For nearly 2,000 years, until the Second Vatican Council, the Church had predominantly worshiped her Lord and Savior at altars oriented to the East because she believed that it was from this direction that He would return in glory. The historical liturgy of Christendom had always been cosmic, and for them this was the direction of heaven. Thus, by facing East Christians—both priest and layman alike—were able to participate in the mystical liturgy of heaven.

What few people within the Church seem to have considered, however, were the cultural, psychological, and theological implications of such a change in the orientation of worship. Within the context of ritual, the arrangement of church architecture is often very fragile and even relatively minor changes can dramatically change the symbolic messages that a church and its liturgy communicates to its members. 

The orientation to the East--ad orientem—held a profoundly mystical significance for early Christians, but it also had roots deep in their Jewish traditions. As a fulfillment of the Old Covenant, the Christian liturgy and the spaces it used for worship were, therefore, a natural outgrowth of ancient Jewish practices.

Because the first Christians were Jews, the eastward orientation of prayer was a concept that was not at all foreign to their tradition, for they believed that Eden was located to the East. The rising sun was another image which conveyed the significance of this orientation: “the sun, which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,” “the sun of righteousness shall rise,” and “his face was like the sun shining in full strength,” from the Old Testament, as well as similar passages in the New Testament referring directly to Christ: “his face shone like the sun.”

All of ancient Jewish worship centered in the Temple of Jerusalem, for the Holy of Holies located within it, was the site of God’s presence among men. In fact, even if they lived far from the Holy City, all Jews looked to the Temple as the primary focus of their worship. By building their synagogues so that the apse faced Jerusalem the rabbi and the people would always face the Holy of Holies during prayer.

However, although the first Christians were Jews, the focus of their worship shifted from the presence of the Unseen God in the Holy of Holies to the anticipated Second Coming of the Incarnate Christ, which was represented by the East. We can see how this affected the orientation of their prayer in the most ancient type of Christian church found in Syria. While they were, in a sense, Christianized synagogues, they faced the geographic east rather than Jerusalem. 

The early Christians adopted this practice of praying toward the East for a very profound reason. They oriented their worship in this direction because they believed that Christ ascended into heaven toward the East and that He would return again in His Second Coming from that same direction. Thus, by turning in prayer toward the rising sun, which symbolized Christ, they directed their worship not to the earthly Eden as the Jews had done earlier, but to the new Paradise in Heaven.

What the vision of Ezekiel dimly foreshadowed—“the glory of the God of Israel came from the east” at the gate facing east and “entered the Temple by the gate facing eastern,” the Revelations of John illustrated in a more clearly eschatological sense—“then I saw an another angel ascend from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God” and “as the lightening comes from the east so will be the coming of the Son of man.”

According to Cardinal Ratzinger, the East has always been “cosmic”—“The liturgy, turned toward the east, effects entry, so to speak, into the procession of history toward the future, the New Heaven and the New Earth, which we encounter in Christ.” In this ancient custom of facing East the church building itself was, so to speak, a ship (“nave” = navis, Latin for “ship”) that voyages to the East.

The Early Church regarded prayer facing the East as an apostolic tradition that was an essential characteristic of the Christian liturgy. Its earliest mention in Christian literature comes from the second book of the Apostolic Constitutions written in the third century, which states that a church should be build “with its head to the East”. Tertullian wrote of churches erected “facing the light”. Origen claimed that we ought to pray in the direction of the rising sun because it is an act, which symbolizes the soul’s gaze toward the rising of the true Light, Jesus Christ. St. John Damascene wrote that while we wait for the coming of the Lord “we adore Him facing East” because it is a tradition that was passed down to us by the Apostles. The writings of other Church Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria, and St. Basil, confirm this practice, and one of the greatest of them, St. Augustine, wrote “When we rise to pray, we turn East, where heaven begins.”

The eastern orientation of prayer, therefore, was the universal norm in the Church from the earliest years of Christianity. The altar, which generally stood in an apse at the eastern wall of the church, was the focus for the entire assembly. Both priest and laity looked toward the East in unity as if in procession because it was the gateway to heaven, their destiny. The altar was “the place where heaven is opened up” leading the church “into the eternal liturgy.” And it was because of the powerful symbolism embodied in this communal act, that neither the eastern nor the western Church had a tradition of versus populum. In fact, the term versus populum itself was unknown in Christian antiquity, for it was a concept foreign to their understanding of the Holy Sacrifice.

The Christian basilicas of Rome (e.g., St. Peter’s Basilica on the Vatican Hill) and northern Africa that came into use about the time of the Emperor Constantine were the only notable exceptions to the eastern orientation of Christian worship. In contrast to the churches in other parts of Christendom, as well as to many in Rome itself, they had the uncharacteristic practice of constructing the building with the façade, instead of the apse, facing east. Along the back wall of the apse were the bishop’s chair and seats for other clergy. The altar, which stood over the tomb of some important martyr, stood between the bishop (or priest) and the people. He stood behind the altar facing the doors of the church, which opened to the East, celebrating the Eucharistic Sacrifice in the universal Christian orientation. Likewise, the people gazed not toward the priest, but rather eastward with him. Although the priest technically stood versus populum, the intent was to face East rather than to the assembly.

This practice, however, was confined only to the immediate vicinity of Rome and parts of northern Africa, whereas in the remaining regions of Christendom the priest and assembly continued the ancient tradition of facing together toward the East. Even in the churches of Byzantium which trace their development from the Roman basilica, the altar stood in the apse allowing the priest to celebrate Mass from the same side of the altar as the people themselves so as to face East together.

The placement of the priest behind the altar facing the assembly was supposed to better emphasize the communal character of the Mass as a meal and increase the people’s active participation by reflecting the manner in which Christ himself celebrated the first Mass on Holy Thursday. But this rationale also lacked historical foundation because the presider at a banquet in ancient times never sat at the table facing his guests.

Despite the erroneous assumptions underlying the versus populum orientation of the altar, the vast majority of Catholics today see it as the predominant fruit of the Second Vatican Council. However, what Catholics received were actually “dubious reconstructions of the most ancient practice, fluctuating criteria, and never-ending suggestions for reform.” And even if there had been legitimate historical justification, this would have represented little more than a “false antiquarianism”—something against which Pope Pius XII explicitly warned.

In the decade following the Second Vatican Council, many in the Church have come to the realization that the post-conciliar reform of the liturgy has not produced the effects that the Council intended and has actually been plagued with numerous problems. In recent years, there is a growing realization that perhaps one of the most significant elements in the revitalization of the Catholic liturgy could be something as simple as the re-orientation of the priest once again ad orientem when he celebrates the Holy Sacrifice. The growing sentiment, even among such prominent Church figures as Cardinal Ratzinger, is that we need to recapture the profound cosmic dimension that is essential for the Christian liturgy, and that this can best be expressed by a return to the ancient and universal Christian practice of orienting worship to the East.

A strong case can be made for a return to ad orientem on purely historical grounds, but some might say that this is merely another type of “false antiquarianism”. However, when one also considers the theological, as well as cultural, sociological and psychological factors that both influence and are influenced by the highly symbolic nature of orientation at a ritual, the issue takes on a much greater importance.

We have seen how culturalism invades the liturgy, which makes use of it to legitimate and sanction certain values of our present culture, by often co-opting the liturgy in such a way that its original meaning is muted or lost. Architecture, of which the altar is an integral part, is a symbolic language in itself and ritual, which in turn is an outward expression of interior belief, then places an additional layer of symbolism over the physical components of the architecture. When one manipulates both of them the significance of the symbolism and even the very substance of belief changes. That is primarily why Cardinal Ratzinger has expressed the view that the symbolism of the priest as the one who offers the Holy Sacrifice in persona Christi on behalf of the people “is more clear and effective when the priest faces ‘liturgical east’—the altar of sacrifice—with the people.”

There are also strong cultural and psychological reasons justifying a return to the East. Because “the spiritual disease of modernity is the worship of ego,” the reorientation of the altar has resulted in a shift of focus in the minds of many Catholics from sacrificial worship to communal celebration. One of the greatest authorities on the Roman Rite of the Mass, Rev. Joseph A. Jungmann, SJ, seems to have foreseen this in his book The Mass of the Roman Rite, which he published long before anyone even thought of a Second Vatican Council. He wrote that versus populum would be a preferred orientation if the Mass was seen only (my emphasis) as a service of instruction or a Communion celebration but ad orientem would be the most appropriate orientation if it was seen as an immolation and homage to God.

When the priest stands behind the altar he is no longer united with the people. Instead, he forms a self-enclosed circle with the people, which is focused more and more on its own communal ego. By turning in upon itself the assembly manifests those tendencies in man’s fallen nature so prevalent today that continually strive to place himself at the center of all things. In contrast, “where priest and people together face the same way, what we have is a cosmic orientation… in which every Mass is an approach to the return of Christ.”

Some of the most subtle but yet most detrimental effects of the versus populum orientation are the psychological and sociological consequences of this arrangement for both the priest and people. When the priest faced ad orientem, he was, in a sense, an anonymous mediator between God and man. Such an arrangement intrinsically hindered the priest from calling attention to himself. But, when turned versus populum, he became a distinct person with a distinct personality and the sanctuary became a stage, in which the altar turns him into an actor playing a role in the re-enactment of the Last Supper. Instead of creating a greater unity with the assembly, this has led to a clericalization where the priest stands separate from the people rather than with them. He is the new point of reference because everything depends on him. Consequently, the actions of mere humans becomes more important than the mystical action of Christ on the altar by means of the priest. The altar is no longer really the focus because it has become only a prop for the actions of the priest. What has happened is that we have forgotten that, “the church exists for the altar, rather than the altar for the church.”

If we speak about the essential character of the Mass, there is no question of its validity with either orientation. There is also no question that it is possible to celebrate the Mass versus populum as reverently and beautifully as the Fathers of Vatican II surely envisioned it—there are many places around the world where this is taking place free of liturgical aberrations. But if we delve into the deeper significance of the symbolism behind each, versus populum does not convey the same message as ad orientem.

The cultural, sociological, psychological, and even theological problems that so easily arise when the Mass is celebrated versus populum ultimately stem from the philosophical currents inherent in the modern psyche that are fundamentally at odds with the Catholic understanding of reality. Interestingly, these very same philosophical currents are also the root cause of our present crisis in morality and ethics.

Should the Church return to its theologically correct and historically universal orientation, to the East, in its celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? The answer more and more convincingly seems to be “yes.” However, rather than the historical justifications so often expounded, the most compelling arguments can be found in the cultural and psychological significance that such a move would entail. In her book, The Desolate City, Anne Roche Muggeridge suggests that “the single most important liturgical ‘external symbol’ at the Mass is the position of the priest.”

Will it be difficult? Yes. Overcoming the ingrained cultural mindset that prevails among many (perhaps most) Catholics for our present Mass celebrated versus populum will be difficult. The most formidable task will be the total reeducation of the faithful about the profound meaning that the East should carry in the mind of Catholics, as well as about the very character of the Mass itself. However, if we are to truly renew the liturgy we must affirm by our very bodies that God, not man, is the object of our worship. The Christian liturgy is always a cosmic liturgy and when we forget this connection, it loses not only it significance but also its grandeur. We must, above all, strive for a profound restoration of the sacred in our physical enactment of the liturgy, where the Mass is not just a meal and a communal gathering, but rather the point at which heaven opens up so that we here on earth can share in the divine liturgy of heaven. And if this is best achieved by a return to the East, that is what we must do.

 Sacrosanctum Concilium, 1.

 Ibid.

 The only directive in the Council documents which addressed the position and use of the altar merely stated that “the main altar should be freestanding, away from any wall, so that the priest can walk all around it and can celebrate facing the people.”(General Instruction on the Roman Missal, 262.) Elsewhere in the documents the Council Fathers issued an almost prophetic statement that “Nobody, therefore, is allowed to proceed on his own initiative in this domain [i.e., the sacred liturgy], for this would be to the detriment of the liturgy itself, more often than not,”( Inter Oecumenici, 20.) However, as they so often did, modernists within the Church disregarded such admonitions, and often interpreted Vatican II documents to suit their own needs.

 Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal, The Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 2000), 34.

 McNamara, Denis, “Church architecture and decorum,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review, 48/7 (April 1998), 10.

 Gamber, Monsignor Klaus, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background (Una Voce Press: San Juan Capistrano, California and The Foundation for Catholic Reform: Harrison, New York, 1993), 81. Kocik, Fr. Thomas M., “[Re]Turn to the East?,” Adoremus, 5/8 (November 1999), 5.

