes a witness before the world of the love of the Father” (§19). This emanation of love must necessarily extend “beyond the frontiers of the Church.” In so doing, it causes what it signifies. Acting to “purify” humanity, it clarifies rational judgment and aids the state better to order the norms of political life (§§25, 28). In developing this thesis, Benedict explicitly addresses Marxism, perhaps Christianity’s leading recent nemesis. Marxism’s central critique, he argues, rests on the notion that those who stand on the social and political margins demand justice, not charity. Charity merely assuages the consciences of the privileged by treating the symptoms of the disease. Charity makes no attempt to diagnose and heal the underlying causes of injustice. These are structural; they cannot be eradicated by the purveyors of voluntary goodwill (§26). In agreement with Marxism, the Pope defines justice as giving all their rightful share of the community’s goods. Justice, he says, is the “aim and criterion of politics” (§28). It falls properly under the aegis of the state. In parting company with Marxism, however, he reasserts a fundamental imperative of Catholic social teaching. The state bears the moral burden of acting according to the principle of subsidiarity (§26). Far from imposing on the commonwealth a dictatorship of the proletariat, subsidiarity requires the higher orders of society to encourage the lower orders to assume their proper share of responsibility. The higher should not perform what the lower can do best for itself.3 Moreover, the principle of subsidiarity entails that, however deeply Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Letter Quadragesimo Anno (1931) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 23 (1931): 177–228; hereafter, QA], §79. 3 On Nature and Grace in Deus Caritas Est 819 justice reaches into social structures, it never obviates love (§28). “One does not make the world more human,” the Pope asserts, “by refusing to act [lovingly] here and now” (§31). Suffering and loneliness always need compassion and care. These qualities often fall outside the aegis of the state acting according to subsidiarity. They spring from deep within the spontaneous initiative of individuals (§28). Not only must human freedom be respected by the state; it must be promoted. For this reason, the Church casts a wary eye on all ideologies that would compromise the legitimate sphere of responsible human endeavor. These include partisan strategies and programs, including proselytism, that envisage charity tendentiously—merely as a means of promoting an agenda, not as an end in itself. Because love constitutes the essential bond between God and man, its free exchange is “the best defense” of both (§31). Benedict further develops his notion of justice by locating its promotion squarely within the realm of practical reason (§28). Wisely, he understands that achieving justice within the complex organization of modern society presents ethical problems whose solutions are often translucent or even opaque to the best minds of the best persons. Moreover, the political order is often blinded by power and special interests (§28). To help lift these shadows, the Church has developed a “set of fundamental guidelines” to enlighten the deliberations of practical reason (§27). Called “Catholic social thought,” these guidelines are grounded in “the natural law” (§28). As such, they are “valid even beyond the confines of the Church” (§27). Although the Church offers its teaching to purify the political order’s understanding of justice, “the political task . . . cannot be the Church’s immediate responsibility” (§28). Not itself a political organ, the Church has no interest in building a theocracy. Consistent with Gaudium et Spes §36, its interest lies in respecting the appropriate autonomy of the state (§28). To further enhance the Church’s respect for this autonomy, Benedict makes a vitally important distinction. On the one hand, the Church’s role concerning justice is indirect. Its mandate serves to awaken “those moral forces without which . . . just [social] structures are neither established nor prove effective in the long run” (§28). Its mandate is hortatory and prophetic. It serves to inform the consciences of the faithful and, more generally, all people of good will (§29). They, in turn, are mandated to form society according to the virtuous use of their own practical reason. On the other hand, the Church’s role concerning charity is direct 820 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. (§29). As a theological virtue, love is the essence of grace that is the very life of God. The Church’s work of charity elevates the state’s notion of justice (§29). The Pope is careful not to posit that charity is the state’s direct concern. He does argue, however, that the Church’s witness of love leavens the humanitarian efforts of secular agencies, whether public or private (§30). These efforts share with religion a common motivation. “Love of neighbor,” the Pope reminds us, “is inscribed by the Creator in man’s very nature” (§31). Consequently, state-sponsored programs like subsidies and relief for heavily indebted countries promote human solidarity. They concretely embody charity. In so doing, they congenially join with the culture of life preached by the Church. This preaching serves to deepen all motivations, whether secular or religious, that are grounded in self-sacrifice (§30). The Pope concludes his reflection by squarely incorporating the Christian notion of justice within love. No doubt intending to reorder the recently popular slogan “the faith that does justice,” he says, referring to Galatians 5:6, that Christians should “be guided by the faith which works through love” (§33). Reminding us of 1 Corinthians 13, he asserts that “practical activity will always be insufficient, unless it visibly expresses a love for man” (§34). For Benedict, justice is not an absolute in itself, but a sign of love and a means to love. Its sustaining furnace is a loving “encounter with Christ” (§§34, 36, 37). Without this, justice becomes dissipated. It devolves into the delusion that its promotion could fully resolve every social problem (§36). Justice cheap in love, even when luxuriant in faith, offers us only another ideology against which the Pope prophesies. Even worse, when justice stiffens into ideology, then fanaticism, terrorism, and despair often result. Love acts justly by being patient and humble in the face of sustained poverty and suffering (§37). Persevering when its own actions seem powerless, justice grounded in the faith that works through love cleaves to the crucified Christ, the paradigmatic victim of injustice, whose wounds never ceased to pour forth life (§38, 39). Critique A major critique of Benedict’s thesis is developed by Tissa Balasuriya, a Sri Lankan oblate of Mary Immaculate born in 1924. Spending much of his life teaching economics and theology in his native country, he gained notoriety by his 1990 work Mary and Human Liberation.4 Owing Tissa Balasuriya, Mary and Human Liberation (Colombo, LK: Center for Society and Religion, 1990; first published in Logos 29 [March/July, 1990]). 4 On Nature and Grace in Deus Caritas Est 821 to errors that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith found in this book, Balasuriya became the first theologian since Vatican II to be excommunicated. The censure lasted for the year 1997–1998.5 His critique of DCE appeared in Cross Currents, the well-known journal of the Association for Religion and Intellectual Life.6 It launched a frontal assault on the encyclical’s reading of the signs of the times and on its paradigm for the relation of love and justice. The Sri Lankan would have Benedict broaden his reading of the times to include a critique of “neo-liberal capitalism” (247). Balasuriya defines this as a global “system of inequality” by which, for example, “transnational entities rob the poor of wealth” (247, 240). Benedict lacks an even hand, he claims. By focusing only on the errors of Marxism, the Pontiff ’s bias ignores how “the [current] world system is very far from the reign of God promised by Jesus” (251). Benedict fails to censure the Church for its complicity with capitalist structures of injustice, whereas his historical perspective fails to acknowledge the Church’s culpable coexistence with feudal and colonial powers (240). As a result, the encyclical sidesteps an adequate account of love (238). As fully realized, Christian love mandates “compassionate activism and efforts at constructive social change” (230). These entail a promotion of social justice going well beyond the Church’s works of organized charity (240). Such works do “little to change an unjust global system” (247). Love, he argues, demands “a coordinated strategic struggle” supported by two pillars (240). On the one hand, this struggle means that, pace Benedict, the clergy must be directly involved in the practical administration of justice (245). Such a mandate follows immediately, he argues, from the implication of their vocation to preach the Word and celebrate the sacraments, especially the Eucharist (240, 248). Citing Justice in the World (§36), the document produced by the 1971 Synod of Bishops, he asserts that justice should be an essential ministry of the Church (243–44).7 Love, in other words, demands the just restitution of compromised rights. Furthermore, barring the clergy from partic “Father Tissa Balasuriya Obituary,” The Guardian, March 6, 2013, accessed May 2, 2017, www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/06/father-tissa-balasuriya. 6 Tissa Balasuriya, “A Companion to the Encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI on ‘God is Love,’” in Cross Currents 56, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 229–60. Cited in the text by page. 7 Synod of Bishops, Second General Assembly, Justice in the World (1971), in The Gospel of Peace and Justice: Catholic Social Teaching Since Pope John, ed. Joseph Gremillion (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1976), 513–29. 5 822 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. ipating “in social movements for justice” could deprive a country, especially a developing one, of necessary leadership in times of crisis (246–47). The bishops of the Philippines, for instance, and some in Africa and Latin America “contributed courageously” to the downfall of oppressive dictatorships (246). On the other hand, Balasuriya’s coordinated strategic struggle requires the clergy directly to formulate a “structural analysis of social justice.” (245) This must be done freed from the perspectives of European colonialism, white racism, and postliberal economics. Regrettably, he contends, Catholic social teaching from Rerum Novarum through Centesimus Annus remains the hostage of these ideologies. They can be shaken off only by the clergy’s retrieving the Church’s kerygma and applying it to such issues as the distribution of wealth and the root causes of hunger and poverty (245). Unless the clergy undertake this work directly, they will fail to influence the laity to take political action (258). This action must entail non-violent resistance to injustice in all spheres of life (253–54). A Response The crux of the difference between Benedict and Balasuriya lies first and foremost in their reading of the signs of the times. Pace Balasuriya, the difference does not consist in Benedict’s turning a blind eye to the problems inherent in capitalism. Because the Pope wishes DCE to stand in the developing tradition of the Catholic social thought that he liberally cites, it follows that he is far from naive about the corrosive effects of unbridled capitalism that this tradition consistently deplores.8 The difference lies in Balasuriya’s silence about the problems inherent in Marxism. This silence is due to a deeper problem in Balasuriya’s response. Critical of Benedict’s theological anthropology, he finds untenable what he calls its “mythical presupposition of original sin” In general, Catholic social thought mandates that private goods be shared with the needy when they surpass the owner’s need for a reasonable standard of living; see Javier Hervada, “Principios de Doctrina Social de la Iglesia,” SIDEC 25, nos. 427–28 (January–February 1983). In particular, QA §§58 and 61 and John XXIII, Mater et Magistra (1961) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 53 (1961): 401–64; hereafter, MM] define the common good as requiring the just distribution of goods “within society” (MM §§ 73, 74, 112). Paul VI, Populorum Progressio (1967) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 59 (1967): 257–99], passim, adds “to other nations.” MM defines private property as entailing workers’ ownership of the means of production (§96). It also supports their right to form unions and strike (§14). English of all magisterial documents are available at http:// w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html. 8 On Nature and Grace in Deus Caritas Est 823 (257). By this he means the notion that “the whole of humanity is placed in sin as offenders against God” (ibid.). His critique of original sin as myth is not further developed, but it is clear from what is already said that his position is rooted in Pelagianism. In this, he and Marxism share a common ideological source. It is precisely Benedict’s awareness of this source that leads him to single out Marxism for special censure. The Judeo-Christian doctrine of original sin stands as a bulwark against all ideologies based on the naive notion that the human person is innately perfectible. As Cardinal Newman writes in his intellectual autobiography, Apologia Pro Vita Sua, original sin is striking because of its empirical verifiability. No profound insight into the signs of the times or into human history as we know it is needed to perceive that, if an all good God exists, the human species stands in a consistently radical opposition to him.9 St. Augustine, in Confessions, traces this opposition to a disease located deep in the human heart over which the person is powerless. Observing its symptoms even in reputedly innocent children, he wonders why a toddler would aggressively force his infant brother away from his mother’s breast. Milk a-plenty flows for both to share, even as the infant depends on it for his very life. Augustine concludes that the concupiscent drive of self-love is natural. By this, he means that human nature acts spontaneously, pre-reflectively, out of a primeval disorder from which only the power of divinity can redeem it.10 Augustine’s battle against the British monk Pelagius brought the main contours of the Christian doctrine of original sin into relief. Pelagius, desiring to spare Christians from the charge of moral laxity leveled at them by the pagan aristocracy of Rome, contended, in effect, that sinful behavior is learned by socio-cultural conditioning. On this basis, he could then argue that Christianity believed in vigorous moral action—strength of will—in order to overcome the influence of a corrupt and errant environment. The incarnate Word shines amidst this milieu as a luminous example of perfection. To be saved, we need emulate him by a freedom firmly and consistently steeped in virtue.11 John Henry Cardinal Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua (New York: Doubleday, 1989), 319–20. 10 Augustine, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (Harmonsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1987), 27–28. 11 See Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (Harmonsworth, UK: Penguin, 1983), 227; also personal communication from Professor Rowan Greer of Yale University. 9 824 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. Augustine saw the error lightly hidden in this position. If original sin is learned by bad example, if it is merely external to the human person, and if Christ’s role is principally exemplary, then it is logically possible for human volition to save itself. For Augustine, therefore, the deepest problem in Pelagianism is not anthropological, but soteriological. He answers Pelagius with the notion of traducianism. Original sin, inbred in humanity, is handed down in the person’s very generation in sexual intercourse.12 This is a compellingly reasonable position once it is granted that original sin must condition human nature. And so it must, if Christ is to be humanity’s necessary perfector and not merely an aid in humanity’s task of self-perfection. Benedict locates the modern rehearsal of the error of human perfectibility in the thought of Joachim of Fiore (ca.1135–1202).13 For Joachim, history is a divine progression in which the Holy Spirit will ultimately render both Church and state redundant.14 Joachim is subtler than Pelagius in that he attributes humanity’s perfectibility in time and space to a divine agency. Nonetheless, to the extent that his immanent soteriology loses fulfillment in an other-worldly future that is divine, it is Pelagian in its root. It follows, therefore, that Marxism, as grounded in the messianism of the proletariat’s dictatorship, recapitulates errors that Christianity has long countered. Infected by an anthropology that ignores a traducian understanding of original sin and by a purely immanent theory of redemption, it proffers a dangerously delusional hope for humanity. In so far as Balasuriya’s sympathy for Marxism is grounded in his rebellion against traducianism, his position is fairly deemed Pelagian. If so, then his reading of the signs of times is fairly deemed as dangerously delusional as the ideologies that it assimilates. Balasuriya’s critique also takes issue with the paradigm that Benedict develops for the relation of love and justice. According to the Sri Lankan, justice, as entailed in charity, should occupy the Church’s direct work, especially the clergy’s. He would have bishops and priests develop their own social analyses, plan their own strategies See Augustine, The Grace of Christ and Original Sin (esp. ch. 42), in An Augustine Reader, ed. John J. O’Meara (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973), 447–90. 13 Ratzinger deals with Joachim and his relation to Bonaventure in Theology of History in Saint Bonaventure (Habilitationschrift), trans. Zachary Hayes (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1971) [originally Die Geschichtstheologie des heiligen Bonaventura (Munich: Schnell and Steiner, 1959)], passim. 14 D.Vincent Twomey, S.V.D., “The Mind of Benedict XVI,” Claremont Review of Books 4 (Fall 2005): 66–71, at 66. 12 On Nature and Grace in Deus Caritas Est 825 based on them, and then serve as the executors of these strategies in the political arena. Compromising the autonomy of the temporal order that Gaudium et Spes calls upon the Church to respect, this proposal is seriously flawed. It misunderstands the necessary relation, not first and foremost between love and justice, but between justice and prudence. Although St. Thomas defines justice as what is “properly and in itself right,” he nonetheless understands justice to be the subject of prudence, as it discerns the natural law.15 In determining what is right, justice mediates between humanity’s need for self-defense and its vindictive instincts, on the hand, and its fundamental tendency toward social communion, on the other hand.16 Prudence consists in the skilled ability to choose and execute appropriate means to bring about objectively good ends. Prudence governs justice, therefore, when the question of how a complex social organization prone to conflicts among rights can best promote the mediation required by justice. In the first instance, this question is not religious, but fittingly secular. It is, in other words, a matter for rational refection apart from any consideration offered by the Church, based as it is on natural virtue.17 Consequently, as Benedict rightly adumbrates, people of sound prudence, whether Christian or not, will differ about what constitutes prudent means to achieve just ends. Because love mandates justice through the agency of prudence, it follows that, if the Church closely allies itself with particular social and political agendas, its credibility risks serious compromise. The Gospel’s eternal truths constitute ends that ought not be sacrificed on the public arena’s altar of reasonably disputable means. Doing otherwise exposes the Church’s kerygmatic mission as the prey of partisan ideology. The notion that promoting justice within the complex organization of modern society will entail conflicts among rights underscores Balasuriya’s naivete in urging the clergy to direct political action. As John Langan observes, when people’s prima facie rights collide Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, trans. Donald F. Coogan et al. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1965), 164 (the essays in this collection were originally published under separate titles by Kösel in 1954–1959). 16 Gerard Gilleman, S.J., The Primacy of Charity in Moral Theology, trans. William F. Ryan, S.J., and André Vachon (Westminster, MD: Newman, 1959), 332, cited in John P. Langan, “What Jerusalem Says to Athens,” in The Faith That Does Justice: Examining the Christian Sources for Social Change, ed. John C. Haughey (Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press, 1977), 152– 80, at 163. 17 Langan, “What Jerusalem Says to Athens,” 153, 163. 15 826 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. with those of others, the result is often aggressive tension and angry impasse. These can be transcended only by the voluntary “resignation of rights [and] normally justified claims.”18 If, as Balasuriya argues, love demands justice, it is equally necessary that justice defer to self-sacrificing love if social communion is to obtain.19 Long aware that justice needs to be enfolded in love, the Church realizes that a justice which will not yield to love can never bring about secular order, much less the fullness of the Kingdom.20 Pope Paul VI observes in Progressio Populorum, for instance, that it is true charity that motivates people to uncover the sources of misery and to find effective means to combat it (§75). Foreshadowing Benedict, Paul opines that the deep sickness of the world ensues more from a lack of brotherly solidarity than from problems in the means of production (§§66–67). Incorporating these themes of his predecessor into his own Johannine vision, Benedict locates the struggle for justice within the pierced side of Christ, the living font of wounded love that serves as the “starting-point” and focus of his encyclical (DCE, §12). In short, it is the direct role of the clergy to mediate the transformation of justice into love. Directly plunging them into political activity risks pulling the heart out of the priesthood. This heart embodies what Benedict calls “the sacramental mysticism” of the Eucharist. By it we are drawn immediately “into Jesus’ [own] act of self-oblation” (DCE, §13). The heart of the priesthood, therefore, is not prudence. It must be nothing less than the selfsame heart of Christ, the “Saving Victim, opening wide.”21 Nature and Grace The subtle relation that Benedict develops between love and justice is structured on an implicit paradigm of nature’s relation to grace. The core of this paradigm is lodged in his understanding of the sacramentality of charity. Charity is an efficacious sign of the Church. As a sign, it is the pouring forth of the life of the Spirit who conforms the Church evermore to Christ’s pierced side. As an instrument, charity extends well beyond the Church’s frontiers, drawing all humanity into the life-giving blood and water that flow from the universal Savior. As an efficacious sign, charity constitutes the essence of grace, the trans Ibid., 168–69. Ibid., 175, citing Augustine, On the Morals of the Catholic Church, esp. ch. 15. 20 Ibid., 172. 21 Thomas Aquinas, first line of hymn O salutaris hostia, trans. Edward Caswall. 18 19 On Nature and Grace in Deus Caritas Est 827 formation of humanity that the Church as the Body of Christ offers the world, both directly through baptism and indirectly through the loving activity of Christians everywhere. Charity is a sacrament, therefore, only because, in the first instance, the Church is the sacrament of Christ in and through the Spirit. Following Henri de Lubac’s seminal work that Vatican II incorporates, Benedict posits the Church as the prime sacrament that vivifies the seven sacraments as channels of the grace that leads to glory.22 Ironically, however, the notion of universal charity raises deep suspicions in Benedict. For him, this notion is the real “myth.” By this he means an ideal whose fruition here and now is as delusional as that of human perfectibility. Universal charity “can be realized only in the concrete form of brotherly love” (PCT, 54). This love takes shape in pockets or small units of care, compassion, and concern grounded in and molded by the Eucharist (PCT, 54). Benedict’s distrust of universal ideals by no means arises from an experienced leader’s tendency to sense the futility of human action in the face of intractable problems. It arises from the virtue of Christian hope grounded in the nuanced eschatology taught by the Gospel of John, so influential, as we have seen, in DCE. More clearly than any other New Testament writer, John articulates the tension between realized and future eschatology. His adage, for instance, that “the hour is coming and now is” ( John 4:23 and 5:25) crystallizes the paradox of Christian life. On the one hand, within the post-resurrection Church, true worship is given to God in Jesus because the hour of the Spirit’s indwelling has come. On the other hand, Jesus’s Messiahship is not yet fully realized. Our worship in and of him, although authentic, still but anticipates the consummation of worship in heaven, whose earthly sacrament it is.23 Accordingly, the Christian must own a dual vocation: to live for Christ in this age and for the age to come. A disciple cannot feed on the flesh of the Son of Man and become in any way an autonomous Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, trans. Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987) [originally Theologische Prinzipienlehre: Bausteine zur Fundamentaltheologie (Munich: Wewel, 1982)], 47; this work will be cited parenthetically in text as “PCT.” Ratzinger cites Henri de Lubac, Catholicisme: les aspects sociaux du dogme (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1941), 50–51, and Lumen Gentium, §48 (ch. VII). 23 C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1978), 68. 22 828 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. prisoner of history.24 To be sure, feet must be washed here and now. But for John, the sacramental encounter with the living Christ gives Christians a share not only “in the descent of the Redeemer to an obedient death, [but also] in his ascent through death to the glory” of the Father.25 Both given and pledged, this glory inspires Christians in this world “to endure injustice patiently [while yet also working] unceasingly for justice.”26 Against this backdrop of grace as both sacramental and eschatological, Benedict develops a flexibly analogical notion of nature. The crux of this lies in his assertion throughout DCE that grace serves to purify nature. Given the paradox of the Christian vocation, nature is both recalcitrant to grace and yet charged with it. Traducianism means that, until the full fruition of the eschaton, history will ever demand a conversion—a metanoia—a change of heart within individual persons (PCT, 51–52). Unless human freedom is liberated in its fundamental core, no social communion, based either on justice or charity, will prevail. This liberation obtains as a function of the Church’s sacramentality. Unless, in the first instance, humanity accepts God’s gratuitous offer of friendship, even the best and most humane solidarity movements will “succeed only in miring man more deeply in his tragic situation” (PCT, 53). The path deep into inward conversion is the purification that grace first offers nature. This path and “the path that draws [humanity] together [into communion] are [thus] not in conflict; on the contrary, they need and support each other” (PCT, 52). Furthermore, not only does nature need purifying from sinfully hardened hearts, but it also needs elevating so that it can ever more represent the kingdom that is to come. To effect this goal, grace purifies nature in two further senses. On the one hand, natural prudence, even when cleansed of sin and thus able to manifest “the will of God,” still needs further guidance (Paul VI, Humana Vitae, §40). This is supplied by counsel, a gift of the Holy Spirit, that, as St Thomas posits, inspires an intuitive sense of truth that transcends prudence’s skilled ability to assess options for action.27 As Benedict himself puts Ibid., 69–70. Ibid., 84. 26 Twomey, “The Mind of Benedict XVI,” 69. 27 Anselm Stolz, The Doctrine of Spiritual Perfection, trans. Aidan Williams, O.S.B (New York: Crossroad, 2001), 187, expounding Aquinas, Summa thelogiae I-II, q. 52, a. 2; q. 68, a. 2. 24 25 On Nature and Grace in Deus Caritas Est 829 it, “Faith enables reason to do its work more effectively and to see its object more clearly.” (DCE, §28) Catholic social thought is thus the point where “politics and faith meet” (DCE, §28). Based on its reading of the natural law in light of grace, the Church offers counsel to practical reason. Doing so does not entail the Church’s direct involvement in politics. It entails only that the Church preach its understanding of justice. This understanding is natural, although it is evinced under the influence of grace. Reason can reach its own integrity under grace’s influence, even when reason does not accept the truths of grace in an act of faith. Kant himself posits as much. He opines that Christianity helps reason to grasp the full implications of the moral law more quickly than it would otherwise have done on its own.28 Moreover, grace purifies nature in an even higher sense. As we have seen, because justice is a sacrament of love, the Church acts so to change the hearts of humanity that love will enfold justice. This means, in other words, that natural justice will spring from love and lead to love, even while retaining its ground in nature and remaining subject to prudence. Following St. Ambrose, Benedict believes that the transformation of justice by love finds its source in the Church, from which it can exercise an elevating effect on the secular order.29 This effect is both dialectical and synthetic. As dialectical, the Church shows the natural order that a communion of love constitutes both the basis for and the finality of the natural order’s promotion of justice.30 Without the Church’s eschatological witness, the ensuing “loss of transcendence” will evoke, according to Benedict, “the flight into utopia” and its ideological delusions.31 As synthetic, the Church leavens the prudence of consciences by its own vision of justice. It incites them to a self-sacrifice that transcends justice. Consequently, the Church is able to draw the secular order into its own immediate ambit, even while respecting its autonomy. Aware therefore that an outright divorce between Church and state would compromise the authentic humanism of nature, Benedict does envisage a public role for the Church. This role is mediated Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. Theodore M. Greene and Hoyd H. Hudson (New York: Harper and Row, 1960) [originally Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft (1792)], 143–44. 29 Langan, “What Jerusalem Says to Athens,” 160. 30 David L. Schindler, “Charity, Justice, and the Church’s Activity in the World,” Communio: International Catholic Review 33 (Fall 2006): 346–76, at 360. 31 Twomey, “The Mind of Benedict XVI,” 69. 28 830 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. by robust preaching and educating.32 Not insensitive to the need to change those social structures that embody injustice, the Pontiff is nonetheless too steeped in Augustinian realism to give these a priority over the actions of individuals. Ironically, this realism gives him tangential contact with some postmodern thinkers, such as JeanFrançois Lyotard, who is skeptical of all grand schemes and narratives.33 Temperate in his expectations of the fruit that practical reason will bear in the secular state, Benedict knows that structures do not change themselves. Change results from converted human hearts. We are now in a position to understand Benedict’s analogous concept of nature as it represents a creative development of Christian sources. Following Gaudium et Spes, he posits an appropriate autonomy between grace and nature, between the Church and the secular order. In exploring the limits of this autonomy, the Pontiff hearkens to a framework broadly put forth in Augustine’s City of God. The Church embodies the divine city as its sacramental image in history, where it is nonetheless placed squarely in the midst of the secular city deeply marred by traducianism.34 For Augustine, the Church stands as an uncompromising alternative to an alien and hostile world and as a refuge from it.35 Nonetheless, the Father of the West envisages a salutary traffic between nature and grace. Members of the human city, despite their sin, can occupy positions in the Church and rightly order it. Conversely, sanctified members of the Church can perform the same function in the human city.36 These themes from Augustine’s magnum opus remind us that the relics of original sin are ubiquitous, strewn even throughout the Church, which nonetheless offers the means of metanoia. Converted people, justified before God and availing themselves directly of the means of grace, can strengthen the vestigial presence of divine providence in the human city’s natural order. But ultimate love lodges in the Church as the representation of the heavenly city that is still fully to come. Individuals fortified by grace are thus able to draw forth and strengthen what St Thomas calls the good of utility Ibid., 71. Kenneth L. Schmitz, “Postmodernism and the Catholic Tradition,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 73 (Spring 1999): 233–52, at 244. 34 Augustine, City of God, especially ch. 19. 35 R. A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Thought of St Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 106. 36 Deane Herbert, The Political and Social Ideas of St Augustine (New York: Columbia University, 1963), 31. 32 33 On Nature and Grace in Deus Caritas Est 831 (Summa theologiae I-II, q. 109, aa. 2, 5, 6). In other words, they lead natural human virtue that is not meritorious of glory ever closer to the baptism that justifies. In sum, by situating nature squarely within the Johannine tension between realized and future eschatology, Benedict gives nature a dynamic adaptability. Even when nature is incorporated into the kingdom by the Church’s justifying work, it nonetheless requires further growth and development. Even as justified, even as nature awaits the fullness of its future transcendence, it expands under the influence of prudence. Nonetheless, whether exercised by the Christian or the secular humanist, prudence must further dilate into the counsel given by the Spirit. By grafting the promotion of justice onto prudence growing into counsel, Benedict brings St. Thomas’s virtue theory into his Johannine development of Augustine. Finally, the Johannine eros of Christ’s pierced side inspires the Pontiff ’s view that nature, even when prosperously graced by wisdom, still needs drawing into the plenitude of love. From the lance, love flows forth toward sinners, not asserting its rights, but offering only self-sacrifice. Buried in the Church’s sacramental mysticism, this love, which alone incarnates the City of God, so drives nature into grace that, for all intents and purposes, the limits between them will ultimately be lost. Conclusion One can only marvel at the subtlety with which the Pope develops his own vision of love and justice in light of the Church’s tradition and his reading of the signs of the times. The resulting paradigm is bold, flexible, and nuanced. Nonetheless, it leaves us with a probing theological question that we might briefly consider. Does a state of pure nature disconnected from grace exist? Are there, in other words, a natural justice, prudence, and love that, conditioned by original sin, remain untouched in their origins by the gratuity of the divine life? Aspects of Aquinas’s thought may seem to support such a theory, although this support has been questioned by recent scholarship.37 Fides et Ratio, the 1998 encyclical of Pope John Paul II, is implicitly critical of it.38 Both See Louis Dupré, Passage to Modernity: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 171–72. 38 See Stephen Fields, S.J., “Nature and Grace after the Baroque,” in Creed and Culture: Jesuit Studies of Pope John Paul II, ed. Joseph W. Koterski, S.J., and John J Conley, S.J. (Philadelphia, PA: St Joseph’s University Press, 2004), 223–40. 37 832 Stephen M. Fields, S.J. Hans Urs von Balthasar and Karl Rahner find it problematic, although Balthasar’s position seems more congruent with Benedict’s. For his part, Rahner postulates that, after Christ, grace defines the concrete order of reality. Nature is reduced to a “remainder concept” whose hypothetical existence safeguards the gratuity of revelation and redemption.39 Yet, if nature’s existence is only theoretical, then one wonders whether it is sufficiently robust to maintain the position of Trent over against the Reformers. For Trent, nature and grace are congenial and complementary, since nature does not “do absolutely nothing in receiving” grace, even as grace enables nature’s free activity.40 For Calvin, although nature contains a vestigial seed of its Creator that cannot be uprooted, still nature “is so corrupted that by itself it produces only the worst of fruits.”41 Karl Barth suggests that Protestantism is too “diastatic” in relating nature and grace and that it might learn from Catholicism’s analogous understanding of the relation.42 By “diastatic,” he means that nature is so separated from grace that its independent subsistence is compromised. As merely a remainder concept, nature tends toward the diastatic, not the analogous. In other words, its ability to serve as grace’s necessary sacrament—as its finite means and created vehicle—is devalued. It may well be that nature will subsist as a remainder concept when the eschaton fully obtains. But, here and now, as Benedict reminds us, in the Johannine world of realized eschatology, nature asserts its independent muscularity. Even as analogous to grace, nature continues its resistance to it. Hence any model of their relation must assimilate this paradox while forthrightly protecting nature’s integral vitality. Accordingly, Balthasar, like Benedict, understands nature and grace as dialectically analogous. Although nature continues to be riddled by sin and its effects, it retains, as Benedict avers, a plasticity that expands under grace’s ubiquitous accessibility and that contracts under the Karl Rahner, “Concerning the Relationship Between Nature and Grace,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 1, God, Christ, Mary, and Grace, trans. Cornelius Ernst (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1974), 297–317, at 312–13. 40 Council of Trent, “Decree on Justification,” ch.V (Session 6, January 13, 1547), in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P.Tanner, S.J., 2 vols. (London: Sheed and Ward, 1990), 2:671–81, at 672. 41 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, bk. I, ch. IV, ed. John T. McNeil, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1960), 1:151. 42 Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, trans. John Newton Thomas and Thomas Wieser (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1960), 44. Barth’s suggestion is owing, as he says, to Balthasar. 39 On Nature and Grace in Deus Caritas Est 833 influence of evil. Balthasar sees nature’s origins as implicitly graced; they flow forth from nothing as mediated by the preexistent Word “through whom all things were made” ( John 1:3). The Fall is not so cataclysmic as to eradicate the vestiges in nature of the divine life. As a result, post-lapsarian nature retains some similarity with its former state.43 This must be the case, because nature forms the basis in Jesus for the Word’s Incarnation.44 This event joins nature and grace into a unity-in-diversity, such that there can be “no slice of ‘pure’ nature in this world.”45 Nonetheless, nature retains an analogous similarity with its post-lapsarian subsistence. As a result, as Benedict reminds us, although nature will finally realize the eschaton, it now embodies “the world [that] hates you, [even as] it has hated me” ( John 15:18). The dialectical tension between grace and the world remains even while it awaits its future resolution Consequently, although natural justice, prudence, love, and all other virtues can be practiced without a directly conscious connection to grace, their existence is ontologically impossible without some connection, however seminal, with the grace that leads to glory. This connection cannot be conceived as such a theoretical remainder that it suffices for justification in light of original sin or that it discounts sin’s perduring corrosiveness. Yet, it cannot be conceived as so diastatic that it loses its original congeniality with the Word. It is, after all, the selfsame divine Logos who redeems what his creative agency brings forth. It is he who restores the luster of nature’s disfigured face by the beauty of his crucified and resurrected own. There can be no pure nature that would render the Word himself equivocal. Derived therefore from a common source in the gratuity of the divine love, nature and grace originate in an analogy. In the created order, they sustain this analogy in a dialectical series that accounts for nature’s pre-lapsarian and post-lapsarian states, its redeemed subsistence, and its anticipation of its finality when grace “may be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). N&V Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation, trans. Edward T. Oakes, S.J. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), 283. 44 Ibid., 287. 45 Ibid., 288. 43 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2017): 835–852  835 On Method, Nature and Grace in Caritas in Veritate Vincent L. Strand, S.J. School of Theology and Ministry, Boston College, Chesnut Hill, MA Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate [hereafter, CV; cited by § no. in parentheses below] elicited an enormous immediate response by religious and secular commentators.Vatican Radio reported that, two weeks after the encyclical’s release, 1,800 articles had been written about it.1 While the document received some critique from the Catholic left—such as from the liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, who exclaimed, “How good a dose of Marxism would be for the Pope!”—in general, the encyclical drew heavier fire from neoconservative and libertarian supporters of free market capitalism.2 “Vatican Radio: Pope’s Encyclical Got Us Talking,” Zenit, July 24, 2009, accessed April 22, 2017, https://zenit.org/articles/vatican-radio-pope-s-encyclical-got-us-talking/. 2 Leondardo Boff, “The Pope Needs a Dose of Marxism,” America Latina en Movimiento, July 20, 2009, accessed April 22, 2017, http://www.alainet.org/es/ node/135122. Many progressive Catholics praised the document while trying to highlight its support for their own policy recommendations. For example, in Thomas Reese’s reading, Pope Benedict is “to the left of almost every politician in America” (“Pope Benedict on Economic Justice,” The Washington Post, July 7, 2009, accessed April 22, 2017, http://newsweek.washingtonpost. com/onfaith/georgetown/2009/07/pope_benedict_on_economic_justice. html?hpid=talkbox1). Douglas Kmiec, writing in the National Catholic Reporter, argues that the Pope’s vision presented in CV aligns closely with the economic and social reforms advocated by President Barack Obama ( “Pope Benedict Invites All to Think Boldly in Love,” National Catholic Reporter, July 7, 2009, accessed April 22, 2017, http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/popebenedict-invites-all-think-boldly-love). The document did receive critique from Catholics of this vein on its sexual ethics, its lack of sufficient attention to conditions that impede gender equality, its failure to name the threat of 1 836 Vincent L. Strand, S.J. For example, according to George Weigel, CV “resembles a duck-billed platypus” with incisive passages written by the Pope himself mixed together with passages reflecting current Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace default positions that Weigel finds unimpressive. He suggests that the reader of CV note the former passages with a gold marker and the latter with a red marker, distinguishing those valuable passages to be kept and pondered from those to be disregarded.3 In a similar spirit, Michael Novak praises elements of the encyclical, in particular its “beautiful” discussion of caritas, but nonetheless insists that, “if we hold each sentence of Caritas in veritate up to analysis in the light of empirical truth about events in the field of political economy since 1967, we will find that it is not nearly so full in its veritas as in its caritas.”4 Thomas Woods, author of The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy, offers a boisterous libertarian critique of the encyclical, saying that, at worst, CV is “bewilderingly naïve, and its policy recommendations, while attracting no one to the Church, are certain to repel.”5 global warming, and its overly deductive style not easily accessible to many; see Dennis P. McCann, “Papal Disconnect,” The Christian Century 126, no. 17 (25 August 2009): 10–11; Maura A. Ryan, “A New Shade of Green? Nature, Freedom, and Sexual Difference in Caritas in Veritate,” Theological Studies 71, no. 2 (June 2010): 335–49; Drew Christiansen, “Metaphysics and Society: A Commentary on Caritas in Veritate,” Theological Studies 71, no. 1 (March 2010): 3–28. 3 George Weigel, “Caritas in Veritate in Gold and Red,” National Review Online, July 7 2009, accessed April 22, 2017 http://www.nationalreview.com/article/227839/caritas-veritate-gold-and-red-george-weigel. Speculation about ghostwriters has become an ecclesiastical parlor game in papal documents. While I do not deny its occurrence—nor, necessarily, in this case, Weigel’s particular claims—I regard a document as belonging to a pope’s magisterium once it bears his signature. 4 Michael Novak, “Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas,” First Things Online 13, August 17, 2009, accessed April 22, 2017, http://www.firstthings.com/ onthesquare/2009/08/pope-benedict-xvis-caritas-1. 5 Thomas E. Woods, Jr., “Truth & Charity,” Taki’s Magazine, August 7, 2009, accessed April 22, 2117, http://www.takimag.com/site/article/truth_charity/. Many other commentaries on CV may be grouped with the critiques offered by Weigel, Novak, and Woods. To cite just a few examples: Joseph LoConte criticizes the document for its call for redistribution of wealth and for some type of world government, concluding that “the encyclical eventually drifts into the realm of fantasy” (“Morals, Markets, and the Pope,” The American: The Journal of the American Enterprise Institute, July 17, 2009, accessed April 22, 2017, http://www.american.com/archive/2009/july/ morals-markets-and-the-pope/). On Method, Nature and Grace in Caritas in Veritate 837 These responses are noteworthy, given that the previous social encyclical, Centesimus Annus, was lauded by Weigel, Novak, and other Catholic neoconservatives.6 Upon first consideration, we might attribute the critique that CV elicited from these authors solely to the document’s specific economic and political policy recommendations: for example, its calls for redistribution of wealth and a world political authority (§§ 37 and 67). I would like to propose, however, that the New York University economist Mario Rizzo argues that the “scientific” statements being made in the encyclical are not consistent with the overwhelming thrust of economic liberalism. These statements, Rizzo contends, manifest an ignorance of economic thought and would be destructive to the Church’s values (“Neither Truth Nor Charity: The Destructive Influence of a Papal Encyclical,” ThinkMarkets, July 28, 2009, accessed April 22, 2017, http:// thinkmarkets.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/neither-truth-nor-charity-the-destructive-influence-of-a-papal-encyclical/). Terence Corcoran notes that Pope Benedict XVI “totally misses the greatest achievements of our time” by not supporting the free market that has resulted in the past forty years in an explosion of global wealth expansion and progress (“Caveat Venalicium Libertas,” Financial Post, July 8, 2009, accessed April 22, 2017, http://news.nationalpost.com/holy-post/terence-corcoran-caveat-venalicium-libertas). Joseph Swanson claims that CV, unlike John Paul II’s Centissimus Annus [hereafter, CA], does not focus on the modern view of economic development and wrongly suggests limiting free markets. He finds the encyclical’s suggestion that economic regulation might have mitigated the recent crash of financial markets to be sad and incorrect. (“Confirmed in Centisimus Annus; Perplexed by Caritas in Veritate,” First Things Online, August 19, 2009, accessed April 22, 2017, http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2009/08/ confirmed-in-centesimus-annus59-perplexed-by-caritas-in-veritate).Some supporters of free market capitalism are positive in their assessment of the encyclical, including its economic theory. Robert Sirico, president and co-founder of the Acton Institute, praises CV and does not regard it as a repudiation of market economics (“The Pope on ‘Love in Truth,’” The Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2009, accessed April 22, 2017, http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB124718187188120189.html). 