 Psalm 19(18): 4-6

 Malachi 4:2

 Revelation 1:16

 Matthew 17:2

 Bouyer, Louis, Liturgy and Architecture (University of Notre Dame Press: Notre Dame, Indiana, 1967), 11-15.

 These early Syrian churches are known not only from archeological excavations, but also from traditions still maintained in Syrian Catholic and Nestorian churches. (Bouyer, Liturgy, 24.)

 Ibid, 24, 27.

 Gamber, The Reform, 81. Ratzinger, The Spirit, 68. Bouyer, Liturgy, 28.

 Ezekiel 43:1-2

 Ezekiel 43:4

 Ratzinger, The Spirit, 69. Kocik, “[Re]Turn,” 5.

 Revelation 7:2

 Matthew 24:27

 Ratzinger, The Spirit, 69.

 Jungmann, Joseph A., S.J. The Mass of the Roman Rite, translated by Francis A. Brunner, C.SS.R. (Benziger Bro., Inc.: New York 1949), 180.

 Ibid.

 Hassett, Maurice M., “History of the Christian Altar,” Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. I (Robert Appleton Company, 1907), p. 6 from the Online Edition, 1999.

 Ibid.

 Kocik, “[Re]Turn,” 5.

 Augustine, De sermone domini in monte II.18, PL 34:1277, from Gamber, The Reform, 80.

 Bouyer, Liturgy, 55.

 Ratzinger, The Spirit, 70-71.

 Bouyer, Liturgy, 54. Gamber, The Reform, 77.

 In northern Africa, this was closely tied to previous pagan practices of facing temple facades toward the east, which were incorporated into the construction of Christian churches. Kocik, “[Re]Turn,” 5. (from Jungmann and Bouyer)

 Ibid

 Jungmann, The Mass, 181.

 Ibid. Bouyer, Liturgy, 62.

 Bouyer, Liturgy, 82.

 The ability to see everything that was happening at the altar has often been used as a rationale for the Second Vatican Council’s call for greater participation of the faithful in the Mass. Based on the flawed historical argument used to justify the versus populum orientation, it has often been assumed that Christians in the Early Church always participated visually in what the priest did at the altar. This too was not the case, for even in the early centuries of the Church a veil was usually drawn to conceal the entire sanctuary from view during the Canon of the Mass. In Roman basilicas the canopy surmounting the altar was probably a support for curtains that were drawn around the altar during the time of the Canon. Lucas, Herbert., “Ecclesiastical Architecture,” Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. V (Robert Appleton Company, 1907, Online Edition, 1999). Also, the practice of looking at the Eucharistic elements was unknown to Christian antiquity and even if the people could see what the priest was doing, there was not that much to see because the more ritualistic gestures did not come into use until the Middle Ages. “More generally, the concentration on seeing what the officiants do, far from having ever accompanied a real participation of all in the liturgy, has appeared as a compensation for the lack of this participation, and is psychologically more or less exclusive of it.” Bouyer, Liturgy, 57-58.

 Rather, it was customary in the time of Christ for everyone to recline on the same side of the table. It was precisely the fact that he sat with them instead of opposite them that gave the meal its communal character. Ibid, 53-54.

 Ratzinger, The Spirit, 82.

 Kwasniewski, Peter A., “Traditional liturgy as a liberation from egoism,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review, 49/4 (January 1999), 23.

 McNamara, “Church,” 10.

 Ritual can also be the means by which one evokes that belief. Kwasniewski, “Traditional,” 26.

 Hitchcock, “Bishop’s,” 3.

 Ibid, 21.

 Jungmann, The Mass, 182.

 Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal, The Feast of Faith (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 1986), 140-41.

 Gamber, The Reform, 85-88.

 These same dynamics have been contributing factors in feminist criticism of the “power” and “authority” held by the supposedly oppressive male-dominated Catholic clergy, which consequently plays a large role in the psychology of those demanding women’s ordination.

 Interestingly, the Roman version of the GIRM warns against the appearance of a throne for the celebrant’s chair. The American version does not. Also, in the Roman version, the first item treated is the altar, whereas in the American version, it is the celebrant’s chair. Dimock, Giles R., O.P., “Will Beauty Look After Herself?” Sacred Music (Fall 1990), taken from The Catholic Liturgical Library website.

 Ratzinger, The Spirit, 80.

 Webb, Geoffrey, The Liturgical Altar (The Newman Press: Westminster, Maryland, 1949), 18.

 Kocik, “[Re]Turn,” 5.

 Ibid, 70.

Questions for Personal Reflection and Group Sharing:

1.  What is the mystical significance of prayer facing east for Christians?

2. When offering Mass ad orientem why is the priest not standing “with his back to the people?”


Response from Tommie Kim, Post Masters’ Korean Student:

Some years ago, I was on a pilgrim trip to Italy specifically to visit the sanctuaries of Saint Padre Pio and Saint Benedict. When we arrived in San Giovanni Rotondo, we were able to attend the Mass facing East. For Koreans, the Mass facing East was very unfamiliar in the beginning. However, as the Mass progressed and we were reminded of the fact that, at one time, Saint Pio was always there throughout his entire life assisting mass facing East, I was  brought to a deeper sense of mystery of Mass.  The priest, after the Mass, also explained that he experienced the holiness of the Mass in an extraordinary way and was able to concentrate on mystery of  the Mass without distraction. The priest said he felt in union with the people and realized the meaning of the tree, vine and the branches.  Not just we pilgrims but people from all over the world attended the Mass.. I remember them mentioning that although the Mass was assisted in Korean, they felt it as an hour of sharing unity and peace in God. 

Response from Kathleen Brouillette, Student at Holy Apostles:

We have not been taught the significance of the priest leading us to greet Christ upon His return, coming from the East.  How can we care about the Mass being celebrated ad orientem in this culture that glorifies self unless we are taught why it was celebrated that way in the first place? Failure to help people understand what we do as Church and why we do it made it all the easier for man to focus on himself rather than God.  We have seen the focus taken from God, not only in the orientation of the Mass, but also in language, architecture, music, and art.  It isn’t about worshiping, glorifying and thanking God, it is about man expressing himself.  What have all these changes done for our faith and worship? 

The Early Church regarded prayer facing the East as an apostolic tradition that was an essential characteristic of the Christain liturgy.   The 2nd book of Apostolic Constitution written in the 3rd century mentions that church should be build “with its head to the East.” So the eastern orientation of prayer was the universal norm and belief of the Early Church.  From the earliest years of Christianity, Christians believed that it is from East that the direction of heaven that her Lord and Savior would return in glory because it is the gateway to heaven and their destiny. Also the historical liturgy of Christendom of the Early Church has always been cosmic.  So for the Christian, God is the object of our worship and by facing, both priest and layman were able to worship her Lord and share the mystical liturgy of heaven together.  Christian liturgy is always a cosmic liturgy so facing East for Christians is not just a meal and a communal gathering but it is the hour when heaven opens up so that we who are on earth can share the divine liturgy of heaven.

When offering Mass ad orientem, priest is not standing with his back to the people but actually priest and people are facing the same way towards East so that priest and people can worship God together.  The priest is standing in front of people to offer the Holy Sacrifice in persona Christi on behalf of the people.  According to Cardinal Ratzinger, ad orientem is more clear and effective when the priest faces ‘liturgical east’ – the altar of sacrifice – with the people.”

RESPONSES TO THIS CHAPTER:

Response of Sean Hurt:

“The rising sun was another image which conveyed the significance of this orientation…”

The symbolism of facing east contains a deep meaning for humankind. Interest in the direction of East is not unique to Christianity. It’s a common element in world mythology. This illustrates the symbol’s potency to the mind. The sun is the physical source of light and life. It’s swallowed by the West and miraculously reborn to the East. You can see the parallels with our Savior. He is the spiritual source of our light and life. He’s invisible now like a nighttime-sun. We face the east, waiting for the second coming of the sun to end the spell of night.  

In this ancient custom of facing East the church building itself was, so to speak, a ship (“nave” = navis, Latin for “ship”) that voyages to the East.

The symbolism of the church as a ship is interesting. Certainly, a ship calls to mind Noah’s ark. We can easily point out parallels. The ark preserved God’s chosen people for a new creation. It saved them as the church saves us. However, this is not a perfect type. Noah’s ark drifted sort of aimlessly. As the author mentions, we imagine our church journeying to the east to meet our Lord. We have an object—and end, versus Noah’s passive salvation.

We have seen how culturalism invades the liturgy, which makes use of it to legitimate and sanction certain values of our present culture…” 

On a light-hearted note, I wonder if sometimes we don’t add –ism to the ends of words in order to set hearts against them. I mean, we could have replaced “culturalism” with a more familiar term: enculturation. Anyway, I want to add a nuance to the author’s discussion here. The relationship between culture and liturgy is complex. As the Catechism says, there are certain immutable aspects of the liturgy that cannot be changed and certain ones that can. In every age and in every place we protect the Light of Christ from the ephemeral values of our society. At the same time, Christian faith should not abolish the culture of the newly evangelized. In some instances, it’s necessary to change the accidentals of liturgy to jive with culture. I mean, in Malawi, they couldn’t comprehend divine celebration without dance. I just want to balance out the author’s warnings about culture influencing liturgy. 

However, in the particular issue, I agree with the author’s concerns. As I commented before, Jesus placed great importance on symbolic thought. This is evident in his discussion with Nicodemus. When Nicodemus asks Jesus for a rational explanation of rebirth, he responds with “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and spirit.” Jesus tries to break this teacher of Israel out of the stale confines of materialistic thought. We should pause here for a moment and reflect on modern Western education. Do our schools emphasize symbolism as much as Jesus did? 

I know perfectly intelligent, well-educated people say, “Oh, I don’t get poetry. Why don’t they just say what they want to say?” Now, we should be sort of shocked by this. In fact, we should be floored to hear such an opinion. For tens of thousands of years all of humanity has echoed a common symbolic language. The rising sun, the tree of life, the leviathan, the serpent, these were known on every land in every epoch. What happened to our society that huge swaths of educated people don’t value these things anymore?

Christians need to think symbolically; our salvation depends on it. We cannot rationally comprehend Revelation. Imagine the gospel, liturgy, prayer and sacred art without symbolism. They would be incoherent and the Mysteries would be nonsense. Symbols are the language of the soul, and it’s the soul that thirsts for Jesus.

We confront problems in the church, inevitably, with a certain bias in the way we think. There is a great danger here because the Western academic tradition does not value symbolic truth as it should. I think we must be careful removing symbols (such as facing East) from any aspect of the faith. We can’t rationally understand their full-meaning because they inform our consciousness in a hidden way.

Architecture, of which the altar is an integral part, is a symbolic language in itself and ritual, which in turn is an outward expression of interior belief…

As I mentioned before, I go to two different parishes. One is more contemporary, another more traditional. Just as the author states, I see the architecture of the altar expressed in liturgy celebration and the beliefs of the parishioners. At the more traditional parish, the massive altar sits center stage. The lectern, on the other hand, they situated off to the side. As I mentioned before, parishioners at this traditional parish bow and supplicate when the priest consecrates the host. The liturgy climaxes in the Eucharist. I noticed too that priests there unwaveringly endorse the notion of transubstantiation. 

At the contemporary parish, the altar stands side-by-side with the lectern. As I noted before, the mass does not climax so definitively in the Eucharist. More emphasis is placed on the homily. The architecture of the altar echoes this diffused emphasis.  

Response from David Tate, seminarian at Holy Apostles:

My favorite reference when describing aspects of a Church is described by Fr. Kolinski when he adds that while facing the East, a Church should have the appearance of a [long] “ship heading into the East” with the priest in the lead guiding the people to the coming Christ. 

… This discussion can offer several understandings of what is intended by, “Why the priest is not standing with his back to the people?” The first version of this question should remind us that the priest does not always face in the same direction during the Mass. Sometimes, he is facing the Altar as a true priest standing at the Altar. Other times, he turns intentionally to the people in order to address or pray for the people. 