6 See George Weigel, “The Virtues of Freedom: Centesimus Annus,” in Building the Free Society: Democracy, Capitalism, and Catholic Social Teaching, ed. George Weigel and Robert Royal (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993), 207–23; Michael Novak, “The Pope, Liberty, and Capitalism: Essays on Centesimus Annus,” National Review, Special Supplement 53, no. 11 (24 June 1991): 11–13; Richard John Neuhaus, “The Pope Affirms the ‘New Capitalism,’” Wall Street Journal, May 2, 1991, editorial page. Praise of CA has remained a theme in Weigel’s work. For a recent example, see George Weigel, “The Enduring Importance of Centesimus Annus,” First Things Online, June 22, 2011, accessed April 22, 2017, https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2011/06/ the-enduring-importance-of-centesimus-annus. 838 Vincent L. Strand, S.J. disagreement is more fundamental: it is not about the value of one economic theory or another, but instead about the role of economics as an autonomous science and about the degree to which Christianity should shape our economic and political thinking. The first part of this article will set a backdrop against which to consider these questions. It will offer a cursory exposition of the debate between Catholic neoconservatives (the so-called “Whig Thomists” long associated with the journal First Things 7) and those thinkers associated with the journal Communio (sometimes referred to as “Augustinian Thomists”8 ). Second, I will argue that CV places Benedict’s thought in the latter camp. As I will show, this is due less to the content of Benedict’s theology than to its structure. I will suggest that CV contains a methodological newness that distinguishes it from earlier, more Thomistic social encyclicals: in CV, economic positions are obtained through revelation and a theological anthropology developed from Christological and Trinitarian reflection. Third, I will suggest that this methodology is an expression of Henri de Lubac’s position on nature and grace. The essay will conclude by naming several issues that merit further consideration. Christianity and Capitalism: A Debate A prolifically sustained argument in recent decades about the Church’s relationship to society has occurred between Catholic neoconservatives and the Communio school.9 It is not my intent here to offer a full expo While First Things remains a publishing home for these authors, the journal has evinced some change in recent years—particularly under the editorship of R. R. Reno—regarding the disputed points that the first part of this essay will present. As Reno himself said at a symposium on the future of First Things: “Global capitalism, or at least market-based economic thinking, is triumphant. This reduces the need to defend the market economy, a clear priority in the past, and raises the question of what First Things should say in a global system dominated by capitalism” (“Our Challenges,” First Things 235 [August/ September 2013]: 34). 8 For more on these appellations, see Tracey Rowland, “Benedict XVI, Thomism, and Liberal Culture (Part 2),” Zenit, July 25, 2005, accessed April 22, 2017, https://zenit.org/articles/benedict-xvi-thomism-and-liberal-culture-part-2/. 9 An exchange between Weigel and Schindler set the initial groundwork for the argument and is representative of the two positions. See George Weigel, “Is America Bourgeois?” Crisis, no. 1 (October 1986): 5–10; David L. Schindler,“Is America Bourgeois?” Communio 14, no. 3 (1987): 262–90; Schindler,“Editorial: On Being Catholic in America,” Communio 14, no. 3 (1987): 213–14; Weigel, “Is America Bourgeois?: A Response to David Schindler,” Communio 15, 7 On Method, Nature and Grace in Caritas in Veritate 839 sition of this debate. Instead, I would like to focus on their argument concerning the relationship of the Church to economics. Neoconservatives generally see the possibility of a smooth merger between democratic capitalism and Catholicism.10 At times, particularly in the work of Novak, this entails the strong claim that capitalism can be a source of spirituality.11 For his part, Weigel has proposed this merger by underscoring the virtue of creativity, which he finds present both in democratic capitalism and in Catholic social encyclicals, especially John Paul II’s reflections on the participation of the human person in the creative action of God.12 Both of these authors, indebted to John Courtney Murray, emphasize religious pluralism as an integrally positive feature of liberalism. For these authors, democratic capitalism is understood to be neutral in religious questions. It is a formal conceptual apparatus providing no definite philosophy of its own. As such, it serves as a vehicle that creates space in which various religious and philosophical worldviews, whether Christian, Jewish, or secular, can flourish. The claim is that, because the conceptual apparatus of democratic capitalism is merely formal, it does not significantly alter the worldviews subsequently placed within its empty form. To be sure, these thinkers insist that, for a capitalist society to flourish, the populace engaged in the market must possess a strong morality. But the relationship between morality—and even more so, religion—and economics is extrinsic. In contrast, the Communio school has argued that democratic capitalism, as a form of economic liberalism, is not neutral or “empty” in regard to questions of religion and moral anthropology. No religious no. 1 (1988): 77–91; Schindler, “Once Again: George Weigel, Catholicism and American Culture,” Communio 15, no. 1 (1988): 92–121; Mark Lowery, “The Schindler/Weigel Debate: An Appraisal,” Communio 18, no. 3 (1991): 425–38; Schindler, “Response to Mark Lowery,” Communio 18, no. 3 (1991): 450–72; Weigel, “Response to Mark Lowery,” Communio 18, no. 3 (1991): 439–49. For a recent summary of the status of the debate, see Patrick J. Deneen, “A Catholic Showdown Worth Watching,” The American Conservative, February 6, 2014, accessed April 22, 2017, http://www.theamericanconservative.com/a-catholic-showdown-worth-watching/. 10 See The Capitalist Spirit: Toward a Religious Ethic of Wealth Creation, ed. Peter L. Berger (San Francisco: ICS Press, 1990), particularly Novak’s essay, “Wealth and Virtue: The Development of Christian Economic Teaching” (ibid., 51–80) and Weigel’s, “Camels and Needles, Talents and Treasure: American Catholicism and the Capitalist Ethic” (ibid., 81–105). 11 See Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982). 12 Weigel, “Camels and Needles,” 96–97. 840 Vincent L. Strand, S.J. worldview could be placed without change into its conceptual apparatus. Instead, the form of economic liberalism presents a positive content of its own that implicitly—and sometimes explicitly—makes claims about God, humanity, and culture. At the vanguard of this debate, David Schindler has argued against the supposed neutrality to anthropology of liberal political and economic theories. According to him, such theories possess their own inner logic, which can conflict with the logic of the Gospel. In Schindler’s words, “liberalism of any stripe—including the liberalism of ‘open’ capitalism—remains unacceptable insofar as its freedom remains conceived as primarily creative—or rather, insofar as the creativity is not conceived as anteriorly receptive.”13 Alasdair MacIntyre similarly argues against the supposed neutrality of economic and political liberalism. He does not deny the existence of universal, transcultural truths, but at the same time, he argues for a tradition-constructed rationality, suggesting that the manner in which philosophical principles are conceived varies according to the tradition in which we find ourselves. Thus, there can be no easy transposition of empty philosophical truths from one narrative tradition to another, as those who conceive of a smooth merger between liberalism and Thomism are wont to believe. Rather, for MacIntyre, the narrative tradition of liberalism necessarily conflicts with that of Thomist theism.14 Tracey Rowland has developed the work of MacIntyre with a particular gaze toward the manner in which narrative traditions are culture-forming. In her words, “modernity is not merely a series of intellectual propositions, but an entire culture, which includes music, architecture, literature, institutional practices, modes of dress and social relating.”15 Rowland understands the culture of modernity to be incompatible with Catholicism and argues that a failure of the Church during and immediately following Vatican II was its negligence in recognizing this point. These critics aver that a consequence of the neoconservative position is the privatization of religion: it conceives religion as something added from without into the empty form of economic liberalism. David L. Schindler, Heart of the World, Center of the Church: Communio Ecclesiology, Liberalism, and Liberation (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 119. 14 Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 326–48. 15 Tracey Rowland, Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II, Radical Orthodoxy Series (London: Routledge, 2005), 83. 13 On Method, Nature and Grace in Caritas in Veritate 841 In other words, neoconservatives see the relationship of theological truths to economics as extrinsic rather than intrinsic. In a similar vein, Marcel Gauchet draws the distinction between “infrastructural religion” and “superstructural religion.” Infrastructural religion serves as the basis of a society’s values and self-understanding; superstructural religion is relegated to private belief and Sunday practice.16 Once religion is privatized, economics is given a false autonomy separated not only from religious matters but also from broader questions of human morality and culture. These questions are seen to arise only secondarily from within the claimed neutral conceptual apparatus of liberalism. In such a schema, religion can have little to say to economics because the two realms do not coincide. This debate concerning the interface of theology and economics is not limited to the sparring between neoconservative and Communio thinkers. It has surfaced pointedly, for example, in the recent exchange between Thomas Storck and Thomas Woods concerning economics and Catholic social teaching.17 Woods has argued that certain elements of Catholic social teaching as proposed in papal encyclicals overstep the limits of legitimate Church teaching because they contradict the findings of economic science. Storck has criticized Woods’s position, arguing that the Church has the legitimate authority to pronounce on the findings of human sciences like economics when they impinge on moral or dogmatic questions. The finer points of this debate are not important for our purpose. Instead, I would like to focus on a more general point of contention well captured by Emil Berendt: [A] difference in their [Storck’s and Woods’s] views on the economy lies in the question of whether it is a product of culture or whether it has an existence that transcends our humanity. If the former is true, then the marketplace, touched Marcel Gauchet, The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion, trans. Oscar Burge, with a foreword by Charles Taylor, New French Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997). See also Rowland, Culture and the Thomist Tradition, 101–02. 17 Their debate has unfolded in a series of articles, most of them published online. Representative pieces include Thomas Storck, “A Challenge from Thomas Storck,” The Catholic Social Science Review 14 (2009): 85–105, and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., “Catholic Social Teaching and the Market Economy Revisited: A Reply to Thomas Storck,” The Catholic Social Science Review 14 (2009): 107–24. 16 842 Vincent L. Strand, S.J. by original sin, can and should be constantly reformed in light of Revelation. If the latter is correct, then Catholics must take the negative consequences of market interactions with the same resignation one takes regarding the suffering the hungry lion will inflict on the gazelle he has singled out. To take this line of reasoning further, if economic institutions are human creations then papal teaching is free to choose whatever language of economics it needs to express the Gospel in truth and charity. If the market is an independent reality, and a particular economic theory provides a comprehensive description of it, then Woods is right that the Church must resort to the concepts espoused by the economist.18 The pivotal point of contention extracted by Berendt from the Woods– Storck debate also divaricates the neoconservative and Communio schools: Is economics a descriptive science that, along with theology, transcends culture? Or is economics a product of culture to be informed by theology? While it is beyond the scope of this essay to assess the debate itself, I have considered it at some length because of the prominence of the authors involved and because it concerns fundamental questions of the Church’s relation to American democratic capitalism.19 The Method of CV Having surveyed the fault lines between CV’s two interpretive camps, I will now consider where the encyclical falls between them. I will suggest that the answer can be found less in the content of Benedict’s work than in its method. In an early essay, Ratzinger offers a helpful point of departure. He criticizes the medieval scholastics, particularly St. Thomas Aquinas, for treating the new understanding of the person, garnered from divine revelation, as a “theological exception” to a pre-Christian philosophy. Instead, Ratzinger argues, it is “the meaning of this new element to call into question the whole of human thought and to set it on a new course.”20 Christ is not to be treated as a “an object of Emil Berendt, “Response,” The Catholic Social Science Review 14 (2009): 137–40, at 138. 19 Patrick Deneen put it well: “As this debate develops—and, I believe, bursts into public view, and begins to engage the Catholic remnant—major implications for the relationship of Catholics to America, and America to Catholics, hang in the balance” (“A Catholic Showdown Worth Watching”). 20 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, “Concerning the Notion of Person in Theology,” 18 On Method, Nature and Grace in Caritas in Veritate 843 highly interesting ontological speculation” that “must remain separate in its box as [a unique] exception to the rule and must not be permitted to mix with the rest of human thought.”21 Rather, for Ratzinger: Something methodologically decisive for all human thinking becomes visible here. The seeming exception is in reality very often the symptom that shows us the insufficiency of our previous schema of order, which helps us to break open this schema and to conquer a new realm of reality. The exception shows us that we have built our closets too small, as it were, and that we must break them open and go on in order to see the whole.22 The point is that the permeation of revelation into areas of natural knowledge applies equally well to CV. The encyclical manifests a dynamism between revelation and the natural sciences, including economics. It evinces a method in which practical economic proposals are based upon anthropological positions that themselves have a theological basis. In short, the movement into economics proceeds first from God and then through the human person. Let us more closely examine this dynamic. A principal theme of CV is expressed by the phrase “integral human development.” For Benedict, “authentic development concerns the whole of the person in every single dimension” and matters such as economics, technology, and even environmental exploitation are all properly human matters (§11). As distinct from those like Woods who grant the economy a certain autonomy from human culture and moral actions, the Pope understands it as a sector of human activity (§45). Business, he says, has a human significance before a professional one. Similarly, technology is rooted in the person and does not possess an autonomy apart from it. So, too, “the meaning and purpose of the media must be sought within an anthropological perspective” (§73). Nor should globalization be understood in fatalistic terms, as if it were the product of impersonal forces or structures independent of the human will (§42). Even “environmental ecology,” according to the Pope, needs a correctly understood “human ecology” (§51). Communio 17 (Fall 1990): 439–54, at 449 [originally “Zum Personenverständnis in der Theologie,” in Dogma und Verkündigung (Munich: Erich Wewel, 1973), 205–23]. 21 Ratzinger, “Concerning the Notion of Person in Theology,” 449. 22 Ibid., 450. 844 Vincent L. Strand, S.J. In short, for Benedict, “the social question has become a radically anthropological question” (§75). The anthropological leitmotif of the encyclical is “gift.” In the Pontiff ’s words: “The human being is made for gift, which expresses and makes present his transcendent dimension” (§34). The Pope extends gift into the economic order, where it possesses a “logic” that does not exclude justice. At the same time, he does not conceive of the logic of gift as something added to justice from without. Rather, to use Gauchet’s language, this logic relates infrastructurally to the economy. Two passages from CV evince this relation most strikingly: Economic life undoubtedly requires contracts, in order to regulate relations of exchange between goods of equivalent value. But it also needs just laws and forms of redistribution governed by politics, and what is more, it needs works redolent of the spirit of gift. The economy in the global era seems to privilege the former logic, that of contractual exchange, but directly or indirectly it also demonstrates its need for the other two: political logic, and the logic of the unconditional gift. (§37) It must be remembered that the market does not exist in the pure state. It is shaped by the cultural configurations which define it and give it direction. . . . The Church’s social doctrine holds that authentically human social relationships of friendship, solidarity and reciprocity can also be conducted within economic activity, and not only outside it or “after” it. The economic sphere is neither ethically neutral, nor inherently inhuman and opposed to society. It is part and parcel of human activity and precisely because it is human, it must be structured and governed in an ethical manner. In commercial relationships the principle of gratuitousness and the logic of gift as an expression of fraternity can and must find their place within normal economic activity (§36). These excerpts establish two points. First, Benedict, in accord with the methodology advocated by Schindler, MacIntyre, and Rowland, does not conceive of economic forms as merely “neutral,” such that a Christian ethics could be externally added to them. On the contrary, he understands that these forms must be internally transformed by gift. Second, the Pope does not derive the logic of gift from a natural On Method, Nature and Grace in Caritas in Veritate 845 anthropology divorced from revelation. Instead, anthropology is infused with Christological and Trinitarian meaning. For example, he proposes a “metaphysical understanding of the relations between persons” that, taking “inspiration and direction from Christian revelation,” proposes the Trinity as the model for human relationships (§54). Accordingly, when Benedict writes that “God reveals man to himself,” he is speaking not de Deo uno but rather de Deo trino and of the Word Incarnate (§75). Theology, anthropology, and economics all converge in the logic of gift. Economic logic is to mirror theo-logic: God in his essence is gift, and so is the human person, even in his economic exchanges. Playing on Karl Rahner’s famous axiom, we might say that, for Benedict, the immanent Trinity truly is “economic.”23 Because the practical conclusions reached by Benedict in CV rest on an explicitly theological foundation rather than a philosophical foundation of the natural law, a new turn in the Catholic social thought is marked.24 If we contrast CV with Rerum Novarum, for example, the shift is evident. But we need not go back to the nineteenth century to notice this. Even a document as recent as John Paul II’s 1991 Centissimus Annus [hereafter, CA], written by a pope whose personalist thought was Christocentric, evinces a basis in a Thomist natural philosophy largely absent from CV. Thus, while CA states that the Church’s social teaching enters into dialogue with politics and economics, assimilating their contributions while opening them to a broader horizon, CV makes theology determine these other disciplines.25 CV’s shift has major consequences for the neoconservative–Communio debate. The neoconservative position on the supposed neutrality of the economic realm fits well with a type of Thomism that separates the natural and supernatural spheres.26 Such a schema provides space Karl Rahner, “Oneness and Threefoldness of God in Discussion with Islam,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 18, God and Revelation, trans. Edward Quinn (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1983), 105–21, at 114. 24 CV does make several references to natural law (§§59, 68, and 75), but these are not significantly developed. 25 While CA §55 notes that the “Church receives the meaning of man from Divine Revelation” and states that “Christian anthropology therefore is really a chapter of theology,” these statements remain somewhat isolated and do not determine the document’s overall structure and method. 26 The inverse, however, does not necessarily follow: a clear theological distinction in the orders of nature and grace need not lead one to an autonomous political order understood in secular liberal terms. Andrew Dean Swafford wrongly implies that it should, as he finds an “anomaly” in the position of 23 846 Vincent L. Strand, S.J. for an autonomy of natural human sciences like economics apart from revelation. Benedict’s proposal for an economics based on the logic of gift ultimately derived from the Trinity provides no such space. Prescinding from the question of whether theologies that emphasize the distinction between nature and grace are faithful to the thought of St. Thomas, it must nonetheless be conceded that the tradition of Catholic social thought prior to CV allowed for the integrity of the neoconservative position. The robustly theological rather than philosophical structure of CV, however, permits no such position and thus is fundamentally at odds with it. Method, Nature, and Grace In the final part of this essay, I will speculate about the source of CV’s methodological shift. Philipp Gabriel Renczes has shown convincingly the impact of patristic theology on the encyclical’s structure.27 An equally important source for the newness of the document comes from its adoption of Henri de Lubac’s understanding of nature and grace and the human person’s final end. The 1946 publication of his Surnaturel was a watershed for Catholic theology.28 It viewed the bulk of the Thomist commentators since Cajetan as misrepresenting the thought of St. Thomas and as leading to an excessive naturalism that unduly separated the natural and supernatural orders. By contrast, de Lubac argued that the person in concretum naturally possesses the end of supernatural beatitude. This position, especially due to its fecund development by Hans Urs von Balthasar, became the intellectual cornerstone someone like Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, who belonged “in the tradition of extrinsicism” concerning nature and grace while simultaneously opposing liberal democracy in his support of the ancien régime. Swafford avers that, because of Garrigou-Lagrange’s theology of nature and grace, “one would have expected him to have been a friend of secular democracy” (Nature and Grace: A New Approach to Thomistic Ressourcement [Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2014], 33). 27 Philipp Gabriel Renczes, S.J., “Grace Reloaded: Caritas in Veritate’s Theological Anthropology,” Theological Studies 71, no.2 (June 2010): 273–90, at 275–76. 28 Henri de Lubac, Surnaturel: études historiques (Paris: Aubier, 1946). Surnaturel was revised by de Lubac and reissued in two works published in 1965, Le mystère du surnaturel and Augustinisme et théologie moderne, available as The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. Rosemary Sheed, Milestones in Catholic Theology (New York: Crossroad, 1998), and Augustinianism and Modern Theology, trans. Lancelot Sheppard (London: Chapman, 1969). See also de Lubac, “Duplex Hominis Beatitudo,” Communio 35 (Winter 2008): 599–612; de Lubac, A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace, trans. Richard Arnandez (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1984). On Method, Nature and Grace in Caritas in Veritate 847 for the Communio school of theology.29 While de Lubac was criticized by Thomists indebted to the previous tradition during his lifetime, his thesis has also received recent criticism from Lawrence Feingold and Steven Long.30 They have argued that de Lubac’s position is both wrong in se and misrepresents St. Thomas.31 Defenders of the “pure nature” position argue against de Lubac that the person, even here and now in the concrete order, is ordered to a proximate, proportionate, natural end distinct from the final supernatural end. The consequences of this position are deep and wide, and here, let us consider one of them: its impact on nature. We can approach the question by considering the work of one of de Lubac’s critics, Long, as well as one of his proponents, Schindler, who arrive at a similar conclusion even if they differ sharply on whether it benefits Catholic thought. For Long, because a thing’s species is determined by its end, and because de Lubac and Balthasar deny a naturally proximate end distinct from the final supernatural end, it follows that human nature in its species can no longer be known or See: Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, trans. Edward T. Oakes (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1992), 251–378; David Schindler “Threads Interview with David Schindler,” La Nouvelle Théologie (blog), April 6, 2005, accessed April 22, 2017, http://ressourcement.blogspot.com/2005/04/threads-interviews-david-schindler_06.html. 30 For the history of this debate, see Aidan Nichols, O.P., “Thomism and the Nouvelle Théologie,” The Thomist 64 (2000): 1–19, and Romanus Cessario, O.P., “An Observation on Robert Lauder’s Review of G. A. McCool, S.J.,” The Thomist 56 (1992): 701–10. 31 See Lawrence Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and His Interpreters, 2nd ed. (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2010), and Steven A. Long, Natura Pura: On the Recovery of Nature in the Doctrine of Grace (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010). For a summary of the debate and a brief defense of de Lubac, see Nicholas J. Healy, “Henri de Lubac on Nature and Grace: A Note on Some Recent Contributions to the Debate,” Communio 35 (Winter 2008): 535–64. See also John Milbank, The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate Concerning the Supernatural (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005); Edward T. Oakes, S.J., “The Paradox of Nature and Grace: On John Milbank’s The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate Concerning the Supernatural,” Nova et Vetera (English) 4, no. 3 (Summer 2006): 667–95; Reinhard Hütter, Dust Bound for Heaven: Explorations in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012), 127–246; Surnaturel: A Controversy at the Heart of Twentieth-Century Thomistic Thought, ed. Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P., trans. Robert Williams et al. (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2009); Swafford, Nature and Grace; and the papers in the book symposium on Feingold’s The Natural Desire to See God in Nova et Vetera (English) 5, no. 1 (2007). 29 848 Vincent L. Strand, S.J. determined. Thus, in Long’s estimation, nature for de Lubac becomes merely an empty vacuole for grace that lacks any magnitude of its own. Because Balthasar, for instance, speaks of “nature” as little more than “createdness as such,” it loses its theonomic character. Long produces a litany of ills that he understands to arise from this position, including the claim that, in such a schema, nature is unknowable apart from revelation.32 For Schindler, if the human being in concretum naturally possesses the end of supernatural beatitude, it follows that all of reality is to be ultimately understood through the lens of grace. He expresses this in the thesis of his book Heart of the World, Center of the Church: “the trinitarian communio, present in the sacramental communio that is the essence of the Church, reveals the meaning of all of being in its full integrity, and thereby reveals as well the inner logic and dynamic of the Christian presence in the world.”33 Accordingly, it is congenial for Schindler to consider economics in light of the Trinity, a position that Long would understand to compromise the integrity of the natural sphere to act for its own intrinsic purposes. Yet, Schindler’s position is precisely what we find in CV. Benedict all but endorses de Lubac when he claims that the person possesses “a nature destined to transcend itself in a supernatural life” (§29). But more important is the encyclical’s nakedly thin account of nature qua nature. On the one hand, the document is concerned with matters that in the Aristotelian-Thomist schema fall under the purview of nature (like political philosophy). On the other hand, however, CV understands human nature, including its social and economic dimensions, not through an inductive observation of the person and his operations, but through a deductive consideration of the Trinitarian God. If we place Benedict in Raphael’s School of Athens, he is not Aristotle pointing out, but Plato pointing up. As a consequence of his adopting de Lubac’s position on nature and grace, Long would claim that Benedict has forfeited an intelligible concept of nature. Consequently, he must erect his anthropology, together with his economics, on a foundation of grace, because no other ontological foundation remains.34 In de Lubac’s position, it follows that, if the true meaning Long, Natura Pura, 48–49. Schindler, Heart of the World, Center of the Church, xvi. 34 Thomas Joseph White, O.P., has similarly argued that failure to make clear distinctions both between nature and grace and among the various particular theological states of human nature risks rendering nature inconceivable apart 32 33 On Method, Nature and Grace in Caritas in Veritate 849 of nature is found only in grace, then theoretical considerations of nature apart from grace are artificial. The thin account of the natural law present in CV is consistent with Ratzinger’s recent work. In a 2004 dialogue with Jürgen Habermas, for example, he remarks: The natural law has remained (especially in the Catholic Church) the key issue in dialogues with the secular society and with other communities of faith in order to appeal to the reason we share in common and to seek the basis for a consensus about the ethical principles of law in a secular, pluralistic society. Unfortunately, this instrument has become blunt. . . . The idea of natural law presupposed a concept of nature in which nature and reason overlap, since nature itself is rational. With the victory of the theory of evolution, this view of nature has capsized: nowadays, we think that nature as such is not rational, even if there is rational behavior in nature.35 We can infer from these words that Benedict avoids the natural law in CV because its arguments are not convincing in today’s intellectual climate. To be fair, however, his movement away from neo-Thomism, together with skepticism about natura pura divorced from faith, has marked his work for decades. It is seen in more recent works, like Truth and Tolerance, in which he writes: “It is my view that the neoscholastic rationalism that was trying to reconstruct the preambula fidei, the approach to faith, with pure rational certainty, by means of rational argument that was strictly independent of faith, has failed; and it cannot be otherwise for any such attempts to do that kind of thing.”36 This sentiment echoes his 1968 commentary on Gaudium et Spes: from Christ (The Incarnate Lord: A Thomistic Study in Christology, Thomistic Ressourcement Series [Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2015], 126–70). 35 Joseph Ratzinger and Jürgen Habermas, The Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion, ed. Florian Schuller, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2006) [originally Dialektik der Säkularisierung: über Vernunft und Religion (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 2005)], 69–70. 36 Joseph Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2004) [originally Glaube-Warheit-Toleranz: Das Christentum und die Weltreligionen (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 2003)], 136. 850 Vincent L. Strand, S.J. It can hardly be disputed that as a consequence of the division between philosophy and theology established by the Thomists, a juxtaposition has gradually been established which no longer appears adequate. There is, and must be, a human reason in faith; yet conversely, every human reason is conditioned by a historical standpoint so that reason pure and simple does not exist.37 As seen here and elsewhere, Benedict, like MacIntyre and Rowland, emphasizes the historical conditioning of reason.38 For Christianity, this means its conditioning in the context of faith, which partially explains his preference for an historical rather than metaphysical approach to theology (see PCT, 153–90). More importantly, it means that his work tends to avoid even theoretical considerations of nature divorced from faith. Rather, as we have seen, he allows revelation to inform all areas of human thought, a direct consequence of his adoption of de Lubac’s thesis. Conclusion Edward Oakes, S.J., once quipped, “Look at the headlines, and behind them you will see an implied theology of nature and grace at work.”39 I concur with the statement and would also modify it: look at a theologian’s method, and you will see an implied theology of nature and grace.This paper has argued that the method of CV, in which economic Joseph Ratzinger, “The Dignity of the Human Person,” in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler, trans. Lalit Adolphus et al, 5 vols. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967–1969), 5:115–63, at 120 [originally Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche: Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil: Konstitutionen, Dekrete und Erklärungen. Kommentare, ed. Josef Höfer et al., 3 vols. (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 1968), 3:313–54 (commentary on the first chapter of part I of Gaudium et Spes)]. 38 See Benedict XVI, “Relativism: The Central Problem of Faith Today,” in The Essential Pope Benedict XVI: His Central Writings and Speeches, ed. John F. Thornton and Susan B. Varenne (New York: Harper, 2007), 227–42, at 239 [originally “Address to the Presidents of the Doctrinal Commissions of the Bishops’ Conferences of Latin America, Guadalajara, Mexico, May 1996,” in United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Origins 26 (October 31, 1996): 309–17]. See also Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2006) [originally Werte in Zeiten des Umbruchs: Die Herausforderungen den Zukunft bestehen (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 2005)], 69. 39 Oakes, “Paradox,” 671. 37 On Method, Nature and Grace in Caritas in Veritate 851 and social positions are deduced from Christological and Trinitarian reflection, evinces an implied adoption of de Lubac’s understanding of nature and grace. Moreover, it has illustrated the consonance of this method with Benedict’s larger theological oeuvre. Finally, it has situated CV within the contemporary debate concerning Christianity and democratic capitalism, which may have significant impact on the Church’s future relations with liberalism. Several points merit further consideration. First, I have considered the method of CV and suggested, without much detail, that it contrasts with the more traditional Thomist approach of his recent papal predecessors. A more comprehensive study of this contrast could be beneficial, including a consideration of Benedict’s debt to patristic sources, especially Augustine, over St. Thomas. Second, tension exists in Benedict’s thought concerning the relation of the Church to politics and economics. On the one hand, he repeatedly claims that the Church has no specific political agenda.40 He likewise praises elements of liberalism, especially its understanding of the relation of Church and state, whose model he finds in the United States and Alexis de Tocqueville.41 Yet on the other hand, Benedict proposes political and economic principles based ultimately on revelation. We might wonder whether only Catholics can get economic questions right! David Nirenberg’s reading of CV contains a kernel of truth when it criticizes Benedict’s insistence that the only Benedict XVI, “Liberation Theology,” in The Essential Pope Benedict, 217–25 [originally private document preceding the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith’s August 6, 1984, Instruction on Certain Aspects of the “Theology of Liberation,” accessed April 22, 2017, www.christendom-awake.org/pages/ratzinger/ liberationtheol.htm]. See also Deus Caritas Est (2005), §28, and Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. Adrian J. Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2007) [originally Jesus von Nazareth, vol. 1, Von der Taufe im Jordan bis zur Verklärung (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 2007)], 42–43. 41 See: Benedict XVI, Pope Benedict in America: The Full Texts of Papal Talks Given During His Apostolic Visit to the United States (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2008); Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Essays in Ecclesiology, trans. Robert Nowell (New York: Crossroad, 1988) [originally Kirche, Ökumene und Politik (Cinisello Balsamo: Edizione Paoline, 1987)], 237–38. See also Ratzinger’s remarks on Tocqueville on the occasion of his 1992 induction in the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques of the Institut de France, accessed April 22, 2017, http://www.asmp.fr/fiches_academiciens/textacad/ratzinger/ installation_ratzinger.pdf. 40 852 Vincent L. Strand, S.J. possible answer to global questions is Catholicism.42 Whether or not this tension in Benedict’s theology is contradictory or creative merits further consideration. This tension leads to a third issue: whether or not the theology of CV compromises the integrity of the natural sphere and, if so, whether natural sciences like economics possess an autonomy apart from revelation. We might ask how we can practically implement CV’s speculative principles drawn from theology, like the logic of gift and “quotas of gratuitousness”? Perhaps they can meaningfully be transposed into general social and economic activity. Yet we might well wonder whether theological language is stretched too far as to sacrifice meaning. Finally, it would be valuable to consider more widely the impact in Benedict’s theology of de Lubac’s thesis on nature and grace and man’s final end. While I have suggested a heavy indebtedness, others like Long have argued that the Regensburg Address moves away from de Lubac.43 Part of the difficulty is that Ratzinger’s extensive theological corpus contains few explicit treatments of the question of nature and grace.44 Greater insight into it will be of value as the Church begins the task of appropriating the teaching of this theoloN&V gian-Pope. David Nirenberg, “Love and Capitalism,” New Republic 240, no. 17 (September 23, 2009): 39–42. 43 Long, Natura Pura, 212–22. 44 Perhaps the most explicit treatment is Joseph Ratzinger, “Gratia Praesupponit Naturam,” in Dogma and Preaching: Applying Christian Doctrine to Daily Life, ed. Michael J. Miller, trans. Michael J. Miller and Matthew J. O’Connell (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2011) [originally in Dogma und Verkündigung], 143–61. 42 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2017): 853–869 853 On the Continuity of Caritas in Veritate Thomas Massaro, S.J. Jesuit School of Theology Santa Clara University, CA Even eight years since its release , Pope Benedict’s social encyclical Caritas in Veritate [hereafter, CV] continues to win admirers and to resist easy evaluation. Theologians, economists, and scholars of many related fields are still scrambling to come up with a balanced and complete assessment of its message and significance. This essay is a modest attempt to map out just a small corner of that territory from my own perspective as a social ethicist and close observer of Catholic social teaching. Assessing Benedict’s Social Encyclical Since its publication, CV has garnered much attention and prompted a great range of commentary. A first wave of coverage in the Catholic press and other popular media was followed by substantive treatments in more scholarly venues. For example, in the calendar year following its release, as many as seven major articles treating various aspects of the encyclical appeared in Theological Studies, the most prominent journal of Catholic theology in the United States. Symposia of articles on the encyclical have appeared in journals ranging from America magazine (see its November 30, 2009, issue featuring six short essays) to the Journal of Business Ethics (which ran a ten-article supplement in March of 2011), and several volumes of collected essays analyzing many aspects of the encyclical have recently appeared. I collect a small sampling of this literature in the notes and appended bibliography, but my selected list could be multiplied many times over. The timing and topic of CV surely accounts for a major share of the extraordinary interest in it. It was published eight short months 854 Thomas Massaro, S.J. after the stunning collapse of the Lehman Brothers investment firm, perhaps the most dramatic moment in the string of events in the fall of 2008 that triggered a global economic recession. After months of news stories about the financial crisis, personal and corporate bankruptcies, skyrocketing unemployment rates, government bailouts, a foreclosure tsunami in the housing industry, stimulus packages, austerity measures and other reactions that we are still assessing, the world seemed hungry for a theological perspective on all this economic turmoil. Employing well over thirty thousand words, Pope Benedict produced one of the longest encyclicals ever. Some wags commented that there were actually several separate encyclicals nested inside the covers that bind the text of CV. No social encyclical had offered such a detailed account of the economic issues of the moment. Benedict delved into the complex tasks of diagnosis, prescription, and even prognosis regarding the moral and material health of the entire global economic system. Even many secular observers would confirm Benedict’s point that the 2008 economic crisis was best understood not as any kind of accidental bad luck, but as a moral crisis whose long and deep roots manifest themselves in faulty business practices, malfeasance of many varieties, ethically suspect behaviors, and objectionable public (as well as corporate) policies. Benedict was eager to connect these failings to deep anthropological errors and even metaphysical misunderstandings so that progress toward a more stable and just future would depend on correcting this range of abuses. In short, it is a challenging encyclical about both human nature and human experience, an ambitious vehicle for a religious leader to address timeless truths about the human condition, as well as crucial matters of the moment, such as current abuses of power in the international finance industry. Because Benedict has one eye on the current outward manifestations of this moral crisis and the other eye on its philosophical and theological roots, a single section of CV at once contains an appeal to uphold the “traditional principles of social ethics, like transparency, honesty and responsibility,” and a fervent plea to embrace “the principle of gratuitousness and the logic of gift as expressions of fraternity [which] can and must find their place within normal economic activity” (§36). In short, CV concerns the depths of our relationship with God, so it can be called a contribution to mystical theology. It proposes certain principles, so it is a contribution to moral theology On the Continuity of Caritas in Veritate 855 and social ethics. It addresses practical proposals to solve social problems of a specific moment in history, so it is a work of policy analysis and advocacy. Precisely because of its ambitious agenda, CV received a fair bit of criticism. Those seeking guidance exclusively on practical economic matters, for example, were put off by having to wade through its more profound and, at times, abstract theological treatments, like making cases against moral relativism, syncretism, and various forms of materialistic reductionism. Even those sincerely interested in the full range of topics covered in this encyclical have to admit that, in all honesty, CV probably attempted to do too much. But even a much longer work would not answer all the relevant questions to the satisfaction of all potential critics, if it were possible to imagine extending Benedict’s work to achieve an all-time papal record for encyclical length. Although it may be too soon to pretend to have reached a comprehensive assessment of its lasting contribution, it is not too soon to offer a tentative account of some of its accomplishments. In what follows, I will describe three of the document’s major achievements. First, CV continues the tradition of social concern faithful to Catholic thought since Rerum Novarum [hereafter, RN]. Second, on a closely related point, Benedict’s encyclical advances in a constructive way Catholic reflection on the relationship between justice and charity, especially in light of a perceived need to clarify that relationship after his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est [hereafter, DCE]. Third, Benedict continues his momentous contribution to environmental concern; his already substantial credentials as the “Green Pope” were greatly enhanced by the content of this social encyclical, which paved the way for the 2015 encyclical of Pope Francis on integral ecology, Laudato Si’.1 As with the preceding two areas, the most complete treatment of the Pope’s achievements in ecology would consider many writings and actions besides CV. I leave to Vincent Strand’s essay in this collection, “On Method, Nature and Grace in Caritas in Veritate,” to treat Benedict’s stunning portrayal of an alternative civil economy best captured in the signature phrases “economy of Communion” and “relationships of gratuitousness.” These propose a vision of the social order in which the business sector is no longer separated from the functions of charitable Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ (2015) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 107 (2015): 847–945]. 1 856 Thomas Massaro, S.J. concern. Here Benedict breaks new ground by issuing a radical challenge to overcome the dichotomy between the economic sphere, long ruled by a logic of self-interest and exchange, and the social sphere, governed by the logic of gift and mutuality. How CV Continues the Catholic Tradition of Social Concern I have already portrayed the timing of the encyclical’s publication as essential to appreciating its contribution to Catholic social thought. I emphasized that it represents Pope Benedict’s response to urgent justice concerns arising from the global economic crisis that struck with such disastrous force in 2008. But one begins to realize that there is far more to the story. CV was originally intended to serve as a fortieth anniversary encyclical for Populorum Progressio [hereafter, PP]. The vestiges of this original intention are still clear enough in the text of CV, starting with its subtitle (which includes Pope Paul VI’s signature phrase “integral human development”). They are fully evident when, in heaping lofty praise on Paul, Benedict announces his intention to “revisit [Paul’s] teachings” and “to apply them to the present moment” (§8). Indeed, the title of chapter one of Benedict’s social encyclical is “The Message of Populorum Progressio.” Each of that chapter’s ten long sections explicates elements of Paul VI’s social teaching, including the intriguing §15, which draws connections to his controversial encyclical on human life and procreation (Humanae Vitae) and to his post-synodal apostolic exhortation on evangelization and missionary activity (Evangelii Nuntiandi).2 Vatican watchers knew that the Holy See had been preparing a third encyclical ever since the release of Spe Salvi. Anniversary social encyclicals had missed their targeted release date before. In fact, John Paul II marked the twentieth anniversary of PP with his social encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, which did not appear in 1987 at all (despite the date it bears of December 30, 1987). It finally came out several weeks into 1988.3 On at least two occasions, Vatican spokesmen admitted delays in the writing process due to Benedict’s desire to address unfolding developments in the global economy. As the financial crisis of 2008 gathered steam, saying anything substantial about social justice in the international arena came to resemble Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 68 (1976): 5–76]. 3 John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 80 (1988): 528–31]. 2 On the Continuity of Caritas in Veritate 857 something akin to hitting a moving target. In granting himself a nineteen-month extension until CV’s eventual release, Benedict was wisely insuring that his text would squarely address the latest realities of global financial markets while still maintaining continuity with the best tradition of Catholic social teaching. The core principles of Catholic social encyclicals have been set for many decades now: the dignity of the human person, the common good, the rights and responsibilities of owners of property, subsidiarity, and solidarity with all members of humankind, especially the poor and marginalized. Successive social documents have clarified the content of these core principles and helped readers apply them appropriately to new times and the varied cultural and social contexts of a changing world. French theologian Bernard Laurent offers a helpful list of principles highlighted by Benedict: Many elements of Caritas in veritate subscribe to the logic of the previous social encyclicals: the necessary subordination of the economy, the condemnation of materialism in modern society, the primacy of labor, the recognition of moderate profit, the legitimacy of certain public interventions, the call for integral human development.4 Because of Benedict’s intention to reaffirm the traditional concerns of Church social doctrine, certain sections of CV resemble a veritable checklist of social justice concerns. Between §§ 25 and 29 alone, we hear about poverty and hunger, threats to worker rights, the manipulations of local cultures, the need for greater agricultural development through rural infrastructure, the spread of abortion and imposition of sterilization and birth control, the denial of religious freedom, consumerist “superdevelopment,” and the threat of violence and terrorism. These sections of chapter 2 of CV carefully footnote the statements of papal predecessors, particularly Paul VI, signaling that the current Pontiff is building upon the established tradition of Church social concern, even as he paves the way for innovative ways of approaching economic and ecological realities. Along the way, Benedict conforms to a pattern set by recent popes whenever they have commented on the thorny questions of Bernard Laurent, “Caritas in Veritate as a Social Encyclical: A Modest Challenge to Economic, Social and Political Institutions,” Theological Studies 71 (2010): 515–44, at 543. 4 858 Thomas Massaro, S.J. correcting economic injustices. When markets fail to solve social and economic problems, then public authorities are obliged to intervene to accomplish important goals of social justice. Catholic social teaching has often been criticized for too readily recommending government interventions, even for overlooking the prudential principle of subsidiarity, which was, incidentally, invented whole cloth in Quadragesimo Anno [hereafter, QA] (§§79–80). But one of the distinctive and enduring strengths of the Catholic social teaching tradition is its willingness to engage in structural analysis of economic problems, relying on the methodology of “see-judge-act” to probe causes and consequences of injustices and, at times, to recommend ambitious remedies applied through public agencies. In line with long-standing Catholic social theory, there is a legitimate role for public authorities in acting as an irreplaceable agent of the common good, even when this justifies potentially controversial measures such as progressive taxation, welfare-state entitlements, and similar policies that enact measures for wealth redistribution. True to its roots in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, Catholic social thought is thoroughly communitarian in emphasis, displaying a strong commitment to the good of the community, even when this rubs up against the individualism of the ascendant neo-liberalism that Benedict decries in chapter 2 of CV and elsewhere. Like the long social encyclical Centesimus Annus [hereafter, CA] of John Paul II, CV can be parsed in various ways and even quoted against itself to obscure or dispute some of these important points. But I think it safe to say that, in continuity with previous social encyclicals, Benedict displays a keen eye for the structural dimensions of economic justice. Underdevelopment in the global South, food insecurity, declining worker protection—none of these are the results of bad luck or randomness, in Benedict’s estimation, but are squarely attributed to skewed priorities and structures of sin operating within our global economy. These systems will be reversed only through concerted efforts that must include public agencies and even coercive actions by government authorities. To put a finer point on it, Benedict’s social encyclical continues the analysis of previous popes who concur that, since markets (at least in their current form) are ultimately not self-regulating, and since market outcomes when left to themselves are frequently at odds with the common good, there is an obvious need to subordinate markets to moral principles, which ordinarily enter the economic system through the political sphere and by means of state interventions. These claims of Benedict are reminis- On the Continuity of Caritas in Veritate 859 cent of what John Paul II dared to say in CA: even at the moment of the seeming definitive triumph of free markets in the early 1990s, the Polish pontiff had the courage to remind the world that markets must be “circumscribed within a strong juridical framework” in order that they not become exploitative but rather are, without exception, placed “at the service of human freedom in its totality” (§42). Benedict not only concurs with previous papal thought on the necessity for structural changes to advance social justice; he actually proposes specific structural reforms. Reflecting a keen awareness of global economic integration and the flowering of the new “knowledge economy,” CV contains proposals for progress towards justice in these new dimensions of the global marketplace. Benedict’s concerns about social justice in this age of globalization even led him to comment on certain items that previous popes had overlooked. For example, he warns against excesses in “the speculative use of financial resources,” insisting that investors prioritize “long-term sustainability” over “short-term profit” as they invest their money (§40). He also offers extended commentary on such often overlooked issues as: the right of access to energy, calling for worldwide redistribution of energy resources (§49); the reform of international development aid and more equitable international trade (§58); excesses in the increasingly hedonistic and even sexually exploitative international tourist industry (§61); and enhanced international cooperation for “greater access to education” (§61). The sense of urgency with which this text treats these reforms reveals a Pontiff ardently advocating structural change tailored to benefit the billions of people who are currently disadvantaged in our globalized age. Not every commentator on CV agrees with my assessment that Pope Benedict has achieved an impressive structural analysis of our globalized economy. Laurent, for example, contends that the concerns that consume Benedict are still excessively disassociated from actual institutions. Citing some of Benedict’s language on the importance of the responsible freedom of individuals that appears in CV (§17), Laurent comments: “Never before had a pope, on matters of the social doctrine of the Church, sidelined institutions to this extent, emphasizing instead their moral reform as the solution to problems.”5 It is easy enough to generate sympathy for Laurent’s evident impatience to see Benedict offer a more thorough critique of neo-liberalism, the ideology arguably responsible for the excesses that Laurent, “Caritas in Veritate as a Social Encyclical,” 534. 5 860 Thomas Massaro, S.J. Benedict laments. And to his credit, Laurent does us the great service of pointing out certain curious lacunae in CV, such as its failure to mention explicitly the terms “capitalism,” “socialism,” or “social sin” even a single time. But ultimately, Laurent makes too much of these silences, strange as they may be, since what we most need to hear from Benedict are his calls for reform in global economic structures, not a pointed analysis of the ideology of neo-liberal capitalism or market fundamentalism that we might, at least arguably, blame for the excesses we observe. My repeated references to structural reforms in the global economy may beg the following question: How specific should a voice of a religious community generally, and the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church specifically, venture when addressing complex economic matters? Successive social encyclicals, as well as pastoral letters from episcopal conferences, such as the U.S. Bishops’ letter “Economic Justice for All,” have sought to clarify the matter by drawing distinctions between moral and technical expertise.6 CV (§9 and note 10) cites the key loci classici within Catholic social teaching that support the commonly heard conclusion that the Church has no economic models or technical solutions to offer. But this admonition does not prevent Benedict and other Church leaders from recommending some rather specific courses of action to advance the common good and to pursue economic justice in this era of globalization. Just as John Paul II had gone out on a limb to support the agenda of the “Jubilee Justice” movement for international debt forgiveness at the dawn of our millennium, so Benedict has similarly advocated specific measures and institutions that might contribute to the reform of international financial practices. In CV alone, the Pope assigns a number of tasks to international agencies that we may judge as currently underperforming in their duties to regulate global functions. For example, the International Labor Organization is mentioned as a promising instrument for greater protection of the rights of workers (§63). More prominently, “a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance” is called for, “so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth” (§67). In the subsequent few sentences, Benedict lists a bewildering array of important UN functions, including “to United States Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the US Economy (1986), accessed May 4, 2017, http://www. usccb.org/upload/economic_justice_for_all.pdf. 6 On the Continuity of Caritas in Veritate 861 manage the global economy,” “to revive economies hit by the crisis,” “to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace,” and “to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration.” The Pope concludes: “for all this, there is urgent need for a true world political authority.” Reading this same section led ethicist Lisa Sowle Cahill to comment wryly: “Benedict has remarkable expectations for the United Nations.” 7 With these suggestions about what needs to be done to reform the global economy, as well as about who should be entrusted with these vital tasks, Benedict is probably getting as specific as this genre of the papal encyclical allows. He risks losing the support not only of those who are skeptical about the effectiveness of the UN, but also of those who, perhaps rightly, claim that papal encyclicals should avoid such a high level of policy detail. Such advocacy might better be left to other genres of Church statements. In fact, an even more detailed analysis of urgent structural reforms of the global economy was subsequently presented in a document of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. The report of this Vatican commission bears the title “Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority.”8 Just three days later, the Brussels-based Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) issued its own statement on related issues called “A European Community of Solidarity and Responsibility: A Statement of the COMECE Bishops on the EU Treaty Objective of a Competitive Social Market Economy.”9 Although this body of European bishops is not actually an arm of the Vatican, its work to produce a values-based analysis of current conditions in our distressed global economy is emblematic of ongoing Church-based reflection and advocacy on what encyclicals have long called “the social question.” Lisa Sowle Cahill, “Caritas in Veritate: Benedict’s Global Reorientation,” Theological Studies 71 (June 2010): 291–319, at 306. 8 Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority, October 24, 2011, accessed May 4, 2017, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/ pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20111024_ nota_en.html. 9 Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community, A European Community of Solidarity and Responsibility: A Statement of the COMECE Bishops on the EU Treaty Objective of a Competitive Social Market Economy, October 27, 2011, accessed May 4, 2017, http://www.comece.eu/ dl/KttMJKJOMNkJqx4KJK/20111027PUBSOCMARKET_EN.pdf. 7 862 Thomas Massaro, S.J. CV earned its permanent place as the broadest and most prominent of the contributions to Catholic social thought to emerge during the papacy of Benedict XVI. As such, the encyclical continues the Catholic tradition of social concern that gives credit to our faith. It advances our understanding of the social dimension of our presence as Catholics living in a world characterized by great need and troubling injustice. How CV Addresses the Relationship between Charity and Justice We are all familiar with the terms “charity” and “justice,” as well as the customary ways in which these two ethical orientations towards the needy are treated in the Christian tradition. Most social encyclicals, dating back to RN and especially QA, devote several lines or even multiple sections to the task of relating them. In the context of this charity–justice dyad, “charity” refers to works of direct service for those in need, well illustrated by the traditional corporal works of mercy. The emphasis is on the voluntary and occasional nature of the assistance we might offer to relieve the suffering of our hungry, homeless, or sick neighbors. The corresponding category of “justice,” by contrast, emphasizes efforts we undertake for the cause of structural change and tends to carry a sense of duty and obligation for the privileged to contribute to the building up of a better world. If an orientation toward charity calls us to show mercy to the victims of worldly events, then an orientation toward justice issues a call to prevent victimhood in the first place by addressing the deeper social causes of injustices and perhaps even empowering the victimized to become agents of their own history. The paradigmatic charitable activity is the handout, which supplies at least temporary relief of misery. The paradigmatic work for justice is advocacy, such as contributing to lobbying efforts to support programs to lift up the needy or (even better) to supply the resources by which they might lift themselves up, whether this is motivated by faith-based concern or secular humanitarianism. If charity can sometimes be accused of applying mere Band-Aids to deep wounds, then justice aims to perform the corrective surgery upon social problems that aspires to heal the underlying pathologies. It would be a serious mistake to imagine an overly sharp opposition between charity and justice, as actions that might at first appear geared toward either side of this dyad generally find themselves converging and blending into the other side. Providing subsidized On the Continuity of Caritas in Veritate 863 educational programs or legal aid for disadvantaged groups, for example, is at once a work of charity and justice. Each of these actions meets an immediate need and simultaneously contributes to more equitable structures of opportunity. In the interest of clarity, it may still be worthwhile to maintain the distinction between charity and justice, but, to emulate the best of the Scholastics, we distinguish, ultimately, in order to unite. A genuine faith-filled response to poverty and deprivation does not choose between justice and charity, but affirms each at the proper moment. It is not an “either–or” but a “both–and” proposition for Catholics to enact charity and justice. These long established themes in Catholic social thought came to the fore once again during the pontificate of Benedict XVI. The relationship between works of charity and justice in the name of the Church was treated at considerable length in DCE (§§20–32). Here, in the Pope’s discussion of how the Church practices love in the world, charity emerges as so eminently noble and lofty that it seems to overshadow justice and perhaps threatens to eclipse it entirely. Charity appears to transcend justice so thoroughly that some commentators wondered whether there was any role remaining for the operations of justice at all, such as redressing imbalances of political power and advocating for social change. Surely, as excellent as the virtue of charity might be, it does not fully replace justice without remainder. The criminal justice system, for instance, would become redundant if a universalization of the principle of merciful charity were allowed to abrogate any sense of accountability to victims. Even the most enthusiastic supporters of the Jubilee Year of Mercy proclaimed by Pope Francis would recognize a permanent place for the administration of retributive justice. Combined with certain related statements of Benedict regarding the role of the laity and the mission of the church (DCE, §§26–29), it seemed to some as if a pendulum had not only swung rather far in one direction, but had perhaps come off its track entirely. The more specific ecclesiological question, of course, involves whether the Catholic Church’s social activities should be restricted to charity alone. What precisely is the proper relationship between the Church’s mission and social action? DCE seemed eager to draw clear and broad lines between the societal roles of church and state. The Church is here portrayed as a realm of charity alone and as endangering its mission when it ventures into the field of politics. It falls to the state alone to promote and administer justice. Benedict here is reflecting a certain eagerness exhibited by his immediate predeces- 864 Thomas Massaro, S.J. sor, John Paul II, to roll back earlier understandings of the Church as properly an agent of social transformation. This agenda may well be attributed to the “communio ecclesiology” shared by both Popes. It displays an aversion to the bottom-up style of social activism that finds its vitality at the grassroots. Church documents from earlier decades had portrayed social action, especially the type grounded in local church communities, with greater enthusiasm. We might think, for instance, of Gaudium et Spes and the 1971 World Synod of Bishops’ document Justice in the World, whose introduction includes the rousing statement: “Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the gospel, or, in other words, of the Church’s mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation.”10 This does not sound at all like what we read in DCE, although it can be far more easily reconciled with Benedict’s treatment of structural reform and social change in CV. To account for the change, one might point to the context and original purpose of CV. It is not hard to imagine that this or any encyclical intended to celebrate the achievements of PP would invariably emphasize social obligations that embrace engagement in projects of justice beyond the works of charity. The prominence of the themes of social solidarity and social responsibility in John Paul II’s anniversary encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis supports this contention. Many observers were in fact encouraged by the revision in Benedict’s approach over time and by the full-throated ways in which CV emphasizes justice and its relation to the mission of the Church. Whereas Benedict had earlier displayed a certain resistance to engaging in the realm of worldly goals and stratagems, here he walks far down these paths in his efforts to instruct the faithful on what is required to enact the full meaning of love in today’s interdependent world. Voluntary and generous charitable work to relieve human distress is crucial, of course, but work for structural change and institutional reform to support the common good is an indispensable feature of the Church’s mission today to humanize globalization. There remain, of course, important and unanswered questions regarding just how broad is the mandate of the Church regarding World Synod of Bishops, Justice in the World (1971), §6, accessed May 4, 2017, https://www.cctwincities.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Justiciain-Mundo.pdf. 10 On the Continuity of Caritas in Veritate 865 social justice and advocacy for change. Other open questions pertain to the role of the laity and its rightful participation in social transformation in the name of the Church; certain sections of Benedict’s text might suggest that the Church’s authentic social action is properly and perennially clergy-dominated. To what extent can lay Catholics act for justice in the name of the Church as a corporate apostolate, not just in their own name as individuals? A related set of unanswered questions involves not just the speculative issue of what might be done in the name of the Church’s social mission, but how to evaluate, and perhaps alter, what is already being done through Church auspices. The final sections of DCE raise concerns about the distinctive Catholic identity of the charitable organizations run by the Church. These sections have been cited in ongoing debates about the governance of Caritas Internationalis and CIDSE (an international alliance of sixteen Catholic development agencies). When Benedict’s first encyclical referred to “the growing secularism of many Christians engaged in charitable work,” many observers connected this description directly to the often heard charges that these have become so professionalized and bureaucratized that they now sacrifice too much of their Catholic identity (DCE, §16). Ultimately, it falls to each reader of these encyclicals to interpret the significance of Benedict’s choices in writing these words. Blogs, books, and articles treating Benedict’s social teachings attest to a wide range of interpretations of his message on charity and justice. I personally find particularly telling Benedict’s portrayal of the collective ecological duties of the community of faith: “The Church has a responsibility towards creation and she must assert this responsibility in the public sphere” (CV, §51). For me, this passage evinces support for a notion of corporate public responsibility precisely in the name of faith. DCE, by contrast, is more restrained in its justice advocacy. Passages elsewhere in CV allow the Church a public duty to respond to threats to human dignity and environmental degradation. CV thus less sharply defines the division of labor between church and state, between voluntary faith-based organizations and public authorities. The Church’s public role entails a duty to promote justice and structural change, not only charity, and may even take the form of broad political advocacy to support important human values. 866 Thomas Massaro, S.J. How CV Advances the Church’s Deepening Environmental Concern This section is the briefest not because its topic is by any means less important, but because the contribution of Benedict in the area of ecology is marked by continuity rather than novelty. Nonetheless, although several previous social encyclicals had dedicated a section or two to the human obligation to protect the natural environment from irreparable damage, none had made ecological concern so prominent as CV. The environment receives significant attention here and there throughout the encyclical, for example, in the context of assessing models of economic development (§32). But the second half of Benedict’s fourth chapter is devoted entirely to ecology. Sections 48–52 not only present the longest treatment of the natural environment in any encyclical before Laudato Si’, but they draw some creative, even stunning, connections between environmental concern and a range of contemporary justice issues—from climate change and access to energy and water resources, to international development cooperation, and to our obligations to future generations. Benedict certainly escapes the charge leveled against his predecessors by some environmentalists that their social encyclicals forfeited opportunities to draw connections between facets of political and economic justice, on one hand, and environmental justice, on the other. One especially incisive connection is drawn between world peace and environmental respect: “How many natural resources are squandered by wars? Peace in and among peoples would also provide greater protection for nature. The hoarding of resources, especially water, can generate serious conflicts among the peoples involved” (CV, §51). Benedict thus anticipates the analysis he would offer months later in his “World Day of Peace Message” on January 1, 2010.11 Portraying environmental justice and ecological concern as keys to peace, this work is subtitled: “If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation.” Coupling that statement with the treatment of the natural environment in CV, we can only admire Benedict’s recognition that the arrows of causality point both ways. Care for the environment leads to a more peaceful world, one featuring true global solidarity, even as a world free of war and hostility is more likely to protect the God-given inheritance of nature. A stark choice Accessed May 4, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/ messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20091208_xliii-world-daypeace.html. 11 On the Continuity of Caritas in Veritate 867 lies before humankind: either the vicious circle of conflict or the virtuous circle of care for creation. Benedict’s appeal for environmental concern is strong on what needs to be improved and why, but it may not be fully persuasive on the matter of who is to be the primary agent of ecological protection. The Pope seems to imply that action on the part of international authorities will be necessary. In the face of prevailing skepticism about the UN and other international agencies, however, this call for some unspecified type of global management remains a loose end in Benedict’s treatment. While it is not impossible to imagine certain enhanced international institutions and binding agreements emerging from the nonbinding December 2015 Paris climate change accords (and other recent summits and rounds of negotiations on global carbon emissions and pollution), a frank assessment of the current situation cannot afford to be overly sanguine. Will enough nations around the world cede enough of their sovereignty to make a new covenant possible and effective? International cooperation is probably necessary to make substantial progress toward environmental sustainability. But we have yet to chart a reliable course toward this end, even after CV’s strong support. Conclusion The fullest possible assessment of Benedict’s social teaching would look well beyond CV to consider some sources mentioned only briefly or not at all. Examples might include his “World Day of Peace Messages” or his lively Africae Munus, based on the 2009 Synod on Africa.12 Here he addresses the relationship between action for justice and the task of evangelization. It is also instructive to consider the most relevant of the large corpus of writings of Joseph Ratzinger before his elevation to the papacy. In 1984, for example, while still a Cardinal, he wrote an essay with the title “A Christian Orientation in a Pluralist Democracy?” Here he outlines his perspective on the possibilities and limits of the sometimes troubled relationship between Christianity and democracy. The final section of this essay bears the title “The Indispensability of Christianity in the Modern World” and opens with a question that still hangs in the air today long after his own papacy: “How can Christianity become a positive force in politics without being exploited politically Benedict XVI, Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Africae Munus (2011) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 104 (2012): 239–314]. 12 868 Thomas Massaro, S.J. and, conversely, without usurping the political sphere?”13 It may just be that CV contains the essential elements of Benedict’s long-delayed and well-considered answer to that important question. No Church document can aspire to replace the multifaceted inherited wisdom associated with any human endeavor, whether business and the economy or government and politics. But a contribution like CV can shed light on the moral aspects of human society. Of course, it might be possible to criticize Benedict for conducting only a selective reading of “the signs of the times” or for reaching out only part of the way to the many potential dialogue partners, both secular and religious, as he constructed his approach to social justice.14 But none of these quibbles invalidates the remarkable contribution that Benedict has made to a more human world. His call to move beyond (quite literally) “business as usual,” his appeal to a new kind of virtue to be practiced in the marketplace, and his challenge to foster an integral human development suited to our age of globalization and environmental degradation all hold out the promise of great progress toward charity in truth. N&V Additional Bibliography America symposium. “An Encyclical Examined: Six Experts Interpret What ‘Charity in Truth’ Says about Issues of our Times.” America: the Jesuit Review of Faith and Culture, November 30, 2009, 10–17. ———. “The New Encyclical: Deus Caritas Est.” America: the Jesuit Review of Faith and Culture, March 13, 2006, 8–20. Christiansen, Drew. “Metaphysics and Society: A Commentary on Caritas in Veritate.” Theological Studies 71 (2010): 1–28. Murphy, Charles M. “Charity, Not Justice, as Constitutive of the Church’s Mission.” Theological Studies 68 (2007): 274–86. Naughton, Michael and Domènec Melé, guest editors. The Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate: Ethical Challenges for Business, Supplement 1 of Journal of Business Ethics 100 (March 2011). Pabst, Adrian, ed. The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Pope Benedict XVI’s Social Encyclical and the Future of Political Economy. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Endeavors in Ecclesiology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008) [originally Kirche, Ökumene und Politik (Cinisello Balsamo: Edizioni Paoline, 1987)], 203. 14 See Johan Verstraeten, “Dialogue in Light of the Signs of the Times,” in The Moral Dynamics of Economic Life: An Extension and Critique of Caritas in Veritate, ed. Daniel K. Finn (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 120–23. 13 On the Continuity of Caritas in Veritate 869 Sandonà, Luca. “The Reception of Caritas in veritate in the USA: Appreciation and Perplexity.” Oikonomia: Journal of Social Sciences of the Angelicum University of Rome 9, no. 2 (June 2010): 39–47. Uelmen, Amelia J. “Caritas in veritate and Chiara Lubich: Human Development from the Vantage Point of Unity.” Theological Studies 71 (2010): 29–45. Verstraeten, Johan. “Economics with a Human Face: Justice and Catholic Social Thought.” The Tablet: The International Catholic Weekly. February 25, 2012, 12–13. Vox Nova Editors. “The Good Pope and the Bad Advisors: A Fable by George Weigel.” Vox Nova, July 7, 2009. Accessed May 4, 2017, http://vox-nova.com/2009/07/07/the-good-pope-and-the-badadvisers-a-fable-by-george-weigel/. Weigel, George. “Caritas in Veritate in Gold and Red,” National Review. Accessed May 4, 2017. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/227839/i-caritas-veritate-i-gold-and-red/george-weigel#. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2017): 871–884  871 On Social Justice, the “Regensburg Address,” and Spe Salvi Robert John Araujo, S.J., (1948–2015) Loyola University Chicago, IL1 The need for a coherent understanding of social justice is pressing. Some insist, for instance, that they know precisely what it means but then include in it such issues as access to abortion, same-sex marriage, and high tariffs, all of which are hotly disputed among ethical authorities. It is nonetheless true that, even in Catholic social thought, the term is imprecise. The following study will offer some light by examining two of Benedict’s works, the “Regensburg Address” and his second encyclical, Spe salvi. It will first selectively review recent statements of the magisterium in order better to appreciate Benedict’s contribution. It will conclude by offering speculations about how the Pontiff might further clarify the concept. Social Justice in the Recent Magisterium “Social justice” appears regularly in the writings of the popes of the twentieth century, beginning with Pius XI in his encyclical Quadragesimo Anno (1931) [hereafter, QA]. Although he did not define it, he used it at least eight times, connecting it to the common good.2 In another Guest editor’s note: Entrusting the Jesuit Colloquium with two papers, Robert Araujo died before they could be prepared for publication. I have combined them into a recast essay that, although significantly rewritten, is faithful, I believe, to his penetrating thought, so admired by us who warmly knew him as collaborator, confrere, gentleman, and friend. 2 QA, §§57, 58, 71, 74, 88, 101, 110, and 126. Without elaboration, Pope Pius X uses the phrase in Iucunda Sane (1904; Encyclical Letter on Pope Gregory the Great) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 36 (1903–04): 515–29], §3, to describe Gregory as a “defender of social justice.” 1 872 Robert John Araujo, S.J. (1948–2015) encyclical, Firmissimam Constantiam (1937), he did give an explication when he addressed the social and religious issues then existing in Mexico, where the faithful were subjected to “de-Christianizing propaganda.” This promised an earthly paradise but at the cost of apostasy.3 As the Pope argues: If you truly love the laborer, . . . you must assist him materially and religiously. Materially, bringing about in his favor the practice not only of commutative justice but also of social justice, that is, all those provisions which aim at relieving the condition of the proletarian; and then, religiously, giving him again the religious comforts without which he will struggle in a materialism that brutalizes him and degrades him.4 Importantly, Pius here recognizes the inextricable link between social justice and salvation. Whereas the physical improvement of the “proletariat” in the material world remains an important concern, it is not the sole concern, but one among a number of concerns of Catholic social thought. In a word, this thought centers on the person and on the pursuit of the virtuous life essential to our dignity in this world, precisely as we prepare for our ultimate destiny, union with God. Accordingly, as Pius implies, theories of social justice that unduly emphasize economic development are discontinuous with the Church’s meaning of this important concept. Pius’s Divini Redemptoris [“On Atheistic Communism”] (1937) reminds us of the fundamental connection between social justice and Christian love (caritas). Social justice deals with forming the person so that we might live harmoniously with our neighbor under the Great Commandment (Mark 12:28–31; Matt 22:35–40; Luke 10:25–28). In denying that social justice involves class warfare, the Pope thus stands in continuity with Leo XIII, who asserts in Rerum Novarum5 [hereafter, RN] the codependence of and accountability between labor and capital (RN, §19). Moreover, because each class is Pius XI, Encyclical Letter Firmissimam Constantiam (1937) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 29 (1937): 189–99], §16. 4 Ibid; emphasis added. 5 Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum (1891) [Acta Sanctae Sedis 23 (1890–91): 641–70], accessed May 5, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/ leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html. 3 On Social Justice, the “Regensburg Address,” and Spe Salvi 873 composed of individuals, each component of economic society must be “given what it needs for the exercise of its proper functions”: It is impossible to care for the social organism and the good of society as a unit unless each single part and each individual member—that is to say, each individual man in the dignity of his human personality—is supplied with all that is necessary for the exercise of his social functions. If social justice be satisfied, the result will be an intense activity in economic life as a whole, pursued in tranquility and order. This activity will be proof of the health of the social body, just as the health of the human body is recognized in the undisturbed regularity and perfect efficiency of the whole organism.6 In sum, then, social justice constitutes an exercise of the suum cuique (“to each his due”). This due entails giving what is essential to satisfy the dignity inhering in every person made in the image and likeness of God. Social justice assumes that each person, harnessing his free moral agency, should exercise a role to bring about the common good. Because moral agency is disciplined only by virtue, the ethical education of citizens is absolutely paramount. It follows therefore that, unless social justice is integrated into the wider range of virtues, it loses its meaning. At the same time, it must also be emphasized that social justice in Catholic thought views every person as significant to the community, such that the welfare of all is tied to the welfare of each. No one must be left out; otherwise, society will have only the appearance of moral health. The Second Vatican Council’s Gaudium et Spes7 [hereafter, GS] addresses social justice in two passages but offers little explication. The first acknowledges that, although rightful differences among people exist, a claim to “equal dignity” also exists by which persons can demand “more human and equal conditions of life.” “Excessive economic and social inequalities among members or peoples of the Pius XI, Encyclical Letter Divini Redemptoris (1937) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 29 (1937): 65–106], §51, accessed May 5, 2017, https://w2.vatican.va/content/ pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19370319_divini-redemptoris.html. 7 Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the World of Today, Gaudium et Spes (1965), in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner, S.J., 2 vols. (London: Sheed and Ward, 1990). 6 874 Robert John Araujo, S.J. (1948–2015) one human family,” observes the document, cause “scandal and are at variance with social justice, equity, and the dignity of the human person and, not least, social and international peace” (GS, §29). The second passage mentions the need for the Church to create an organization that would promote progress in poor areas and social justice among nations (GS, §90). Although GS uses the term mainly in an economic context, it also notes that social justice applies to political institutions. It thus implies that a just society depends precisely on the virtue of the people animating these institutions. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church offers an additional understanding of social justice by acknowledging the contribution of Pius XI: Ever greater importance has been given to social justice [Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§1928–1942, 2425–2449, 2832; Pius XI, Encyclical Letter Divini Redemptoris: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 29 (1937): 92.], which represents a real development in general justice, the justice that regulates social relationships according to the criterion of observance of the law. Social justice, a requirement related to the social question which today is worldwide in scope, concerns the social, political and economic aspects and, above all, the structural dimension of problems and their respective solutions [Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, §2: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 73 (1981): 580–83].8 Two important elements of a just society now come into plain view. First, social justice does not address only fiscal issues, because it is tied to the regulation of social relationships. Second, the rule of law is crucial to this regulation. These elements again underscore the vital importance of educating persons in virtue. Only good people are properly suited to making and implementing the laws that regulate the suum cuique grounding the common good. Let us finally consider the Catechism of the Catholic Church [hereafter, CCC] 9. It explains social justice as society’s need to provide the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004), §201, accessed May 5, 2017, http://www.vatican. va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_ doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html. 9 Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994). 8 On Social Justice, the “Regensburg Address,” and Spe Salvi 875 conditions that allow associations or individuals to obtain what is their due, according to their nature and their vocation. Social justice is linked to the common good and the exercise of authority (CCC, §1928). Giving a gloss on “nature” and “vocation,” CCC states that social justice can be achieved only when the transcendent dignity of the human person is respected (§1929). Once again, we see the implication that only virtuous persons can discern the suum cuique; it follows therefore that only such persons can properly exercise a role in civil society. Regensburg Address Let us now examine how Benedict’s thought reflects the tradition just surveyed. In the “Regensburg Address,”10 the Pontiff locates justice within the broader context of “right reason” illuminated by faith. At its beginning, knowing that he was engaging accomplished thinkers affiliated with a range of academic disciplines, he urged that the desire for the integration of learning, rather than its fragmentation, should properly characterize the universitas. “Despite the specializations which at times make it difficult to communicate with each other,” he observes, faculty “make up a whole, working in everything on the basis of a single rationality with its various aspects of sharing responsibility for the use of right reason.” He identifies God as right reason’s source. In the medieval university, whose origins lie in the Church, this source, together with the reasonability of faith, “was accepted without question.” To illustrate this point, Benedict refers to the dialogue between the Emperor of Constantinople, Manuel II Paleologus (whose capital was under siege by Muslim warriors) and an Islamic scholar. He reconstructs the conversation, emphasizing the emperor’s focus on the passage in the Koran that states: “There is no compulsion in religion” (citing surah 2:256 of the Koran). His emphasis underscores the vital relation between faith and reason, which the emperor saw so clearly. While the Pope indicates that Manuel’s mode of discourse may have been unduly brusque, still it did make clear that the expansion of faith Benedict XVI, “The Regensburg Address,” September 12, 2006 [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 98 (2006): 728–39], accessed May 5, 2017, https://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2006/september/documents/ hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg.html. All quotations in this section of the present essay are from this address unless otherwise noted. 10 876 Robert John Araujo, S.J. (1948–2015) by violence is unwarranted and unreasonable. “Violence,” the Pope unequivocally claims, “is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul,” both of which are rational. At this stage in the address, Benedict skillfully integrates the connection between God as logos and human reason. The correlation between them is epitomized in the theophany to Moses in the burning bush. This shows that: A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion. From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: “Not to act ‘with logos’ is contrary to God’s nature.” Moreover, Benedict confidently asserts that “worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason” becomes the foundation of caritas. This nexus between love and reason grounds Western thought, making it clear why human beings must live in just relation with each other. For the Pope, the inextricable connection between faith and reason culminates in Jesus Christ ( John 3:16). Benedict acknowledges, however, that this truth is constantly challenged by a view in the academy derascinating reason from God. “The modern concept of reason is based,” he states, “on a synthesis between Platonism (Cartesianism) and empiricism, a synthesis confirmed by the success of technology.” This kind of reason, which undervalues metaphysics (the science of being as such), is insufficient for justifying the normative principles preserved, but not initially discovered, by the Church. Consequently, it would be mistaken to apply a technological straitjacket to the pursuit of theology; doing so would reduce “Christianity to a mere fragment of its former self.” But the error does not stop with theology; it also diminishes humanity itself. Relegating our destiny to the purely empirical constitutes “a dangerous state of affairs” seen, for instance, in “the disturbing pathologies” that “erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it.” The Pope warns that ethical principles become restricted if they are founded solely on evolutionary biology, psychology, and sociology and do not take account of the virtues, which discipline reason’s search for ultimate answers. Explicitly stating that the Church’s view of reason is no foe of “the positive aspects of modernity,” Benedict boldly argues that he has On Social Justice, the “Regensburg Address,” and Spe Salvi 877 no intention “of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application.” Implicitly, he offers a prophecy against the consequences of sanitized scientific reason that lacks the capability to understand the true nature of the human person. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey presents an example of these consequences. It states: At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State. [505 U.S. 851 (1992)] As a countervailing influence to the state’s agnosticism about value, the Church’s has developed its social doctrine to reflect the wisdom of God knowable to human beings through their exercise of right reason. Spe Salvi This encyclical underscores the collective view of hope vital to Catholic social teaching. Benedict explains that to restrict Jesus’s teachings to a narrow individualism antithetically opposes the promise of God’s universal salvific will. The alluring temptation of individualism is derived from the Enlightenment. For those seduced by its charm, Christian faith was substituted with the isolated privacy of the salons of the elite. Here freedom came to mean a detachment from reason that led the self into isolation. As Benedict notes, this detrimental influence draws the person farther away from social engagement. Freedom is no longer the ability to choose for; it becomes the desire to be liberated from. He points to Kant’s claim that the “progress” associated with this view necessitates moving from ecclesiastical faith to rational faith (§19). Hence, the Kingdom of God is not to be associated with the community, the ecclesia, the common good, but with the individual’s belief in himself independent of others, including God. The Pope traces the evolution of this development in the modern revolutions that efficiently tore down the established order without giving much promise of replacing it with something better. But Christian hope has a plan for the future that stands in sharp contrast to the absence of any corresponding plan from post-Enlightenment atheism, agnosticism, or secularism. The Christian has been given a divine design that properly joins reason and freedom into a synthesis oriented to the hopeful progress of both the individual and the 878 Robert John Araujo, S.J. (1948–2015) society into which persons are integrated. God’s design brings about progress in both the spiritual and the physical realms. It attends to freedom, which regulates how the person hopes and what the person hopes for. Hope that concentrates solely on physical improvement disregards the critical need to take account of the objective values that ground the common good of all humanity, not just of the few. Moreover, if people delude themselves into believing that progress in the physical realm is sufficient, they will miss their increasing dependence on those things that physically improve but enslave them, even as they erode authentic freedom. In short, when freedom is derived in the first instance from authentic spiritual value, the self is carried beyond its closed confinement into the embrace of the holy Other. Benedict cautions that one generation must not deny succeeding generations their right to exercise authentic freedom. All people must remain at liberty to exercise their own rights and duties for properly ordering human affairs. But, as the Pope notes, the task of securing the common good—a doctrine essential to Catholic social thought—never finally reaches completion. We must not assume that some historical epoch can address the concerns of the human family once and for all. Sin mars all human striving; it is only mollified by a relation with the absolute Person. Not an imaginary fiction, this Person, God with “a human face” who loved us to the end, presents himself wherever he is loved and his love reaches us (§31). This love alone grounds the hope that spurs us daily to live with courage in a world deeply flawed. Developing his argument, the Pontiff observes that “all serious and upright human conduct is hope in action.” As he comments further, “Our actions engender hope for us and for others” (§35). Hope grounded in love moves us to reduce suffering, soothe pain, and provide assistance to the needy. It follows that persons led by faith, hope, and love will experience an expanded sense of justice that not only acknowledges those who suffer but freely embraces suffering “with the other and for others” (§39). Furthermore, for Christians, belief in a final judgment individually before God provides a strong motivation for their actions. Conscience is quickened to “look ahead” in order to endow the present with deeper meaning (§41). Accordingly, the Last Judgment should instill in us not terror but hope. It provokes us to take responsibility for ourselves, for our relation with God, and for our dealings with our neighbors. It tells us that “God is justice and creates justice” and that “this is our consolation.” The parable of the rich man and Lazarus On Social Justice, the “Regensburg Address,” and Spe Salvi 879 reinforces this message (Luke 16:19–31). By his opulent arrogance, the rich man, forgetful of the other, impassably divided himself from both the poor man and God. His “unquenchable thirst” resulted from his developing a callous “incapacity to love,” the source of injustice (§44). In sum, for the Christian, the demands of justice cannot be discerned in isolation. Unless rooted in right reason guided by faith, hope, and charity, justice will cease as a virtue. When it does, social tension and isolation will only be exacerbated. A Benedictine Synthesis Having seen how Benedict’s message roots itself in the magisterium, let us now develop a speculative synthesis of his approach to social justice. I suggest first that he would be less interested in framing a rigid definition than in formulating a method that could prudently be applied when injustice is encountered. At the same time, I am bearing in mind that the Pontiff does not understand the Church to serve as a particularly effective agent of social reform, which it should be cautious in directly pursuing.11 No doubt his method would begin by reminding us of the end, goal, and purpose of the human person. These are eloquently expressed, for instance, in the Constitutions of the Jesuit order: “to devote [ourselves] with God’s grace not only to [our own] salvation and perfection, but also with that same grace to labor strenuously in giving aid toward the salvation and perfection of the souls of [our] fellowmen.”12 It follows that whatever the Church and individual Christians do must be consistent with these objectives. Temporal concerns must be decidedly subordinated to them, and so must the social justice that helps to regulate them. Next, Benedict would return to QA to identify the virtue’s distinguishing characteristics. He would note that Pius was marking the commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of Leo Rerum Novarum. He would recognize that each Pope was consciously addressing the particular injustices of his own time and therefore searching for Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est (2005) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 98 (2006): 217–52], §§28a, 29, accessed May 5, 2017, http:// w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est.html. 12 Saint Ignatius Loyola, The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, trans. George E. Ganss, S.J., with introduction and commentary (St Louis, MO: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), 77–78. See also CCC, §358. 