Mystery and the Sacred in the Early Church
by 
Fr. Dennis Koliński, SJC

After completing undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 1974, Fr. Koliński did postgraduate study at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland where he received an M.A. in Slavic ethnography. Many years later, perceiving a call to the religious life and the priesthood, Fr. Koliński became one of the founding members of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius, a new religious community of men that was founded at St. John Cantius Parish in Chicago in 1998. He received his M.Div. degree following the completion of his seminary studies at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut and was ordained to the priesthood in 2004. After serving as an associate pastor at St. John Cantius Parish in Chicago, Fr. Koliński was appointed in 2007 as pastor of his community’s second parish, St. Peter’s in Volo, Illinois. Since 2010, he has been assigned to Holy Apostles Seminary and College as formator and academic advisor for the seminarians of the Canons Regular of St John Cantius. He is also a member of the seminary faculty and helps in seminary formation.

Note from Dr. Chervin:  Fr. Kolinski, S.C.J., teaches liturgy at Holy Apostles College and seminary. I asked him if he would write a chapter on this subject in addition to the chapter on the Spirituality of John Paul II which you will read later in this book.  He didn’t have time to write another chapter but said that I could place here two papers he wrote years ago.  I think you will agree that these papers of Fr. Koliński shed light on the reason behind some of the liturgical issues so current in our Church today. 

Introduction

In the early twentieth century, Pope Pius X’s call for a restoration of the “true Christian spirit” by means of “active participation in the holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church,” led to what became known as the Liturgical Movement and laid the groundwork for the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium). It was the desire of the Council “to undertake with great care a general restoration of the liturgy itself.” (SC, 21) And in doing so, the Council specifically asked “that sound tradition may be retained” (SC, 23) because “in the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem,” (SC, 8) a sacred action surpassing all others, “of Christ the priest and of His Body, the Church.” (SC, 7) Renewal is always necessary, especially in the modern world, but in recent years, many have questioned whether it has taken the correct course. In 2007, the secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship, Archbishop Albert Malcom Ranjith, admitted that liturgical reform after Vatican II “has not been able to achieve the expected goals.” (CWN, 23 February 2007) It is for this reason that a “new liturgical movement” has arisen, which strives to be true to both the Council’s directives, as well as to “sound tradition.” The following two articles can, therefore, help shed some light on the nature of the liturgy itself by taking a look at two important aspects of the Church’s centuries-old liturgical tradition.

In addition to this, descriptions of some of the rituals that were used in the Early Church have also survived. The Eucharist was called the “Sacred Mystery” and was celebrated with great solemnity. The sanctuary was adorned with mosaics and precious metals. It was a period of grand processions through magnificent basilicas. 

All of these liturgies, in one way or another, incarnated a sense of the transcendent and evoked an inexpressible awe for the ancient Christians. The rituals of the Sacred Mysteries expressed otherworldly realities and showed that the Patristic era clearly possessed a concept of the “sacred.” Certain spaces, words and rituals were sacred not only because of what they represented but also because they actually embodied the inexpressible mystery of the Eucharist. Mystery was at the root of the liturgy and mystery defined what was sacred. 

The concept of the sacred was something inherent to the ancient Christian way of thinking and their understanding of it in the context of liturgy and ritual was shaped by a specific understanding of time and history. Because everything in history pointed to or flowed from Christ, the Fathers of the Church saw salvation history as a progression from the shadow of the Old Testament, to the image of the New Testament and finally to the reality of heaven.9 The “shadows” of the Old Testament were not essentially different from the “images” of the New Testament and the ultimate “reality” of heaven. It was a reality that was obscured in the past, as if viewed through a veil that became clearer as time progressed. The Letter to the Hebrews speaks of the earthly sanctuaries as “copies of the heavenly things.”10 The sanctuary “made with hands” is a “copy of the true one”—the reality of heaven.11 

The priests of the Old Covenant served “a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary.”12 They were aware that the rituals, which they performed in the Holy of Holies, took place “outside of time and matter, in the realm of the angels and the heavenly throne.”13 The high priest entered the Holy of Holies in great fear and awe. Because the sanctuary of the New Covenant was not a different sanctuary, but merely a clearer manifestation of the same heavenly reality—the image in contrast to the shadow—priests in early Christian times were likewise filled with fear and awe as they entered the sanctuary for the celebration of the Sacred Mysteries. Writings of the Patristic Age speak of “the most awful sacrifice” and “the great fearful holy life-giving awful sacrifice.”14,15 

Because churches were images of the reality in heaven, their arrangement in the early Christian era naturally corresponded with the account of the heavenly liturgy in the Book of Revelation. The congregation assembled in the nave was like “the multitude standing before the golden altar.” The twenty-four elders seated in a semi-circle around the “great white throne of God and the Lamb, with angels ministering everywhere” had its counterpart in the bishop’s throne surrounded by his presbyters and deacons.25 The heavenly liturgy was mediated through earthly signs, which allowed one to participate in the reality of heaven.26 

So mysterious, so holy was this sacred ritual, which united earth with heaven, that in the Early Church the holy “Mystery” was concealed from catechumens and pagans as much as possible.27 It was a highly private activity, which necessarily excluded all strangers.28 Only the baptized, those who were in full communion with the Church, both earthly and heavenly, were present.29 Only those, who fully understood what was happening could attend. 

After the homily, the deacon exclaimed, “Let none of the catechumens, let none of the hearers, let none of the unbelievers, let none of the heterodox, stay here.”30 Then, after all of the unbaptized had left, the deacons and subdeacons stood at the doors to the church “lest any unbeliever, or one not yet initiated, come in.”31 They warned lest “no one stay in hypocrisy,” and that all “stand in fear and trembling.”32 Only after the catechumens, public penitents and pagans had left the church did the deacons draw back the curtains, which had concealed the altar, “uncovering the veils that darkly invest in symbol this sacred ceremonial.”33 

Because the people were to shortly behold the heavenly sanctuary, purity of body and spirit was required for all who participated.34 In his Instructions to Catechumens, St. John Chrysostom admonished: “For he who is about to approach these holy and dread mysteries must be awake and alert, must be clean from all cares of this life, full of much self-restraint, much readiness, he must banish from his mind every thought foreign to the mysteries, and on all sides cleanse and prepare his home, as if about to receive the king himself.”35 

The need for purity was especially important for the priests who ministered at the altar. St. Cyprian was uncompromising on this point. He said that if the Levitical priests of the Old Covenant were forbidden to approach the altar if they were guilty of serious sin, how much more must the priests of the New Covenant be unblemished as they approach the Holy Mysteries. So holy was the altar of sacrifice that those guilty of serious sin “may not return again to the profanation of the altar.”36 The sacredness of the ritual demanded a reflection of the sacred within the priest himself, for he “call[ed] down the Holy Spirit over the Holy Sacrifice, while angels surround[ed] the altar!”37 It was as if he were already entering heaven—and in a sense, he truly was. 

The unseen spiritual realities of the Mysteries expressed themselves through the physicality of the ritual. The manner in which the body expressed itself liturgically “[made] the essence of the liturgy, as it were, bodily visible.”38 Bodily gestures and ritualistic motions bore spiritual meaning. Postures, gestures, ritual garb, the layout of physical space, and the position taken for various liturgical actions were not arbitrary or superfluous because they were sacred. For the ancients, they all took on a symbolic ritual significance for they were physical expressions of spiritual realities—an image of the heavenly reality. The “physicality” of ritual practices that took place within the sacred spaces affected the body in perceptible ways, so that Christians could see and feel their spiritual endeavors.39 

In the liturgy of the Early Church, the bishop-priest took the place of Christ, who is the High Priest of the Eternal Liturgy.40 As Christ appeared to Peter, James and John in brilliant white clothing at His Transfiguration, so the bishop, who represented him, wore “a vestment of fine, bright linen.”41 By imitating his gestures, the bishop represented Christ himself.42 At the altar the sacred minister stood “fearful and trembling,”43 always “unworthy to come into the presence of this Thy holy and spiritual table, upon which Thy only-begotten Son, and our Lord Jesus Christ, is mystically set forth as a sacrifice.”44 He acclaimed, “Let all mortal flesh be silent, and stand with fear and trembling. … the King of kings … comes forward to be sacrificed, … and the bands of angels go before Him with every power and dominion, the many-eyed cherubim, and the six-winged seraphim, covering their faces.”45 He implored “Accept, O God, by Thy ministering archangels at Thy holy, heavenly, and reasonable altar in the spacious heavens, the thank-offerings of those who offer sacrifice and oblation.”46 

Traditionally, the task of deacons was to tell the congregation what postures the people were to assume. Appropriate physical expressions encouraged appropriate interior attitudes.47 The deacons were to “oversee the people, that nobody may whisper, nor slumber, nor laugh, nor nod; for all ought in the church to stand wisely, and soberly, and attentively.”48 When they drew back the curtains, which had previously hid the sanctuary and altar, all of the faithful fell to their knees.49 

When the time came to distribute Communion, the bishop showed the Sacred Host to the people and the deacon exclaimed, “The Holy of Holies!” St. John Chrysostom wrote that the faithful must approach the Eucharist with awe and devotion.50 He wrote: “Reflect, o man, what sacrificial flesh you take in your hand! To what table you approach.”51 Everyone was to approach the altar “with reverence and holy fear, as to the body of their king.”52 To each person the deacon said, “Approach in the fear of the Lord” because he was to partake not of earthly bread, but of “heavenly and immortal food.”53,54 

St. John Chrysostom excelled in expressing the sacred mystery of the Eucharist. He wrote that it was an “awe-inspiring and divine table,” “a table of holy fear,” upon which took place the “ineffable mysteries,” the “frightful mysteries,” the “mysteries that demand reverence and trembling.”55,56 For him, the meaning of the word “mystery” even took on the nuance of “tremendous,” “He whom the angels do not see without trembling and do not dare to gaze on without fear because of the brightness that radiates from him, him we take as food, we receive him, we become one body and one flesh with Christ.”57,58

The Fathers saw “shadows” of the Eucharist in the sacrifices of Abel, Abraham, and Melchizedek, all of whom were mentioned in their ancient anaphoras.63 In addition, the Eucharist anticipated the mystery of the heavenly banquet. It was an earthly image of the heavenly liturgy, which truly became present upon the altar. Because early Christians were fully aware of this reality, the entire patristic concept of the Church was dominated by the presence of angels. Its communion with the Church in heaven received its greatest expression precisely in the liturgy because its symbols connected Christians to “what is present but hidden.”64 

In their writings, the Fathers of the Church were unambiguous in their understanding that what happened on the altar during the Eucharistic sacrifice was something far from ordinary. It was an entry into the liturgy of heaven. On the altar Christ entered into the assembly through the torn curtain. It was the place where heaven opened up, leading them into the eternal liturgy.65 One of the most striking aspects of the ancient liturgical prayers which exemplify this, is their vivid and effusive descriptions of the heavenly realities unfolding in the sanctuary: “Round Thee stand ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands of holy angels and hosts of archangels; and Thy two most honored creatures, the many-eyed cherubim and the six-winged seraphim.”66 “The numberless army of Angels … the Cherubim and six-winged Seraphim … together with thousands of thousand Archangels and myriad myriads of Angels.”67

Throughout the liturgy, ancient Christians heard references to hidden mysteries and secret words.68 They knew that when they were present at the Sacred Mysteries of the Eucharist, they were in the presence of “the unutterable One, the incomprehensible One … before whom all that is high falls down and remains silent … and beholding whom all creation surrenders in silent adoration.”69 Contemplation of this mystery directed and stimulated their lives and the liturgy was lived and practiced by the Early Church in an attitude of objective piety.70 

The prayers, the gestures and postures, the acts of reverence used in the early Christian Church all cultivated an awareness of holy mystery. Its churches created a sacred space, which took them out of the everyday world and placed them before the heavenly altar surrounded by myriads of angels. The words, which the Fathers of the Church used to express the reality in which they were taking part put them in the realm of the sacred. For them, the liturgy expressed something beyond this world by embodying a sense of transcendence and inexpressible awe. They knew that they were in the presence of the One God and Sovereign of all, “who sittest upon the cherubim, and art glorified by the seraphim, before whom stand thousand thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand hosts of angels and archangels.”71 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

St. Ambrose, Theological and Dogmatic Works: The Sacraments, The Mysteries (The Catholic University of America Press: Washington, D.C., 1963). 

Baker, Margaret. “The Temple Roots of the Liturgy,” (Online resource, Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism Project, Marquette University, 2003). 

Baur, Chrysostomus, OSB, John Chrysostom and His Times, vol. I (The Newman Press: Westminster, Maryland, 1959). 

Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Book II, Section VII, Paragraph LVII (Online Edition, New Advent, “The Fathers of the Church”). 

Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Book VIII, Section II, paragraph XII (Online Edition, New Advent, “The Fathers of the Church”). 

St. Cyprian, Epistle LXIII (Online Edition, New Advent, “The Fathers of the Church”). 

Divine Liturgy of St. James (Online Edition, New Advent, “The Fathers of the Church”). 

The Divine Liturgy of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark, The Disciple of the Holy Peter (Online Edition, New Advent, “The Fathers of the Church”). 

Dix, Dom Gregory, The Shape of the Liturgy (Dacre Press: London, 1945). 

The Early Christians after the Death of the Apostles, ed. Eberhard Arnold (Plough Publishing House: Rifton, N.Y., 1970). 

Encyclopedia of the Early Church, ed. Angelo Di Berardino (Oxford University Press: N.Y., 1992). 

Fortescue, Adrian, “Antiochene Liturgy,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. I (Robert Appleton Company, 1907, Online Edition, 2003). 

Fortescue, Adrian, “Liturgy,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. IX (Robert Appleton Company, 1908, Online Edition, 2003). 

Fortescue, Adrian, “Liturgy of Jerusalem,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. VIII (Robert Appleton Company, 1910, Online Edition, 2003). 

Introduction to the Liturgy, ed. Anscar J. Chupungco, O.S.B. (The Liturgical Press: Collegeville, Minn., 1997). 

Jenner Henry, “Ambrosian Liturgy and Rite,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. I (Robert Appleton Company, 1907, Online Edition, 2003). 12 




St. John Chrysostom, Instructions to Catechumens (Online Edition, New Advent, “The Fathers of the Church,” Copyright © 1999). 

Kinross, Lord, Hagia Sopia (Newsweek: N.Y., 1972). 

Martimort, A.G., “Structure and Laws of the Liturgical Celebration,” The Church at Prayer: An Introduction to the Liturgy, vol. I—Principles of the Liturgy (The Liturgical Press: Collegeville, Minn., 1987). 

The Mystery of Christian Worship: and other writings, ed. Burkhard Neunheuser, O.S.B. (The Newman Press: Westminster, Maryland, 1932). 

Neunheuser, Burkhard, O.S.B., “Roman Genius Revisited,” Liturgy for the New Millenium (The Liturgical Press: Collegeville, Minn., 2000). 

Quasten, Johannes, Patrology, vol. III (The Newman Press: Westminster, Maryland, 1960). 

Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal, The Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 2000). 

Thurston, Herbert, “Symbolism,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. IV (Robert Appleton Company, 1912, Online Edition, 2003). 

Torevell, David, Losing the Sacred: Ritual, Modernity and Liturgical Reform (T & T Clark Ltd.: Edinburgh, 2000). 




Endnotes 




1. Encyclopedia of the Early Church, ed. Angelo Di Berardino (Oxford University Press: N.Y., 1992), 293. 

2. Neunheuser, Burkhard, O.S.B., “Roman Genius Revisited,” Liturgy for the New Millenium (The Liturgical Press: Collegeville, Minn., 2000), 43. 

3.  Fortescue, Adrian, “Liturgy,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. IX (Robert Appleton Company, 1908, Online Edition, 2003). 

4.  The Mystery of Christian Worship: and other writings, ed. Burkhard Neunheuser, OSB (The Newman Press: Westminster, Maryland, 1932), 34. 

5.  Ibid, 35. 

6.  Encyclopedia of the Early Church, 495. 

7.  Ibid, 495. 

8.  Ibid, 577. 

9.  Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal, The Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 2000), 60. 

10. Hebrews 9:23. 

11. Hebrews 9:24. 

12.  Hebrews 8:5. 

13.  Baker, Margaret. “The Temple Roots of the Liturgy,” (Online resource, Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism Project, Marquette University, 2003). 

14.  From St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in Baker, “The Temple Roots” 

15.  From the Nestorian liturgy, in Baker, “The Temple Roots” 

16.  Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Book II, Section VII, Paragraph LVII (Online Edition, New Advent, “The Fathers of the Church”). Our word “nave” comes from the Latin word for ship, navis. 

17.  Baur, Chrysostomus, O.S.B., John Chrysostom and His Times, vol. I (The Newman Press: Westminster, Maryland, 1959), 196. 

18.  Divine Liturgy of St. James (Online Edition, New Advent, “The Fathers of the Church”). 

19.  Exodus 26:31-34. 

20.  Hebrews 9:4. 

21.  Kinross, Lord, Hagia Sopia (Newsweek: N.Y., 1972), 15. 

22.  Thurston, Herbert, “Symbolism,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. IV (Robert Appleton Company, 1912, Online Edition, 2003). 

23.  St. Ambrose, Theological and Dogmatic Works: The Sacraments, The Mysteries (The Catholic University of America Press: Washington, D.C., 1963), 7. 

24.  Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Book II. 

25.  Dix, Dom Gregory, The Shape of the Liturgy (Dacre Press: London, 1945), 28. Taken from St. Ignatius’ Epistle to the Magnesians: VI.I. 

26.  Ratzinger, The Spirit, 61. 

27.  Baur, John Chrysostom, 194. 

28.  Dix, The Shape, 16. 

29.  Fortescue, “Liturgy”. 

30.  Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Book VIII, Section II, paragraph XII (Online Edition, New Advent, “The Fathers of the Church”). 

31.  Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Book II. 

32.  Fortescue, Adrian, “Antiochene Liturgy,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. I (Robert Appleton Company, 1907, Online Edition, 2003). 

33.  Divine Liturgy of St. James. 

34.  Encyclopedia of the Early Church, 494. 

35.  St. John Chrysostom, Instructions to Catechumens: 2 (Online Edition, New Advent, “The Fathers of the Church,” Copyright © 1999). 

36.  St. Cyprian, Epistle LXIII.3 (Online Edition, New Advent, “The Fathers of the Church”). 

37.  Baur, John Chrysostom, 183. 

38.  Ratzinger, The Spirit, 176-177. 

39.  Torevell, David, Losing the Sacred: Ritual, Modernity and Liturgical Reform (T & T Clark Ltd.: Edinburgh, 2000), 48-49. 

40.  Introduction to the Liturgy, ed. Anscar J. Chupungco, O.S.B. (The Liturgical Press: Collegeville, Minn., 1997), 76. 14 




41.  Martimort, A.G., “Structure and Laws of the Liturgical Celebration,” The Church at Prayer: An Introduction to the Liturgy, vol. I—Principles of the Liturgy (The Liturgical Press: Collegeville, Minn., 1987), 180. 

42. Introduction to the Liturgy, 76. 

43.  Divine Liturgy of St. James. 

44.  Ibid. 

45.  Ibid. 

46. The Divine Liturgy of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark, The Disciple of the Holy Peter (Online Edition, New Advent, “The Fathers of the Church”). 

47.  Martimort, “Structure and Laws”, 180. 

48.  Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Book II. 

49.  Baur, John Chrysostom, 192. 

50.  From Homilia de baptismatis Christi, MG 49,379, in Quasten, Johannes, Patrology, vol. III (The Newman Press: Westminster, Maryland, 1960), 480. 

51.  Quasten, Patrology, 480. 

52.  Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Book II. 

53.  Fortescue, “Antiochene Liturgy”. 

54. The Divine Liturgy of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark. 

55.  Quasten, Patrology, 480. 

56.  From St. John Chrystosom, in Quasten, Patrology, 480. 

57.  Encyclopedia of the Early Church, 577. 

58.  From St. John Chrysostom’s Homily 82 on Matthew 5, in Encyclopedia of the Early Church, 441. 

59.  Quasten, Patrology, 480. 

60.  Encyclopedia of the Early Church, 441. 

61.  Quasten, Patrology, 480. 

62.  Ibid. 

63.  Encyclopedia of the Early Church, 504. 

64. Ratzinger, The Spirit, 60. 

65.  Ibid, 71. 

66.  The Divine Liturgy of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark. 

67.  Fortescue, “Antiochene Liturgy”. 

68.  From the Acts of Thomas I.10, in The Early Christians after the Death of the Apostles, ed. Eberhard Arnold (Plough Publishing House: Rifton, N.Y., 1970). 

69.  From Acts of John 84, 84, 79, in The Early Christians, 235. 

70.  Encyclopedia of the Early Church, 495. 

71.  Divine Liturgy of St. James.  

Questions for Personal Reflection and Group Sharing:

1. How did the Early Church understand the nature of the sacred liturgy?

2. How was the liturgy of the New Covenant foreshadowed in the worship of the Old Covenant Temple?

3. How do the sensate elements of the liturgy help Catholics properly and more fully experience the Mass?




RESPONSES TO THIS CHAPTER:

Response of Sean Hurt:

The unseen spiritual realities of the Mysteries expressed themselves through the physicality of the ritual. The manner in which the body expressed itself liturgically “[made] the essence of the liturgy, as it were, bodily visible.”

When I first started attending masses, before I even started RCIA, I mostly ignored the liturgical movements. Things like genuflection, an offering or opening gesture, even the sign of the cross I didn’t really participate. I thought, “This is not how I show respect, holiness etc. Should I do it just because everyone else does? That wouldn’t be genuine.”   

It wasn’t until I met Ronda’s sister who teaches sacred dance that I really understood the importance of these gestures. She taught me that we can pray through movement. In fact that is an important aspect of prayer. Jesus taught us to love God with our whole being. So, doesn’t it make sense to pray with our bodies as well?

Now, we normally assume our minds control our bodies. But I think it’s a two-way street. Outward actions (such as dance and gestures) can shape our interior self. For example, there is something inherent to genuflection that builds an inward respect for our Lord. It seems to me that action and belief reinforce each other, rather than one simply causing the other. So, it’s fascinating to me how the early Church recognized this, and placed such emphasis on movement. 

Response from Kathleen Brouillette:

I am tempted to write, “this is a recording” because my reaction to these chapters on liturgy is the same as it has been to all the preceding chapters:  our beloved Holy Mother Church needs to do a better job of forming her people in the truth.  A significant part of that truth, the image of Christ as Bridegroom of the Church and Head of His Body, the Church, is noted in the introduction to Fr. Kolinski’s paper:  “…‘in the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem,’ a sacred action surpassing all others, ‘of Christ the priest and of His Body, the Church.’ ” 

A clear and deep understanding of that truth would do much to change the celebration of liturgy today, when mankind takes so much for granted and is especially impressed with his own ability to understand and master the world in which he lives.  There is precious little sense of mystery and awe, and very little fear of the Lord, who is being systematically removed from every aspect of life in the twenty-first century, as I have written before.

In Fr. Kolinski’s course (taught at Holy Apostles on campus and also on-line in the Distance Learning program) on organic development of the liturgy, he taught that the Church and Her liturgy are a living and growing entity, evolving over time.  However, removal of so much of the beauty and awe in language, architecture, art, music, and such has also removed much of the mystery and reverence on the part of the people.  Fewer are attending Mass with any regularity, or exhibiting any outward expression of holy fear.  We are not taught the privilege of being in the Presence of such a great mystery, as they were in the early Church.  How many people strike their breasts as they say, “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault”?    How many follow a Eucharistic fast?  How many even rid their mouths of gum or candy before going to receive the Most Precious Body and Blood of Christ?  It’s heartbreaking… We have no sense of sin and little sense of unworthiness because man has made himself a god. We see more a sense of entitlement – even when it comes to the Eucharist.  How many march up to receive Communion without having gone to Mass or confession in many years? 

Response from David Tate:

We fall so easily into the trap of comparing the past with the ‘superior’ standards of today. The quotation that really helps me to refrain from unfairly judging the past is, “That was then, and this is now.” We must also include this mentality when understanding how the early Church celebrated Liturgy. It is very easy to ‘suppose’ many things. We can err on both sides of supposition. The first side is that because they were closer in time to the Apostles, they must have been more correct. The other side is to assume that they did a lot of “improvisation” due to their ignorance of a truly proper liturgy. Through research of ancient liturgies, Fr. Kolinski shows that the Early Church gained quite quickly a “striking uniformity… at a very early date.”

Fr. Kolinski often says that Heaven touches the earth during the Holy Mass. We are so accustomed to seeing with our eyes of flesh that it is difficult to perceive sometimes the difference between the Liturgy and any other human performance. If we had eyes to see the transcendent, our lives would be completed changed with a single Mass. How true it is when we see how the Old Covenant priests did celebrate a shadow of Holy Mass when they served at the Altar of the Holy of Holies.

The Popular and Church Perspectives on Work
by
Cynthia Toolin, PhD

Dr. Toolin is a professor of dogmatic and moral theology at Holy Apostles College and Seminary where she has worked since 1997. She is married, with two married daughters and six grandchildren. She divides her time between Connecticut and Vermont.

Note from Dr. Chervin: 
Before reading and teaching John Paul II’s encyclical on work, I was like most people, thinking of work primarily as a result of the Fall.  I thought that work I enjoyed was simply a gift of God, not part of the basics of human nature even before the Fall. Certainly our twenty-first century Catholic synthesis needs to help us to appreciate that the crosses of work do not negate its basic goodness.  In a way, people understand that better in our times because of the scourge of unemployment. Instead of complaining about work, many are praying to find it. Unfortunately, on the other side, we find more people who are characterized as work-aholics. What a balanced view we find in Church teaching about the nature of work. 

John Paul II wrote an encyclical devoted entirely to work, Laborem Exercens (On Human Work), in 1981.1 In it, he wrote about work in a way that can only be described as countercultural. The three points we will discuss are his definition of work, his distinctions within work as concerns the objective and subjective aspects of it, and the communal aspects of work (personal, familial, and societal.) 

The Definition of Work

Many people in our culture think of work as synonymous with employment. They believe work is drudgery, something we must do to earn a paycheck so we can pay the bills. This common perspective leads many to focus their goals on the exact opposite of work: leisure. Others, and I would suggest fewer, see work in a positive light, as personally fulfilling, as a process followed to accomplish something, or as a community of persons working towards a goal, that is towards the common good. This second perspective is closer to what the Church teaches about the true meaning of work.

In his encyclical, John Paul II was clear that work is not synonymous with employment; rather, he treats employment as a subset of work. He explained that work is a good for man, a process we were to undertake from the beginning, or from our creation in the Garden of Eden. It is to be seen in tandem with procreation, as is clear when we review the twin rules God gave us: to fill the earth and to subdue it (Genesis 1:28). Only man, as person made in the image and likeness of God, can work. Work is a universal experience that fills man’s days. Unfortunately, our experience of work changed with the advent of Original Sin, and it is for that reason that our common perspective on work is that it is necessary drudgery. In the Introduction to Laborem Exercens, John Paul II said,

And work means any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which man is capable and to which he is predisposed by his very nature, by virtue of humanity itself. Man is made to be in the visible universe an image and likeness of God himself, and he is placed in it in order to subdue the earth. From the beginning therefore he is called to work. 

In this section we are presented with what John Paul II understood about the meaning of work. The statements “any activity,” “any human activity,” and “many activities of which man is capable” explain work as something larger than employment. Most of us are employed at some point during our lives—that is, we perform mental or physical tasks for pay—but that is only a subset of the activity we can do. We all do many things for which we do not receive pay: we take care of other people, we teach things to people, we build things for people, and so on. The number of things we do that are not part of our employment are much greater in variety and in quantity than what we do for actual pay.

We work all the time, only not always for pay. Making a meal for my family is work; cleaning my house is work; tilling my garden is work; typing a professional paper for my employment is work. But there is a difference between the first three kinds of work and the latter. Someday I may retire but I will still have to cook, clean the house, and garden. All four are work, but only the last one is for pay; only the last one is a requirement of my employment.

Thus, work does not equal employment; employment is a subset of work. As John Paul II explained, man is the only creature in the visible world made in the image and likeness of God. It is Church teaching that to be created in God’s image and likeness means we are persons. Like the One God, we have intellect to know the truth and the will to love it; like the Triune God, we are a community. God creates the world and then gives it to man, the only person in visible creation, for his safekeeping and development. He gives man, his highest creation, the command (as recorded in Genesis) to subdue and dominate the earth. Revelation is telling us, even before the Fall, we are supposed to work, to bring God’s visible creation to fulfillment. After the Fall, the work we were always supposed to do often becomes unpleasant and arduous. To be man means to be one who works. It has always been this way, and as long as we, as a species, are on earth, it will continue to be this way. Work is good for us.

John Paul II continued in his Introduction, 
Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons. And this mark decides its interior characteristics; in a sense it constitutes its very nature.  

This is a wonderful passage. Only man, the person, can work. This is a very countercultural statement. We think animals work and machines work.  Animals exert energy at the service of man, once we have trained them how to do so. Horses don’t get together and decide to invent a harness and carriage so they can pull the carriage and carry man somewhere. We invent the harness and carriage; we capture and domesticate the horses; we train them how to pull the carriage to carry us where we want to go. We work doing all of these things.

John Paul II said work is a “fundamental dimension of human existence on earth.” #4 This has always been the case, whether we were in the state of original justice or later in the state of Original Sin. John Paul II continued, 

When man, who had been created “in the image of God…male and female,” hears the words: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it,”, even though these words do not refer directly and explicitly to work, beyond any doubt they indirectly indicate it as an activity for man to carry out in the world.…Man is the image of God partly though the mandate received from his Creator to subdue, to dominate the earth. In carrying out this mandate, man, every human being, reflects the very action of the Creator of the universe. #4 

We all work, for pay and/or not for pay, and we do this for most of our lives. Work occupies our existence on earth; our lives are full of work, and it is by work that we live and at the same time, build up our family, and the community, society, and culture that we live in. In our work we reflect God. He created and holds creation in its existence; we mirror him as we subdue and dominate the earth, bringing his creation to fruition. And as we do so, work impacts us.

Further we work most of our lives; it occupies our existence on earth. Work also occurs within a community of persons; it is both a solitary and a communal project. I work developing and typing this paper. Another professor works using it as a teaching tool. The students work learning it. And hopefully, when the students graduate, they will use what they learned in their work as Catholic leaders. Much of the work we do, whether for pay or not, is done alone; but note, it has a communal impact. Our work impacts the common good, either positively or negatively. Here is another example. I work tilling the garden. I bought tomato stakes at a garden store from a clerk, using money I earned as a theologian. Someone made those stakes and they were delivered to the store by someone else. My husband drove me home in his car with my stakes. Someone designed the car; it was produced by workers somewhere. It was delivered to a car lot by someone; it was bought by my husband with money he earned working in a campground, and so on, in a seemingly infinite group of workers.2  This all so I can grow tomatoes and serve fresh salads to the man I love. Do you see how our lives are consumed by work? That it is all related? That my product of a salad could not occur without all these other people working? And that this is a positive thing?

Objective and Subjective Aspects of Work

Now I think we have a basic idea of what work is, but we need to delve more deeply into the reality of work and draw some distinctions. One of the central concepts of this encyclical is that work has both an objective and subjective aspect. These aspects concern the issue of the true value of work. Usually, in our culture and I think in many others, when we think of work we think of the objective aspect, that is, what we do.To understand these aspects we have to realize that work is a transitive activity. John Paul II said,

 [Work] begins within the “human subject and directed towards an external object. [This] presupposes a specific dominion by man over  “the earth,”, and in its turn it confirms and develops this dominion.… The expression  “subdue the earth” has an immense range. It means all the resources that the earth (and indirectly the visible world) contains and which, through the conscious activity of man, can be discovered and used for his ends. #4

As we analyze the world, we identify an issue or problem, or have an idea, and we know that to bring it to fruition a piece of work must be done. Using our intellect we know that if we want to eat fresh tomatoes, we must plant a garden. With the engagement of our free will, we use our personal power to plant, till, and harvest a garden. That whole process began inside of us, and through intellect, will, and personal power, we impact something outside of us. There was no garden, just a plot of land with dirt, rocks, and weeds. Then we did something and now there is a bumper crop of tomatoes. As John Paul II said, [this activity] begins within the “human subject and [is] directed towards an external object.” 
John Paul II continued, saying, 
"This is a universal process, as it embraces all human beings, every generation, every phase of economic and cultural development, and at the same time it is a process that takes place within each human being, in each conscious human subject. Each and every individual is at the same time embraced by it. Each and every individual, to the proper extent and in an incalculable number of ways, takes part in the giant process whereby man  “subdues the earth” through his work. #4

Dominating the earth occurs through work by harvesting resources, like clothing from animal skins; subduing the earth also occurs through work by transforming products, as in agriculture and industry. This is the objective sense of work. Man works and in the process dominates and subdues the earth.3 Something is done, originating in man, which results in a change in the external world.

When we think of work we usually think of this objective sense, as can be seen from job titles. We can see that someone is responsible for something being done. The mail person delivers the mail, the secretary types letters, the teacher conducts a class, the mother raises children, and the wife makes a home. The work done is what we call the objective aspect. 

More important is the fact that man is the subject of work. This is what John Paul II said about this subjective aspect of work,

Man has to subdue the earth and dominate it, because as the  “image of God” he is a person, that is to say, a subjective being capable of acting in a planned and rational way, capable of deciding about himself, and with a tendency to self-realization. As a person, man is therefore the subject of work. As a person he works, he performs various actions belonging to the work process; independently of their objective content, these actions must all serve to realize his humanity, to fulfill the calling to be a person that is his by reason of his very humanity.

Understood as a process whereby man and the human race subdue the earth, work corresponds to this basic biblical concept only when throughout the process man manifests himself and confirms himself as the one who “dominates.” This dominion, in a certain sense, refers to the subjective dimension even more than to the objective one: this dimension conditions the very ethical nature of work. In fact there is no doubt that human work has an ethical value of its own, which clearly and directly remain linked to the fact that the one who carries it out is a person, a conscious and free subject, that is to say a subject that decides about himself. #6
John Paul II pointed out that, in the past, the type of work done has been used as part of a class system. Building on the Old Testament, Christianity changed the emphasis from the objective sense of work to the subjective one. Jesus worked as a manual laborer for most of his life on earth. 

This circumstance constitutes in itself the most eloquent ‘Gospel of work’, showing that the basis for determining the value of human work is not primarily the kind of work being done but the fact that the one who is doing it is a person. The sources of the dignity of work are to be sought primarily in the subjective dimension, not in the objective one. #6

Now we understand the subjective aspect of work is more important than the objective one. This is an extremely countercultural understanding of work. Clearly work (for pay) has to be classified in a way that leads to fair compensation. The person who delivers the mail should not be compensated at the same level as the leading cardiac surgeon in the country. There is an objective difference in their work, in their skill in performing their work, and in their preparation to learn how to do their work. Yet, on the subjective level, what is important is that the work is done by persons. 

 From the objective point of view, human work cannot and must not be rated and qualified in any way. It only means that the primary basis of the value of work is man himself, who is its subject. This leads immediately to a very important conclusion of an ethical nature: however true it may be that man is destined for work and called to it, in the first place work is  “for man” and not man  “for work.” #6
He said further, 

Presupposing that the different sorts of work that people do can have greater or lesser objective value, let us try nevertheless to show that each sort is judged above all by the measure of the dignity of the subject of work, that is to say the person, the individual who carries it out. #6

Sphere of Values 

Now that we understand the distinction between the objective and subjective aspects of work, we turn to another distinction within the concept of work, the sphere of values that come from the subjective aspect—personal, familial, and societal.

John Paul II pointed out that it is a universal experience to work and, ultimately, to toil. Simply stated, work is not an easy thing to do. It can be physically and mentally challenging, exhausting, unsuccessful, disappointing. This is a universal experience, and yet, work and toil is a good for man. It is so good that we were supposed to work in the Garden before the Fall; after the Fall, we are to continue to work, but it has unfortunately become difficult. It is through work that we obey the second of God’s commands. It is through hard work, through toil, that we dominate and subject the world.  John Paul II said, 
Work is a good thing for man—a good thing for his humanity—because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes “more a human being.” #9

We are shaped by work. We are supposed to bring God’s creation to fruition. This activity corresponds to the command to procreate, to fill Heaven and Earth with persons. We are to work with God—who worked in creating, and continues to work in sustaining creation through all its developments and changes. He entrusted creation to us with the task of working with him, of continuing his work and offering it back to him as we glorify him. How could either of these activities performed with God, commanded by God, not change us into better people. As John Paul II said, again, through work each of us “achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes ‘more a human being.’”

We are all born into a family, and the overwhelming majority of people form a family when they are adults (although neither the family of origin or of choice is necessarily permanent, successful, nor good at achieving its ends.) In addition to work being good for us as individuals, it is good for us communally. Work is intimately tied to the family. We cannot start or maintain a family without work, and once the family is started, we need work so we can successfully educate our children, also in work. 