11 880 Robert John Araujo, S.J. (1948–2015) principles that would provide a just resolution of dissimilar inequities. The two encyclicals, while having some common denominators, were separated by two generations of rapid changes. Benedict’s recognition would, in turn, significantly affect his understanding of social justice. Subsequently, the German Pontiff would acknowledge that the members of the human family are responsible, directly and indirectly, for creating structures that give rise to the forms of social injustice, including the unjust distribution of wealth. By the same token, he would see persons as having the capacity to develop the means to overcome them. As we have seen, essential to this task is the proper moral formation of individuals who design and regulate social structures. Expanding and deepening such formation allows hope to emerge. Thus, grace would be central to Benedict’s vision of social justice; it can and will work effectively with human cooperation for the world’s betterment. Moreover, the Pontiff would be concerned not only with diagnosing the causes of injustice but also with developing adequate solutions. Likely, he would strongly discourage massive state programs and government bureaucracies. He would appreciate that whatever problems human persons have generated they can also nullify. This perspective was shared by Pius XI in his recognition that Leo XIII had urged “the whole human family to strike out in the social question on new paths” (QA, §9). Social concerns are best corrected at their root—the sinful human person—rather than by creating new and untested structures. These run the risk of applying harmful cosmetics that, while potentially blotting out subsidiarity, effectively cover over the problem. With human reformation, the transformation of political, social, and economic institutions will follow. It is likely that Benedict would be nuanced about Hollenbach’s understanding of social justice as governing “‘the basic structures of society.’” As defined by Hollenbach, these embrace “the major political, economic, and social institutions that determine the division of advantages from social cooperation.”13 The American Jesuit suggests that social justice is not first and foremost grounded in education but, rather, constitutes a means for incorporating all people into political and economic processes. “Social justice,” he says, “requires absten David Hollenbach, S.J., The Common Good and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 201, citing John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1971), 7. 13 On Social Justice, the “Regensburg Address,” and Spe Salvi 881 tion from actions that exclude groups from active participation in the transnational common good.” It also requires that “global institutions avoid such exclusion as well.”14 Against this expansive claim, Benedict, relying on Pius XI, would more likely see social justice as mainly applicable to the local level of human community. Here the principle of subsidiarity developed in QA boldly affirms that higher levels of social organization should not prejudice the action of lower levels when they capably regulate their own needs (§80). Moreover, Benedict would undoubtedly pose probing questions to Hollenbach’s claim that: [Social justice entails] a standard which seeks to guarantee human dignity by specifying forms of governmental intervention which are appropriate for the protection of minimum standards of well-being, access and participation for all individuals. . . . Social justice, therefore, justifies governmental limitation of the accumulation of wealth or the exercise of political influence to the extent this is necessary for the institutionalization of basic economic and political rights of all.15 Does social justice not primarily entail, the Pope would ask, the flourishing of individual citizens dwelling in community rather than the interventions of the state and its mechanisms? Is it not principally the formation of character that effects human flourishing? If the state must intervene in certain cases, is it not human beings who determine, plan, and execute such interventions? Does it not therefore follow that the reform of morals through the education of virtuous persons will provide the surest path to social justice, as Pius avers? Surely, Benedict would require affirmative answers to these questions; they are demanded by the very concept of subsidiarity so vitally embedded in Catholic social doctrine. Taking another cue from Pius, Benedict would also remind Hollenbach of the limitations that Catholic social teaching expressly imposes on the state. Hollenbach argues, for instance, that social justice “is a conceptual tool by which moral reasoning takes into account the fact that relationships between persons have an institu- Hollenbach, Common Good, 226. David Hollenbach, S.J., Claims in Conflict: Retrieving and Renewing the Catholic Human Rights Tradition (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 154–55. 14 15 882 Robert John Araujo, S.J. (1948–2015) tional or structural dimension.”16 He also argues that Pius’s use of social justice “indicates the emergence of a new sensitivity in Catholic thought to the possibility of conscious institutional change.”17 Moreover, he contends: The extent of the right of private ownership must be determined with reference both to personal freedom and social strategies for fulfilling basic human needs. Social justice demands that the economy be directed and structured in such a way that both of these purposes are attained. The state has the ultimate responsibility for assuring that these demands are met.18 Although Hollenbach cites QA as his authority, he overlooks an important element in the cited section. Here, although Pius does indeed acknowledge the proper role of the state in determining “what is permitted and what is not permitted to owners in the use of their property,” he also reminds us, referring to RN §12, that the human person “is older than any State.” Based on the natural law, therefore, the Pope declares: It is grossly unjust for a State to exhaust private wealth through the weight of imposts and taxes. “The right to possess private property is derived from nature, not from man; and the State has the right to control its use in the interests of the public good alone, but by no means to absorb it altogether.”19 Yet when the State brings private ownership into harmony with the needs of the common good, it does not commit a hostile act against private owners but rather does them a friendly service; for it thereby effectively prevents the private possession of goods, which the Author of nature in His most Ibid., 54. Ibid., 55. 18 Ibid. 19 The translation of this quotation from RN §47 is here taken from the Vatican website of Rerum Novarum itself (http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/ en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html), rather than the translation found in Pius’s QA §49 (http://w2.vatican.va/ content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno.html). It should also be noted that QA’s footnote for the quotation of RN mistakenly directs to RN §67, rather than §47. 16 17 On Social Justice, the “Regensburg Address,” and Spe Salvi 883 wise providence ordained for the support of human life, from causing intolerable evils and thus rushing to its own destruction; it does not destroy private possessions, but safeguards them; and it does not weaken private property rights, but strengthens them. (QA, 49) In short, then, the role of the state is decidedly limited. Nevertheless, Hollenbach oddly maintains that social justice “is a practical guideline for the use of the instruments of power, especially government power.”20 Thus, Benedict would reiterate that, if social justice is a virtue, it cannot be separated from the three theological (and four cardinal) virtues, which govern our final end, goal, and destiny. In them, social justice lives, and without them it ceases to be Christian and devolves into another form of partisan ideology. On this point, John Ryan, a pioneering commentator on these questions, defines social justice as “the virtue which governs the relations of the members with society, as such, and the relations of society with its members; and which directs social and individual activities to the general good of the whole collective community.”21 Developing this definition, Brian Benestad sanely observes: “It is not really possible to bring about the reform of institutions and living conditions unless people really know and want to do the right thing.” And they know what the right thing is by deciding what things are “favorable to virtue.”22 And they know what things are favorable to virtue by education, whether Christian or natural; it guides their intellects and wills toward the transcendent good. It is therefore likely that Benedict would affirm the wisdom of Avery Dulles, who states: Social teaching is not directed in the first instance to legislation and policy issues but rather to education. It is designed to inculcate a proper perspective on the good society, the role of government, and the pursuit of pleasure, wealth, honor, and power. If a choice is to be made as to where to place the emphasis, I would opt for education because it opens up the possibility of a lasting change for the better.23 Ibid., 153; emphasis added. John A. Ryan, “Social Justice and the State,” Commonweal 30 (1939): 205–06. 22 J. Brian Benestad, Church, State, and Society: An Introduction to Catholic Social Doctrine (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 113. 23 Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., “Religion and the Transformation of Politics” (Fifth Annual Fall McGinley Lecture, Fordham University, October 6, 1992), 20 21 884 Robert John Araujo, S.J. (1948–2015) In conclusion, I shall offer an illustration of a method for exercising social justice grounded in the virtues with which I believe Benedict would concur. It centers on the family, the basic cell of society, where education begins for virtually everyone. Let us say that the parents who are the heads of the household have two children. One is exemplary in conduct, but the second is not. Most people expect that the parents will be equally concerned about the welfare of both. The manner in which they exercise justice in rearing their offspring, however, will be different. The question quickly emerges: How will both children receive social justice from their parents? How, in other words, within the family community will they receive the suum cuique? The answer centers on the manner in which virtuous persons make and implement norms. The parents know that to achieve the suum cuique for each child, the application of the same virtues will and must be different. As virtuously formed persons, the parents know that treating each child justly will have a broader bearing on the common good of the family. When all is said and done, what guides the parents in treating their different children in a just manner will be based on forbearance, justice, courage, prudence, faith, hope, and charity. Of these virtues in this context, prudence and charity emerge as especially important. But the parents also require the courage to proceed with their actions, tempered by forbearance, to ensure that their children will receive justice. In turn, this justice will provide the hope for the family’s common good. In the end, if the parents continue to practice the virtues that constitute their own moral education, social justice will result. With the passage of time, the children will recall their moral formation and pass it on their own children. And the process will be replicated, because achieving social justice is never a transitory but a perennial project. Benedict himself observes that each succeeding generation of human civilization faces the great challenge of winning human freedom over anew to the good. It is in the crib of this endeavor that N&V social justice is ever and always nurtured (Spe Salvi, §24b). in Dulles, Church and Society: The Laurence J. McGinley Lectures 1988–2007 (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008),123, citing J. Brian Benestad, The Pursuit of a Just Social Order (Washington, DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1982), 124. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2017): 885–900 885 On the Political Order Christopher M. Cullen, S.J. Fordham University New York, NY On the eve of the conclave in which he was elected, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger evoked the image of the Church as a ship battered on every side in a storm-tossed sea.1 For eight years near the beginning of the twenty-first century, Ratzinger was that barque’s captain. Few waves have rocked the Church more than the political waves of modernity and the rejection of the very concept of a sacral society in which religion and political authority are joined as one body under God. It therefore seems particularly important to inquire into the political views of a thinker who spent much of his life in the front lines of the Church’s broader struggle with secularism and its concomitant denials of the transcendent. Indeed, defining the Church’s role in the public square has become particularly acute in light of Ratzinger’s warning in the same homily of an encroaching “dictatorship of relativism.” Benedict’s pontificate was a liminal one: both in his being the first Pontiff to be elected in Christianity’s third millennium and in his being the first elected after the fall of the Iron Curtain and the reunification of Europe. In much the same way that John Paul II’s experience of Russia-dominated Poland offered unique qualifications to lead the Church during its struggle with communism, so Benedict seemed well suited for the struggle with the secular relativism of liberal democracies. His intellectual sojourn through five German Homily of His Eminence Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Dean of the College of Cardinals, Mass “Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice,” Vatican Basilica, Monday, April 18, 2005, accessed May 4, 2017, http://www.vatican.va/gpII/documents/homily-pro-eligendo-pontifice_20050418_en.html. 1 886 Christopher M. Cullen, S.J. universities, in addition to his guardianship of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, gave him an insider’s knowledge of the modern West. Ratzinger speaks of modern secularization as a process that destroyed “the spiritual framework” and “the interpretation of history” that medieval and early modern Christendom had provided. As he says: This process had a major impact on both politics and ideals. In terms of ideals, there was a rejection of the sacred foundation both of history and of the state. History was no longer measured on the basis of an idea of God that had preceded and molded it. The state came to be understood in purely secular terms, as grounded in rationalism and the will of the citizens.2 In the secular state, Ratzinger explains, the divine legitimation of the political element is abandoned and excluded as mythological: “God is a private question that does not belong to the public sphere or the democratic formation of the public will . . . Public life came to be considered the domain of reason alone, which had no place for a seemingly unknowable God” (WR, 62). In such a state, religion and faith are relegated to the realm of sentiment opposed to reason; God thus ceases to be relevant to public life. For Benedict, the political question had been framed in light of the Second Vatican Council’s concession to modern liberal democracy that “the political community and the Church are autonomous and independent of each other in their own fields.” Yet the Council insisted in the very next sentence that “both are devoted to the personal vocation of man.”3 In the post-conciliar Church, and in the face of increasingly secular societies, how ought the Church be related to the “powers that be” in the view of this peritus of the Council who became Pope? What is the personal vocation of man that unifies autonomous communities? Ratzinger had argued that Joseph Ratzinger and Marcello Pera, Without Roots: Europe, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, trans. Michael F. Moore, with foreword by George Weigel (New York: Basic Books, 2006) [originally Senza radici: Europa, relativismo, christianesimo, islam (Milan: Arnaldo Mondadori, 2004)]. This work will be cited parenthetically in text below as WR). 3 Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the World of Today (1965), §76, in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner, S.J., 2 vols. (London: Sheed and Ward, 1990), 2: 1069–135. 2 On the Political Order 887 Gaudium et Spes is a kind of “summa of Christian anthropology and of the central problems of the Christian ethos.”4 How are the Christian view of man and the Christian ethos to find their place in modern political orders? This essay will examine these questions, while acknowledging that the relation between church and state cannot be isolated from the broader relations between church and society and faith and culture. It will survey Benedict’s thought over the course of his career and then place it in the context of the current debate. In general, Benedict carves out a position between two extremes for configuring the relationship between religious bodies and the state. The first, called the “confessional state,” prevailed through much of Christianity after the conversion of Constantine. In it, church and state are explicitly united, even though a division of labor usually obtains. Whether the state or the church was subordinate to its partner varied. The medieval West subordinated the king and polity to the Church, whereas the east relegated the Church to the hegemony of the emperor and the state. A second extreme is the secularism that has dominated continental traditions of liberalism since the Enlightenment. In it, the explicitly secular (laïque) state assiduously avoids benefiting religious organizations in any way.5 “Theology and the Church’s Political Stance” (1980) A good place to begin considering Ratzinger’s view of church–state relations is the article “Theology and the Church’s Political Stance” published in the German periodical Internationale katholische Zeitschrift and in the Italian version of Communio. Here he argues that Christianity opened a completely new chapter in church–state relations with Christ’s teaching in Matthew 22:21, “Render unto Caesar.”6 Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, Joseph Ratzinger, trans. Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987) [originally Theologische Prinzipienlehre: Bausteine zur Fundamentaltheologie (Munich: Wewel, 1982)], 379. 5 See, for example, article 1 of the Constitution of the Fifth Republic(October 4, 1958): “La France est une République indivisible, laïque, démocratique, et social,” accessed May 4, 2017, http://www.conseil-constitutionnel. fr/conseil-constitutionnel/francais/la-constitution/la-constitution-du-4– octobre-1958/texte-integral-de-la-constitution-du-4–octobre-1958–en-vigueur.5074.html. 6 Joseph Ratzinger, “Theology and the Church’s Political Stance,” in Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Essays in Ecclesiology, trans. Robert Nowell (New York: Crossroad, 1988) [originally Kirche, Ökumene und Politik (Cinisello 4 888 Christopher M. Cullen, S.J. “Until then,” he says, “the general rule was that politics itself was the sacral.”7 Ratzinger thinks that Christianity introduced a sharp break with ancient politics, which conceived the sacred and the secular as one. Indeed, the gods were the provident protectors of the local city. Without their life-sustaining aid, the city was lost. Ratzinger sees Christianity as the origin of a dualistic understanding of the political and religious orders of society: It is precisely this separation of the authority of the state and sacral authority, the new dualism that this contains, that represents the origin and the permanent foundation of the western idea of freedom. From now on there are two societies related to each other but not identical to each other, neither of which had this character of totality.8 Ratzinger understands Jesus to have founded a new community distinct from any particular society or political order, and it was meant to remain distinct. Indeed, Ratzinger understands the Church to be a universal society transcending all others. Furthermore, he explains that the balance between these two communities has often been disturbed, especially during the Middle Ages and early modern era. But it is not just that an imbalance obtained during these periods; the blending of the two communities “falsified the faith’s claim to truth and turned it into a compulsion so that it became a caricature of what was really intended” (CEP, 161). These are harsh words for medieval Christendom. Yet, even in “the darkest periods,” as Ratzinger calls them, the faith preserved what he refers to as a “pattern of freedom.” What he seems to mean by this expression is that the Christian faith tradiBalsamo: Edizione Paoline, 1987)], 152–64, at 161; originally published in Internationale katolische Zeitschrift 9 (1980): 425–34, and Communio [Italian edition ] 53 (1980): 60–71, and reprinted in Wem nütz die Wissenshaft? ed. L. S. Schulz (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch,1981), 106–17. Church, Ecumenism and Politics will be cited as “CEP” in both text and notes. 7 Ibid. Cf. Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City: A Study on the Law, Religion and Institutions of Greece and Rome (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956) [originally La cité antique: étude sur le culte, le droit, et les institutions de la Grèce et Rome (Paris : Durand, 1864)]. 8 Ratzinger, “Theology and the Church’s Political Stance,” 161. Cf. Robert A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Theology in the Thought of St. Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), and Markus, Christianity and the Secular (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006). On the Political Order 889 tionally maintains the inviolability of the conscience. It does so by bringing the believer into a relationship with God. In other words, through his entry into the Church, the Christian enters into a divine communion. On this sacred communion, no merely earthly authority dare tread. The believer lives in intimacy with his God; he thus possesses a citizenship no human authority can take away and a freedom to obey the moral law that such authority cannot violate. Moreover, the Christian faith introduces a holy authority that protects “the pattern of freedom presented in the fundamental evidences of the faith.” Faith presents a criterion to which the conscience can appeal. Hence, no worldly rule may call black what sacred rule calls white, or vice versa. This dichotomy sets up the Church as a publicly recognized guardian of the moral law (CEP,162). From this same pattern of freedom established by Christian teaching emerged the impulse toward the dissolution of total authority. Ratzinger makes the claim that the modern idea of freedom cannot be separated from its Christian environment and transplanted into any other system. For this reason, he makes incisive comments about how the attempt to graft Western freedom onto Islamic societies “misunderstands the internal logic of Islam” and is doomed to failure. He claims, for instance, that “the construction of society in Islam is theocratic and therefore monist and not dualist.” Dualism, which is the precondition for freedom, presupposes for its part the logic of the Christian thing” (ibid.). Without this Christian dualism, Ratzinger thinks that freedom becomes nearly impossible. Furthermore, even though God is the supreme arbiter of the moral law and the Church is the moral law’s guardian, the Church, as a voluntary society, should not use the state to enforce its moral law. Ratzinger writes: This community in its turn, the Church, understands itself as a final moral authority which however depends on voluntary adherence and is entitled only to spiritual but not to civil penalties, precisely because it does not have the status the state has of being accepted by all as something given in advance.” (ibid.) In his view, the Church renounces coercive force by its very nature as a voluntary society. By contrast, however, he is not advocating the dominance of the state. Without the Church, freedom is extinguished, “because there the state once again claims completely for itself the justification of morality” (ibid.). In post-Christian societies, this prob- 890 Christopher M. Cullen, S.J. lem becomes particularly acute, because in them the total state does not take the form of a sacral authority, but of an ideological authority, which is far more dangerous. The ideological state, without a publicly recognized authority of conscience, becomes totalitarian. In short, the Church must work to achieve and maintain a dualistic balance between itself and the secular authority such that freedom is preserved. “Hence the Church must make claims and demands on public law,” argues the Pontiff, “and cannot simply retreat into the private sphere. Hence it must also take care on the other hand that Church and state remain separated and that belonging to the Church clearly retains its voluntary character” (CEP, 163). “A Christian Orientation in a Pluralistic Democracy?” (1988) In an article on the indispensability of Christianity, Ratzinger clarifies how he understands the Church’s social role. It is not only indispensable; it is unique. The Church ought not content itself with being one voice among many “social forces,” nor with being merely a voice expressing humanity’s religious need. 9 On the contrary, the Church is “a public and publicly relevant authority.” Ratzinger thus agrees with Robert Spaemann that the Church must understand itself “as the place of an absolute public validity surpassing the state under the legitimizing claim of God.” The Church is to advance a claim to public validity without, however, impairing the state’s pluralism and religious tolerance. As Ratzinger puts it, “The state must recognize that a basic framework of values with a Christian foundation is the precondition for its existence” (CEP, 219).The Church thus constitutes an indispensable authority in societies that would be free. Address to Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (1992) Ratzinger was inducted into the French Academy, taking the seat of the eminent Russian physicist and Soviet dissident Andrei Sacharov (1921– 1989). Following the Academy’s long-standing custom, Ratzinger gave a speech praising his predecessor. In it, he treats political questions at Joseph Ratzinger, “A Christian Orientation in a Pluralistic Democracy?: The Indispensability of Christianity in the Modern Age,” in CEP, 204–20, at 218; originally published in Pro fide et justitia: Festschrift Kardinal Casaroli zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Herbert Schambeck (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1984), 747–61, and reprinted in Das europäische Erbe und seine christliche Zukunft, ed. Nikolaus Lobkowicz (Cologne: J. P. Bachem, 1985), 20–35. 9 On the Political Order 891 some length. He says that the question before the free world today is the one Sacharov faced: How are we to assume our moral responsibility? “Liberty only preserves its dignity if it remains connected to its foundation and ethical mission.” 10 A liberty of simply satisfying one’s needs is not a true human liberty; it is the liberty of an animal. Democracy resting simply on the rule of the majority cannot avoid a dogmatism that destroys itself. Ratzinger’s thesis is an old one: democracy conceived as simply rule of the majority leads to the tyranny of the mob. In order to preserve itself, democracy must be constituted by a freedom ordered by law, right, and goodness. Ratzinger inquires into how we are to give law and goodness the force that they need against the naiveté and cynicism of our time. Here he appeals to Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835, 1840) which, he says, always impressed him. The Frenchman sees that an essential condition of ordered liberty is a moral conviction nourished in America by Protestant Christianity. “For a culture and a nation to cut itself off from the great ethical and religious forces of its history,” says Ratzinger, “is to commit suicide.” The Christian Church thus must exercise a vital public mission in the world today. Address to Italian President (2005) In 2005, when he became pope, Benedict continued to speak about the appropriate role that the Church ought to hold in society. During a visit to the Italian President Carlo Ciampi, he reaffirmed the teaching of Gaudium et Spes §76, that the Church and state are autonomous and independent. What binds them together is their commitment to a common project of seeking the welfare of the human person, though in different ways.The Pope argues that, when the message of Christ the Savior is heard, “the civil community also becomes more responsible and attentive to the needs of the common good and shows greater solidarity with the poor, the abandoned and the marginalized.”11 The Church carries out “a humanizing service” by her teachings on moral values. On another occasion in Italy shortly thereafter, Benedict also Joseph Ratzinger, Réponse, Installation du Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger comme associé étranger, November 6, 1992, accessed May 4, 2017, http://www.asmp.fr/ fiches_academiciens/textacad/ratzinger/installation_ratzinger.pdf. 11 Benedict XVI, “Address to the President of the Italian Republic,” June 24, 2005, Zenit.org, July 1, 2005; accessed May 4, 2017, https://zenit.org/articles/ benedict-xvi-s-address-to-president-of-italy. 10 892 Christopher M. Cullen, S.J. quotes John Paul II’s 1991 encyclical Centissimus Annus, §46: “a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.”12 Although room exists for a healthy secularism of the state, this does not mean that the Church may be excluded from its role as teacher of morals. Weekly Audience (2005) At a weekly audience in September 2005, Benedict discussed the unique role that the Church holds in society. “At the very center of social life,” he teaches, “there must be . . . a presence that evokes the mystery of the transcendent God.” 13 The Pope returns frequently to the Church’s sacramental role. Without it, society risks being utterly secularized, which in turn involves the threat of authentic freedom’s being lost to relativism. He does not think that the Church’s central role in social life involves any special privileges, “but only the legitimate conditions of freedom and action to fulfill its mission.” In return for this freedom, the Church, he says, will work to safeguard the dignity of every person and to work for the common good. “The Soul of Europe” (2005) In an article published after becoming pope but written before, Benedict discusses three models for how church–state relations can work in practice: one is the secular model, in which the state is strictly separated from any religious bodies; the second is the state–church model found in liberal Protestantism in Germany and northern Europe; and the third model is socialism, which in turn took two paths—either democratic socialism or totalitarianism. Benedict praises democratic socialism for providing a significant public role to churches that counterbalances the extremes of the secular and state–Church models.14 Benedict thinks that the American political order falls somewhere between the secular and state–church model. It divides church and state without denying Benedict XVI, “Address to the Italian Christian Workers’ Association (A.C.L.I.),” Clementine Hall, January 27, 2006, accessed May 4, 2017, http:// w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2006/january/documents/ hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060127_acli.html. 13 Benedict XVI, Weekly Audience, Wednesday, September 14, 2005, accessed May 4, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2005/ documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20050914.html (quotation translation taken from https://zenit.org/articles/pope-stresses-need-for-god-s-presence-in-sociallife, accessed May 4, 2017). 14 Benedict XVI, “The Soul of Europe,” Inside the Vatican, July 2005: 13–14. 12 On the Political Order 893 churches an important public weight, as he puts it.15 Democracies need the Church, because without its contribution, they lose the very freedom that they are meant to insure. The underlying value of human dignity precedes any human political act.16 Particularly interesting in this text is Benedict’s refusal to advocate a bland religious indifferentism that would regard all religions as equally good signs of transcendence. He clearly thinks that the Roman Catholic Church must preach its fundamental doctrines without embarrassment or attenuation. This robust Catholicism may mean that certain partially committed Catholics may leave. Indeed, the Church may grow smaller, even as committed Catholics can give witness in modern society to the parable of the mustard seed. Numbers are not what matters, urges Benedict, who reminds us of the transformative power of the unvarnished Gospel. It gives an antidote to relativism, the pandemic disease that imperils the very existence of liberal democracies. Ironically, to a large extent, it is the effect of the freedom that is liberalism’s cornerstone. Although originally constructed to insure religious tolerance, liberalism has often led to an indifferentism that denies both universal truth claims and religion’s public role.17 Apostolic Journey to the United Kingdom (2010) Benedict’s state visit to the United Kingdom was arguably the single most important of his papacy. Given the turbulent history of England and the Holy See in the reign of Henry VIII, any encounter between these two heads of government would be historic. The pontiff used this opportunity to enter into a carefully considered dialogue with modern secular politics. That he chose the country whose defection from the Church of Rome in the sixteenth century secured the eventual and enduring success of the Protestant Reformation is also significant. For these reasons, the two major addresses of this journey make required study for anyone wishing to understand Benedict’s own political thought. On September 16, 2010, the Pope was greeted by Queen Elizabeth II at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, the monarch’s official residence in Scotland. In his opening remarks, Benedict sets the Ibid, 13. Ibid., 14. 17 For Benedict’s treatment of the political order in his encyclicals, see the other articles in this present issue of Nova et Vetera (English). 15 16 894 Christopher M. Cullen, S.J. stage for his entire visit. He recalls the Christian roots of the Queen’s realm, noting that “the monarchs of England and Scotland have been Christians from very early times” and that saints like Edward the Confessor and Margaret of Scotland shine lustrously.18 Benedict here follows a strategy employed by his predecessor. When making an apostolic journey, John Paul II would remind the hosts of the Christian identity of the local culture, recall the historic bonds between the Church and the local society, and reaffirm the transformative force for good of Christianity in culture. Accordingly, Benedict proceeds to cite William Wilberforce’s work to end the international slave trade, Florence Nightengale’s service to the poor and sick, and Cardinal Newman’s eloquent inspiration to his fellow citizens. Finally, he cites at length Christian pastors “who spoke the truth in love” when they stood against Nazi tyranny. Benedict summarizes Christianity’s historical role with clarity: As we reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the twentieth century let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a reductive vision of the person and his destiny.19 In continuing, Benedict reminds the Queen that her government and people have been shapers of ideas that have had an impact far beyond the British Isles. On the following day, the Pope addressed members of Parliament and other civil and religious leaders in Westminster Hall. In his talk, Benedict explicitly takes up “the perennial question of the relationship of what is owed to Caesar and what is owed to God.”20 He “Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI, Audience with HM The Queen and State Reception,” Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, September 16, 2010, L’Osservatore Romano, September 17, 2010, 8, accessed May 4, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2010/september/ documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20100916_incontro-autorita.html. Here he is quoting his encyclical Caritas in Veritate (2009) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 101 (2009): 641–709], §29. 19 https://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2010/september/ documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20100916_incontro-autorita.html (originally published in L’Osservatore Romano, September 17, 2010, 8). 20 “Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI, Meeting with Representatives of British Society, Including the Diplomatic Corps, Politicians, Academics and Business Leaders,” Westminster Hall, City of Westminster, September 17, 18 On the Political Order 895 says that he wants to reflect on “the proper place of religious belief within the political process.” Early on, he cites the case of St. Thomas More. It brings to the fore the “dilemma” of loyalty to both God and Caesar. He thus comes to his central question: “Where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found?” Benedict responds that it is found in reason’s prescinding from the content of revelation. This claim has two implications: first, that the role of religion is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be discovered by non-believers; and second, that religion’s role is not to propose concrete political solutions, because this role is outside the “competence of religion.” Religion, Benedict argues, helps to “purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles.” Benedict admits that religion’s corrective role is not always welcomed, in no small part because of “distorted forms of religion, such as sectarianism and fundamentalism,” which can create social problems themselves. On the other hand, Benedict warns that reason, too, can fall prey to distortions when it rejects the corrective supplied by religion. He mentions two such distortions: that reason can be manipulated by ideology and that reason can be applied in a way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person. He then supplies two examples from history of these distortions: the slave trade and the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. In order to avoid the distortion of either faith or reason, the Pontiff avers that secular rationality and religious belief need one another. Their “dialogue” is good for “our civilization.” “Religion . . . is not a problem for legislators to solve, but a vital contributor to the national conversation.” Benedict then proceeds to warn of the marginalization of religion, and Christianity in particular, that is taking place in some quarters. Some would silence it or relegate it to the private sphere. He warns against Christians in public roles being required to act against their conscience. Benedict encourages the assembled leaders to promote the dialogue between faith and reason at every level of national life. He cites examples of how religion has contributed to effective action for the public good, such as food production, clean water, job creation, education, support to families, especially migrants, and basic 2010, accessed May 4, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/ en/speeches/2010/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20100917_societa-civile.html. 896 Christopher M. Cullen, S.J. healthcare. In addition, he alludes to the Holy See’s role in promoting peaceful relations among nations. Finally, he insists on the freedom of the Church to act according to its principles in the public square, and on the basic rights of religious freedom, freedom of conscience, and freedom of association. A Ratzingerian View of Church–State Relations In his book Heart of the World, Center of the Church, David Schindler attempts to clarify the contemporary possibilities for configuring church–state relations in the post-Vatican II age. His analysis of the spectrum of opinion helps to clarify Benedict’s own position. Schindler points to Gaudium et Spes §§ 36 and 59 as setting the stage by their affirmation of a certain autonomy for the secular order. 21 He then sketches the various postconciliar options that seem to be left standing by Vatican II. Schindler calls one option neoconservatism, which accepts many elements of liberalism and, so, insists that church and state both recognize their proper spheres of influence. This view is a sort of Catholic liberalism, in Schindler’s view, because it tends to regard the Church as having reconciled itself with democratic liberalism. According to Catholic liberals (among whom Schindler counts the Jesuit John Courtney Murray), the Church’s involvement with the secular order is to be strictly limited in order to preserve the legitimate autonomies of the secular and the divine orders. This does not deny that the Church contributes to the common good by helping to build a public morality. Still, the Church must never lose sight of its heavenly mission and transcendent purpose. Neoconservatism tends to what Schindler calls a dualism that separates too strongly the divine and secular orders. Indeed, the dualism of Schindler’s neocons is not really all that far from the dualism of Thomists, who tend to hold that the secular and divine orders are distinct, each having its own integrity.22 Thomists recognize the superiority of the divine sphere but insist that secular authority appropriately governs its own David L. Schindler, Heart of the World, Center of the Church: Communio Ecclesiology, Liberalism, and Liberation (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996), 5. This work will be cited in the text below parenthetically by page number. 22 Cf. Michael Novak, “Thomas Aquinas, the First Whig: What Our Liberties Owe to a Neapolitan Mendicant,” Crisis, October 1, 1990, accessed May 4, 2017, http://www.crisismagazine.com/1990/thomas-aquinas-the-first-whigwhat-our-liberties-owe-to-a-neapolitan-mendicant. 21 On the Political Order 897 sphere, not by delegation but by nature. Hence, there ought to be no interference by the ecclesial authority in the secular, except when the moral law is gravely imperiled. Schindler calls the second option liberationism. It thinks that the Church lives in desperate need of turning herself to the world and learning from it. Indeed, the Church is to embrace a preferential love for the poor and to collaborate at all levels with people of good will in order to build a just social order. This urgent task necessarily involves breaking down the barriers between the Church and the world; but what is more, the Church must come to recognize its own failures in reversing unjust social structures. Liberationists tend to regard the Church as deeply complicit in these structures. Hence the Church must forgo its stance of superiority. She can never stand outside of the world, lecturing it about what is just. Instead, the Church must confess its guilt, come down from its magisterial pulpit, and take up the hard task of learning how to build a just society from those who have already been so engaged. Although liberationism blurs the distinction between church and world, it integrates the two orders by subordinating church to the state. It thus differs from the integralism of the right, which subordinates state to church. Schindler thinks that both postconciliar options find warrant in Vatican II (3). Advocating neither position, however, he opts for “a third way” that avoids their extremes (9). This middle path, charted by communio ecclesiology, holds that the Christian should stand at the heart of the world even while remaining in the center of the Church. Schindler points to Hans Urs von Balthasar as this position’s origin. In fact, he believes that Balthasar has correctly outlined what Vatican II really meant when it called for greater openness to the world (1–2, notes 1–2). As Schindler puts it, “The burden of communio ecclesiology is that the Church can be itself only [also] by penetrating the world—and hence the world’s social-economic orders—with itself ” (10). As such, the Church resembles the soul vivifying the body with its own life. Communio ecclesiology thus avoids the errors of liberationism, which loses the Church in the world, and the errors of neoconservatism, which keeps the Church alongside the world (10). The one extreme assimilates the Church to the world, whereas the other separates the Church from the world. By contrast, in communio ecclesiology, the Church subsists as the sacrament of Christ for a world transformed by new life. Schindler describes this life as a marriage in which “the whole world, in and through the Church, is destined for a transfiguring espousal with Jesus Christ” (21). 898 Christopher M. Cullen, S.J. Benedict’s approach moderates between the extremes of integralist confessionalism and secularism. In the middle, however, it shares considerable company with Thomists or neoconservatives and Schindler’s political theology. Yet Benedict seems to offer a distinctive position, a sort of hybrid, which agrees with Thomists’ positive appraisal of the American political order on the one hand and with the Communio school’s keen sense of the Church’s public role on the other hand. What seems absent are some of the traditional notions that served as the political foundation of Christendom. Particularly absent, given Ratzinger’s own Theology of History in Saint Bonaventure, is any retrieval of political Augustinianism. This name has been given by scholars to the medieval tendency, articulated especially in the thirteenth century, to absorb the secular order into the sacred, thus subordinating state to church.23 It contends that the secular power lacks justice, and thus legitimacy, without juridical incorporation into a distinctly Christian society sanctioned by the Church. It appeals to texts in the The City of God such as: “Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies?”24 Conclusion: The Benedict Option Roman Catholics will no doubt remember the Lent of four years ago for the rest of their lives. They suddenly found themselves confronted with an occurrence that will remain in the history books until the last trumpet: the first abdication of a Roman pontiff in nearly six hundred years (the last one being Gregory XII’s in 1415). From henceforth, in every biography of Benedict XVI, whether long or short, one of the first events mentioned will be his renunciation of the Petrine Ministry on February 28, 2013. Most people have focused on Benedict’s stated reason for his decision: his lack of strength of a healthy mind and body. But perhaps what is more worthy of consideration is the nature of the life that he has chosen for his retirement. Based on his declared intention to retire to a life of prayer, Benedict XVI is effectively fulfilling the monastic vocation implicit in his namesake, St. Benedict of Nursia. Henri-Xavier Arquillière, L’augustinisme politique: essai sur la formation des théories politiques du Moyen-Âge (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1934). See also Walter Ullmann, A History of Political Thought in the Middle Ages (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1965). 