John Paul II said,
In a way, work is a condition for making it possible to found a family, since the family requires the means of subsistence which man normally gains through work. Work and industriousness also influence the whole process of education in the family, for the very reason that everyone  “becomes a human being” through, among other things, work, and becoming a human being is precisely the main purpose of the whole process of education. #10
He continued, “The family is simultaneously a community made possible by work and the first school of work, within the home, for every person.” #10

The third part of this distinction is that through work we develop our culture. This is another universal experience. John Paul II said, 
The great society to which man belongs on the basis of particular cultural and historical links…is not only the great “educator" of every man…it is also a great historical and social incarnation of the work of all generations. All of this brings it about that man combines his deepest human identity with membership of a nation, and intends his work also to increase the common good developed together with his compatriots, thus realizing that in this way work serves to add to the heritage of the whole human family, of all the people living in the world.4 #10 

He tied the objective and subjective dimensions with the three spheres of value, saying,
These three spheres are always important for human work in its subjective dimension. And this dimension, that is to say, the concrete reality of the worker, takes precedence over the objective dimension. #10

The expression of this understanding of work is radically countercultural. Work is something God ordered us to do? Through it we dominate and subdue the earth? It is a good for us? It develops us as human beings, and its true value is based on the fact that persons do it? And growing from that subjective aspect, we are not only developed, but we found and support our families, fulfill our educational obligations to our children, and develop our culture? 

Countercultural?

Throughout this paper I have pointed out several places in which the understanding of work in the encyclical, part of the universal Magisterium of the Church, and that of our culture, disagree. The definition of words are the most basic level at which people must agree if they are to proceed to develop theoretical or practical models of the concept of interest, and draw out pertinent distinctions. The Church definition of work is a countercultural one. To make this apparent to you, I looked up the word “work” on www.dictionary.com and read through, and organized, a wide variety of definitions.

Work is usually defined as labor or a chore, something being done, or being in a position where something is being done and it is usually an arduous or unpleasant task. Some synonyms for work are neutral. These include words like endeavor, performance, production, task, and function. These words describe work; they define it. Work as a function has neither positive nor negative overtones. “My function is to teach,” is a neutral statement. It does not express the ease or difficulty of the work, nor my attitude towards it.

Other synonyms, that are positive, include application of oneself, gainful employment, freelance, having a job, doing business, and earning a living, imply something positive about work. They refer directly, or at least imply, some task or performance done for income or pay. The sentence, “I earn a living,” implies I am socially responsible, supporting myself, and contributing to the support of my family, paying my bills. It doesn’t matter if I am earning a living from a teaching job or a clerical one. I have a job. The antonyms for work, when it is defined as being employed or exerting oneself, are idle, lazy, relax, and rest. If I am earning a living, I am not idle or lazy.

There is a cluster of ways in which work is defined as something being done that ends in a result. Work in this cluster means manipulation, operation, power, instrumentality, and cultivation or forming, and it results in an achievement. The synonyms for this sense of the word include action verbs: accomplish, act, bring about, care for, carry out, cause, channel, contrive, control, create, direct, drive, effect, execute, force, function, handle, implement, influence, intercession, intervention, knead, make, manipulate, manage, maneuver, means, mediation, mold, move perform, ply, process, progress, react , run, serve, shape, take, tend, tick, use, and wield. These verbs are not only positive; they imply that the person working has at least some control over the process and/or the result. The sentences “I created this class” or “I helped that student achieve his educational goals” is very different from the sentence, “I am going to the salt mines.” The major antonym for work in this sense is destroy. “I destroyed that student’s attempt to achieve his educational goals.”

But negative synonyms for work are legion. I think the sheer number of negative synonyms points to the cultural meaning of the word. If there was a count of the number of times neutral, positive, and negative synonyms for work are used, I think the negative ones would be used the most frequently. They include daily grind, dead end, drudgery, elbow grease, grindstone, hustle, knuckle down, labor, muscle, pains, plug away, punch a clock, push, salt mines, servitude, slave, slogging, stint, strain, stress, striving, struggle, sweat, toil, travail, trial, and trouble. “I am going to the daily grind now,” is a value-laden sentence. I am doing something I don’t really want to do, but must. The antonyms in this case are entertainment, fun, pastime. If I am going to the “salt mines,” the implication is that I cannot be having fun at work. Drudgery is the word that is the most descriptive negative synonym for work. In this situation, life is not lived, but spent looking forward to rest, whether it be after work, in retirement, on vacation, or during weekends. Most thought is to a time away from the misery of toil and labor.

Remembering how much time John Paul II spent in his encyclical writing about how good work is for man, let us close with these countercultural words. Work is, as has been said, an obligation, that is to say, a duty, on the part of man. This is true in all the many meanings of the word. Man must work, both because the Creator has commanded it and because of his own humanity, which requires work in order to be maintained and developed. Man must work out of regard for others, especially his own family, but also for the society he belongs to, the country of which he is a child, and the whole human family of which he is a member, since he is the heir to the work of generations and at the same time a sharer in building the future of those who will come after him in the succession of history. #16

Endnotes
1 I use the official Vatican translation of this document, found at www.vatican.va,   In this paper I quote John Paul II extensively and then see what information we can glean from each quotation. The goal is to understand his teaching on work and contrast it with popular conceptions of work in our culture. Note that within his quotations, italics are in the original.

 There are many topics he covers in this encyclical which are not germane to this paper because they cover issues of employment, indirect and direct employers, workers’ rights, labor movements, capital and labor, key to the social question, just wages, etc. A fascinating section of this encyclical, which I urge you to read prayerfully, concerns the Church’s development of a spirituality of work.

2 Footnote on concentric circles

3 See #5. 

4 This is interesting …Working at any workbench…a man can easily see that through his work he enters into two inheritances: the inheritance of what is given to the whole of humanity in the resources of nature, and the inheritance of what others have already developed on the basis of those resources, primarily by developing technology, that is to say, by producing a whole collection of increasingly perfect instruments for work. In working, man also "enters into the labor of others". #13 

For Personal Reflection and Group Sharing

• How would you define work? How does your definition compare with the one found in John Paul II’s encyclical on work?
• Do you agree that work is good for man? Describe some ways in which you see work as a good. Compare your descriptions with current cultural thoughts on work.
• Do you see a relationship between God’s command to procreate and to work? In what ways is work good for the family?

RESPONSES TO THIS CHAPTER:

Response from Sean Hurt:

This subject of work is surprisingly complex and multi-faceted. On one hand work can be a source of great misery. As Ronda pointed out in the introduction to this chapter, we associate it with the Fall. Furthermore, work can accompany an unhealthy focus on the material world. There are many people in American society who eat to work and not the other way around.

Superficially, it’s strange that there should be a profound connection between worship and work. But in Christianity we’re very familiar with the connection via the Third Commandment. We must carve out time consecrated to God. This saves us from a worldly perspective. So, we have a long history of understanding work as antithetical to worship. Therefore, it is interesting to consider how work can be complementary to worship of God. 

As the author points out, work makes us a special, different part of God’s Creation. We are unique from the rest of existence in this respect. Indeed, human work is a wondrous thing, because true work is creative. Through work, we create. Our nature of creation is what makes us, in part, an “image of God”.

The Eucharist recapitulates this powerful connection between God’s creation and human work. Jesus selects bread and wine for his body and blood. This is both “fruit of the Earth and work of human hands”. He could easily have picked something that was His creation only, like wheat and grapes, olives and pomegranates or honey and water. Instead, Jesus picked bread and wine. This, and not God’s creation alone, becomes our spiritual food and drink. Why does Jesus lift up human work in this way?

I think it’s insightful to look at work in a peasant society. In Malawi, we have a long dry season. Everything dies. The roads become dust. During this time, farming, the primary mode of Malawian work, is impossible. There is no irrigation. Wild fires break out everywhere, burning, destroying tree-crops, homes and forests. 

When the rains do return, which coincidentally come around Christmas, it’s a joyous occasion. Life has returned! The water shocks the sterile dust; the trees bloom and make such a pungent odor.  The sky thickens with flying ants and termites. Children dance, wildly, naked in the rains snatching them out of the air! The forests and orchards swell with fruits, mushrooms and tasty caterpillars! 

Along with God’s bounty, people feel the call back to their fields. A family leaves in the early morning after the first rain. The women carry babies on their backs. Young and old dig their gardens. Maybe three generations stand side by side, laughing, chatting, singing, swinging the hoe in unison. They till 3 acres this way, by hand. Two acres are for maize, and another is for soybeans or peanuts.  Like the farmer from parables, they plant the seed, and while they sleep, the maize germinates. They know not how. 

The harvest comes around Easter. The whole country-side rejoices, for the granary was empty. The mood is rapturous and festive. The harvest piles high into an ox-cart! This is also the season for weddings, and the village celebrates new life!

I’m telling you this because I want to paint a picture of work in Malawi. It’s different than in America. In Malawi, it feels like you and God are working together, blessing creation with bountiful life. We are both creators, in a sense.  Yes, the work is back-breaking and tedious, but it is their life, their culture, and, paradoxically, a celebration. 

I hope you see that American work is different. I don’t know what the difference is exactly, but there is a spiritual dimension to work that’s missing here. Maybe we’ve removed ourselves too far from work’s essence of co-creation. Maybe we’re too specialized. Maybe we’re so consumed by a man-made world that we no longer see God’s role in our economic lives. In any case, much work in America has lost its divine glory, but retained its drudgery.

Response of David Tate:

John Paul II refers to an abstract sense of work that caused a great conflict within me as I was a teenager slowly entering the adult world becoming a fully autonomous ‘person’. The beginnings of this started when I was in a para-Church youth organization. I was growing in my identity as a young man and as a young Christian. I was very happy in learning that according to God, my being had value. I was so happy in my growing faith, as well as the joys of being a child of God, that I started to feel that hungering after material possessions was a road that somehow seemed not worthy of my new spiritual life. Even until this day, I am troubled to understand the lack of certain abilities in my life at that time. One thing that does seem to come to my thoughts, which is hopefully something healthy in a young Christian mind, was that I recall that I felt like my home life with my parents was something secure. The thought never occurred to me that my parents might ask me to move out some day. 

To return the topic of ‘work’, I had connected work with being a Christian. In my young mind, whatever I was motivated to do was ‘work’; regardless of whether I got paid or not. This way of thinking was not acceptable to my dad. Even though my dad never threatened me with eviction, he did clearly state on more than one occasion that some of my activities were not a “real job”. My dad did not connect your ‘being’ with your ’job’. He understood that you worked for people that didn’t care about you, and in return, you walked away each day having a paycheck in your pocket. For him, the ‘work’ done was not in any way an extension of your being.

It appears that my dad and I were not in the same sphere. It is interesting that John Paul II has captured a place in between my dad and I. He has taught that ‘work’ is both an obligation and an extension of being. I believe my dad would be more satisfied with me today, but I also take great satisfaction in that somehow the Pope has given us a wink to say that we were both correct. Entertaining a Cheshire grin, I know one point that my dad and the Pope certainly agreed on, “From the beginning therefore he is called to work.”

When I think of ‘work’, I instinctively go to two distinctions. The first is individual. The second is communal. Having gotten past the basic point, I see work as diving again into the Good that pointS to ME and the good which points to the community. In the first category, an individual directly works out of his own needs. He is willing to trade time and effort knowing he will receive in return something he wants. In the second version of this selfish activity is an indirect desire to serve others, in so doing he ends up serving himself because he loves or cares for those he says he is trying to benefit. On the needy side, we work for ourselves and for our community because we need our self-esteem to be bolstered. We need to feel some kind of self-gratification, as well as the approval of our society.

When all is said and done, we cannot stress too much over the motives and pseudo-motives behind why we work. What we really need to do is to understand that we were made to work. This work involves the expressing of our talents, desires, and mission. These three come directly from the fact that we have been created by God with these motivations imprinted upon us.

God knows about these motivations because He has them in Himself. In His making us in His image, He has given us a reflection of His own self. He gives to each one a function and purpose to fulfill. (No one is created purpose-less.) Secondly, God has planted within us appetites that demand a source of being satisfied. Does not an athlete hunger for the reward that is felt by the body after physical exertion? All appetites seek being satisfied. C.S. Lewis suggested that God does not give us true appetites that cannot be fulfilled. And finally, the existent things of the universe are all bound in movement back to God. This means that each and every creature has a mission to fulfill. There must be very few humans that pass through life without asking, “What is the meaning or purpose of my life?” In a broad answer, these three aspects (talents, desires, and mission) encompass the “why” of the work we do. To recall the work of grace in our lives, we can restate the answer this way: It is grace that initiates us; grace that motivates us; and grace that leads us to the many and the final finish lines of our work. Work is natural and work is good.

In quoting John Paul II, “[The family is] the first school of work”, we are reminded that procreation is at the heart of the Sacrament of Marriage; and that parents are the first teachers of their children. Anyone that has ever been in a relationship of any kind understands that another person becomes a burden to you. By burden we mean something in addition to yourself. Their life, their joys, their sorrows become an additional part of your life that you now carry around with you. Any science teacher will agree that carrying something is truly work. It is no surprise that we are at our most virtuous when we come to desire the additional burden of another person. In a strange way, we are led by compassion to do that which is the most beneficial for our self when care for others.  We call into action our abilities and strengths to be used for the care of another. What parent doesn’t carry a burden for their child? What spouse doesn’t carry a burden for their beloved? What child, in their own way, doesn’t carry a burden for their mommy or daddy? Work is an unavoidable participation in a community. Can we not marvel at the great fruit of our labor after looking over the years of our many relationships? If relational love is work, and God is love, then who can deny that this work is truly the best kind of labor? 

Response from Kathleen Brouillette:

In his concept of work, as in every aspect of life, it seems that in our times man and his governments seek to remove God.  How can man see the value of work if not with its connection to his having been made in the image and likeness of God?  In each chapter this semester, we have seen man’s attempt to make himself a god, whether by imposing his power and will over others, relying on his own efforts to impose peace rather than on love and respect for his fellow man, failing to see one another as children of God, failing to respect the father figure and the priest as an example of spiritual fatherhood, or failing to understand the selfless giving that is love rather than the use of another person for one’s own fulfillment and gratification.  Mankind as a whole tends to see what is expedient rather than what is beautiful and true and good.

We have reduced work to a source of income. Governments have stepped in to take care of people far beyond their temporary times of need, rather than ensuring opportunities for them to achieve their own fulfillment as persons in the image and likeness of God. There is no incentive to work.  There is precious little joy in work, or in achievement.  In our times, the value of our work, as Dr. Toolin points out, is not in the person doing the work, but in the work being done – or in the amount of pay being received for it.  We take precious little pride or joy in our accomplishment, unless it is in the accomplishment of how much money we have made and how much “stuff” we have acquired.  

Isn’t it interesting that those who have the most money and the most “stuff” are, in too many cases, those who are least happy, least fulfilled, and least content.  They are seeking escape in drugs, alcohol, and sex, rather than taking joy in building families, giving good example, and making the world a better place – now and, as Dr. Toolin makes note, for those who will come after us.  

As Sean Hurt points out, we take no joy in our work in America, probably because our lives do not depend on what we do.  Our lifestyles are dependent upon it, but not our very lives.  Why work when there is no sense of working for something? Those to whom society looks in admiration are not the ones who are working hard to make a difference and lift man up, but rather the ones who score the most points or hit the most homeruns, and those in position to give out the most benefits and buy the most votes.  Few of these people are changing the world for mankind and for generations to follow, at least not in a positive and hope-giving way.

One polarization resulting from this attitude is reflected in a bumper sticker I recently saw:  “You are not entitled to what I earned.”  Surely we know how generous people are to others in need when disaster strikes, or when we share a common dilemma. We need to be careful of perpetuating a mindset of entitlement, which fails to inspire man to become his best self as a reflection of our very God.  A very different world might emerge if the Church formed us as partners with God in His work.




Response from Tommie Kim:

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.” (Gen 2: 1-2)

I think the definition of “work” also evolved with time. In ancient times, the majority of work was physical labor.  Work was, in a certain sense, self-employed work and the reward was more directly related to how much effort was invested. A diligent farmer got more of what he needed. People were able to thank God for favorable weather that helped the farmers to bear more fruit.  Work was a basic means for living and there was a clear reason to thank God for “being able to work.”

In our times life has flourished with advanced technology and more conveniences.  Along with this advancement, the definition of work changed along with new values in life.  We live in a highly competitive environment where technology has replaced human physical labor.  As more significant income resulted from real estate and capital speculation, we have become impatient expecting immediate rewards and substantially more income than from the actual labor.  The subjective aspect of the enjoyment of the work hardly exists and it is all about making money to have enough to spend.  In the younger generation, it is only about making more money and so they find it very difficult to see why it is good to work in a way that improves the quality of the product or to know how to appreciate the work.  

Work is also involved in God’s command to procreate. What children see in the labor of their parents helps them understand the value of work in their own future lives. When children grow up witnessing the hard work of the parents to nourish them, children grow up appreciating life and they will carry this value into their own lives. Children who grow up with wealth and do not witness the work involved, take everything in life for granted.  Work and money are inseparable.  Money earned through work provides the necessities to live but there is more than just  financial income.  What is important is the fact that our work exists in harmony with the work of others.  We must be able to appreciate the entire workforce. 

“For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” (Ths II 3:10)

The Liturgy even teaches that our very being is symbolic in relation to Christ:  “May we who mystically represent the Cherubim, and sing the thrice-holy hymn, to the Life-Creating Trinity, now set aside all earthly cares.  That we may welcome the King of All invisibly escorted by angelic hosts, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.” This hymn portrays the worshipper as representing angels before God.  In this sense, tangible human voice at Mass represents mysterious angelic praise.  Once again, human worship takes its cue from heavenly worship and thus has to reflect not only in intention but even in the perfection of artistry, the angelic worship.   

“Church on Sunday” affirms the sacred, affirms God, and it doesn’t affirm the primacy of our daily cares, worries, and secularity; we must make sure we recognize who the “Sun” is, and what or whom does He illuminate. A blessing before meals affirms God’s benefices. A day is separated solely for Him, and yet we do not relate to him as to any other human, because we have to relate to Him as God. In Christ it is God who related to us as man, so that we can come to understand and to love, Father, Son and Spirit through the message of his Incarnation.

Being struck and overcome by the beauty of Christ is a more real, more profound knowledge than mere rational deduction. Of course we must not underrate the importance of theological reflection, of exact and precise theological thought; it remains absolutely necessary. But to move from here to disdain or to reject the impact produced by the response of the heart in the encounter with beauty as a true form of knowledge would impoverish us and dry up our faith and our theology. We must rediscover this form of knowledge; it is a pressing need of our time.

The Beauty of our symbols attracts us to the Truths that they portray. They are encounters with Christ! They entice us to discover why it is that they are mysteries. Why does the stained glass of Chartres remind me of heaven? What is it of heaven represented in the stained glass? Upon what earth do my feet tread? Am I in Paradise?

It is at this point, in the midst of Chartres, do we have to retrace out footsteps back to Adam, Eve, the snake and the garden.  In the fallen state, I cannot see. Was I meant to be separated from the love of God?  Can I find fulfillment in God? What is it like to converse with him? What are we doing then, in terms of communicating with God and why is God communicating to us.  

In Revelation, the emphasis is on Christ as Victim of an eternal Liturgy, in fact, He is the Paschal Lamb. However, in one image is his passion, death and resurrection portrayed.

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of god sent out into all the earth; and he went and took the scroll and the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.  And when he had taken the scroll, the four living  creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, ad with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints; and they sang a new song, saying, “worthy art thou . . .” [Rev 5:6-9]

For Personal Reflection and Group Sharing:

Examine Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, how is it related to my experience of Mass in the parish?  Look at its colours, look at Christ. Why is the Last Judgment on the Eastern Wall? Compare the saints to Christ; how is Christ’s beauty reflected in their beauty? Look at Christ’s complexion, his face, his radiance. Do a bit of research to figure out the pigments from which it was made, the techniques, and read about the importance of portraying the Last Judgment in Church. Is there any reason why we do not see the Last Judgment portrayed in churches today, what could be the change in attitude. How does this work of art help me relate to the Second Coming of Christ?

The Popular and Church Perspectives on Work
by
Cynthia Toolin, PhD


Dr. Toolin is a professor of dogmatic and moral theology at Holy Apostles College and Seminary where she has worked since 1997. She is married, with two married daughters and six grandchildren. She divides her time between Connecticut and Vermont.

Note from Dr. Chervin: Before reading and teaching John Paul II’s encyclical on work, I was like most people, thinking of work primarily as a result of the Fall.  I thought that work I enjoyed was simply a gift of God, not part of the basics of human nature even before the Fall. Certainly our twenty-first century Catholic synthesis needs to help us to appreciate that the crosses of work do not negate its basic goodness.  In a way, people understand that better in our times because of the scourge of unemployment. Instead of complaining about work, many are praying to find it. Unfortunately, on the other side, we find more people who are characterized as work-aholics. What a balanced view we find in Church teaching about the nature of work. 




John Paul II wrote an encyclical devoted entirely to work, Laborem Exercens (On Human Work), in 1981.1 In it, he wrote about work in a way that can only be described as countercultural. The three points we will discuss are his definition of work, his distinctions within work as concerns the objective and subjective aspects of it, and the communal aspects of work (personal, familial, and societal.) 




The Definition of Work

Many people in our culture think of work as synonymous with employment. They believe work is drudgery, something we must do to earn a paycheck so we can pay the bills. This common perspective leads many to focus their goals on the exact opposite of work: leisure. Others, and I would suggest fewer, see work in a positive light, as personally fulfilling, as a process followed to accomplish something, or as a community of persons working towards a goal, that is towards the common good. This second perspective is closer to what the Church teaches about the true meaning of work.

In his encyclical, John Paul II was clear that work is not synonymous with employment; rather, he treats employment as a subset of work. He explained that work is a good for man, a process we were to undertake from the beginning, or from our creation in the Garden of Eden. It is to be seen in tandem with procreation, as is clear when we review the twin rules God gave us: to fill the earth and to subdue it (Genesis 1:28). Only man, as person made in the image and likeness of God, can work. Work is a universal experience that fills man’s days. Unfortunately, our experience of work changed with the advent of Original Sin, and it is for that reason that our common perspective on work is that it is necessary drudgery. In the Introduction to Laborem Exercens, John Paul II said,

And work means any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which man is capable and to which he is predisposed by his very nature, by virtue of humanity itself. Man is made to be in the visible universe an image and likeness of God himself, and he is placed in it in order to subdue the earth. From the beginning therefore he is called to work. 

In this section we are presented with what John Paul II understood about the meaning of work. The statements “any activity,” “any human activity,” and “many activities of which man is capable” explain work as something larger than employment. Most of us are employed at some point during our lives—that is, we perform mental or physical tasks for pay—but that is only a subset of the activity we can do. We all do many things for which we do not receive pay: we take care of other people, we teach things to people, we build things for people, and so on. The number of things we do that are not part of our employment are much greater in variety and in quantity than what we do for actual pay.

We work all the time, only not always for pay. Making a meal for my family is work; cleaning my house is work; tilling my garden is work; typing a professional paper for my employment is work. But there is a difference between the first three kinds of work and the latter. Someday I may retire but I will still have to cook, clean the house, and garden. All four are work, but only the last one is for pay; only the last one is a requirement of my employment.

Thus, work does not equal employment; employment is a subset of work. As John Paul II explained, man is the only creature in the visible world made in the image and likeness of God. It is Church teaching that to be created in God’s image and likeness means we are persons. Like the One God, we have intellect to know the truth and the will to love it; like the Triune God, we are a community. God creates the world and then gives it to man, the only person in visible creation, for his safekeeping and development. He gives man, his highest creation, the command (as recorded in Genesis) to subdue and dominate the earth. Revelation is telling us, even before the Fall, we are supposed to work, to bring God’s visible creation to fulfillment. After the Fall, the work we were always supposed to do often becomes unpleasant and arduous. To be man means to be one who works. It has always been this way, and as long as we, as a species, are on earth, it will continue to be this way. Work is good for us.

John Paul II continued in his Introduction, 

Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons. And this mark decides its interior characteristics; in a sense it constitutes its very nature.  

This is a wonderful passage. Only man, the person, can work. This is a very countercultural statement. We think animals work and machines work.  Animals exert energy at the service of man, once we have trained them how to do so. Horses don’t get together and decide to invent a harness and carriage so they can pull the carriage and carry man somewhere. We invent the harness and carriage; we capture and domesticate the horses; we train them how to pull the carriage to carry us where we want to go. We work doing all of these things. Animals do not have the intellect or will to work; only man does because only man is person. Nor can machines work. Because machines are not alive and, obviously, are not persons, they do not work; they are tools that we make to assist us in working. Note that these statements do not mean work animals should be “overworked” or abused. All of God’s creation, including animal life, should be treated in keeping with how God wants us to treat it. When He said to subdue and dominate the earth, He did not say to brutalize and abuse it. Nor do these statements mean that man cannot be abused by other men who use machines. Both of these abuses occur all the time. When I see men abuse work animals, or managers abuse, degrade, or oppress men (for instance, in a factory), I reckon back to the effects of Original Sin.