24 Augustine, The City of God 4.4. For more, see Charles McIlwain, The Growth of Political Thought in the West, from the Greeks to the End of the Middle Ages (New York: Macmillan, 1932). 23 On the Political Order 899 In a sense, the Pope Emeritus lives as a monk in his own monastery, in the heart of the Vatican, in the heart of the city of Rome. With regard to this new life, we do well to ask if Benedict is not exercising “the Benedict option.”25 This term applies to those Christians who have chosen to separate themselves from modern secular culture. It ultimately derives from the closing lines of Alasdair McIntyre’s seminal work After Virtue. There, at the end of his survey of the progressive breakdown of contemporary ethical discourse, he famously asks whether we are waiting for a new, though very different, St. Benedict. This new figure is to lead us back to communities where the virtues can flourish. Possessing a unifying narrative and common purpose, they will provide the context necessary to sustain the moral life. 26 In an address originally given to the Italian senate in 2004 and later published in Without Roots, Ratzinger speaks of two different philosophies of history: those of Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee. Spengler claims that cultures follow the law of a natural life cycle through various stages from birth, to a rise and flourishing, then to a decline and death. In his view, not only is the West declining, but nothing can be done to prevent its extinction. Still, it could bequeath its heritage to a new culture. Toynbee argues harshly against Spengler. He contrasts scientific progress, which is material, with true progress, which is spiritual. He argues that the West is in a crisis because it has embraced “secularism” by abandoning religion for “the cult of technology, nationalism, and militarism” (WR, 68). Toynbee rejects Spengler’s determinism and insists that the fate of any society lies with its creative minorities. Perhaps in his monastic retreat, Benedict, ratifying Toynbee, seeks to become a creative minority of one. Much as every monk withdraws from the world to enter more profoundly into the mystery of faith, so too has Benedict XVI. In doing so, he continues to be the teacher and professor that he has always been, in so far as his newly chosen life instructs the larger Christian world, in a renewed and unusual way, about the role of contemplation and prayer in the Christian life. For the modern age, in which so many people have come to see the will to power as the Rod Dreher, “Benedict Option,” The American Conservative, December 13, 2013, accessed May 4, 2017, http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/benedict-option. 26 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980), 245. 25 900 Christopher M. Cullen, S.J. key to the meaning of history, Benedict’s life of solitude gives witness that, ultimately, we are born for intimacy with God.27 That Benedict should end his extraordinary life in such quietude is not surprising when we consider his understanding of prayer: Christian prayer holds the key to making the whole world a celebration, a feast, namely affirmation. Asiatic contemplation is not affirmation but liberation through the renunciation of being. The Marxist approach is not affirmation but outrage, opposition to being because it is bad and so must be changed. Prayer is an act of being; it is affirmation of the ground of being and hence a purifying of myself and the world from this ground upward.28 In his death on the Cross, Christ is the model of this prayer, and so Benedict also speaks of the “paradox of divine truth that shines forth precisely in the Crucified as extreme poverty and powerlessness: he is the icon of God because he is the manifestation of love, and for that N&V reason the cross is his glorification.”29 Contrast Aristotle, for whom the purpose of life is the mind’s divine union, with Nietzsche, for whom Christianity, insofar as it preaches meekness and humility, represents the attempt of the weak to gain power and dominance over the strong. 28 Joseph Ratzinger, “On the Theological Basis of Prayer and Liturgy,” in The Essential Pope Benedict XVI: His Central Writings and Speeches, ed. John F. Thornton and Susan B.Varenne (New York: Harper, 2007), 155–66, at 163–64; reprinted from The Feast of Faith: Approaches to a Theology of the Liturgy, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986) [originally Das Fest des Glaubens:Versuche über die kirchliche Liturgie (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1981)], 11–32. 29 Joseph Ratzinger, A New Song for the Lord: Faith in Christ and Liturgy Today, trans. Martha M. Matesich (New York: Crossroad, 1996) [originally Ein neues Lied für den Herrn: Christusglauben und Liturgie in der Gegenwart (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 1995)], 25. 27 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2017): 901–924 901 On Eschatology Peter F. Ryan, S.J. Sacred Heart Major Seminary Detroit, MI New Emphasis on Eschatology Ratzinger begins his Eschatology1 by noting that this subject, long treated as a relatively minor feature in the theological landscape, is now regarded as lying in the very heart of theology. Why such a change in theological perspective? In significant part, he explains, this is because of the influential work of theologians like Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer, who noted that, in Jesus’s preaching, the message about the imminent end of the world and the coming of the Kingdom is central (1–2).2 The particular character of this new focus on eschatology cannot Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, trans. Michael Waldstein, trans ed. Aidan Nichols, O.P. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988) [originally Eschatologie:Tod und ewiges Leben, ed. Alphonse Auer and Joseph Ratzinger, Kleine Katholische Dogmatik 9 (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1977); includes two appendices written after the appearance of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Letter on “Certain Questions Concerning Eschatology,” May 17, 1979). This work will be cited parenthetically in the text by page number. 2 I have no reason to think that Benedict XVI would want to distance himself from the views expressed in Eschatology, but because he wrote it well before he became pope, I shall respectfully refer to the author as Joseph Ratzinger.While the book includes an extensive treatment of purgatory, I shall not treat it in this article. Cf. Johannes Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1892), and Albert Schweitzer, Die Messianitätsund Leidengeheimnis: eine Skizze des Lebens Jesu (Tübingen: Mohr, 1901), and Von Reimarus ze Wrede. Eine Geschichte der Leben-Jesu Forschung (Tübingen: Mohr [P. Siebeck], 1906). 1 902 Peter F. Ryan, S.J. be accounted for only by the new exegetical methods employed by Scripture scholars. Rather, Ratzinger says we must notice the influence of two currents in European culture: existentialism, which interpreted Jesus’s message about the end according to its own philosophical canons; and Marxism, which uprooted from its theistic context the promise of a life of future happiness and applied it to the future life of the present world, thus claiming to make it more real than the “pie in the sky” offered by theism in general and Christianity in particular. The effect of these cultural currents on theology is that “the classical themes of the doctrine of the last things—heaven and hell, purgatory and judgment, death and the immortality of the soul—are conspicuous by their absence.” Ratzinger avers that, while the study of eschatology rightly concerns itself with the way the future is related to our present life, we cannot ignore “these omitted topics,” since they “belong intrinsically to what is specific in the Christian view of the age-to-come and its presence here and now” (4). I will not recount Ratzinger’s exposition and critique of the views of the various theologians who would minimize and even deny the importance of those topics, but it is worth attending to the two sets of reflections he offers after considering their views. In the first, he insists on courage and modesty: the courage to see the latest theories in historical context and “the modesty of not claiming to have just discovered what Christianity is all about by dint of one’s own ingenuity.” Humility is required of one who “submits to reality.” Instead of “inventing Christian truth as a newly discovered ‘find,’” he says one should truly find it “in the sacramental community of the faith of all periods” (60). Here the theme that serves as the backdrop for his entire treatment of eschatology (namely, the Church as the subject and “inner living context” of doctrinal development) moves into the foreground (270). Unless we turn to what he calls “the plenary authority of the communitarian history of faith, that is, in the Church,” we are bereft of the all-important subject (260). Ratzinger speaks of a “succession of phenomena (of texts)” that lack “the binding power of internalization” and leave us with “a mere succession of contradictory stages in faith and ecclesial life” (270). He explains that, when texts are only partly reconcilable, “contemporary theology has no other option save to fall back on the most ancient of its texts,” the Bible itself. Sacred Scripture is, of course, the text par excellence, but if we attempt to interpret it apart from the Church, understood as the authoritative subject that perdures throughout history, we are, in effect, attempting to “attach to whatever one On Eschatology 903 takes to be primitive and Jesus-like a self-illuminating philosophy one has concocted for oneself ” (270). This is hardly a promising enterprise. As we shall see, our author finds it at work especially in the dispute about the immortality of the soul and resurrection, which he treats at far greater length than any other topic in his book. Ratzinger’s other set of reflections about the new emphasis on eschatology concerns the significance of the Christian transformation of Jewish assumptions about salvation history. Oscar Cullmann had pointed out that, as Ratzinger puts it, “Jewish thought knew only one decisive demarcation of time after the creation”—namely, “the moment of Parousia with which the new aeon is to begin.” From the perspective of the Old Testament, that moment is “the midpoint of time” (52). This framework was radically and decisively altered by the preaching of Jesus. His appearance marks the midpoint of time, but it is not yet the Parousia and the new age. To recall Cullman’s analogy, just as there is a significant interval between D-Day, the day of the decisive battle, and V-Day, when victory is celebrated, so also there is a considerable period of history between the appearance of Jesus, who definitively overcomes evil and ushers in the Kingdom, and the full appearance of that Kingdom in the cosmic transformation Jesus promised (52).3 What is the significance of this interval? As Ratzinger points out, “the problem of the expectation of an imminent end ceases, therefore, to be a pressing one,” since the new perspective on history and eschatology made possible by this interval is far more important than the question of how long it will last (53). Reflecting on this new perspective, he notes that it “has the effect of radically transforming both the idea and the reality of what we call salvation.” “The Jewish people,” he says, “were expecting salvation in the form of a change of circumstances affecting the whole cosmos: a kind of religiously grounded shangri-la” along the lines described in the accounts of Jesus’s temptations: “Bread from desert soil, sensational signs and wonders, assured political power over the entire world.” He notes that “all political propaganda lives off such attitudes of expectation” (61). He argues, however, that the experience of unrestrained consumption reveals the yearning of the human heart for something more; namely, “emancipation so total that it is equivalent to asking that men become God” (62). Cf. Oscar Cullmann, Christus und die Zeit: Die urchristliche Zeit- und Geschichtsauffassung, 2nd ed. (Zurich, CH: Evangelisher, 1948), 71–72. 3 904 Peter F. Ryan, S.J. Ratzinger does not consider that yearning to be misconceived, but he says we must avoid pursuing emancipation in the manner of Prometheus—and Adam and Eve—by attempting to take it by stealth. Such a pursuit is self-defeating, for the emancipation at stake “is not a product but a gift” that we are powerless to give to ourselves (66). He explains: “By making himself like unto God he sets himself over against truth, and so the adventure ends in that nothingness where truth is not.” In point of fact, however, “the Son’s obedience on the Cross is the place where man’s divinization is accomplished” (64). And so, he says, we receive that divinization only if our “lifestyle is cruciform and therefore Son-like.” Since this means that we must abandon egotism, it becomes clear that we must will salvation, not only for ourselves and those near and dear, but for everyone. Moreover, as Henri de Lubac argued at length, salvation “cannot simply be given people in some external way, as one might hand over a sum of money,” for it claims “the entire personal subject who receives it” (65).4 Since the emancipation at issue involves nothing less than our divinization, Ratzinger says it cannot be experienced in its fullness through a mere “modification of our earthly circumstances.” Rather, it requires “liberation from the constraints of cosmos and history alike.” He therefore insists that “the Kingdom of God, salvation in its fullness, cannot be deprived of its connection with dying” (62). Connection between Death and Resurrection: Life in the Kingdom Before Ratzinger explains his understanding of this connection, he considers how death is regarded in contemporary culture and offers incisive comments. He notes two seemingly contradictory aspects of Ratzinger clearly understands divinization as a gift (66), and he apparently agrees with theologians like de Lubac regarding the desire for divinization as innate. When he says that the human heart yearns for it and that it cannot be given in an external way, he implies that we have more than just an obediential potency for it. But the question arises as to how to ground the gratuity of divinization if the desire for it is built into our nature and it is impossible in principle to find adequate happiness without it. For de Lubac’s account of the relation between human nature, the desire for supernatural fulfillment, and the gift of that fulfillment, see The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. Rosemary Sheed (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967). For a discussion of both de Lubac and his critics on this problem and a proposed solution, see Peter F. Ryan, S.J., “How Can the Beatific Vision both Fulfill Human Nature and Be Utterly Gratuitous?” Gregorianum 83, no. 4 (2002): 717–54. 4 On Eschatology 905 the way society treats death. On the one hand, it hides death away. Instead of being an integral part of the life of the family, death is concealed in hospitals; the very word “death” is avoided, and euphemisms are used in its place. On the other hand, society treats death as a thrilling spectacle, as is evident, for example, in graphic television crime shows. Though these aspects are quite different, each in its own way obscures the profound metaphysical questions that death poses about its meaning and man’s destiny. “Schleiermacher,” he recalls, “once spoke of birth and death as ‘hewed out perspectives’ through which man peers into the infinite.” But Ratzinger says that, in contemporary culture, death is “deprived of its character as a place where the metaphysical breaks through” (70). Like sickness, death is treated as a mere technological problem. In a “Litany of the Unbelievers,” he wryly observes, the Christian prayer asking God to deliver us “from a death that is sudden and unprepared for” would be “just the opposite: a sudden and unprovided death grant to us, O Lord.” The assumption, he says, is that “death really ought to happen at a stroke, and leave no time for reflection or suffering” (71). This problematic attitude toward death has been exacerbated by the push for euthanasia, which turns death into a product to be sought after. Ratzinger explains that its “purpose is to slam the door on metaphysics before it has a chance to come in,” and he adds that “the price for this ban on fear is very high. . . . The dehumanizing of death necessarily brings with it the dehumanizing of life as well. When human sickness and dying are reduced to the level of technological activity, so is man himself. Where it becomes too dangerous to accept death in a human way, being human has itself become too dangerous” (71–72). Our author goes on to observe that people move toward “a positivistic, technocratic world view,” even as they nostalgically yearn “for some unspoiled state of nature,” and “in this latter tendency, rational self-consciousness is regarded as the culprit that breached the peace of paradise, and man as the one animal that took a wrong turning” (72). In both cases, what is valued is a world without true reflection. In failing to grasp the dignity of the human person, such a view inevitably fails to appreciate the profound significance of death. Ratzinger takes up the theme of death’s significance by first surveying the theological landscape and observing how quickly the traditional teaching on the immortality of the soul dropped out of view. Theologians like Paul Althaus and Eberhard Jüngel contributed to its virtual disappearance by decrying the influence of Greek 906 Peter F. Ryan, S.J. thought on Christianity, especially with respect to its concept of the human person and death. According to these theologians, the Greek understanding of the human person is radically idealistic and dualistic. As Ratzinger explains: “The divine flame of the spirit is imprisoned in the dungeon of the body,” and at death “the gates of that prison house are flung wide open and the soul steps forth into that freedom and immortality which are its by right” (73).5 Such a view is obviously antithetical to the biblical understanding that regards the human person “in his undivided wholeness and unity” (74). These authors assume, however, that the only way to preserve the biblical view is to understand death as the annihilation of the human person. This view enables them both to see death as the destroying enemy, as Scripture describes it, and to highlight the radical significance of the Resurrection. Ratzinger argues, to the contrary, that such an understanding betrays a failure to appreciate the complexity of both Greek thought and biblical anthropology. On the one hand, in Greek thought, the afterlife is not uniformly treated as preferable to life here and now. Moreover, Plato’s concern was not to advocate a flight from this world but to support his conviction that the polis can thrive only if people grasp the significance of self-abandonment for the sake of truth. On the other hand, although Scripture does not speak explicitly about the immortality of the soul, Jesus’s promise from the Cross to the good thief that “today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 16:19–31), his parable about Lazarus dying and resting in “Abraham’s bosom” while the world continues (Luke 16:19–31), and the Book of Revelation’s reference to the souls of martyrs “under the altar” awaiting their full complement (Rev 6:9) clearly indicate that the Bible cannot reasonably be understood as teaching that “in between the first Easter and our own resurrection human beings. . . . sink into nothingness” (246). Ratzinger explains that the tendency to deny the immortality of the soul is already found in Luther, who at least used the biblical term “sleep” to refer to the stage between death and resurrection. But one wonders: to what does “sleep” in this context refer? It must refer either to a person’s being asleep or to a state of non-existence between death and resurrection. Ratzinger argues, however, that neither interpretation vindicates resurrection apart from the doctrine Cf. Paul Althaus, Die letzten Dinge: Lehrbuch der Eschatologie, 6th ed. (Gütersloh: Kreuz, 1956), and Eberhard Jüngel, Tod (Stuttgart: C. Bertelsmann, 1971). 5 On Eschatology 907 of the immortality of the soul. If “sleep” refers to a person’s being asleep, then death is not the absolute cessation of the person after all and the aspect of the person that survives death could reasonably be called the soul. If “sleep” refers to a state of non-existence, then the question arises as to how the same individual who died and no longer exists could be raised. In short, although sleep is a biblical and appropriate word to use for death, it does not bear either of the above meanings. Christians have understood it to mean conscious life before resurrection (251). Following the lead of Protestant theologians Ernst Troeltsch and Karl Barth, Catholic theologians, before and especially after Vatican II, responded to these criticisms by developing a theory of resurrection in death. They noted that time and eternity are utterly incommensurable and argued that, when a person dies, he “steps out of time” and enters into “the end of the world” and, so, also “into Christ’s return and the resurrection of the dead” (251–52). By thus removing the intermediate state, these theologians obviated the need for the soul to account for the preservation of the individual’s identity. This approach also enabled Barth to find meaning in the scriptural warnings about an imminent end of the world. Ratzinger notes the problems attendant on this approach. If the person is an absolutely unitary reality, then he ceases to exist at death. What then can it mean for him to rise at death if his body is laid in a tomb and has no connection with that alleged resurrection? If his dead body does not step out of time and into eternity, then what does? The only solution is to hold that an aspect of his personhood perdures—the aspect traditionally called the soul. Otherwise, the resurrection body that is allegedly given is not given to anyone and has no connection with the bodily person who previously existed. Far from overcoming dualism, this idea of what Ratzinger calls a disconnected “post-mortem second body” is profoundly dualistic (252). Moreover, this dualism apparently lasts forever, because the approach fails to account for the destiny of the cosmos and “reduces Christian hope to the level of the individual” (267). If resurrection happens even as the body lies in the grave, what becomes of those bodies and all else that comprise the only physical universe we know? Ratzinger’s broader critique of this theory is that it ascribes to the word “resurrection” a meaning impossible for ordinary believers to grasp because it is plainly opposed to the way it has been traditionally understood. “To be sure,” he explains, “one can bring the believer to the conclusion that there is no immortality of the soul. But no 908 Peter F. Ryan, S.J. preaching idiom will ever make him understand that his dead friend is, by that very fact, risen from the dead.” Those who advance this theory begin by trying to rid themselves of the barnacles of tradition in order to find the true meaning of the text of Scripture, but they end by moving “beyond the Bible both in language and thought” (254). That result is to be expected when theologians follow the counter-historical impulse of the age. Ratzinger does not content himself with simply criticizing these theories. He also provides positive arguments to support the traditional view that the soul is both immortal and the substrate for bodily resurrection. He points out that the concept of the soul in Christianity is not simply imported wholesale from philosophy. Rather, Christianity avails itself of insights from philosophy and other disciplines, reflects on them, develops them, and draws them into unity by bringing truths of revelation to bear on them. Ratzinger notes in particular St. Thomas’s development of the Aristotelian doctrine of form and matter to account for the unity between body and soul, and he considers it a profound advance in the history of thought. The soul gives life to the body, and in turn, it becomes matter-stamped. Thus, though the soul perdures after the body dies, it never loses its orientation to matter (257–58). Ratzinger notices, however, that “the Thomistic teaching cannot preserve the self-identity of the body before and after death.” If the soul is the only form of the body, then when the body is separated from the soul, it lacks a unifying form, and the soul is not related to that body any more than to any other part of the material creation. He says, “This might seem to be an advantage in the case of the question of the resurrection,” but he notes that “it has anthropological and ontological consequences which are strange, to say the least.” For example, “if the body derives its identity in no way from matter but entirely from the soul,” then the corpse of Jesus, no longer informed by the soul, cannot be identified with the one who was crucified (180). So also the significance of parenthood is called into question if our bodies receive their identity only from the soul, which is created immediately by God and not passed on by parents. Seeing these problems, Ratzinger notes that, while the right direction is indicated by Thomas’s explanation (namely, that the soul is the form making the body properly human), still “a repristinization of a thoroughgoing Thomism is not the way we seek” (181). On Eschatology 909 Is Bodily Life in the Kingdom Imaginable? Here I will offer some critical comments. Ratzinger rightly criticizes certain efforts to account for the self-identity of the body before and after death, but he does not consider the problem that arises when such an account is lacking—namely, that bodily resurrection becomes impossible to imagine. Indeed, far from regarding that impossibility as a problem, he treats it as a positive feature. After speaking of “the derivation of the identity of the body not from matter but from the person, the soul,” he adds: “Bodiliness is something other than a summation of corpuscles” (181). Elsewhere he says: The Assumption [of Mary] cannot mean, of course, that some bones and corpuscles of blood are forever preserved somewhere. It means something much more important and profound. To wit: that what continues to exist is not just a part of a human being—the part which we call the soul and which is separated out from the whole—while so much else is annihilated.6 Those statements strike me as problematic. As Ratzinger beautifully explains, Mary’s whole person did indeed enter into heaven and whole persons will enter heaven at the resurrection of the dead on the last day. But should we say that bones and corpuscles of blood did not and will not enter? The orientation toward having a body is rightly attributed to the soul, and the body is informed by the soul, but the body itself is a material entity that has certain attributes. If we should not think of the resurrected body as composed of blood and bone, then how should we think of it? Is it appropriate to think of it as including limbs and organs? Apparently not, because Ratzinger states quite bluntly: “The new world cannot be imagined. Nothing concrete or imaginable can be said about the relations of man to matter in the new world, or about the ‘risen body.’” He rightly insists on “the certainty that the dynamism of the cosmos leads towards a goal, a situation in which matter and spirit will belong to each other in a new and definitive fashion” (194). But is that enough? Is it really the case that not only the beatific vision but even the new earth is utterly beyond our ability to imagine? Joseph Ratzinger, Dogma and Preaching, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1965) [originally Dogma und Verkündigung (Munich: Erich Wewel, 1973)], 116–17. 6 910 Peter F. Ryan, S.J. Ratzinger understands 1 Cor 15:50 as expressing that view: “I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor the perishable the imperishable.” He writes: “Here all naturalistic or physicalistic ideas of the resurrection are set aside. At a stroke, all speculation about how the perishable might become imperishable is rendered superfluous. According to Paul, this is precisely what will not happen” (169). It seems to me, however, that “flesh and blood” refers to our current condition of life. The statement “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God” is parallel to “nor the perishable the imperishable” and indicates that Paul means that mortal living human beings cannot inherit the kingdom.7 What is perishable cannot, qua perishable, inherit the imperishable.8 It must first be made imperishable.9 The further context shows this, for Paul goes on to speak of the need to “put on” imperishability and immortality (1 Cor 15:53). The idea in context is not that something of our present bodily reality is lost, but that something else is added to it. He points to a transformation by perfection or addition or fulfillment, not by subtraction of anything, including blood and bones. 10 The view that it is impossible to imagine the new earth severely undermines the motivating power for action here and now of Raymond F. Collins understands this parallelism “as a form of synonymous parallelism, a kind of rhetorical repetitio in semitic fashion” (First Corinthians, ed. Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., Sacra Pagina 7 [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999], 579). 8 Gordon D. Fee states that “the perishable” in 1 Cor 15:50 refers “to that which in its present form is subject to decay, which in itself rules out its possibility for eternal longevity” (The First Epistle to the Corinthians, ed. F. F. Bruce, The New International Commentary on the New Testament [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987], 798). 9 Richard Kugelman, C.P., explains 1 Cor 15:50 thus: “The corruptible body of man must be transformed in order to participate in ‘the kingdom of God,’ i.e., in the life of glory” (“The First Letter to the Corinthians,” in The Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. Raymond E. Brown, S.S., Joseph A Fitzmyer, S.J., and Roland E. Murphy, O. Carm. [Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968], 274). 10 Commenting on 1 Cor 15:53 (“For it is necessary for this perishable being to put on imperishability and this mortal being to put on immortality”), Collins says: “The qualities the risen body must attain are emphasized in the pair of contrasts. That the qualities of imperishability and immortality are indicated by Greek terms that begin with a privative alpha suggests that these are not qualities that belong to the perishable and mortal being. Deprived of imperishability and immortality, the risen body must receive these qualities as a gift” (First Corinthians, 581). 7 On Eschatology 911 hoping for heavenly fulfillment. Here we glimpse something of the significance of eschatology for moral theology. If the imagination is deprived of an object to focus upon, the intellect cannot present the will with a concrete motive for action. This leaves the will directed toward the immediate and tangible; namely, a this-worldly fulfillment.11 Consider an analogy. A man tempted to sexual infidelity will be far more likely to be deterred if he pictures the wife he loves and the hurt such a choice would cause her than if he merely reminds himself of the fact that such a choice violates the natural law. He will be far more motivated to act uprightly by a good he can imagine than by an abstract idea of good. So also, a person will be far more motivated to cooperate with Jesus’s plan of salvation and store up for himself treasure in heaven if he is able to imagine what heavenly treasure is than if what he is storing up is, so far as he is concerned, simply an abstraction. Christological Account of Heaven To appreciate Ratzinger’s account of heaven, it helps to notice that the traditional tendency to view heaven as the immediate intellectual apprehension of God’s essence raises significant problems. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, holds that we naturally desire an absolutely perfect happiness that leaves nothing to be desired (Summa theologiae [hereafter, ST] I-II, q. 1, a. 5) and equates heavenly fulfillment with the beatific vision, which he considers uniquely capable of satisfying all our desires (ST I-II, q. 3, a. 8). However, if some people have the beatific vision before they experience bodily resurrection and all their desires are already satisfied, one wonders what difference the body can possibly make to their heavenly happiness. Thomas tries to resolve this problem by saying that, although the body is not essential for perfect beatitude, it adds well-being to it (ST I-II, q. 4, a. 5).12 But one is left wondering how, if the beatific vision really does fulfill us perfectly, the body could add any well-being at all to our heavenly fulfillment.Thomas also holds that the communion of friends is not essential for perfect beatitude, but adds well-being to it (ST I-II, q. 4, a. 8). Here, too, the same question arises: how can that communion in any way improve happiness that is already perfect? See James T. O’Connor, Land of the Living (New York: Catholic Book, 1992), 37. 12 See John Morreall, “Perfect Happiness and the Resurrection of the Body,” Religious Studies 16, no. 1 (1980): 29–35. 11 912 Peter F. Ryan, S.J. The problem vanishes when one no longer assumes that we naturally desire a perfect happiness that leaves nothing to be desired and when one no longer equates heaven with the beatific vision, but instead realizes that heavenly fulfillment is found in all of the various elements of the kingdom: the vision of God, to be sure, but also bodily resurrection and all that it enables us to enjoy—the communion of friends, the new heavens and the new earth, and the whole range of humanly fulfilling goods. This richer understanding of heavenly fulfillment finds support in the New Testament, which emphasizes resurrection much more than the vision of God. Of course, Scripture does promise that vision: Jesus himself proclaims the pure of heart blessed because “they shall see God” (Matt 5:8); St. Paul says that, although we presently see only “in a mirror dimly,” we shall see “face to face” (1 Cor 13:12); and St. John affirms that those who now are children of God shall in heaven “see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). But Jesus also affirms “that the dead are raised” (Luke 7:22), teaches that fulfillment in heaven is communal by comparing it to a wedding feast (see Matt 22:2; cf. Rev 19:7,9), and proclaims the meek blessed because “they shall inherit the earth” (Matt 5.5). And St. Paul speaks at length of the resurrection of the body, explaining that, even though we do not understand how God can raise us up, we should not doubt the reality of resurrection or downplay its significance (see 1 Cor 15). Paul also has much to say about the communal character of heaven (see Eph 1:18–23, 4:1–16) and its extension to all creation (see Rom 8:19–23). Ratzinger’s Christological understanding is more clearly grounded in Scripture and far less vulnerable to criticism than some traditional conceptions. Heaven “is not an extra-historical place,” for it “depends on the fact that Jesus Christ, as God, is man, and makes space for human existence in the existence of God himself ” (234; note omitted). Statements like this highlight a truth essential for a proper understanding of heaven; namely, that it includes both divine and human fulfillment. Although Ratzinger speaks of an apparently innate desire for divinization and, at various points, seems to identify heaven with the beatific vision, his focus on union with Christ the God-man suggests a far richer conception. It does justice to the fullness of our humanity and does not conflate human and divine fulfillment. Ratzinger’s remarks on the character of heaven as Christological are wonderfully startling: “One is in heaven when, and to the degree, that one is in Christ”; Christ “is heaven, the new Jerusalem” (234); and “the redeemed are not simply adjacent to each other On Eschatology 913 in heaven. Rather, in their being together as the one Christ, they are heaven” (238). As Pope Benedict XVI, Ratzinger has emphasized that, in the Eucharist, Christ makes us “one with him.”13 Christ draws us into unity by giving us “a real foretaste of the eschatological fulfillment for which every human being and all creation are destined (cf. Rom 8.19ff.).”14 The Eucharist guides us “towards our final goal,” which “is Christ himself,”15 and “sacramentally accomplishes the eschatological gathering of the People of God. For us, the eucharistic banquet is a real foretaste of the final banquet foretold by the prophets (cf. Is 25:6–9) and described in the New Testament as ‘the marriagefeast of the Lamb’ (Rev 19:7–9) to be celebrated in the joy of the communion of saints.”16 Pope Benedict’s appreciation of the centrality of the resurrection of the body is evident when he explains that, as viaticum, “communion in the Body and Blood of Christ appears as the seed of eternal life and the power of resurrection: “Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day ( John 6:54).”17 So also, despite his unwillingness to speak of Mary’s Assumption and our resurrection as realities that we can imagine, Benedict points out that “Mary’s Assumption body and soul into heaven is for us a sign of sure hope, for it shows us, on our pilgrimage through time, the eschatological goal of which the sacrament of the Eucharist enables us even now to have a foretaste.”18 Benedict emphasizes the social character of heaven by explaining that: “Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians. We become ‘one body,’ completely joined in a single existence. Love of God and love of neighbor are now truly united: God incarnate draws us all to himself.”19 Moreover, Benedict XVI, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (2007) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 99 (2007): 105–80], §66, accessed April 23, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20070222_sacramentum-caritatis.html. 14 Ibid., §30. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid, §31. 17 Ibid, §22. 18 Ibid, §33. 19 Pope Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est (2005) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 98 (2006): 217–52], §14, accessed April 23, 2017, http:// w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est.html. 13 Peter F. Ryan, S.J. 914 Benedict sees the Eucharist as the key that reveals the unity between God’s original creation and the new heavens and the new earth: The relationship between the Eucharist and the cosmos helps us to see the unity of God’s plan and to grasp the profound relationship between creation and the “new creation” inaugurated in the resurrection of Christ, the new Adam. Even now we take part in that new creation by virtue of our Baptism (cf. Col 2:12ff.). Our Christian life, nourished by the Eucharist, gives us a glimpse of that new world—new heavens and a new earth—where the new Jerusalem comes down from heaven, from God, “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev 21:2).20 This unity is able to come about because: The substantial conversion of bread and wine into his body and blood introduces within creation the principle of a radical change, a sort of “nuclear fission,” to use an image familiar to us today, which penetrates to the heart of all being, a change meant to set off a process which transforms reality, a process leading ultimately to the transfiguration of the entire world, to the point where God will be all in all (cf. 1 Cor 15:28).21 Ratzinger also calls attention to the uniqueness of each person’s fulfillment in heaven and to the importance of living now so as to expand our capacity to receive. But this uniqueness does not suggest individualism. Rather, the purpose of the expansion is “to be able to distribute all the more to our fellows. In the communion of the body of Christ, possession can only consist in giving, the riches of self-fulfillment in the passing on of gifts” (236). He does not discuss the precise character of the gifts that the blessed in heaven will give each other, but if he did, he would surely have to identify them not as the beatific vision itself, but as human gifts. Such a discussion might stir the imagination and also move the heart to desire heavenly fulfillment more intensely, so that one becomes willing to sacrifice now with a view to being all one can be in the heavenly communio. As noted, however, Ratzinger unfortunately excludes any possibility of imagining what heavenly life and sharing will be like. Ibid., §92. Ibid., §11. 20 21 On Eschatology 915 Free Will, Mercy, and Hell I now turn to Ratzinger’s brief but interesting treatment of hell. The influence of Hans Urs von Balthasar is unmistakable, especially in Ratzinger’s reference to “Jesus’s descent into Sheol, in the night of the soul which he suffered” (217) and the challenge “to experience communion with Christ in solidarity with his descent into the Night” (217–18). Yet Ratzinger, unlike Balthasar, never tries to make the case that hell might turn out to be empty of all human beings. Perhaps Ratzinger sees the weaknesses of some of the arguments used to defend that claim. Appeals to God’s goodness and mercy fail utterly to vindicate the claim, for they prove too much if they prove anything at all. God’s goodness, mercy, love, and so forth either are or are not compatible with some people’s ending in hell. If those attributes are compatible with some people’s ending in hell, then they cannot be used to support the claim that all human beings might well be saved. If they are not compatible with some people’s ending in hell, then they prove too much; namely, that it is necessarily the case that no one ends in hell. The same point can be made with respect to the Scripture passages cited by Balthasar that seem to point to universal salvation, for example: God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4); God was pleased through Christ “to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven” (Col 1:20); and “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself ” ( John 12:32). 22 If those passages are compatible with some people’s being lost, then they do not help to show that hell might well be empty, and if they are not compatible with some people’s ending in hell, then they prove, contrary to Church teaching, that all are necessarily saved. The question nevertheless remains how a good and merciful God can allow some people to be lost, and how Scripture passages like the ones just cited are compatible with some people’s being lost. Ratzinger’s reflection is enlightening on both counts. He says that we must first recognize “God’s unconditional respect for the freedom of his creature,” and he astutely points out that, while the good acceptance of grace is created, refusing it is something one can do on one’s own (216). Ratzinger also speaks of God’s mercy, but without any hint of universalism. Rather, he says that “the doctrine of everlasting Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved”? With a Short Discourse on Hell, trans. David Kipp and Lothar Krauth (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), 184–86. 22 916 Peter F. Ryan, S.J. punishment preserves its real content” and then immediately speaks of mercy, implying that the two are compatible (218). How can they be? Ratzinger does not explain, but part of the answer is that hell does not involve a set of conditions positively created by God to make people miserable. Rather, it consists in what people have brought on themselves; namely, not being a part of the communio of the saved and thus suffering the consequences of that exclusion. As Pope Benedict XVI, he explains: “Jesus came to tell us that he wants us all in Paradise and that hell, about which little is said in our time, exists and is eternal for those who close their hearts to his love.”23 Indeed, Benedict holds that there are people with no openness whatsoever to truth, love and Christ. He affirms that: “Alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people, all would be beyond remedy, and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell.”24 But while this statement strongly suggests that Benedict rejects the view that hell might turn out to be empty of all human beings, he goes on to suggest that it will be populated only by a few extremely wicked people: “For the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God” (Spe Salvi, 46). “Our defilement,” he adds, “does not stain us forever if we have at least continued to reach out [tendimus] towards Christ, towards truth and towards love.”25 However, Christians in mortal sin can and often do remain oriented in a significant way toward Christ, truth, and love, because they can and often do still have true, though not living, faith.26 As a theological virtue, that faith, although practically inactive, is still an orientation (but not a salvific one) towards divinely revealed truth. Benedict XVI, Homily on the Occasion of Visit to the Roman Parish of St. Felicity and her Children, Martyrs, Sunday, March 25, 2007, accessed April 23, 2017, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2007/ documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20070325_visita-parrocchia_en.html. 24 Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi (2007) [Acta Apostolicae Sedis (2007): 985–1027], §45, accessed April 23, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi. html. 25 Ibid., §47. 26 Enchiridion Symbolorum: Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum, ed. Heinrich Denzinger and Adolf Schönmetzer (Freiburg: Herder, 1973), nos. 1578, 838. 23 On Eschatology 917 Central to it is Christ’s offering an everlasting communion in love to fallen human beings. As Pope Benedict XII said in his authoritative definition: “The souls of those who die in actual mortal sin go down into hell immediately after death and there suffer the pain of hell.”27 Obviously, Benedict XVI did not intend to diverge from the definition of Benedict XII.28 And the formulation “we may suppose” suggests that Benedict XVI intended his affirmation not as a binding teaching, but as a professorial hypothesis. Still, it is not immediately evident how the statements of the two Benedicts can be harmonized. The Damned and God’s Mercy Ratzinger’s brilliant treatment of eschatology has a great deal to recommend it. While acknowledging the significance of the future life of our present world, he criticizes the modern tendency to emphasize intra-mundane eschatology at the expense of the traditional topics of eschatology that bear on the future beyond this world. He also very ably takes up those topics. As I have pointed out, his claim that bodily resurrection is impossible to imagine undermines its realism, even as it empowers hope for resurrection. Nevertheless, his description of heaven as a Christocentric communion in which, “as the one Christ, [the redeemed] are heaven,” is powerful indeed. Ratzinger’s descriptions of Jesus as “the One who came to transform our night by his suffering” and of hell as self-imposed exclusion from the communio of the saved appropriately emphasizes God’s mercy without suggesting that hell might be empty. As noted, however, the apparent assumption that hell will be populated only by a few extremely wicked people raises questions. I will conclude by discussing the problems with such an assumption and by proposing the theological hypothesis that God’s mercy, together with the data of revelation, can be vindicated by the idea of a populated hell from which all intelligible evil has been eliminated. One can certainly sympathize with the impulse to insist, as Balthasar does, that hell might turn out to be empty of all human beings. God, after all, is love. He created human beings to become members of his family and, united with Christ, to enjoy rich human Benedict XII, Constitution Benedictus Deus: On the Beatific Vision of God, January 29, 1336, in Denzinger and Schönmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, nos.1000–02. 28 Spe Salvi, §37, cites Catechism of the Catholic Church [hereafter, CCC], §§1033– 37. CCC §1035 quotes that definition, referring to Denzinger and Schönmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, nos. 76, 409, 411, 801, 858, 1002, 1351, 1575. 27 918 Peter F. Ryan, S.J. fulfillment and Trinitarian intimacy. Hell is the antithesis of that plan. Nevertheless, Ratzinger rightly resists that quasi-universalistic impulse, for the scriptural evidence for a populated hell excludes Balthasar’s position. That evidence, however, also excludes the view that only a few extremely wicked people will be lost. It is not possible to consider the evidence in depth here, but the following is worth noting: Jesus teaches that many who acted in his name will be shocked to find themselves condemned by their failure to have done the Father’s will (see Matt 7:21–23). Jesus teaches that some who think they have fulfilled their responsibilities to him will be surprised to find themselves condemned for having failed to meet his pressing needs in the least of his brothers and sisters (see Matt 25:41–46). When asked whether those saved will be few, Jesus responds: “Strive to enter by the narrow door,” and goes on at once to provide motivation: “for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:24). Without saying whether those saved will be few, Jesus thus makes it clear that more than a few will be lost.29 I do not propose those passages as proof texts but as representing New Testament teaching as a whole. That teaching lines up perfectly with practices of the Church, dating back to New Testament times, that plainly presuppose that mortal sin is common—practices such as evangelization that calls people to repentance, exhortations to confess and do penance, and warnings about the need for a clear conscience to receive the Eucharist. While one ought not judge any particular Germain Grisez and Peter F. Ryan, S.J., “Hell and Hope for Salvation,” New Blackfriars 95 (September 2014): 606–15, at 612, accessed April 23, 2017, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nbfr.12050/abstract). According to Balthasar, “in the New Testament, two series of statements run along side by side in such a way that a synthesis of both is neither permissible nor achievable: the first series speaks of being lost for all eternity; the second, of God’s will, and ability, to save all men” (Dare We Hope, 29). It is clearly not impermissible or contradictory, however, to hold both that the all-powerful God wills every human being without exception to be saved and that some, nevertheless, miss out on salvation due to culpable lack of faith or failure to live the faith. Moreover, a reconciliation of different kinds of statements is impossible only if they contradict each other. In denying that the two series of statements can be reconciled, Balthasar unfortunately implies, no doubt unwittingly, that Scripture contradicts itself and thus that some of its assertions are not true. 29 On Eschatology 919 individual guilty of mortal sin, many wrongdoers at some moments in their lives realize the gravity of what they are about to do or have done but freely choose either to do it or not to repent and desist from doing it. Moreover, many people die suddenly. The events of September 11, 2001, and the tsunami tragedy of a few years later are but dramatic reminders of the reality of sudden death, which happens every day, sometimes when people are engaged in gravely wrong activities. Jesus therefore mercifully urges us to watch, “for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matt 25:13). Because it is unreasonable to suppose that almost all mortal sins are repented, we must conclude that more than a few human beings die in mortal sin and go to hell. To avoid that conclusion, some theologians have proposed the theory of the so-called final option.30 They claim that before death one is not equipped to determine one’s whole self for or against God, so God gives everyone an option at the moment of death. These theologians deny that this final option is one choice among others. They treat it as coming from the depths of one’s being. It is said to be like the option the angels are thought to have had—an option for or against God in which the implications of their choices could be clearly seen. Critics have pointed out, however, that rejecting God and going to hell would hold no appeal and, thus, would not be a true option. People commit mortal sins now not because they want to reject God and go to hell but because they want whatever benefit the sinful choice offers or seems to offer. But because the final option is supposed to be unclouded by considerations of such benefits or apparent benefits, it seems to be no option at all. Moreover, its alleged significance would seem to render otiose the choices we make here and now. Finally, there is no scriptural evidence that we have a final option, and Jesus’s urgent warnings that we be prepared for death argue against it.31 See, for example, Ladislaus Boros, S.J., The Mystery of Death (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965), 86–99. For a critique of Boros, see Matthew J. O’Connell, S.J., “The Mystery of Death: A Recent Contribution,” Theological Studies 27 (1966): 434–42. 31 For a brief exposition and critique of this theory with references to works in which it is proposed, see Germain Grisez, Christian Moral Principles, vol. 1 of The Way of the Lord Jesus, 3 vols. (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983– 1997), 445–46, accessed April 23, 2017, http://www.twotlj.org/G-1–18–F. html. 30 920 Peter F. Ryan, S.J. Instead of holding that hell might be empty or that only a few very wicked people will end there, I propose that we follow Julian of Norwich in affirming both sides of the paradox she articulates and then consider how both can be true. She famously says that the Lord revealed to her that “all manner of things shall be well,” and then she adds that: “Many,” including those “that dieth out of the Faith of Holy Church: that is to say, they that be heathen men; and also man that hath received christendom and liveth unchristian life and so dieth out of charity: all these shall be condemned to hell without end, as Holy Church teacheth me to believe.”32 Julian wonders how all things can be well if many are lost: “And all this [so] standing, me thought it was impossible that all manner of things should be well, as our Lord shewed in the same time.”33 But she received the strength “to keep me in the Faith in every point, and in all as I had before understood,” and she was convinced that this included holding that many will be lost.34 The only way that all can ultimately be well, despite the fact that many will end in hell, is if Jesus overcomes hell’s evil such that no permanent residue remains.35 Is such a position tenable? We must see if it is compatible with what faith requires us to hold: that those who die in mortal sin remain impenitent, that they lose intimate friendship with God (poena damni) and suffer (poena sensus) and that their loss and suffering last forever. If human beings had a natural desire for the beatific vision, as Ratzinger apparently holds, then its loss would be a privation. But, while God created us with a view to offering us divine intimacy, such intimacy is a gift over and above the gift of being created in the Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, trans. Grace Warrack (1901) (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2002), ch. 32 (Revelation no. 13); for a description of Julian’s work, see http://www.ccel.org/ccel/ julian/revelations.html, accessed April 23, 2017. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid., ch. 33 (Revelation no. 13). 35 Some of the ideas in this section appeared in Germain Grisez and Peter Ryan, S.J., “Sketch of a Projected Book about the Kingdom of God,” in Moral Good, the Beatific Vision, and God’s Kingdom, ed. Peter J.Weigel (New York: Peter Lang, 2015),149–65. What follows in this article is also only a sketch of a hypothesis whose defense would require a much fuller treatment. I welcome criticism and, as always, submit my views to the ultimate judgment of the magisterium. For an analysis of a similar proposal, see Joshua R. Brotherton, “Presuppositions of Balthasar’s Universalist Hope and Maritain’s Alternative Eschatological Proposal,” Theological Studies 76 (2015): 718–41. 32 On Eschatology 921 first place, which it could not be if it were an intrinsic requirement of human fulfillment.36 So, while the damned will miss out on that greatest of gifts, their not having it will not be an evil. Because the damned do not love others as themselves, they definitively exclude themselves from communion, not only with God but also with the blessed.37 Harmony with others is a fundamental good, and it is realized most richly in intimate relationships, of which the damned have made themselves incapable. Although this incapacity is tragic, given what they could have enjoyed had they chosen well in this life, it is not a privation. Harmony with others can be realized to some degree even by those who, like the damned, are motivated only by self-interest. What about the suffering of the damned? St. John Paul II explains that, whereas the vocabulary of the Old Testament “did not have a specific word to indicate ‘suffering,’” and therefore “defined as ‘evil’ everything that was suffering, . . . the Greek language, and together with it the New Testament,” has a verb (paschó) to express “‘I am affected by. . . . I experience a feeling, I suffer’; and thanks to this verb, suffering is no longer directly identifiable with (objective) evil, but expresses a situation in which man experiences evil and, in doing so, becomes the subject of suffering.”38 Unlike intelligible evil, suffering is not a privation, but a positive reality. Although suffering is by definition unpleasant and sometimes even excruciating, it is the appropriate sensory response to evil. Still, if suffering is the experience of evil, and if the damned suffer, the presence of evil in hell seems inevitable. The evil that one experiences when one suffers, however, is not necessarily a present evil. One also may suffer because one anticipates a future evil or, as I propose in the case of the damned, because one recalls a past evil. It may be that the damned suffer anguish forever in hell because they are continually aware of the intense joy of the just and realize that, but for their own mortally sinful choices, which See note 4 above. “To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell’” (CCC, §1033 [Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994]). 38 John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris (1984)[Acta Apostolicae Sedis 76 (1984): 201–50], §7, accessed April 23, 2017, http://w2.vatican.va/content/ john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1984/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris.html. 36 37 922 Peter F. Ryan, S.J. they do not truly repent but do regret, they would be able to share in that joy.39 Although the regret of the damned arises only because they are unhappy about their self-limitation, that regret is entirely in accord with what God wills, for it is contrary to the will to sin. Indeed, God can make it impossible for the damned to do any evil by motivating them to refrain by their self-love, which in itself is good. He can make it be the case, and enable the damned to see, that even evil wishes are never in their self-interest. He can bring it about that, out of self-interest, they will all, and only, the good they can will. Although this will be far less than the good they would be willing if they were able to share in communion with God and the blessed, it will not include any evil. People with modern sensibilities find it extremely difficult to accept the Church’s teaching on hell. Part of that problem can be addressed by pointing out, as John Paul II did, that hell “is not a punishment imposed externally by God but a development of premises already set by people in this life.” He also explains that “Sacred Scripture uses a symbolical language” that is not intended to give a realistic description of hell but to “show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God.” But, to deal effectively with the modern tendency to discount the teaching on hell, it seems necessary to explain how God—whom John Paul II calls at the beginning of his talk “the infinitely good and merciful Father”—may extend his mercy even to the damned.40 If God can eliminate intelligible evil from hell, it is surely reasonable to think that his mercy would move him to do so. Moreover, because God loves the damned, he no doubt wants them to be as fulfilled as they can be. Scripture tells us that the damned as well as the blessed will be raised from the dead, so we Wis 5:1–13 considers the conversation of the wicked who, unlike the just man they persecuted in this life, are not numbered among the sons of God: “They will speak to one another in repentance, and in anguish of spirit they will groan” (5:3). Summa theologiae III, q. 86, a. 1, corp., says: “the sins of the damned and of devils . . . cannot displease them as it is a fault, but only as it means punishment which they suffer. For this reason they have a kind of penance, but it is unfruitful” (trans. T. C. O’Brien, in Summa theologiae, vol. 60 [London: Blackfriars, 1966]). 40 John Paul II, General Audience, July 28, 1999, §§2–3, accessed April 23, 2014, http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/audiences/1999/documents/ hf_jp-ii_aud_28071999.html. 39 On Eschatology 923 already know that they participate in the good of bodily life. God can also enable them to exercise their natural capacities to realize other human goods. Although that fulfillment will inevitably be meager, to say the least, compared to what the blessed will enjoy, there is no reason to assume that it will be entirely lacking. It might be objected that a view of hell in which God vanquishes its evil and even arranges for the damned to experience some human fulfillment will be less effective than the traditional one in motivating people to avoid hell. It can be said in response that the many people in contemporary societies who have rejected the traditional understanding as implausible and contrary to God’s love are hardly being motivated by it, and if the perspective proposed here strikes people as compatible with God’s goodness, they will find it harder to dismiss. Moreover, the prospect of missing out on intimacy in the kingdom and living forever with emotional anguish remains awful on this view, so it remains possible both to fear hell and to hope for heaven. It therefore remains urgent to follow Jesus, be prepared for his coming, and strive to promote others’ salvation. Finally, even if this understanding of hell does lessen its motivating force, a corresponding view of life in the kingdom as including both the beatific vision, which we cannot imagine, and happiness that I argue we can imagine—the rich, unimpeded fulfillment as bodily persons in the human goods of which the damned have only a very impoverished experience— would greatly increase the kingdom’s motivating force. Accordingly, the overall motivation would be very great and more positive. The view of hell that I have proposed emphasizes God’s mercy without suggesting that all might be saved or that only a few extremely wicked people will be lost. This view also enables us to understand in a more robust sense St. Paul’s teaching that God will be “all in all’ (I Cor 15:28) than does one in which evil remains forever.41 Finally, this approach makes it possible to answer the question of how the blessed can be happy despite the suffering of loved ones. The blessed will realize that the suffering of the damned is not an evil but an appropriate reaction to their situation, that intelligible evil has been overcome even in hell, and that God loves the damned and gives them all the good of which they are now capable. So, with “The ultimate purpose of creation is that God ‘who is the creator of all things may at last become “all in all,” thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our beatitude’” (CCC, §294, referring to Ad Gentes Divinitus, Second Vatican Council, Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church, §2). 41 924 Peter F. Ryan, S.J. their feelings perfectly aligned with their understanding, the blessed will be able to rejoice that God has fulfilled his promise to Julian of Norwich to make all manner of things well. N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2017): 925–939  925 On the Intermediate State of the Soul John Gavin, S.J. College of the Holy Cross Worcester, MA The question of the intermediate state of the dead prior to the general resurrection has inspired numerous debates among twentieth-century theologians.1 Here we will examine Joseph Ratzinger’s understanding of the relationship between this state and the Catholic notion of justice.2 After a brief review of some opinions that oppose the intermediate state, we will offer a summary of Ratzinger’s position and explicate its implications. Opposition to the Intermediate State The contemporary critique of the intermediate state emerges from two tendencies: a desire to escape a dualistic conception of the human Catholics generally base their position upon Benedict XII’s († 1342) constitution Benedictus Deus (1336), in which the Pope affirmed the beatific vision for the blessed prior to the general resurrection: “All these souls, immediately [mox] after death and, in the case of those in need of purification, after the purification [mentioned above], since the ascension of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ into heaven, already before they take up their bodies again and before the general judgment, have been, are and will be with Christ in heaven, in the heavenly kingdom and paradise, joined to the company of the holy angels” (Heinrich Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, trans. Roy J. Deferrari, translated from Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, 30th ed. [St Louis, MO: Herder, 1957], nos. 530–31 [pp. 197–198]). This constitution did not attempt to reconcile the individual’s experience of beatitude with the Christian belief in a last judgment and general resurrection. It thereby leaves the question of the intermediate state open to further speculation. 2 This essay does not treat the significance of hell and purgatory. The intermediate state, as pertaining to the dead prior to the general resurrection, applies to the deceased in these states and in heaven. 1 926 John Gavin, S.J. person and the need to maintain a strict distinction between time and eternity. The concern for the deleterious effects of a dualistic notion of the human person did not originate in the twentieth century. We can find, for instance, a similar debate among the contemporaries of Aquinas, many of whom reacted strongly against a Platonic anthropology attributed to Augustine. The rediscovered works of Aristotle gave them a more holistic view of the person that, with some essential adjustments, could better account for the unity of body and spirit. This vibrant discussion among the Scholastics, however, did not dispense with the notion of the soul altogether, since they understood it to be the essential component of the human person.3 Rather, this debate found its most influential resolution in Aquinas’s notion of the soul as the body’s substantial form (Summa theologiae [hereafter, ST] I, q. 76, a. 1). Nonetheless, although Aquinas maintained the essential union of the soul and body, we can perceive tensions in his explanation of the disembodied soul prior to the general resurrection (ST I, q. 894). The modern critique of the intermediate state leads to a rejection of the very idea of the soul, which it posits as antithetical to Christianity. Support for this rejection comes from a supposed return to the authentic biblical position regarding the unity of the human person, as well as from a desire to reconcile Christianity with developments in the cognitive sciences. On the one hand, the Bible, as some claim, does not resort to the dualistic concepts of soul and body, since it generally describes the human person as a unified, embodied identity.5 Accordingly, an intermediate state in which soul For a summary of this debate between Plato and Aristotle in Christianity, see Anton C. Pegis, St. Thomas and the Problem of the Soul in the Thirteenth Century (Toronto: Institute of Medieval Studies, 1934), 13–25. 4 Q. 89, a. 1 discusses the mode by which the separated soul knows. It notes the difficulties in reconciling the soul’s natural union with the body and the soul’s disembodied state. Although it acknowledges that the separated soul may know through participated species in the divine light—not through innate species, like the angels—nevertheless, the soul is still naturally ordered toward the body. One can therefore ask: If the disembodied soul can understand through the divine light, why would it require the body for its fulfillment? Is this not a return to a Platonic conception? 5 For a summary of scriptural terms for body, soul, and spirit, and for their treatment in biblical theology, see John Cooper, Body, Soul and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 38–43; Nancey Murphy, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 6–11, 16–22. For one of the earliest treatments of soma (body) as defining “the whole person” in New 3 On the Intermediate State of the Soul 927 explains a person’s continuity during a period apart from the body represents, they would assert, a Greek import that falsifies human identity. Furthermore, contemporary theories of the conscious mind no longer require an unverifiable entity such as the soul to account for the person’s higher cognitive functions. Christianity, with its belief in bodily resurrection, should, many therefore argue, embrace these findings and so restore a sound biblical anthropology. Nancey Murphy, for instance, defends the compatibility of a physicalist understanding of the human person with Christian beliefs: The concept of the soul was first introduced to explain humans’ remarkable capacities for reason, morality, spirituality and free will. If we discard the concept of the soul as unnecessary, this is not to discard higher human capacities, but rather to open ourselves to wonder at the fact that creatures made of the dust of the ground have been raised so high.6 In line with Murphy, Paul Althaus, whose work on eschatology influenced Ratzinger, offers a harsh critique of Christian dualism and the intermediate state: “The traditional idea, coming from late Judaism, of the intermediate state was and remains the hiding place for Platonism, for the dualism and individualism of Hellenistic eschatology.” 7 Hans Küng speaks similarly: When the New Testament speaks of resurrection, it does not refer to the natural continuance of a spirit-soul independent of our bodily functions. What it means—following the tradition of Jewish theology—is the new creation, the transformation of the whole person by God’s life-creating Spirit. Man is not released then—platonically—from his corporeality. He is Testament theology, see Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament I (New York: Scribner’s, 1951), 192–203. Oscar Cullman also contrasts the Greek notion of the soul with the Christian position that emerges from the New Testament: “The contrast with the Greek soul is clear: it is precisely apart from the body that the Greek soul attains to full development of its life. According to the Christian view, however, it is the inner man’s very nature, which demands the body” (The Immortality of the Soul or the Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament [London: Epworth, 1958], 33). 6 Murphy, Bodies and Souls, 146. 7 Paul Althaus, Die letzen Dinge: Entwurf einer christlichen Eschatologie (Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1926), 157 (translation mine). 928 John Gavin, S.J. released with and in his—now glorified, spiritualized—corporeality: a new creation, a new man.8 It is of course true that the intermediate state possesses a decided advantage. The soul, as the continuing identity of the human person, reconciles the traditional teachings of the salvation of the individual and the communal nature of the resurrection at the end of history. A person experiences beatitude first as a soul and later, after the general resurrection, as a whole person consisting of body and soul. Yet, how exactly can we designate a “before” or “later” when speaking of two different states of existence—the progressive experience of time, on the one hand, and the nearly indescribable state of eternity on the other? Karl Rahner probes this problem: The idea of the intermediate state also comes up against considerable intellectual difficulties, even if we ignore for a moment the problems which could not even be entirely suppressed in classical theology. These difficulties are above all those which are related to the question of “time” “after” death. The assumption of an intermediate state raises new, difficult problems here, which do not crop up at all if the one and total person is removed from empirical time through his death.9 One solution suggested by Rahner and others would establish a radical distinction between the states of time and eternity. The individual, as a unified corporeal identity, does not pass into an intermediate state after death—a quasi-temporal state of existence—but passes out of history itself directly into the resurrection. Crossing from the temporal to the eternal, the soul is immediately united with the resurrected body. The resurrection, as revealed in Christ, is therefore a now for us, since its reality exists in its fullness outside the strictures of progressive time. In the words of Jürgen Moltmann: “If with God there is no earthly time in which human beings succeed Hans Kung, Eternal Life? trans. Edward Quinn (New York: Doubleday, 1984), 111. For a discussion of other theologians who sought to escape the dualism implied by a bipartite anthropology, see Paul O’Callaghan, Christ Our Hope: An Introduction to Eschatology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011) 19–23. 9 Karl Rahner, “Intermediate State,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 17, Jesus, Man, and the Church, trans. Margaret Kohl (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 114–24, at 118. 8 On the Intermediate State of the Soul 929 one another, then all human beings, at whatever earthly time they may have died, encounter God at the same time—in God’s time, the presence of eternity.”10 By resorting to the radical distinction between time and eternity, adherents of the “immediate resurrection” of the dead maintain both the reality of the beatific vision for the blessed (or the immediate experience of hell) and the embodied identity of the person. They even account for the general resurrection by transferring it from history to an ahistorical eternity. Rahner comments further: No one is in danger of defending a heresy if he maintains the view that the single and total perfecting of man in “body” and “soul” takes place immediately after death; that the resurrection of the flesh and the general judgment take place “parallel” to the temporal history of the world; and that both coincide with the sum of the particular judgments of individual men and women.11 Ratzinger’s Response Ratzinger’s interest in the intermediate state emerges, in part, from his concern for theodicy. He believes that the negation of the soul and the affirmation of an immediate resurrection fail to take proper account of the divine justice and the responsibility of persons.We must ask, he says, “whether a human being can be said to have reached his fulfillment and destiny so long as others suffer on account of him, so long as the guilt whose source he is persists on earth and brings pain to other people. . . . The guilt which goes on because of me is a part Jürgen Moltmann, The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2005), 103. Other theologians who lean toward this theory include Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar: see Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 3/2, The Doctrine of Creation, Part 2, trans. Harold Knight et al. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1960), 432–33; Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, vol. 5, The Last Act, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998), 348–51. For a more extensive discussion, see O’Callaghan, Christ Our Hope, 309–26. 11 Rahner, “Intermediate State”, 115. Hans Küng also notes that: “[Death is an] assumption into ultimate reality. If we are not to talk in metaphors, raising (resurrection) and exaltation (taking up, ascension, glorification) must be seen as one identical, single happening. And indeed as a happening in connection with death in the impenetrable hiddenness of God. . . . Death is transition to God, is retreat into God’s hiddenness, is assumption into his glory” (On Being a Christian, trans. Edward Quinn [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976], 358). 10 930 John Gavin, S.J. of me.”12 In tackling this problem, Ratzinger addresses the concept of the soul and the relationship between time and eternity. He acknowledges the inherent dangers of using a bipartite anthropology consisting of body and soul to defend the intermediate state. If anima separata is considered an actual continuation of the human person after death, then human embodiment is effectively denied and the teaching of the general resurrection compromised: Individualism and spiritualism—the great and dangerous heritage of the Greek mind—have from the start distracted our attention from the universal and the whole and concentrated it on the salvation of the individual soul, which is called for immediately. The resurrection of the flesh, that is, of mankind as a whole, restored to its corporeality, could appear in comparison to be only an afterthought.13 He also criticizes the Lutheran solution—the sleep of the soul after death—as an unacceptable attempt to reconcile the integrity of the human person with the historical gap before the general resurrection: Existence with Christ inaugurated by faith is the start of resurrected life and therefore outlasts death (see Phil 1:23; 2 Cor 5:8; 1 Thess 5:10). The dialogue of faith is itself already life, which can no longer be shattered by death. The idea of the sleep of death that has been continually discussed by Lutheran theologians . . . is therefore untenable on the evidence of the New Testament and not even justifiable by the frequent occurrence in the New Testament of the word “sleep.”14 Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, trans. Michael Waldstein, ed. Aidan Nichols, O.P. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988) [originally Eschatologie, Tod und ewiges Leben, ed. Alphonse Auer and Joseph Ratzinger, Kleine Katholische Dogmatik 9 (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1977); includes two appendixes written after the appearance of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Letter on “Certain Questions Concerning Eschatology,” May 17, 1979], 187. This work will be cited parenthetically by page number in the remainder of this essay. 13 Joseph Ratzinger, Dogma and Preaching: Applying Christian Doctrine to Daily Life, trans. Michael J. Miller et al. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005) [originally Dogma und Verkündigung (Munich: Erich Wewel, 1973)], 261. 14 Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, trans. J. R. Foster and Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1990) [originally Einführung in das Christentum (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1968)], 353. 12 On the Intermediate State of the Soul 931 Yet, instead of an outright rejection of the soul, Ratzinger reevaluates it in light of the Scriptures and tradition. Is there a way of conceiving the soul, he wonders, without bifurcating it from the body, thus preserving their relation as form and matter? He boldly states: “It seems to me that is high time theology set about rehabilitating the taboo concepts of ‘immortality’ and the ‘soul.’”15 In fact, Christianity, he suggests, offers a way of reconciling the dualistic tendencies of Plato and the monistic tendencies of Aristotle. The early Church, in considering the afterlife, drew upon the Jewish tradition of Sheol, “the world in which the dead are kept until final judgment” and the experience of new life in Christ (120): The doctrine of immortality in the early Church had two sides to it. First, it was determined by the Christological center, whence the indestructibility of the life gained through faith was guaranteed. Second, it linked this theological insight to the idea of Sheol, utilizing that idea as an anthropological foundation, and in this way it found anchorage in a basic belief which is, as we have seen, of a universal human kind (147). We see, therefore, that an anthropology had to be found that accounted for the part of humanity that perishes and the part that lives on. It found it most compellingly in Aquinas, who taught that the soul is the substantial form of the body. This means that the soul could no longer be conceived entirely as an autonomous substance, but at the same time it could not be reduced to a mere dependence on materiality. Ratzinger considers this idea to be distinctly Christian, breaking radically from the Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions: “[In Thomism] the apparently contradictory demands of the doctrine of creation and the christologically transformed belief in Sheol have been met. The soul belongs to the body as ‘form,’ but that which is the form of the body is still spirit. It makes man a person and opens him to immortality” (149). Yet, Ratzinger finds a need to develop the Thomist insight further by understanding soul “dialogically.” Avoiding a metaphysics of substance, he moves toward a relational model whose “distinctive feature” is the human being’s capacity for the God who addresses him Joseph Ratzinger, Credo for Today: What Christians Believe, trans. Michael J. Miller et al. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2009) [originally Credo für heute: was Christian glauben (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Herder, 2006)], 177. 15 932 John Gavin, S.J. and calls upon him to respond.16 The soul’s “substance,” therefore, comes to mean its dynamic orientation to the divine love that establishes it. This definition still maintains the Thomist insight that our spiritual nature is naturally embodied; human relationality is possible only because it is exercised in and through the body. To speak of the soul as a substance, therefore, really means that it: Is not an occult entity that one has, a partial substance hidden somewhere in a human being; it is the dynamism of unlimited openness, which at the same time means participation in infinity, in the eternal. Conversely, however, it is also the case that the dynamic character of human personal life, the thirst for truth and indestructible love, is not a disconnected, merely factual succession, but, most fragile as the dynamism is, it is also the most authentic and enduring reality. This dynamism is substance, and this substance is dynamism. This fundamental, enduring, and essential human reality is recalled to mind by the term “soul.”17 Ratzinger argues that this definition of the human soul does justice both to the authentic biblical concept, particularly St. Paul’s, and to the Greek understanding that the person abides after death’s dissolution of the body.18 The soul in the Christian sense cannot be conceived as an isolated individual, but rather as obtaining in fellowship, first and foremost with God, but also with humanity. What continues after death is the person in relation, not as an isolated anima separata: For “having a spiritual soul” means precisely being willed, known, and loved by God in a special way; it means being a creature called by God to an eternal dialogue and therefore capable for its own part of knowing God and of replying to him. What we call in substantialist language “having a soul” Ratzinger, Credo, 175. Ibid., 176. 18 Ratzinger, Introduction, 358: “Paul teaches, not the resurrection of physical bodies, but the resurrection of persons, and this not in the return of the ‘fleshly body,’ that is, the biological structure, an idea he expressly describes as impossible (‘the perishable cannot become imperishable’), but in the different form of the life of the resurrection, as shown in the risen Lord.” 16 17 On the Intermediate State of the Soul 933 we will describe in a more historical, actual language as “being God’s partner in a dialogue.”19 Yet, does this dialogical conception of the soul still imply that the body is only ancillary to human identity? Does the soul as “God’s partner in dialogue” divorce itself from the body after death? Ratzinger asserts that the soul does not abandon its relationship with matter. As the soul’s corporeal expression, “the body is defined not in terms of matter but in terms of soul” (179). The body exists because of the organizing and expressive power of soul, the body’s form. This principle leads Ratzinger to conclude that, even after death, the soul maintains an intimate connection with the matter that constitutes “a moment in the history of spirit.”20 It must be understood, however, that this history involves a consummation that will worthily express the human person’s dialogue with God and humanity. Ratzinger writes in Teilhard-like terms: If the cosmos is history and if matter represents a moment in the history of spirit, then there is no such thing as an eternal, neutral combination of matter and spirit; rather, there is a final “complexity” in which the world finds its omega and unity. In that case there is a final connection between matter and spirit in which the destiny of man and of the world is consummated, even if it is impossible for us today to define the nature of this connection.21 This attempt to express the soul–body unity in dialogical terms has some important results for an understanding of the intermediate state. First, it eliminates any possibility of reducing the intermediate state to an individualistic form of beatitude: the soul finds its identity Ibid., 355. See here also: “This does not mean that talk of the soul is false (as is sometimes asserted today by a one-sided and uncritical biblical approach); in one respect it is, indeed, even necessary in order to describe the whole of what is involved here. But, on the other hand, it also needs to be complemented if we are not to fall back into a dualistic conception that cannot do justice to the dialogical and personalistic view of the Bible.” 20 Ibid., 358. 21 Ibid. Ratzinger discusses Teilhard’s notion of the “infinitely complex” earlier in ibid., 236–237. For Ratzinger’s caveats regarding Teilhard de Chardin’s positions, see Aidan Nichols, O.P., The Thought of Benedict XVI: An Introduction to the Theology of Joseph Ratzinger (New York: Burns and Oates, 2005), 261. 19 934 John Gavin, S.J. in a relationship with God and neighbor. The soul’s abiding between death and the general resurrection means its continuing existence in and for this communion. After death, the soul may live in the eternal joy of the blessed, but in a mysterious way, it still finds itself rooted in history through its union with others. As God’s partner in dialogue, the soul bridges the seemingly insurmountable gap between the now of eternity and the not-yet of history.22 Second, the dialogical soul shapes our understanding of justice. The soul’s union with history as both personal dialogue and corporeal form demands a consummation of history and a reunion with the body in a general resurrection: Man is by nature always “fellowman” at the same time, and if man as man is to be brought into salvation, this must happen in community with his fellow men, who together with him build up the full totality of humanity. . . . And it goes without saying that the definitive fulfillment of this Body, which is accomplished at the end of the ages in the Last Judgment, does not merely signify an external addition to a blessedness that has long since been completed, but, rather, creates its real, final perfection for the first time.23 The fulfillment of justice coincides with the consummation of the history of matter and spirit. Before drawing further conclusions, let us address the relation between history and eternity in more detail. Connection Between History and Eternity As we see, Ratzinger does not accept an immediate resurrection.24 This position, he claims, implies a “beginning” to eternity: a person ceases to live in history and starts a resurrected state “for him.” In other words: “An eternity with a beginning is no eternity at all. Someone who has The soul’s “principle of individuation” in the intermediate state might be described as its unique and ongoing history, a history that embraces both time and eternity. 23 Ratzinger, Dogma and Preaching, 269. 24 Ratzinger highlights the position of Ernst Troeltsch, mediated by the early works of Karl Barth, as the primary source for the contemporary debate: “Troeltsch had expressed the idea that the Last Things really stand in no relation to time. To say that they will come ‘at the end of time,’ ‘after our time’ is, he claims, merely a makeshift way of speaking in such terms as our timebound minds can find” (Credo, 166). 22 On the Intermediate State of the Soul 935 lived during a definite period of time, and died at a definite point in time, cannot simply move across from the condition ‘time’ into the condition ‘eternity,’ timelessness” (182).25 Furthermore, an immediate resurrection fails to take history and time seriously. As long as history really continues, “it remains a reality, even from the vantage point beyond death, and therefore to declare that history is already cancelled and lifted up into an eternal Last Day after death is impossible” (188).26 We cannot so distinguish the reality of history, particularly salvation history, from eternity so as to reduce history to a passing illusion that simply dissolves at death into eternity. Such a distinction “would also mean that, viewed from the other side, history would be an empty spectacle in which people think they are striving and struggling, whereas simultaneously in ‘eternity,’ in the already ever present Now, everything is long since decided.”27 In short, as Ratzinger stresses, history cannot be severed from eternity because the divine relationship expresses itself in the unfolding of the economy of salvation: Salvation comes through history, which therefore, represents the immediate form of religious experience. History is thus a shelter; it gives existence its true character not its alienation, because this history is divinely established and it is precisely in the reception of the historical that that which transcends history—the eternal—becomes present.”28 Ratzinger also rejects the idea of a “quasi-temporal” existence, the medieval proposal of the aeviternity, since this concept was meant to describe the state of the angels, beings of pure spirit. 26 For a fuller exploration, see Joseph Ratzinger, Theology of History in Saint Bonaventure (Habilitationschrift), trans. Zachary Hayes (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1971) [originally Die Geschichtstheologie des heiligen Bonaventura (Munich: Schnell and Steiner, 1959)], 16: “On the one hand, Bonaventure recognizes the full heavenly glory of the souls of those who have died and have been purified; on the other hand, it remains clear that this heavenly condition is not the final state, but that it is still a part of world-history; it also stands in expectation of that part of world-history; it also stands in expectation of that which is to come.” 27 Ratzinger, Credo, 170. 28 See Henri de Lubac, Catholicism and the Common Destiny of Man, trans. Lancelot C . Sheppard and Sister Elizabeth Englund, O.C.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988), 141: “For if the salvation offered by God is in fact the salvation of the human race, since this human race lives and develops in time, any account of this salvation will naturally take a historical form—it will be the history of the penetration of humanity by Christ.” 25 936 John Gavin, S.J. Finally, the immediate resurrection cannot respond to the problem of justice mentioned earlier. Because true justice requires a state in which the impressions of sin embedded in history cease to exist, we cannot reconcile the ongoing suffering and injustice of the world with the immediate consummation of history for those who have died. This final objection lies at the heart of Ratzinger’s critique of the immediate resurrection: resurrection cannot take place until the consummation of history when God will “be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).29 Nonetheless, how can we unite eternity and time without making eternity simply an extension of history? In answer, it is misleading, says Ratzinger, to limit our conception of time to a corporeal or physical succession of events. He discusses Augustine’s meditation on memory in Confessions in order to show that the human experience of time is not simply the measure of the earth’s revolution around the sun that inscribes itself in a person’s being like the rings in the trunk of a tree.30 He argues: While it is true that even human processes of intellectual decision are connected with the body and to that extent, as we have said, can be dated indirectly, in themselves they are something different from corporeal movement and to that extent transcend the measures of physical time. What is “present” for each human being is determined, not solely by the calendar, but much more by his mental attention, the section of reality he grasps as present, as effectively Now.31 Ratzinger called this interior experience of time “memoria-time.” According to it, human beings are temporal “in a different, and deeper, way than material bodies” (183). Memoria time, although shaped by a relationship with the material world, transforms this relationship into an experience of the past as effectively “Now.” This present consciousness, “which is able to summon what is past into the present of recollection, thus makes possible some notion of what ‘eternity’ is: pure memoria bearing the whole changing movement of the world in the all-inclusive present of the creative mind, yet Ratzinger, Eschatology, 187. On the effects of personal sin in history, see Henri de Lubac, A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace, trans. Br. Richard Arnandez, F.S.C. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1980), 136–37. 30 Augustine, Confessions, esp. bk. 10. 31 Ratzinger, Credo, 169. 29 On the Intermediate State of the Soul 937 comprehending each detail exactly as it is at its own chronological point.”32 Memory interiorizes, and even spiritualizes, the exterior, corporeal progression of events. History, therefore, transcends its physical, temporal limits through the human experience of it. Through humanity, history finds a bridge to eternity. After death, memoria-time allows us who have spiritualized the past to sustain a link with time and history.33 Even if a soul should enjoy the beatific vision, still it will experience a “not yet” in its memory. It will, in other words, desire a greater communal fulfillment that will only be realized with the consummation of history. The intermediate state, as a result, is no solipsistic vision of God, but an eternal-temporal relationship with God and all persons. Conclusion Ratzinger’s understanding of the intermediate state gives a much needed perspective on justice in a world enamored with material progress and human perfectibility. In a speech in 1974, he criticized the contemporary obsession, prevalent even among many Christians, with the “makeable future.” “Hope for some definitive progress in history and for a definitively sound society within history is nowhere part of Christian expectation.”34 After demonstrating how belief in the construction of a worldly utopia leads to fanaticism and cynicism, Ratzinger asserts that only faith in the resurrection, in the coming kingdom, shapes a just society: What kind of salvation does faith offer? For what does it hope? Once again we must first say: It does not expect a politico-economic paradise—for faith, such an expectation is a farce staged by the Evil One, with which he deceives and enslaves Ibid., 170. Ratzinger, Eschatology, 184: “This memoria-time is shaped by man’s relation to the corporeal world, but it is not wholly tied to that world nor can it be dissolved into it. This means that, when a human being steps out of the world of bios, memoria-time separates itself from physical time, yet, though left sheerly to its own devices does not for all that become eternity. Herein lies the reason for the definitiveness of what we have done in this life, as well as of the possibility of a purification and fulfillment in a final destiny which will relate us to matter in a new way.” 34 Joseph Ratzinger, “The Salvation of Man—This-Worldly and Christian,” in Fundamental Speeches from Five Decades, trans. Michael J. Miller et al. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012) [originally “Das Heil des Menschen,” in Grundsatz-Reden als fünf Jahrzehnten (Regensburg: Pustat, 2005)], 81–110, at 93. 32 33 938 John Gavin, S.J. man. . . . From an earthly perspective, faith expects a world that will always be full of hardships; a world in which it will always be almost unbearably difficult to be a man; a world that never has a firm grasp on humanity but rather again and again requires men to become men. But because faith at the same time believes in and expects the world to come, it knows that it is nevertheless worthwhile and beautiful to toil in this world for justice and truth. Because it expects the next world, it can make man happy even now in the struggle for what he recognizes as lasting. The kingdom that “is not of this world,” and it alone, makes even this world livable and worth living.35 Thus we see that Ratzinger’s understanding of the intermediate state establishes a notion of Christian justice that embraces both time and eternity. When we restrict justice to the temporal order alone, we usually grapple with a variety of issues like the equitable distribution of resources, the protection of human rights, the responsibilities and limitations of civil government, and the nature of the common good. When, however, we consider the connection between the temporal order and the intermediate state, we see that justice involves something far greater than human attempts to “give each one his due.” Justice, in light of time and eternity, requires the liberation from sin, the restoration and elevation of creation itself. Salvific happiness for both the living and the dead cannot be the product of human progress, but must come from God’s own action. Human beings, therefore, cannot realize justice in its truest sense for themselves or for the dead, because only Christ, the merciful judge of creation, heals all wounds of sin in the consummation of history. The groaning of a creation yearning for eternity will find just resolution only when Christ subjects all to the Father (1 Cor 15:28). Ratzinger’s perspective does not exempt humanity from seeking the practical realization of justice in the world, but it does force humanity to approach any temporal enterprise with a great degree of humility, cognizant of its limitations. Attempts to realize a just society can anticipate the definitive peace that Christ will ultimately bring, but they can never bring about that liberation from sin that time and eternity desire. Victories in the social order that allow for greater human flourishing certainly preach the breaking in of the Kingdom, but only Jesus fulfills the Kingdom by uniting heaven and Ratzinger, “Salvation of Man,” 106. 35 On the Intermediate State of the Soul 939 earth in himself. Ratzinger cautions against any delusions of establishing perfect justice on earth, stating that temporal justice is a problem of “practical reason; but if reason is to be exercised properly, it must undergo constant purification, since it can never be completely free of the danger of a certain ethical blindness caused by the dazzling effect of power and special interests.”36 Ratzinger’s position on the intermediate state purifies practical reasoning and gives a healthy sense of humanity’s absolute dependence on Christ for justice in time and eternity. In sum, the immediate resurrection so divides time and eternity that humanly conceived conceptions of justice are divorced from the final end of the human person.37 By contrast, because Ratzinger does not permit a hiatus between our temporal and eternal existence, justice in its true sense must involve the consummation of history, the cancellation of all traces of sin, and the elevation of creation in Christ. “The unfolding history of the world,” he says, “and its definitive theological future most certainly stand in a real relation to one another, that the activity of the one is not at all a matter of no account to the genesis of the other.”38 Any effort to realize full justice in history must defer to the divine gift alone that will accomplish it. Ratzinger’s reflections on the intermediate state finally return us to this fundamental truth: “The Resurrection of Jesus tells us that that victory is really possible, that death did not form a part in its very principle and in an irreversible manner of the structure of what is created, that is, of matter. . . . Such a victory exists only through the N&V creative power of the Word and love.”39 Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est (2005), §28, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 98 (2006): 217-52. 37 Perhaps we may see something analogous to de Lubac’s critique of the concept of “pure nature”: the gap between nature and grace allows for the insertion of atheism. 38 Ratzinger, Credo, 171. 39 Joseph Ratzinger, The God of Jesus Christ: Meditations on God in the Trinity, trans. Robert J. Cunningham (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1979) [originally Der Gott Jesu Christ: Betrachtungen über der Dreieinigen Gott (Munich: Kösel, 1976)], 94. See also Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate (2009), §34, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 101 (2009): 641–709. 36 Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2017): 941–977 941 Book Reviews Searching Her Own Mystery: Nostra Aetate, the Jewish People, and the Identity of the Church by Mark S. Kinzer (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2015), 262 pp. Mark S. Kinzer has a long and intimate experience of Catholicism. He is currently Rabbi of Congregation Zera Avraham in Michigan and President Emeritus of the Messianic Jewish Theological Institute. He authored Postmissionary Messianic Judaism (2005) and Israel’s Messiah and the People of God (2011). Searching Her Own Mystery develops his vision. He boldly challenges Catholics to rethink their ecclesiology and their relationship to the Jewish people. Kinzer’s strength is lucid prose and penetrating biblical exegesis, making his a voice in the wilderness that is as unsettling as it is insightful. His book is strategically aimed at Messianic Jews and Roman Catholics. Kinzer’s excellent autobiographical second chapter makes the book particularly engaging, but without hubris. It also helps to place Kinzer on a very complex map in relation to other Jewish groups who follow Jesus the Messiah, all of whom resist assimilation into gentile groups that follow the same Messiah (i.e, Christian churches). Kinzer’s novelty is in challenging both Catholics and Messianic Jews to take each other more seriously, as each, he argues, is central to the self-identity of the other. Catholics are called into this partnership by the advances of the Second Vatican Council. Kinzer draws on many Christian sources, including three cardinals and a Pope (Lustiger, Cottier, Schönborn, and St John Paul II). Catholics need to listen. Kinzer’s begins with the Second Vatican Council and its two key documents Nostra Aetate (NA) and Lumen Gentium (LG). Kinzer argues that the Council was a turning point for Catholic perception of the Jewish people. After thousands of years of persecution underwritten by supersessionist theologies (the covenant with Christ meant 942 Book Reviews that the Jewish covenant was invalid), theological invalidity led to socio-racial liquidation. The Council fathers lived in the shadow of such supersessionism—the Holocaust. In NA, Catholicism revoked the teaching of deicide and the guilt of the Jewish people for this alleged crime. For Kinzer, it went further: it affirmed the Jewishness of Jesus, his disciples, his mother, and the deep roots of Judaism onto which the gentile Church itself is grafted. The use of Pauline citations in the Council documents are read by Kinzer as: (a) affirming the validity of the Israel’s covenant, which God never goes back on, and (b) affirming the enduring covenant that Israel of the flesh continues to enjoy. This clearly repudiates supersessionism. Kinzer argues that the Council teachings began to push open a door that was boldly walked through by Saint Pope John Paul II. He possibly took the further step of affirming the “validity” of present day Judaism as part of God’s covenant without renouncing the idea that the fulfilment of that covenant lies in Jesus Christ. Fulfilment indicates deep continuity with and affirmation of the validity of Israel, whose telos is its Messiah and his messianic rule. Kinzer argues that LG §16 failed to take the steps that Nostra Aetate managed because it externalised genealogical Israel rather than seeing it as part of the Church’s “own mystery” (NA §4). It did this despite using key terms such as “People of God,” of the Church, and “priest,” “prophet,” and “king” of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, all of which belong to Israel’s history. LG used the terms as if Israel was discontinuous with the new People of God. It thus echoes a supersessionism revoked in NA. NA, and later John Paul II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (§§63, 839-40, 528), pushed in another direction: the Jewish role in the salvation of the world. Kinzer argues that God is faithful to his covenanted peoples, both gentile followers of the Messiah (the gentile ecclesia) and Jewish followers of the Messiah (the ecclesia of the circumcision). Both groups existed in harmony in the early Church, but the Jewish ecclesia was slowly written out of the narrative once Constantine established his unified Church in his unified empire. As the Byzantine church emerged, being religiously Jewish and Christian at the same time became increasingly impossible, and eventually “mortally sinful.” Aquinas’s Summa theologiae I-II, question 103, article 4, is cited as evidence. Unsurprisingly, Rabbi Abraham Heschel would write after the Holocaust, when he understood that the Vatican Council might make a declaration regarding mission: “I am ready to go to Auschwitz any time, if faced with the alternative of conversion or Book Reviews 943 death.” For him, conversion meant death “as a Jew,” for Catholicism had no place for the Jew as Jew. Kinzer then develops a map of the new country in which a bilateral ecclesiology is the logic of Vatican II and post-conciliar teachings: the mystical unity of a gentile and Jewish ecclesia, both of whom are witness to the arrival of Israel’s messiah and the salvation of the world. Each has a particular vocation and path of honoring Jesus Christ, but their paths are not independent, but rather interdependent, each thus intrinsic to each other’s identities. To flush this out, the rest of the book looks at the Catholic sacraments from a Messianic Jewish perspective, commenting on the gradual eradication of Jewish identity that was vital to the primitive understanding of each sacrament. In this process, Messianic Jews are called to take Catholic sacramental practices far more seriously—they are part of the messianic Torah; and Catholics are called to recognize that they can learn from these Jewish messianic readings, as well as honor and learn from their practice within the church of the circumcised. How many of the Protestant oriented messianic groups will react to Kinzer’s Catholic sensibilities remains to be seen. It would be difficult to do this part of the book proper justice, so a single example must suffice: baptism. Kinzer interprets baptism through what he calls “Israel-Christology” (i.e., focusing on the particular historical setting), rather than an “Adam-Christology,” which is valid but deals with universal types that are in danger of subjugating the former Christology rather than growing out it. He shows how Jesus’s baptism is his way of fulfilling Ezekiel 36 and Malachi 3 so that Israel’s Messiah will purify and restore. He shows how Matthew 2 presents Jesus’s infancy in terms of Hosea 11:1. “Out of Egypt have I called my Son” is now applied to Jesus’s return with his parents from Egypt. As these prophets had understood it: Israel’s eschatological renewal would allow the gentiles, along with Israel, to praise the true God together. The particular of Israel’s restoration and the universal of the gentile entering into this communion are held together. This overturns a history where: “Christian baptism has constituted for Jews the official exit from Jewish communal life and identity. The Church insisted on it, and the Jewish community ratified the decision’” (101). Kinzer’s argument challenges both communities head on: “For gentiles, rebirth signifies rupture, for Jews, rebirth signifies eschatological self-realization” (103). All of the chapters in this section are equally biblical, challenging, and illuminating. Kinzer’s thesis is genuinely prophetic and calls the Catholic 944 Book Reviews Church to reflect on her own mystery, her ecclesiology. I have some minor questions to ask of this major thesis. I do not find Kinzer’s explanation of the Council documents entirely convincing. LG did see the Jewish people as extrinsic but more closely related (ordinantur) to the Church (LG §16) than any other religion. NA explicated and developed the meaning of this special relationship and thus took steps beyond LG. Both documents draw on Romans. This biblical retrieval made one thing clear: God does not go back on his covenantal promises and is faithful to his people. The Council did not teach that the Jewish people had been faithful to God’s covenant—as claimed by Kinzer. But neither did it teach the contrary. It left that issue open. The magisterium, especially John Paul II, and theologians and communities have begun to explore that issue with increasing vigor. From the debate in the aula and from the relationes on the two documents (none cited by Kinzer) there is no evidence that the fathers discussed or had in mind what Kinzer claims NA teaches regarding contemporary Jewry enjoying a valid covenant. But the Spirit led the Council. One implication of this is that the documents can generate discussion and discoveries that were not in the forefront of the drafters’ minds, perhaps not unlike the Scripture that was being cited. The Council desired good relations with contemporary Jewish communities by striking out the deicide charge and reminding Christians of the Jewish roots of their faith. It was not until the millennium that the Catholic Church’s made its mea culpa and asked for forgiveness. Since the Council, the embarrassing question of “mission” to the Jewish people has been unresolved, with various senior cardinals pointing in different directions. This is hardly unsurprising, given Heschel’s dramatic reminder about Jewish perceptions of becoming Catholic and this issue being only recently reappraised. Likewise, I have reservations about his use of Aquinas. But all these questions of textual precision do not mitigate the main thrust of his argument, although getting the texts right is important. Kinzer’s argument addresses the unresolved question of mission with lightning clarity: if Jews must lose their Jewish covenantal identity to affirm Jesus as Messiah, something has gone drastically wrong, for such an affirmation is a fulfilment, not negation, of Jewish identity. Kinzer and the Council are in agreement on that point. Kinzer’s bilateral ecclesiology develops this: allow Jewish followers to proclaim the Messiah through their own covenanted path and gentile followers of the Messiah to walk closely nearby, both in mystical unity around their common messiah. Witness to the Jewish people is natural to the Book Reviews 945 first group but not disallowed to the gentiles. If that throws genuine light on the question of witness and mission, it demands ecclesiological clarification. Is Kinzer’s mystical unity a “visible unity,” such unity as sought by the Council? Or does Kinzer’s proposal amount to visible disunity? Can there be genuine fellowship around Christ, which is indeed to be cherished, but without a uniting visible Petrine ministry? Allied to this, and given Kinzer’s sacramental focus, one might also ask, haltingly using terminology from Dominus Iesus: is the Jewish Messianic liturgy de iure or de facto? In my view, Vatican II and subsequent magisterial teaching sees non-Messianic Jewish Torah practices as participating in a genuine covenant given by God. The Council seemed to categorize these practices as praeparatio evangelicae, as leading to Christ and, thus, in the words of Dominus Iesus, as de facto. But when Torah practices are taken up by Messianic Jews, does their objective nature change, as Kinzer seems to imply, thus making them de iure? (For, Jesus Christ is their true origin and explicit goal.) In Kinzer’s argument, apostolic succession exists within the Messianic Jewish community. So, his argument seems at times to drift toward something that is analogically not unlike the uniate status of different Christian communities. At other times it drifts towards the unity proposed by some evangelical Christian communities, from which many of the Jewish Messianic communities derive: mystical unity without a single visible head. Which is it, if any? Hebrew Catholics (who have just celebrated their sixtieth anniversary of their Latin Patriarchal Vicariate) do not push for such a clear Jewish ecclesia and are content with a Hebrew speaking mass. In Kinzer’s terms, they have possibly become too assimilated. There are some very minor Catholic Jewish voices who push further, such as Fr Daniel Rufeisen, but whose voice is hardly heard in Catholic circles. There is one irony: if the Catholic Church responds positively to this conversation, and Kinzer provides evidence that it is slowly doing so, its post-Conciliar fragile but hard-fought-for relationship with the Jewish community might become very fraught. Kinzer is clear that Israel’s only telos is her Messiah, Jesus Christ, and his rule. Here is non-supersessionist theology, but it might not sound like good news to Jews. But it does to some Jews like Kinzer. It is timely for Jews to again remind the Catholic Church of its inherited N&V biblical truth. Gavin D’Costa University of Bristol Bristol, UK 946 Book Reviews The Heart of the Diaconate: Communion with the Servant Mysteries of Christ by James Keating (New York: Paulist Press, 2015), 79 pp. When medieval cartographers were drawing up a map of the world and came to a place where they knew there was a landmass but they could not circumscribe it because it had not been adequately explored, they wrote terra incognita at the edge of the map. Something was up there—perhaps something important—but they were not sure what to say about it. Their picture of the world was incomplete until more work could be done. The terra incognita on the map of ecclesiology is a landmass called the Diaconate. We know that something is up there, probably important, but we cannot describe it for want of a more adequate explanation. We have heard reports from visitors to the area in the fourth or sixth centuries, but their reports are difficult to decipher. It would be useful to chart this territory because it is bordered by the laity on the one side and by the presbyterate and episcopacy on the other, and discerning it would give greater clarity to these two lands. Most of us do not know what life there is like: transitional guests visit for a year, but it would be nice to hear from someone who is both a permanent citizen and could theologically describe what life there involves. James Keating is among the few possessing both these desired characteristics. Himself a permanent deacon, he is Director of Theological Formation at the Institute for Priestly Formation located at Creighton University. And he uses a spiritual compass to find his way around the Diaconate, thereby describing its theological meaning and not merely its practical activity. Understanding the identity of the permanent deacon requires going deeper than a list of functions. If he is understood only by a functional rubric, then he comes across as either an overqualified layman or an underqualified priest: “Diaconate ministry is not ‘essential’ in the sense that a priest is ‘needed’ to hear confessions, celebrate Eucharist, in anointing the sick, the deacon can be easily dismissed” (6); and “when an inquirer approaches the deacon director to initially discuss his attraction to the diaconate, he is filled with pragmatic questions. . . . He wants to measure the requirements of a “program” against his competencies in the quest to judge his own possible ‘success’” (14). Keating would bring us further inland and does so by three chapters that attempt to nudge the deacon candidate beyond these modern and masculine concerns about success and time and competency, beyond these initial and peripheral concerns and into Book Reviews 947 the heart of the diaconate, which is the servant mysteries of Christ. The first chapter concerns the calling of the deacon. Christ asks, “Will you allow me to live my servant mysteries over again in your own flesh?” (8). The whole aim of diaconal discernment, suggests Keating, is to assist men in removing whatever hinders cooperation with the Holy Spirit. It makes the discernment process a crucible of intimacy with God. The challenge in discernment is developing one’s availability to receive God. The reader can detect in this first chapter that Keating does not think being a deacon consists of being drawn into a certain set of activities, but of being drawn into Christ’s own self-giving. This is the harder part because the male American mind is political, economic, and hedonistic (16). Therefore the voice of God must be attentively heeded as the deacon explores interiority, spiritual direction, how to make diaconal vows and marital vows work cooperatively, spiritual poverty, and celibacy (since a deacon whose wife dies must reckon with this). “That is what the diaconate is in its essence: the consent by a man to be drawn into Christ’s very being for others” (19). The second chapter turns to formation and ordination. Every baptized Christian is called to holiness, but the deacon’s way to holiness is now through his clerical formation. One goal is to encourage a new diaconal imagination that connects the man to the actions of Christ the Servant. “It is mostly the imagination that has to be affected by Christ since the imagination is the reality that stores all symbols, and symbols contain effective power to ignite action” (40). Keating acknowledges that action is the ultimate end of discernment, but this is not a matter of busy activity; it is service that comes from a heart conspiring with Christ (breathing with him), just as Christ’s own service flowed from his union with the Father’s love. This can be seen in the ordination rite. “On the day of ordinations little is said about what a deacon should do. Rather, the rite focuses upon who a deacon should become. . . . The Prayer of Consecration makes it plain that the Church is not looking for another group of active men. . . . Instead, the Church is looking for a group of spiritual leaders” (44). For this purpose, a spiritual character is imprinted through Holy Orders different from the one imprinted on the priest. The deacon “acts in persona Christi servi, not capitis” (48). The priest makes himself permanently available to the sacrificial mystery of Christ, and the deacon makes himself permanently available to the servant mystery of Christ (51). In the first two chapters, Keating has turned the deacon’s eyes 948 Book Reviews inward to his identity so that the deacon does not get caught up in justifying his ministry by “having a lot to do.” But of course there is ministry to be done, and this is the subject of chapter 3. How and where is it done? The diaconate is the first degree of Holy Orders, so it is not a form of humanitarianism, but rather a supernatural vocation. Through ordination, the deacon has become permanently available to receive Christ’s servant mysteries. And since Christ is the primordial deacon, the deacon ministers where he finds Christ’s diakonia most powerful: at the two great founts of “liturgical service and the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, that is, service to the poor” (61). These two founts are sources of continual intimacy with Christ, both necessary lest the deacon suffer the noonday demon of sloth and discouragement or the modern demon of masculine narcissism. The diaconate is a grace, not given to a man as a reward to his natural gifts of leadership and ecclesial skills, but given to him because he is weak and needs a structured spiritual life. Keating therefore connects liturgical ministry with ministries of mercy: “The most accessible portal through which a deacon can remain vulnerable to the deepening of this character is his ministry of assisting at the Eucharistic liturgy” (66). He lives Christ’s worship and Christ’s healing. Like the servants in the parable of the wedding feast, the deacon runs from the altar to the secular culture in order to compel the lost and reluctant ones to come in to the feast. But this he can do only if he embodies the beauty of the kingdom in his own self. He must become a personal icon of the Servant Christ. By his ordination, the deacon is made a cleric of the Church who serves the charity of Christ as it was exemplified by the Good Samaritan: “His usual disposition is one of searching for those in need” (70). We cannot understand the place of the deacon unless we improve our ecclesiastical taxonomy. Who lives in the land of the permanent diaconate? Are they overdeveloped laity or underdeveloped priests? Neither, answers Keating: “The diaconate exists as a vocation of creative tension—a cleric living a lay life—and must remain in this tension” (1; emphasis added). A future diaconate must involve a deeper appropriation of the servant identity of Christ because Christ is among his people as one who serves (Luke 22:27). Keating thinks the drama of each deacon’s call, formation, and ministry is whether N&V the man wants this kind of spirit within him, defining him. David W. Fagerberg University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN Book Reviews 949 The “Making of Men”: The Idea and Reality of Newman’s University in Oxford and Dublin by Paul Shrimpton (Leominster, UK: Gracewing, 2014), 652 pp. After pondering this study of Newman’s work at Oxford to salvage, and in Dublin to create, a Christian and Catholic understanding of higher education, one is left with an appreciation of how difficult it has been for Christians to enter into the reality of what Newman understood. The difficulty in his own day was the failure of Anglicans to correspond to, and the failure of Catholics to want, what he aspired to. In the case of Oxford, the heart of the matter was the resistance to a tutorial system geared to educating the minds of the young in the service of “faith, chastity and love”: “These may be called the three vital principles of the Christian student . . . because their contraries, viz., unbelief or heresy, impurity and enmity, are just the three great sins against God, ourselves, and our neighbor, which are the death of the soul” (Historical Sketches, vol.3, p.189, n. 42). Newman’s triple requisite for a life rooted in the great truths of Christian dogma, a life capable of living with loss for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, goes to the heart of the resistance to Newman’s tutorial presence at Oriel College Oxford. In the case of Dublin, it was the opposite: not the failure of the Church to understand the call to sanctification, but the failure of the clergy to understand the education of minds in “the making of men”; that and the fact that, as Newman realized, many Catholics did not want anything more than a secular education for secular advancement. The understandable failure of the laity to want an education not chartered by the government may be considered, by comparison, a significant but secondary reality. Newman’s hopes for a charter may not have been as unreasonable as has been commonly assumed. What Shrimpton makes clear is that the failure of the government to offer a charter was rooted in its clear appreciation that the Church in Ireland did not want what Newman was proposing: a Catholic laity educated in the virtue of the intellect. The long and painful experience of Dublin shaped what Newman’s later experience confirmed: that the Church “must be prepared for converts”; not just converts for the Church. Shrimpton reminds us that in “the making of men” there is “no reference to women at the university . . . for the simple reason that women were admitted only gradually into higher education towards the end of his life” (p. 478). One might add that women seem to have 950 Book Reviews understood Newman’s Idea rather better than men. Women, after all, are the makers of men. The Oxford Movement was promoted to a very high degree by women in the parishes who recognized the help of male celibate priests in “the making of men.” The movement became what it was because of that. Newman’s vocation to the (arduous and difficult) celibate and virginal service of God was (and still) is the sine qua non of his commitment to the (arduous and difficult, Christian) love of family and friends—a commitment that Edward Short has profoundly illuminated in his study of Newman and his family. This calls for emphasis. Newman as an adolescent recognized his calling by God to “such a sacrifice as celibacy might involve.” The word to underline is “sacrifice.” His commitment to that vocation was confirmed only under trial and temptation, as is every Christian vocation. His understanding of sacrifice in the service of God is essential to his understanding of the Idea of a University that might foster that commitment among adolescents. Men who could sacrifice sexual self-indulgence in fidelity to God’s calling were men who could be trusted to a life of fidelity in face of the infidelity of the day. Women understood that. What Shrimpton’s book does so well is to show us how Newman’s Idea is intelligible only in the light of his dedication to a tutorial system educating adolescents in a residential setting through the “dangerous years” to a full and authentic Christian life in a world increasingly hostile to the specificity of such a life sustained by divinely imparted grace in faith and morals. This was the idea rejected both at Oxford and in Dublin. In Dublin, it was resisted with the difference that the clergy imagined that sanctity and sacraments could be perpetuated in the Irish people without further need to nurture the virtue of the intellect. As Shrimpton so well illustrates, Newman found that the Irish Church was indifferent to its Catholic gentry and distrustful of the emergent middle classes. It imagined itself as a Church of the poor and the faithful, immune to the infidelity of the day. The experience of a hundred years and the catastrophe of the post-conciliar crisis in the Catholic Church, not only in Ireland, have wrought the humiliation of a long misplaced triumphalism. Readers sympathetic to its aim will find in this book a persuasion that, in the circumstances of defeat, there may reside a hope. Through a vast range of manuscripts and printed sources, the reader is led to see again and again what has often seemed familiar. Newman emerges on every page with freshness and clarity. The genesis and Book Reviews 951 development of Newman’s Idea comes to life and into the light of day, outside the text itself. What this book establishes is that only outside the text, in the day to day workings of human relationships, do we discover “the reality” of Newman’s idea. More, we see that his defeat in Dublin was far from absolute. His Idea was perpetuated in persons: in scientists like W. K. Sullivan, in the practitioners who graduated from Newman Medical School, in lawyers and historians, in the arts and sciences, in the newly established National University after 1909, Newman’s Idea, though far from institutionally reflected (there was no theological faculty in the National University), was a living influence among generations of teachers and students. This reviewer can testify that it remained so until the disappearance of Newman from the curriculum in the 1970s. As Shrimpton concludes: “In dealing with Newman’s legacy it would be a mistake to limit his influence to his educational classic, even if so much that he wrote there is endlessly suggestive, if not provocative; in fact the theme of education runs through many of his sermons and letters. To try to appreciate his rich understanding of education by reading the Idea alone would be impossible. Instead we should also admire what he achieved in Oxford and Dublin and learn from his efforts to reform education in these two cities, because his achievement shows the extent to which he was able to adapt his thinking to meet the requirements of a very specific time and place, while holding on to what is at the heart of education. . . . Unlike many modern commentators who merely catalogue social ills, Newman diagnoses problems, supplies reasons for why things have gone wrong, and then offers practical remedies” (pp. 479–80). Page after page of this admirable book shows us “what is at the heart of education”: Newman himself, not just a theorist, but a practitioner. He is the exemplar of what he writes. One of Shrimpton’s most revealing citations is Newman’s opening address to the students of his University. He asks them to consider the possibility of disappointment and adversity, of what the world calls failure, received in a spirit of faith—such a spirit, he insists, effects a personal influence out of all proportion to what might seem less than visible in the circles in which such a person moves. It is what makes for the mission of a Christian, the leavening and rebirth of Christian hope. Here is Newman in nuce, his meaning for us now, and for the Church of now. 952 Book Reviews This book fully justifies what seems at the outset a startling claim: Newman’s Idea was not a failure. The present age, as Shrimpton maintains, is the age of the great failure: the failure of the universities to help the young in the enterprise of human living. Universities in the West, as Shrimpton remarks, may soon find themselves called to account. In contrast, he draws attention to three luminous citations from Newman in the Church’s call to an education for life in John Paul II’s Ex Corde Ecclesiae. Shrimpton’s book gives us Newman as N&V we need him. Dermot Fenlon Newman College Ireland Dublin, IE Reason, Morality, and Law: The Philosophy of John Finnis, edited by John Keown and Robert P. George (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), xii + 615 pp. This is no ordinary Festschrift. Comprising twenty-eight contributions and one hundred and twenty-five pages of detailed responses from Finnis, all on oversized paper in a diminutive font, Reason, Morality, and Law is a decidedly weighty tome. And if we include the publication in 2011 of the second edition of Natural Law and Natural Rights, and then in 2013 the five volumes of Finnis’s collected essays, Finnis’s position as the most important contemporary defender of the natural law tradition has now been powerfully, and deservedly, established for some years to come. Here, alongside the encomiums of former students, John Keown and Robert George have included a very broad range of important criticisms (how fun it is, for example, to read Joseph Raz’s attack on knowledge as a basic good!), and for the adventurous of heart, I can think of no better way of coming to terms with Finnis’s work than to read the whole thing straight through, flipping to Finnis’s penetrating individual responses after each essay. Reason, Morality, and Law, after Robert George’s substantive and historical introduction, is divided into five parts: (1) Reasons, Goods, and Principles ( Joseph Raz, Roger Crisp, John Haldane, Joseph Boyle, and Jeremy Waldron); (2) Intentions in Action (Luke Gormally, Anthony Kenny, Kevin Flannery, and Cristóbal Orrego); (3) Justice, Rights, and Wrongdoing ( John Gardner, Matthew Kramer, Leslie Green, Christopher Tollefsen, Jacqueline Tasioulas and John Tasioulas, Patrick Lee, Gerard Bradley, Anthony Fisher, and John Keown); (4) Philosophy of Law (N. E. Simmonds, Timothy Book Reviews 953 Endicott, Timothy Macklem, Julie Dickson, Maris Köpke Tinturé, Richard Ekins, and Neil Gorsuch); and (5) Philosophy, Religion, and Public Reasons (Thomas Pink and Germain Grisez). These divisions repeat the five-fold division of his collected essays and, a little more loosely, the structure of Natural Law and Natural Rights itself. Helpfully included at the end is a detailed index and a complete bibliography of Finnis’s published works, as well as the table of contents for each of the five volumes of his collected essays. The remainder of this review will be woefully selective and tuned particularly to the interests of readers working within the Thomistic tradition. What follows is a development of three contentious themes in Finnis’s work that reflect the first three of the five divisions. Finnis has long argued that the primary principles of morality are self-evident in themselves and cannot be derived from any speculative account of human nature. John Haldane’s essay raises this problem once again, though he begins with a sympathetic summary of Finnis’s position: “[Finnis’s] idea is that propositions regarding human goods are known not derivatively but by insight as self-evident, and that this is compatible with the objects-acts-power-essence principle since we come to know our nature through first knowing our acts, and the objects of human inclination and will are the primary goods. On the other hand, since acts flow from natures the value of human goods is derived from the nature whose realization and perfection they promote or constitute. In short, practical principles prescribing the pursuit of certain goods are epistemologically prior and underived, but ontologically dependent upon the nature of the agent” (46). Despite some sympathy with this view, Haldane argues that Finnis “gives insufficient consideration to the possibility that one might also invoke knowledge of natures to argue for certain directions of action, and that there may be circumstances in which this course is likely to be more helpful and a corrective to an overly aprioristic interpretation of understanding practical principles directly in virtue of their very content” (47). The point is an important one. Finnis thinks that an account of human nature unmediated by practical knowledge and experience is impossible. Haldane responds that intrinsically self-evident practical principles that have no grounding in a prior account of human nature are either “too thin and ambiguous to allow one to draw much from their deployment in the specification of human goods” or “too uncertain to resolve debates about their interpretation and application” (47). We should acknowledge, says Haldane, that “discovering that some- 954 Book Reviews thing pertains to the perfection of one’s nature is learning where the target one was looking for actually lies and is like a traveler seeking a destination: the recognition of it is reason (rational cause) to direct one’s course towards it” (47). In his reply, Finnis doubles down: “Why should free human persons treat as foundationally directive for choice the natural goodness, or natural normativity, of the given-in-nature, even in ‘human nature’? Why not strike out in new paths, and suppress or transform the immanent teleology, in ways perhaps cautious or perhaps far-reaching?” (469). Natural philosophy serves ethics by providing the minor (factual) premises of practical syllogisms but cannot provide the necessary foundational normativity. But if Finnis and others, such as Martin Rhonheimer, are right that our conception of human nature is always colored by our practical lives and that our practical lives are inherently normative, then would not our theoretical conception of human nature always itself be inherently normative? There would be no “is–ought gap” because there would be no naked “is” of human nature. For at least this reason, and despite the precision of Finnis’s position and Haldane’s careful probing, I am convinced that the relationship between theoretical and practical reason remains unresolved for Thomistic ethics. A second long-standing theme is pressed, in different ways, by Luke Gormally, Anthony Kenny, and Kevin Flannery. Finnis’s account of intentional action famously makes the practice of obstetric craniotomy (the crushing of an unborn child’s head followed by the removal of the child from the mother in order to save the mother’s life) morally acceptable under certain double-effect conditions. Gormally, following Anscombe (and publishing here for the first time a page-long, handwritten note by Anscombe that is germane to the problem), argues that considerations of “immediacy,” contrary to Finnis, imply that the death of the child in a craniotomy must be intended and that, therefore, craniotomy is a form of murder. Because changing the shape of the child’s skull is, eo ipso, killing the child, the doctor’s intention cannot be merely to “change the shape.” “By eo ipso,” says Gormally, “I take Anscombe to mean in this case that the surgeon’s chosen course of action is in itself a form of killing—not that the causation of death is a ‘downstream’ effect of what he proposes to do. . . . In craniotomy the death of the child is not a concomitant result of evacuating the contents of the baby’s skull and then crushing and tearing off the baby’s head: those actions are constitutive of killing the child” (100–01). Changing the shape of the child’s head Book Reviews 955 just is killing the child, and so to intend to change the shape is to intend to kill. But Finnis, unsurprisingly, will have none of it: “In the order of actions, causality, and events in genere naturae, this crushing and emptying (and even removing) the child’s skull ‘just is,’ ‘eo ipso’ harming and killing the child. But this crushing etc. is neither of those things in the order of intentions or, in Anscombe’s idiom, of intentional acts or, in Aquinas’s idiom, of acts in genere moris” (481). We can distinguish the order of intention from the order of natural causality by speaking, like Anscombe, of acting “under a description.” If I walk from here to there, the walking is intentional under the description “moving to open the door” but not “wearing down my shoes,” even though in the order of natural causality I am indeed doing both. Finnis’s opponents claim that, if my action is intentional under a certain description (changing the shape of the child’s head), then the action must be intentional under at least one other description (killing the child). The two effects are so closely united (changing the shape is, says Anscombe, eo ipso killing the child) that we cannot pretend to intend merely the changing of the shape. Anthony Kenny’s thoughtful criterion for the relevant form of “immediacy” is that the results can only be separated “as a result of a miracle” (115). It is easy to imagine moving to the door without wearing out my shoes (I have taken them off ), but impossible, short of a miracle, to imagine crushing a child’s head without killing the child. But Finnis might reply that, in my concrete act of moving to open the door, the exclusion of wearing down my shoes would indeed involve a miracle (after all, I am wearing my shoes and my shoes are making contact with the floor, and so, in this particular case, moving to open the door is, eo ipso, wearing down my shoes). In other words, if we say even in one case that considerations of immediacy imply that I must intend my act under a second description, then I have proven too much and we will be required to say that we intend things that we obviously do not (just as I obviously do not intend to wear down my shoes). As Finnis’s critics are quick to point out, if we could discriminate in our intentions as precisely as Finnis thinks possible, we could “direct our intention” wherever we wished (dependent of course on the order of intention determined by our end), and this would allow us to justify any concomitant effect by reasons of proportionality. (The best recent development of this objection, which also defends an interesting foundation for the relevant “immediacy,” is Matthew O’Brien and Robert Koons, “Objects of Intention: A Hylomorphic 956 Book Reviews Critique of the New Natural Law Theory,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 86 [2012]: 655–703.) It seems, therefore, that we must either choose a coherent account of intention (as Finnis does) and accept the surprising consequences expressed by the craniotomy example or exclude the craniotomy example at the cost of a coherent account of intention. Understandably, many critics choose to rework the account of intention rather than accept the practice of craniotomy, but even in the case of Koons and O’Brien, the problems with Finnis’s account are much easier to understand than the positive account of intention and “immediacy” that we also need in order to offer a coherent and persuasive alternative. A final theme, raised by Leslie Green and Christopher Tollefsen, involves Finnis’s claim that the political community’s common good is a merely instrumental good. Finnis’s views on this have developed over the years. According to Finnis: “As for the political community’s common good, the 1996 essay [“Limited Government,” reprinted in vol. 3 of his collected essays] called it ‘instrumental’ because it does not as such instantiate any of the basic human goods. . . . In Aquinas, however, this way of conceiving the political common good was to be set aside” (512). In Aquinas, Finnis argues that there is a genuine common good of the political community that is “all-inclusive” and, as such, is certainly not instrumental. Nevertheless, “there is also a common good which is ‘political’ in the more specific sense that it is (i) the good of using government and law to assist individuals and families do well what they should be doing, together with (ii) the good(s) which sound action by and on behalf of the political community can add to the good attainable by individuals and families as such (including the good of repelling and overcoming harms and deficiencies which individuals and families and other ‘private’ groupings could not adequately deal with). This, and only this, specifically political common good is what the state’s rulers are responsible for securing and, by legislation and lawful governmental action, . . . should require their subjects to respect and support. This specifically political common good is limited and in a sense instrumental” (513–14). But here Finnis increases even more the subtlety of his position: “Even though property, produce and exchange, and the laws that establish and protect them are, like defense forces, instrumental goods, the restoration of justice . . . seems to be an aspect of the basic human good of societas or philia” (514). Further, the “human cooperative governance” that results in properly political governance “cannot be done well, or even adequately” without political friendship and a Book Reviews 957 broad understanding and promotion of the “all-inclusive common good” (ibid.). Therefore, “the term ‘subsidiarity’ . . . might, I now think, have been better that the term ‘instrumental.’ . . . Or perhaps ‘supplementary’ would do” (514). Finnis’s shift here muddies the water significantly. Even if someone like Lawrence Dewan (whose criticism of the instrumentality thesis is one of the most sustained and thoughtful responses to Finnis on this issue [“St. Thomas, John Finnis, and the Political Good,” The Thomist 64 (2000): 337–74]) would reject the idea that the properly political common good is in any way “subsidiary” to other social common goods (rather, he might say, it is certainly the other way around), there no longer seems any principled reason for thinking that the properly political common good does not, at least in part, instantiate an important basic good and, even more, can claim the use of force in the promotion of the “all-inclusive” common good. Finnis’s response to Tollefsen, whose essay defends Finnis against Robert George on this point, is revealing: although the state can promote the all-inclusive common good, “‘can’ does not entail ‘should’ or even ‘may (is entitled or permitted to)’, and . . . the onus is on those who claim that state government and law are entitled to compel private virtue for its own sake to show why they are” (520). Given how easily political power is misused, I doubt anyone would disagree with that last sentence. But if the political common good is itself (at least in part) an intrinsic good and is capable of promoting the overall common good in ways that no other part of society can, then subsidiarity itself should lead us to conclude that, whereas the onus is certainly on those who would recommend the use of force, we have good reason to believe that sometimes we will be able to justify such use. And now, even if there is still deep theoretical disagreement between Finnis and those who would follow Dewan, there might no longer be any practical disagreement. But I risk losing sight of the forest. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to John Finnis, who has been, and remains, a tireless champion of the natural law, of St. Thomas Aquinas, and of the Church who is home to both. Reason, Morality, and the Law is a superb achievement, and a fitting tribute to this most inestimable of men. N&V Ad multos annos! Raymond Hain Providence College Providence, RI 958 Book Reviews God’s Love through the Spirit: The Holy Spirit in Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley by Kenneth M. Loyer (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2014), 295 pp. “Distinctive yet complementary” is how Kenneth Loyer, in his learned study God’s Love Through the Spirit, characterizes the theologies of Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley. Distinctive, in so far as Wesley’s “practical theology” foregoes the gilding of scholastic Trinitarian theology. He does not consider the distinction between persons, processions, and relations, or essential, notional, and personal concepts, as does Aquinas.Yet, Loyer contends, Wesley’s soteriology complements Aquinas’s Trinitarian theology. God’s Love Through the Spirit is a work of Methodist theology. It is a retrieval of John and Charles Wesley’s doctrine of sanctification, enhanced by Thomas Aquinas’s teaching on the Holy Spirit. That is, it is a Methodist reception of St. Thomas. But it is also an offering of Methodism, and the Wesleys, to contemporary followers of the Angelic Doctor. As Loyer puts it, his Methodist soteriology “appropriates and amplifies” St. Thomas. The text has three phases. First, two chapters outline challenges internal to Methodist theology, centering around the Wesleyan doctrine of sanctification. Next, Loyer gives a detailed systematic analysis of Aquinas’s pneumatology focused around the concept of love. Finally, Loyer constructs a way forward for Methodist soteriology by appropriating Thomas’s teaching on the Spirit and love. The result is a rigorously constructed Wesleyan soteriology and pneumatology in dialogue with Thomas Aquinas that should garner interest from both Catholic and Methodist theologians. The provocation of God’s Love Through the Spirit is a deficiency in Methodist pneumatology. Loyer discerns a twofold problem descending from the lack of a developed doctrine of the Holy Spirit in Methodist theology. First, while Methodists have long emphasized their doctrine of grace, in particular sanctifying grace, they have failed to connect that doctrine to the Holy Spirit. As a result, Loyer contends, Methodist language of grace has become generic and Methodist theology “tends to end up reflecting the human spirit and its multifaceted quest for liberation more than it reflects the Spirit of God, who as the source of all life actually gives the human spirit its true freedom” (3). This dilemma he refers to as the “secularization” of sanctification, which is attended by a reduction of pneumatology to politics. Book Reviews 959 The question, of course, is what to do. The dilemma derives, in part, from a related problem in the reception of John Wesley. Wesley left the theological “foundation” of his teaching on sanctification implicit or undeveloped. Thus, the reception of his teaching has been prone to several misreadings, which Loyer calls variously “perfectionist,” “static,” “anthropocentric,” or “individualist.” Whatever misreadings exist, Loyer finds a single solution: to render explicit the implicit theological foundation of Wesley’s soteriology. That is, he seeks to connect Wesley’s teaching on sanctification to Trinitarian theology: “Viewing (sanctification) through the lens of trinitarian theology clarifies its appropriately theological content and orientation while illuminating Wesley’s emphasis on the immediate and ongoing work of the Holy Spirit sanctifying those in Christ so that the image of God is more fully restored in their lives” (18). Loyer ties this proposal to a broader concern in Wesley and Methodist studies for a recovery of Wesley’s teaching on holiness and perfection, most notably by William Abraham and Theodore Runyon. He therefore begins with a return to teaching of the Wesleys on sanctification and perfection. Weaving together the sermons of John and the hymns of Charles, in keeping with the best practices of Wesley studies, he shows an implicit trinitarianism. Loyer contends that making explicit, and augmenting, that Trinitarian theology promises to correct the misreadings he presents in chapter 2 and prevent the pneumatological deficiencies outlined in chapter 1. In order to express and augment the implicit trinitarianism of John and Charles Wesley, Loyer turns to Thomas Aquinas. Chapters 3 and 4 follow the sequence of articles in Summa theologiae I, question 37. Loyer first considers Aquinas’s position in article 1 that amor is a proprium of the Holy Spirit or, as Loyer puts it, that the Holy Spirit is personal love (chapter 3). Here he follows closely Gilles Emery’s work on the propria and the Holy Spirit. Next, Loyer turns to Aquinas’s argument in article 2 that the Father and Son love one another by the Holy Spirit. As Loyer puts it, the Holy Spirit is mutual love (chapter 4). In this section, he shows a sensitivity to French debates over the relative significance of Aquinas’s affirmation of the Spirit as mutual love within the larger project of the Summa theologiae. In the end, he sides with Jean-Pierre Torrell and Gilles Emery’s “balanced” approach, producing a systematic reading of mutual love across the Summa. Chapter 5 then shifts attention from the prima pars to the secunda pars and beyond, to the Summa contra gentiles and the Scripture 960 Book Reviews commentaries and Pentecost sermon Emitte Spiritum. Here, Loyer’s focus is on the connection between the Holy Spirit and caritas in the Christian life. Thereby, Loyer draws together an important systematic connection in Aquinas between the Holy Spirit and love. This in itself establishes God’s Love Through the Spirit as a worthwhile study. In a final chapter, Loyer draws together his reading of Wesley and Thomas. He demonstrates the great care and energy required for working such disparate sources into harmony. Sites of dissonance, such as Wesley’s teaching on assurance and perfection and Aquinas on merit, are given careful scrutiny. Loyer distinguishes genuine disagreements from semantic differences and then offers ways for further dialogue. He also does much to rebut criticisms of Thomas’s Geistesvergessenheit along the way. In fact, his argument suggests that the trope that Thomas has forgotten, neglected, or subverted the place of the Holy Spirit (a common trope in some criticism) is fallacious. If John Wesley, the great hero of Pentecostalism, complements so nicely the Trinitarian theology of Thomas Aquinas, the problem may not be that Thomas has forgotten the Spirit; perhaps we have simply forgotten where to look! On that note, Loyer’s connection of the Spirit to love and grace and Thomas’s connection of grace to the sacraments and the mystical body of Christ (i.e., the Church) are instructive as to where one might go looking for the Spirit in Aquinas. All this suggests that Loyer is right, if understated, to suggest that Thomists will find engagement with the Wesleys instructive and fruitful. The greater achievements of God’s Love Through the Spirit, though, are for Methodist theology. There is much to commend about the connection of Wesley’s soteriology with a robust Thomistic Trinitarian theology. First, it integrates several Wesleyan themes: love, holiness, spiritual senses, sanctification, the imago Dei, and the Spirit. Second, it reorients Methodist debates over the instantaneous and gradual dimensions of grace that have occupied (not to say consumed) the past generation of scholars of John Wesley. Third, overlaying the Wesleyan vocabulary of perfection with the language of participation overcomes the reduction of pneumatology to politics by means of a “politics of participation in the life and love of God,” through the Spirit. Loyer lays out all these achievements in detail. But his greatest contribution remains implicit. We Methodists are a pragmatic flock. We celebrate John Wesley, our “practical” theologian. And we are prone to think we can solve our problems through a focus on prac- Book Reviews 961 tice. At times, this means an avoidance of the abstractions of academic theology. And at times we are right; practices beat academic abstractions. But what Loyer has shown us is that there are better options available. Instead of leaning into practice and out of academia, which has sometimes ironically led us into more entrenched forms of the latter, we might lean into doctrine and the speculative exercises of fides quaerens intellectum. At least, any serious reader of Loyer’s text will have to consider this option. And for the clear presentation of that option, those of us inclined to find Thomas and his ilk instructive on N&V the task of theology should all be grateful. Justus H. Hunter United Theological Seminary Dayton, OH To Build the City of God: Living as Catholics in a Secular Age by Brian M. McCall (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2014), 290 pp. The Catholic answer to Juvenal’s question “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”—“Who guards the guardians?”—has always been “the Church.” She safeguards a transcendent rule or measure of goodness, the eternal law, which perfects human law by ordering it to human beatitude. Since law requires a lawgiver, it follows that Christ’s reign extends to familial and civic society as well as over the Church. If our primary obligations as subjects of this King are to profess true religion and render due worship to Christ (see Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2105), good human laws will facilitate this, being “not a law unto themselves but rather the final stage of making concrete and particular the laws of Christ’s kingdom, the eternal, natural, and divine laws” (McCall, 22). This conclusion has many consequences for modern Catholics. First, it contradicts the liberal doctrine that civil government ought to be, in principle, “neutral” regarding competing visions of the good, whether this is understood as a Jeffersonian “wall of separation” or as Rawlsian procedural “neutrality.” The Church holds that civil and ecclesial jurisdictions are distinct but not independent, being dynamically ordered one to the other as nature is to grace. Second, the social Kingship of Christ requires us to reject the authority of civil laws that cannot be ordered to the eternal law as acts of political violence. Brian McCall’s new book suggests a further implication: since democratic procedures presuppose liberal political theory, which cannot be ordered either to the common good or to the eternal law, Catho- 962 Book Reviews lics should reject the authority of ecclesial and civic associations that use such procedures, including the U.S. Constitution and the Second Vatican Council. “The Constitution,” he writes, “is a product of the errors of Enlightenment liberalism just as Dignitatis Humanae can be viewed as product of neo-modernism” (225)—that is, premised on the diabolical notion of popular sovereignty. This third supposed consequence of the social Kingship of Christ is problematic for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that every Church council from Nicea to Vatican II has made use of majoritarian procedures. This would suggest that voting at a Church council is neither a product of neo-modernism nor diabolical. McCall’s book has many strengths, not least of which is its clear and powerful exegesis of central principles of Thomistic natural law and Catholic social teaching on matters of sexuality and family life, economics, and political authority. However, this exposition is marred in several places by the insertion of procedural objections against Vatican II into McCall’s application of these principles. Consider an example. After setting out the doctrine of the social Kingship of Christ in chapter 1, McCall turns to a discussion of marriage and family from the perspective of natural law in chapter 2. He defends marriage as an indissoluble, complementary union of the sexes for the purpose of begetting, rearing, and educating children and discusses modern challenges to each of these three ends in detail. So far, so good. Yet McCall then argues that “the Second Vatican Council is really the ultimate party to blame” for the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down key sections of the “Defense of Marriage Act” in 2013 “and for Catholic’s confusion over the essence of marriage” (49). His argument for this claim is that, by utilizing majoritarian rather than monarchical procedures, the Council “adopted the idea that reality can become whatever a majority, no matter how nefariously procured, declares it to be” (49). This is so because, “if the majority of votes at a Council of the Church can declare that which has always been wrong to be right”—namely, demoting the primary end of marriage, procreation, to an end equal to or even secondary to the other ends of the marital act (50)—“then the will of the People must be respected to do the same” (52–53). To lay the sexual revolution and the capitulation of the American public to liberal mores at the feet of Vatican II, however, seems too simple by far. Chapters 3–4 are the strongest of the book. They summarize and illustrate the central arguments of McCall’s previous (and highly recommended) monograph, The Church and the Usurers (Sapien- Book Reviews 963 tia Press, 2014). Chapter 3 articulates and defends the distinction between natural and artificial wealth and the unique conclusions the Thomistic tradition draws from the distinction. For instance, McCall highlights the thesis that the legal institution of private property has a prior, social purpose requiring individuals to use their wealth in just and charitable ways that contribute to the common good. He also defends the classification of “political economy” as a moral science against the positivists by attacking euphemistic descriptions to “economic laws” that omit that economic effects are the outcomes of human choices and, thus, subject to moral evaluation. Chapter 4 forcefully argues that, if the purpose of money is to measure and store value, the current “triple-power of paper currency, debt-based money, and the secretive private bank” known as the Fed undercut the stability of money and infuse structural forms of injustice into the American economic system (156). McCall carefully and accurately distinguishes between taking illicit (usurious) profit on loans from earning legitimate returns on capital invested for productive rather than consumptive purposes and illustrates how one might apply the distinction to current mortgage practices. Chapter 5 offers “Practical Advice for Surviving in an Immoral Economy.” However, in chapter 6, McCall once again mars his presentation of the political implications of the social Kingship of Christ with further attacks on Vatican II. He begins with an exposition of Thomistic arguments for the view that, while a state might be directed to the common good by one, few, or many persons, there are prudential reasons to prefer monarchy to other forms of government (235–40). McCall then identifies and attacks three “deadly viruses” of Enlightenment Liberalism as inconsistent with traditional Catholic political theory: (1) “that sovereignty comes from the people and is delegated to the government by them”; (2) that federal authority is checked only by positive law and not by “higher law”; and (3) “an ultimate acceptance of the majoritarian fallacy” (225). The arguments that follow insightfully diagnose the American Constitution as infected with these viruses, but McCall interweaves these arguments with similar attacks on Vatican II. To take just one instance: “The problem is that the Constitution—like Dignitatis Humanae, Sancrosanctum Concilium, and other documents of Vatican II—contains time bombs in the form of ambiguous, equivocal, open-ended clauses clearly inserted by a liberal cabal in the process of drafting and approval by a committee in a setting where no unified intention or interpretation existed at the time” (221–22). No matter what the actual documents 964 Book Reviews claim, these ambiguities—and, McCall suggests, the democratic procedures used to produce them—“would undermine Catholic Social Teaching on Christ the King” (222). These procedural attacks on Vatican II leave much to be desired. Although his basic arguments are always well grounded in Thomistic political theory, McCall’s exegesis decidedly privileges several nineteenth-century encyclicals in which embattled Popes fought the severing of European throne and Roman altar by the forces of liberalism and nationalism. The core doctrines of these movements—that political authority is grounded in the will of the people rather than eternal law; that a system of checks and balances within positive law, rather than appeal to natural law, is sufficient to limit inevitable abuses of political power; and that the results of majoritarian procedures rather than metaphysical insight into reality either constitute truth or are a reliable guide to it—all contradict central theses of the Catholic political tradition. This led a series of Popes, from Gregory XVI to Pius XI (roughly, 1831 to 1939), to reject democratic political structures on the grounds that the political liberalism that so often justified them was inconsistent with an “integralist” understanding of Church–State relations. It was only under the influence of Thomistic defenders of democracy, such as French philosopher Jacques Maritain (whose influence was also significant in Latin America) and John A. Ryan in America, that the Church eventually gave strictly qualified but positive approval to democratic regimes. While calling attention to democracy’s deficiencies, Pope Pius XII’s Christmas address of 1944 recognized that the dignity of the person requires that he have a voice in his government, both to chasten its abuses and to direct it to the common good. This evaluation, including approval of civic principles of religious freedom on grounds of human dignity, was reiterated in Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae. McCall, like other selfstyled “traditionalist” Catholics, rejects these developments as inconsistent with the principles articulated in Leo XII’s Immortale Dei and Pius XI’s Quas Primas. Now, as many worthy thinkers have argued (e.g., S. M. Hutchens, Roger Scruton, and David Bentley Hart), no believer thinks of her faith as one religion among others. Disciples understand their faith from a committed, first-person standpoint as uniquely grasping reality—that is, as true—rather than from a disinterested, third-person perspective appropriate to sociology, which relativizes truth claims. To be “modern” is to be one who wrestles with the fact that both perspectives are in some sense legitimate, to recognize that we err Book Reviews 965 both by identifying faith with religion and by limiting the search for truth to one faith (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church §2104). The first of these (identifying faith and religion), a typically Liberal error, understands religious freedom as a negative civic liberty to indulge religious preferences that are in principle unjustifiable, one that must be balanced by other positive civil obligations and sometimes overridden. This conception of religious liberty was rightly condemned by the nineteenth-century papacy as inconsistent with the sacred tradition. On the other hand, Dignitatis Humanae recognizes both that every human being has an obligation (and therefore a right) to search for truth about God and that people begin searching from different places. So understood, religious liberty is not a so-called “right to error,” as the traditionalists mock, but a right to search for truth consistent with one’s dignity as a person whose free, rational assent is a necessary condition of faith. A better way to understand the nineteenth-century encyclicals is to focus on their insight that members of pluralist democracies tend to internalize the distinction between faith and religion. Too often, modern Christians view their faith as one religion among others, and thus fail to give Christ due worship as the one true God, while at the same time failing to recognize that competing religious claims are claims about reality being made by mutual searchers after truth rather than emotive expressions of liturgical preferences, a mistake that strips believers of their dignity by treating them as pretenders. Similar concerns could be raised about the fate of moral and scientific truth in pluralistic democracies, but put that aside. The issue is whether democratic procedures entail relativism, as McCall suggests, or merely encourage the existence of relativists. If the latter thesis is true, many of McCall’s objections to Vatican II are unpersuasive. Nothing about relativism or the reversibility of doctrine follows from observations about the historically contingent, majority-dependent outcomes of Church Councils. Legend has it, for instance, that Athanasius’s men beat up some Arians on the way to Nicaea, preventing them from speaking (and voting) at the Council. If contingency makes for scandal by entailing relativism—a thesis McCall shares with the arch-liberal Immanuel Kant, by the way, and which led the latter to reject natural law in the Preface to the Groundwork—surely the use of violence to secure the divinity of Christ is more scandalous than voting itself, and we should reject the Nicene Creed along with Vatican II. That is absurd, of course, and so Christians must accept that the Spirit can work in unpredictable ways and trust Christ’s 966 Book Reviews promise that it will do so. One can agree with McCall that majoritarian procedures at Councils may sometimes be passively scandalous in so far as they give the appearance of contingency and reversibility to the weak-minded liberal and that particular churchmen may commit active scandal by publically encouraging such views. Nevertheless, we must remember that scandal also requires weak-mindedness in the one scandalized in order to work its evil and cannot be laid solely at the feet of democratic procedure. My second major criticism of McCall’s book involves standards of scholarship. McCall does not mention the significant scholarship about Dignitatis Humane produced by the Communio school, but rather brushes it aside as a futile debate about the original intentions of the document’s authors (see 220–25). The status questionis regarding Dignitais Humanae is roughly this. The document famously shifts the discussion of religious freedom from the principle that error has no rights to a discussion of the civil rights of persons who may or may not be in error. Traditionalists and progressives disagree about whether this is a development or abandonment of traditional Catholic doctrine. Initial drafts of the document were influenced by Jesuit Fr. John Courtney Murray, who advocated a juridical notion of freedom widely viewed as at odds with the Catholic tradition. However, later drafts of the document incorporated significant revisions from French Catholics and the then Bishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla (the future St. Pope John Paul II). A second controversy thus concerns whether the final document presents a coherent understanding of freedom, and if so, whether the “juridical” or “ontological approach” is primary. Exacerbating the debate is the fact that the widely circulated English (Abbott) edition of the document was translated, footnoted and introduced by Fr. Murray, and many feel his work minimized, distorted, or ignored the French contributions. Traditionalist (“Lefebvrian”) objections to Dignitatis Humanae are grounded in a rejection of Murray’s interpretation of the document. They assert that the teaching of Dignitatis Humanae contradicts the teachings of Gregory XVI, Pius IX, and Leo XIII regarding the primacy of Christ—the main sources of McCall’s book. If that is true, significant declarations of the Second Vatican Council amount to heresy and their authority is null. McCall gestures in that direction, yet nowhere does his book mention the significant and extensive work of those, like David L. Schindler and the Communio school, who have argued that Murray’s interpretation of the final council Book Reviews 967 documents is significantly flawed and who instead privilege John Paul II’s defense of the document on the grounds that it roots the notion of freedom in truth, in our ontological relatedness to God—the very thing the Lefebvrians were originally concerned to defend.1 This is a massive oversight. Schindler, for instance, recently argued at length that the excommunicated Bishop Lefebvre and Fr. Murray share an understanding of the human act that is “originally disjoined from, and thus yet-to-be-related to, truth and God,”2 and that this mistaken thesis renders both Lefebvrian political integralism and Murrian political liberalism unpersuasive. Indeed, Schindler concludes that “Murray’s criticism of the argument of the final Declaration, therefore, as well as Lefebvre’s opposing criticism, are in the end warranted only if the ancient-medieval tradition’s idea of the spirituality of the free-intelligent human act and of the transcendentality of truth is false.”3 Schindler argues that Dignitatis Humanae does indeed incorporate new considerations by giving voice to the modern recognition of the subjectivity of the person, but also that this is consistent with the tradition’s insistence on the intrinsic relation between freedom and truth. The document legitimately develops doctrine by “drawing out more fully the interiority traditionally understood to be proper to the human act,” an interiority that “is first positively, not ‘negatively,’ related to the world and to God, and is necessarily presupposed by this relation.”4 In short, Schindler argues—and has argued for years 5 —that the traditionalist attack on the Murraian interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae assaults a straw man using premises that are themselves foreign to the Catholic tradition. To overlook such arguments is a signif icant oversight for a book intended (in part) as the newest contribution in a long-standing debate over the status of the N&V document. Joshua Schulz DeSales University Center Valley, PA David L. Schindler, “Freedom, Truth, and Human Dignity: and Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae on the Right to Religious Liberty,” Communio 40 (2013): 208–316. 2 Ibid., 280. 3 Ibid., 282. 4 Ibid., 311. 5 See David L. Schindler, “Religious Freedom, Truth, and American Liberalism: Another Look at John Courtney Murray,” Communio 21 (1994): 696–741. 1 968 Book Reviews Introduction to the Mystery of the Church by Benoît-Dominique de la Soujeole, O.P., translated by Michael J. Miller (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press of America, 2014), xxvii + 640 pp. (French original: Introduction au mystère de l’église [Paris: Parole et silence, 2006].) In the preface to the original edition, this introductory volume is presented modestly as something of a textbook for a course in ecclesiology that the author has taught at the University of Fribourg. In fact, the book amounts to more than an introduction and much more than a textbook. The author says that he intends to fill a lacuna in the enormous theological literature that followed after the Second Vatican Council. He observes, rightly, that much of this literature involved specialized studies on a point of doctrine or historical studies on the development of doctrine. These things are all valuable and necessary, but what are needed—especially if the Council’s teaching is to be received—are synthetic studies of the doctrine on the Church situated in the continuity of the entire Catholic Tradition. The principal goal of the book is to present this kind of study, and the author succeeds admirably. He achieves a comprehensive systematic doctrinal synthesis that is rare in ecclesiological studies since the Council. The synthesis is nourished by Thomistic categories and resources, above all by the attention to the unity of theology. The Thomistic understanding of mediation informs the entire synthesis. The principles of St. Thomas’s exposition of the New Law are employed to point out a fruitful way toward explaining the unity of the Church that conjoins all the elements of the Church as a complex being. The notion of a potential whole contributes to an understanding of the unicity of the Church and the relationship of separated churches and ecclesial communities to the one, unique Church of Christ, the Catholic Church. The author says he has been guided by two principal recommendations of the Second Vatican Council: “Dogmatic theology should be based on a solid theology of sources (positive theology) followed by speculative theology that grasps the interconnection of the mysteries of salvation with the help of St. Thomas” (citing Optatum Totius, the Decree on Priestly Training, §16). The author understands a theology of sources as involving an overview of sources from Scripture and Tradition following a progressive order of discovery connected to the history of Church. Doctrinal history is seen as being characterized as having a unity, coherence, and continuity that present day dogmatic theology needs to enter into if it is to remain in continuity with it. Book Reviews 969 A great a merit of the book is that the author gives an exceptionally clear explanation about what is required for achieving a scientific doctrinal synthesis. The theology of sources prepares the way for, but does not arrive at, a synthesis because it does not distinguish what is first from what is second. This is the task of speculative theology, which strives for knowledge of things by its causes. This means that speculative theology is an order of science and wisdom. It is not limited to asking whether a truth is revealed, but rather seeks to go further and ask what the revealed divine realities are in themselves. What can be discovered through analysis of the inner relations between revealed truths? What is the first truth fundamental to other truths of faith and how does it explain the rest? For the author, a rigorous speculative theology will try to attain “the highest understanding of what is and how it is” (10). It will aim toward a scientific synthesis “in which the partial and derived truths are reconnected to those that explain them (first truths or sources), and altogether these truths will make up the supreme truth.” A synthesis, the author insists, is not a summary, but something organic that is an “explanation of the whole showing the coherence of the constituent elements” (18). The book is divided into two parts according to its methodology. The first part is a theology of sources which describes the reality that is the Church, and the second part is a speculative theology that strives to give an account of the essence of the Church—what is it? The plan the author follows is extremely clear. The first part describes the reality of the Church by identifying the constituent elements of the Church from the data of revelation. In the light of this information, the sacramentality of the Church rises to the surface. On the basis of the constituent elements that have been singled out in the theology of sources, the author moves to the second part of the book, where he inquires into the definition of the Church. He distinguishes a nominal definition that corresponds roughly to what everyone understands—the Church is a community—from a conceptual definition the name of which signifies the essence of a thing: the Church is the “sacrament of communion.” He proposes this conceptual definition as being capable of expressing the whole set of elements that make up the one reality that is the Church. From there, the author moves on to inquire whether the ontological status of the Church reaches the highest perfection, which is being a person. The last section of the second part reviews the essential properties of the Church as one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. The final chapter examines the question of the indefectibility of the Church. 970 Book Reviews In part I, the author traces the description of the mystery of the Church in scripture and tradition. He reviews the biblical images of the Church and the mystery of the Church in relation to the kingdom of God. The kingdom makes us know the mystery of the Church and is present in her in a certain way. The author gives an insightful presentation of the ecclesiological themes of Mystical Body of Christ, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, the People of God, and the Church as Mystery as they come down to us in Scripture and Tradition. He offers a penetrating review of these great themes in the fathers of the Church, in the thought of St. Thomas, and in the Second Vatican Council. The author points out that the theme of the body of Christ, with its firm foundation in Scripture and Tradition, expresses the very heart of the Church as the supernatural community of Christian grace. In some seventy-two pages, the author gives a succinct and penetrating overview that is a tour de force. His treatment of the position and contribution of St. Thomas and his careful treatment of the encyclical Mystici Corporis advances the project of the book but could also stand on its own as a major essay. The author also discusses the meaning of the famous subsistit in passage of Lumen Gentium §8.2, and he comes to the conclusion that “the Roman Catholic Church actually is the one, unique Church of Christ; the separated communities potentially are the one, unique, Church, not by pure potentiality, but by a potentiality that is actualized progressively if they follow the ecclesial elements preserved within them” (128). The theme of the body of Christ expresses the Church in a way that relates to her essence and what she has been very from the first of her existence and what she will never stop being. The theme also raises speculative questions about the nature of mystical unity as well as the complexity of the being of the Church that will be treated later in the second part of the book. The author lays out how the Church as the People of God appears first in its fundamental activities to which the members of the body are called as priests, prophets, and kings. The People of God theme situates the Church in a historical perspective, showing forth how the being of the Church develops in its potentialities over time. In every age, the author insists, it is always the same one being of the Church. His presentation is enriched with many insights. For example, his illuminating discussion of how St. Thomas received from the fathers the Christological triad of priest–prophet–king not only contributes to a deeper understanding of the Church as the People of God but Book Reviews 971 also corrects the claim encountered in some studies that the triad was forgotten in the Middle Ages only to be rediscovered by the work of the Reformers. In the chapter on the Temple of the Holy Spirit theme, two principal characteristics emerge that are important for the author’s speculative presentation. First, the Holy Spirit makes the Church one, since he is the Church’s principle of unity. Second, the Holy Spirit constitutes the Church as a living organism because he is the principle of the Church’s life. Therefore, the author identifies two pillars of pneumatology that pertain to his study of the Church: “the original gift and the continual gift, the permanence of Christ’s work (his Gospel, his sacraments, his ministers) and their fruitfulness in every age that must meet ever-new challenges” (187). The placement of the chapter “The Church is a Mystery” as last in the first part is intended to serve as a recapitulation of all of the positive data collected in prior chapters. The author gives a very helpful historical overview from Scripture and Tradition of two correlative senses of mystery: as truth grasped only in supernatural faith and as signifying the presence of the reality of God’s gift in the world. The distinctive contributions of St. Augustine and St. Thomas are identified and described with precision. For Augustine, the Church is a mystery because she is a human community through which and in which the divine reality of salvation occurs. If Christ is the great sacrament, then his body and bride are too, by reason of the intimate unity between the head and members. St. Thomas’s contribution is located in his speculative elaboration on the patristic idea of sacramentum and his explanation of sacramentum Christi as the prime analogate for the sacraments. It is argued that the angelic doctor made an important clarification and applied it to the mystery-sacrament that is the Church. Theologians after St. Thomas lost the analogical sense, and from the end of the Middle Ages to the modern era, the word sacrament was interpreted to mean first and foremost the seven acts of divine worship. The nineteenth century marked the return to the idea of sacramentality, first to Christ, then to the Eucharist, and finally to the Church that is born from the Eucharist. This sacramental perspective is retrieved by the magisterium in chapter 1 of Lumen Gentium, entitled “De Ecclesiae mysterio,” with its teaching that “the Church, in Christ, is in the nature of a sacrament—a sign and instrument, that is of communion with God and of unity among all men.” Still, 972 Book Reviews Vatican II did not entirely develop the sacramental perspective, but with discernment, indicated a path forward. Lumen Gentium tried to display the unity of the different aspects of the Church through sacramentality, but this path was neglected by ecclesiologists after Vatican II. The author argues that the great ecclesiological question today remains the question of the conceptual unity of ecclesial being. It has not been adequately explained and is the cause of numerous difficulties. The tendency to speak about the visible institution of the Church as really distinct from the invisible communion of the Church is but one example. This problem of conceptual unity is the focus of the author’s speculative efforts. Part II of the book is a speculative theology that seeks to offer a definition of the Church. The mystery that is the Church is revealed in Scripture and Tradition as a complex unity having various aspects. These aspects can be condensed into two general ones: the Church is the means of salvation and the reality of salvation. The author not only affirms but also thinks out, rigorously, the meaning of the teaching of Lumen Gentium §8.1 that the two aspects of the Church are not to be thought of as two realities, “but rather they form one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and a human element.” The challenge is to keep both aspects united together in such a way that they are mutually inclusive. It has proved a difficult task for Catholic theologians to do consistently. The predominant approach has been to think “binomially,” conceiving of two antagonistic poles existing in a dialectical tension with one another. Opposition tends to be more fundamental than unity. In this way of thinking, there can be only a precarious kind of equilibrium between the aspects of the Church. This is not at all equivalent to the unity characteristic of the Church having to do with the composition of one complex reality, as Lumen Gentium §8.1 teaches. Historically, the question about the nature of the Church was raised by the ecclesiological dualism of the Protestant Reformers and the distinction and separation they made between a visible Church and an invisible Church. The classic response of Catholic theologians was to stress the visibility of the Church. In opposition to the Protestant paradigm of either/or, Catholic theologians asserted that the Church is both realities, a hierarchical society and a supernatural communion. These realities were explained in such a way that they were, in effect, separable realities, even though normally combined. So Robert Bellarmine could speak of someone belonging to the body Book Reviews 973 of the Church but not to her soul, and vice versa. The Jesuit saint accepted unintentionally and implicitly the premise of the Reformers: the separation of the means of grace from the reality of grace within the Church. The ecclesiological renewal of the first half of the twentieth century answered the one-sided emphasis on the Church as a visible hierarchical society with an emphasis on an interior, spiritual aspect of the Church without separating it from the external, juridical aspect. The author maintains that, in the 1920s, there was the first appearance of “binomials”: Church–Mystical Body and organism–organization. The ecclesiological renewal in theology made some valuable rediscoveries of important ecclesiological themes: Mystical Body, People of God, Sacrament, and Communion. These were needed and provided some corrections, but there was a failure to rethink the entire matter of the Church in a way that would surmount the fundamental error. In other words, the dualism of the Bellarmine’s societal concept still remained as it was, even though there were attempts to rebalance and supplement it. There was still the failure to grasp the vinculum uniting the complex being that is the Church. The author views the encyclical Mystici Corporis as a bright spot, whatever its limits, because its methodology tried to rethink the Church as a whole. Lumen Gentium and its teaching in §8 that “non ut duae res considerandae sunt, sed unam realitatem complexam efformant” pointed out the way forward of seeing “the fundamental unity of which the various elements are only aspects” (413). This means that Lumen Gentium’s invitation to think of the Church as a sacrament of communion can be properly understood only if its teaching that the Church is one indivisible complex reality is fully taken into account. The author believes that Lumen Gentium §8.1 has not been properly received because the prevalent Catholic ecclesiology after Vatican II has been stuck in binomial thinking. He argues that, when the sacramentality of the Church is approached in a univocal sense beginning from sacramental action, the separability between the signum and the res is then attributed to the Church. It is then all too easy to fall back into the sixteenth-century dead-end thinking that the visible and invisible Church form two realities normally united yet separable. The Church-society then becomes really distinct from the Church-communion. But the teaching of Lumen Gentium that the Church is one indivisible being should lead us to think that “the society is in the communion, and the communion is in society” (434). 974 Book Reviews Attending to the data from his review of positive theology, the author proposes defining the Church as a sacrament of communion, but his contribution lies in how he demonstrates the definition. He believes that St. Thomas points a way forward. There are fruitful implications for ecclesiology in St. Thomas’s exposition of the New Law because it offers a suggestive example of a substantial unity of different elements. The New Law is one, but St. Thomas can distinguish two elements. The primary element is spiritual and invisible: the Holy Spirit (uncreated grace), together with the theological virtues and gifts (created grace). The secondary element is visible, having to do with those things that dispose toward the primary one: the written law, precepts, and those things that result from the primary (the Spirit and the theological virtues) bringing the gift of God to fruition in good works. “The New Law consists chiefly in the grace of the Holy Ghost, which is shown forth by faith that works through love (Summa theologiae I-II, q. 108, a. 1). This manifestation resides not only in internal acts but also and necessarily in external acts” (399). The author argues that the major point to be learned from the passages on the New Law is that it gives us an example of how the external, visible, sensible element comes together with the internal, invisible, spiritual element so as to be the means of its presence in the world. Applied to ecclesiology, this allows us to see that ecclesial visibility appears in the causes of grace and in the effects of grace. Thus, the distinction between the visible and invisible elements in the Church cannot be assigned to the distinction between the Church as means of salvation and the Church as the reality (fruit) of salvation because the visible element is present in both of these aspects. The principles gleaned from St. Thomas’s exposition of the New Law point the way for a sound explanation of the sacramentality of the Church in line with Lumen Gentium §8.1. The author insists this sacramentality of the Church has to be grasped in reference not to the seven sacraments, but rather to Christ in his created humanity overflowing with grace (his personal grace) and, thereby, communicating grace to humanity (his capital grace), especially in the Eucharist. His body and bride, the Church, “is inseparably the reality of grace and the sign-means of transmitting it, the reality being in the sign-means, constituting together with it only one being” (439). At this point, the author recognizes, there surfaces the problem of the relation of sin to the Church. If the sign-means of grace is the unity of the one subject that is the Church, it must be recognized that the Church below is a community of sinners. ”Since the community sign subsists in a Book Reviews 975 group of sinners, how can the holy community reality be said to be in the sign to such a degree as to form only one being together with it?”(445). How can we be assured that, in this diocesan Church-community, there is infallibly the Church of grace that makes available the sanctification of Christ in the Spirit? What identifiable permanent element exists in the Church that assures us of her salvific identity and grace? The author proposes that this difficulty can be resolved by understanding the Church according to the sacramentality of the Eucharist. He adapts the Church to the distinctive structure of the Eucharist in classical terms: the sacramentum tantum (the appearances of bread and wine and the words of consecration), the res et sacramentum (the true Body and Blood of the Lord), and the res tantum (charity). Each one of these moments must find a communal representation. The ecclesial representation of the res is “the community of those who live now the life of God that has been communicated to them” (442). This is the communion of the theological virtues. The ecclesial sacramentum tantum is the common life of Christians, the entire community, clergy and laity—this can be called the social communion: “In its signifying materiality, the ecclesial sign is the social fact—a community of persons distinct from others. In its proper signification, the ecclesial community is the manifestation in sign that it belongs to the reality of salvation” (443). It is perceived only with the eyes of faith. The reality of sin, though, can disrupt the “perfect correspondence between the sign—the human ecclesial community—and the reality—the communion of saints” (445). The ecclesial res et sacramentum is the preaching of the Gospel and the sacraments, what the author calls “diaconal communion.” It is here that we are assured of the presence of sanctifying grace and the certainty of the Church’s unfailing supernatural reality and identity. The sins of Christians harm and obscure the ecclesial sign, but they do not affect the holiness of the mystery. This is something that can be known only by faith. By nature, it is necessarily communitarian and grounded in each member of the ecclesial community, although at the level of the individual, sanctity maybe lacking. This way of understanding the Church addresses the problem of dialectical binomialism because the three communities constituting the res, the sacramentum tantum and the res et sacramentum are the one complex reality that is the one Church. The author further explains his definition of the Church as a sacrament of communion by examining the notion of communion. He takes his readers through a succinct and thorough study of ekklesia 976 Book Reviews and koinonia in the New Testament and in Tradition. He offers the following formulation: “The ecclesiological notion of koinonia-communio expresses the divine community inasmuch as man participates in it according to a Christic economy that conforms individuals to Christ” (446). This koinonia-communio is, on the one hand, characterized by pilgrimage in the Church from below but, on the other hand, is perfect in the heavenly Church from above. Yet there are not two Churches, but one Church in different states. The implications of this understanding of the Church’s unity are endless. It gives no space for divisive dualism. The Church is always a reality that is both visible and invisible. The author retrieves an older understanding of Church membership that includes the baptized belonging visibly to the Church but also those who do the visible works of love and those living belonging invisibly and spiritually, in grace, to the Church. The author situates the question of the personality of the Church in the context of whether the ontological status of the Church reaches the perfection of being a person. His analysis has the merit of pointing out how crucial this question is for ecclesiology. How can we attribute certain acts to this Church as such? We seem to consider the Church as a person when we speak of the faith of the Church in the baptism of infants and in our belief that the Church is unable to err in the faith. The author argues for an analogy of attribution: just as the word “person” applies to God first and foremost and to human beings and angels by analogy of attribution, so too the word applies to the Church. The Church, though, is a mystical person that subsists in human beings in so far as they are in Christ by the supernatural virtues and gifts and because the Holy Spirit dwells in the members individually and communally. This mystical personality is very unique and very mysterious because it is a mode of union between God and the creature that is not hypostatic or moral. In this mystical union, there is, at the same time, both a profoundly strong relation of unity and a relation of clear distinction. In four short chapters in the second part, the author discusses the Church as one, holy, catholic and apostolic. His discussion rests on the important distinction between notes and properties. To speak about the four notes of the Church is to engage in apologetics because these characteristics can be grasped by reason as a sign of a higher reality. When one does theology, though, the object is the mystery of the Church, and so one, holy, catholic, and apostolic must be considered as properties that only faith can recognize. The author also uses these chapters to discuss certain questions in ecclesiology that were Book Reviews 977 not treated earlier, such as ecumenical dialogue and the hierarchy of truths, the relation of the universal Church and the local Churches, collegiality and primacy, the dogma of the personal infallibility of the pope, and the question of the supreme authority in the Church. A final chapter takes up the indefectibility of the Church. The author concludes his work with the observation that there “is a major and pressing need for a definition concerning the mystery of the Church similar to the one that the Council Chalcedon (431) [sic] expounded concerning the mystery of the Christ” (628). While not claiming to provide a definitive answer to this need, the author hopes that his work might contribute to the research that a future magisterial teaching could depend on when it judges the time for a definition to be mature. In comparison to the French edition that appeared in 2006, this English translation incorporates some additional material in chapters 2, 4, and 5. It also includes some enhancements to the very helpful bibliographies that appear at the end of each chapter. This lengthy and profound study is the best introduction to ecclesiology that exists today and one that sets the bar high for future N&V synthetic and systematic studies of doctrine on the Church. Lawrence J. Welch Kenrick-Glennon Seminary St. Louis, MO