John Paul II said work is a “fundamental dimension of human existence on earth.” #4 This has always been the case, whether we were in the state of original justice or later in the state of Original Sin. John Paul II continued, 

When man, who had been created “in the image of God…male and female,” hears the words: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it,”, even though these words do not refer directly and explicitly to work, beyond any doubt they indirectly indicate it as an activity for man to carry out in the world.…Man is the image of God partly though the mandate received from his Creator to subdue, to dominate the earth. In carrying out this mandate, man, every human being, reflects the very action of the Creator of the universe. #4 

We all work, for pay and/or not for pay, and we do this for most of our lives. Work occupies our existence on earth; our lives are full of work, and it is by work that we live and at the same time, build up our family, and the community, society, and culture that we live in. In our work we reflect God. He created and holds creation in its existence; we mirror him as we subdue and dominate the earth, bringing his creation to fruition. And as we do so, work impacts us.

Further we work most of our lives; it occupies our existence on earth. Work also occurs within a community of persons; it is both a solitary and a communal project. I work developing and typing this paper. Another professor works using it as a teaching tool. The students work learning it. And hopefully, when the students graduate, they will use what they learned in their work as Catholic leaders. Much of the work we do, whether for pay or not, is done alone; but note, it has a communal impact. Our work impacts the common good, either positively or negatively. Here is another example. I work tilling the garden. I bought tomato stakes at a garden store from a clerk, using money I earned as a theologian. Someone made those stakes and they were delivered to the store by someone else. My husband drove me home in his car with my stakes. Someone designed the car; it was produced by workers somewhere. It was delivered to a car lot by someone; it was bought by my husband with money he earned working in a campground, and so on, in a seemingly infinite group of workers.2  This all so I can grow tomatoes and serve fresh salads to the man I love. Do you see how our lives are consumed by work? That it is all related? That my product of a salad could not occur without all these other people working? And that this is a positive thing?




Objective and Subjective Aspects of Work

Now I think we have a basic idea of what work is, but we need to delve more deeply into the reality of work and draw some distinctions. One of the central concepts of this encyclical is that work has both an objective and subjective aspect. These aspects concern the issue of the true value of work. Usually, in our culture and I think in many others, when we think of work we think of the objective aspect, that is, what we do.To understand these aspects we have to realize that work is a transitive activity. John Paul II said,

 [Work] begins within the “human subject and directed towards an external object. [This] presupposes a specific dominion by man over  “the earth,”, and in its turn it confirms and develops this dominion.… The expression  “subdue the earth” has an immense range. It means all the resources that the earth (and indirectly the visible world) contains and which, through the conscious activity of man, can be discovered and used for his ends. #4

As we analyze the world, we identify an issue or problem, or have an idea, and we know that to bring it to fruition a piece of work must be done. Using our intellect we know that if we want to eat fresh tomatoes, we must plant a garden. With the engagement of our free will, we use our personal power to plant, till, and harvest a garden. That whole process began inside of us, and through intellect, will, and personal power, we impact something outside of us. There was no garden, just a plot of land with dirt, rocks, and weeds. Then we did something and now there is a bumper crop of tomatoes. As John Paul II said, [this activity] begins within the “human subject and [is] directed towards an external object.” 

John Paul II continued, saying, 

this is a universal process, as it embraces all human beings, every generation, every phase of economic and cultural development, and at the same time it is a process that takes place within each human being, in each conscious human subject. Each and every individual is at the same time embraced by it. Each and every individual, to the proper extent and in an incalculable number of ways, takes part in the giant process whereby man  “subdues the earth” through his work. #4

Dominating the earth occurs through work by harvesting resources, like clothing from animal skins; subduing the earth also occurs through work by transforming products, as in agriculture and industry. This is the objective sense of work. Man works and in the process dominates and subdues the earth.3 Something is done, originating in man, which results in a change in the external world.

When we think of work we usually think of this objective sense, as can be seen from job titles. We can see that someone is responsible for something being done. The mail person delivers the mail, the secretary types letters, the teacher conducts a class, the mother raises children, and the wife makes a home. The work done is what we call the objective aspect. 

More important is the fact that man is the subject of work. This is what John Paul II said about this subjective aspect of work,

Man has to subdue the earth and dominate it, because as the  “image of God” he is a person, that is to say, a subjective being capable of acting in a planned and rational way, capable of deciding about himself, and with a tendency to self-realization. As a person, man is therefore the subject of work. As a person he works, he performs various actions belonging to the work process; independently of their objective content, these actions must all serve to realize his humanity, to fulfill the calling to be a person that is his by reason of his very humanity.

Understood as a process whereby man and the human race subdue the earth, work corresponds to this basic biblical concept only when throughout the process man manifests himself and confirms himself as the one who “dominates.” This dominion, in a certain sense, refers to the subjective dimension even more than to the objective one: this dimension conditions the very ethical nature of work. In fact there is no doubt that human work has an ethical value of its own, which clearly and directly remain linked to the fact that the one who carries it out is a person, a conscious and free subject, that is to say a subject that decides about himself. #6

John Paul II pointed out that, in the past, the type of work done has been used as part of a class system. Building on the Old Testament, Christianity changed the emphasis from the objective sense of work to the subjective one. Jesus worked as a manual laborer for most of his life on earth. 

This circumstance constitutes in itself the most eloquent ‘Gospel of work’, showing that the basis for determining the value of human work is not primarily the kind of work being done but the fact that the one who is doing it is a person. The sources of the dignity of work are to be sought primarily in the subjective dimension, not in the objective one. #6

Now we understand the subjective aspect of work is more important than the objective one. This is an extremely countercultural understanding of work. Clearly work (for pay) has to be classified in a way that leads to fair compensation. The person who delivers the mail should not be compensated at the same level as the leading cardiac surgeon in the country. There is an objective difference in their work, in their skill in performing their work, and in their preparation to learn how to do their work. Yet, on the subjective level, what is important is that the work is done by persons. 

 From the objective point of view, human work cannot and must not be rated and qualified in any way. It only means that the primary basis of the value of work is man himself, who is its subject. This leads immediately to a very important conclusion of an ethical nature: however true it may be that man is destined for work and called to it, in the first place work is  “for man” and not man  “for work.” #6

He said further, 

[P]resupposing that the different sorts of work that people do can have greater or lesser objective value, let us try nevertheless to show that each sort is judged above all by the measure of the dignity of the subject of work, that is to say the person, the individual who carries it out. #6

Sphere of Values 

Now that we understand the distinction between the objective and subjective aspects of work, we turn to another distinction within the concept of work, the sphere of values that come from the subjective aspect—personal, familial, and societal.

John Paul II pointed out that it is a universal experience to work and, ultimately, to toil. Simply stated, work is not an easy thing to do. It can be physically and mentally challenging, exhausting, unsuccessful, disappointing. This is a universal experience, and yet, work and toil is a good for man. It is so good that we were supposed to work in the Garden before the Fall; after the Fall, we are to continue to work, but it has unfortunately become difficult. It is through work that we obey the second of God’s commands. It is through hard work, through toil, that we dominate and subject the world.  John Paul II said, 




Work is a good thing for man—a good thing for his humanity—because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes “more a human being.” #9

We are shaped by work. We are supposed to bring God’s creation to fruition. This activity corresponds to the command to procreate, to fill Heaven and Earth with persons. We are to work with God—who worked in creating, and continues to work in sustaining creation through all its developments and changes. He entrusted creation to us with the task of working with him, of continuing his work and offering it back to him as we glorify him. How could either of these activities performed with God, commanded by God, not change us into better people. As John Paul II said, again, through work each of us “achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes ‘more a human being.’”

We are all born into a family, and the overwhelming majority of people form a family when they are adults (although neither the family of origin or of choice is necessarily permanent, successful, nor good at achieving its ends.) In addition to work being good for us as individuals, it is good for us communally. Work is intimately tied to the family. We cannot start or maintain a family without work, and once the family is started, we need work so we can successfully educate our children, also in work. 

John Paul II said,

 In a way, work is a condition for making it possible to found a family, since the family requires the means of subsistence which man normally gains through work. Work and industriousness also influence the whole process of education in the family, for the very reason that everyone  “becomes a human being” through, among other things, work, and becoming a human being is precisely the main purpose of the whole process of education. #10

He continued, “The family is simultaneously a community made possible by work and the first school of work, within the home, for every person.” #10

The third part of this distinction is that through work we develop our culture. This is another universal experience. John Paul II said, 

The great society to which man belongs on the basis of particular cultural and historical links…is not only the great “educator" of every man…it is also a great historical and social incarnation of the work of all generations. All of this brings it about that man combines his deepest human identity with membership of a nation, and intends his work also to increase the common good developed together with his compatriots, thus realizing that in this way work serves to add to the heritage of the whole human family, of all the people living in the world.4 #10 

He tied the objective and subjective dimensions with the three spheres of value, saying,

These three spheres are always important for human work in its subjective dimension. And this dimension, that is to say, the concrete reality of the worker, takes precedence over the objective dimension. #10

The expression of this understanding of work is radically countercultural. Work is something God ordered us to do? Through it we dominate and subdue the earth? It is a good for us? It develops us as human beings, and its true value is based on the fact that persons do it? And growing from that subjective aspect, we are not only developed, but we found and support our families, fulfill our educational obligations to our children, and develop our culture? 




Countercultural?

Throughout this paper I have pointed out several places in which the understanding of work in the encyclical, part of the universal Magisterium of the Church, and that of our culture, disagree. The definition of words are the most basic level at which people must agree if they are to proceed to develop theoretical or practical models of the concept of interest, and draw out pertinent distinctions. The Church definition of work is a countercultural one. To make this apparent to you, I looked up the word “work” on www.dictionary.com and read through, and organized, a wide variety of definitions.

Work is usually defined as labor or a chore, something being done, or being in a position where something is being done and it is usually an arduous or unpleasant task. Some synonyms for work are neutral. These include words like endeavor, performance, production, task, and function. These words describe work; they define it. Work as a function has neither positive nor negative overtones. “My function is to teach,” is a neutral statement. It does not express the ease or difficulty of the work, nor my attitude towards it.

Other synonyms, that are positive, include application of oneself, gainful employment, freelance, having a job, doing business, and earning a living, imply something positive about work. They refer directly, or at least imply, some task or performance done for income or pay. The sentence, “I earn a living,” implies I am socially responsible, supporting myself, and contributing to the support of my family, paying my bills. It doesn’t matter if I am earning a living from a teaching job or a clerical one. I have a job. The antonyms for work, when it is defined as being employed or exerting oneself, are idle, lazy, relax, and rest. If I am earning a living, I am not idle or lazy.

There is a cluster of ways in which work is defined as something being done that ends in a result. Work in this cluster means manipulation, operation, power, instrumentality, and cultivation or forming, and it results in an achievement. The synonyms for this sense of the word include action verbs: accomplish, act, bring about, care for, carry out, cause, channel, contrive, control, create, direct, drive, effect, execute, force, function, handle, implement, influence, intercession, intervention, knead, make, manipulate, manage, maneuver, means, mediation, mold, move perform, ply, process, progress, react , run, serve, shape, take, tend, tick, use, and wield. These verbs are not only positive; they imply that the person working has at least some control over the process and/or the result. The sentences “I created this class” or “I helped that student achieve his educational goals” is very different from the sentence, “I am going to the salt mines.” The major antonym for work in this sense is destroy. “I destroyed that student’s attempt to achieve his educational goals.”

But negative synonyms for work are legion. I think the sheer number of negative synonyms points to the cultural meaning of the word. If there was a count of the number of times neutral, positive, and negative synonyms for work are used, I think the negative ones would be used the most frequently. They include daily grind, dead end, drudgery, elbow grease, grindstone, hustle, knuckle down, labor, muscle, pains, plug away, punch a clock, push, salt mines, servitude, slave, slogging, stint, strain, stress, striving, struggle, sweat, toil, travail, trial, and trouble. “I am going to the daily grind now,” is a value-laden sentence. I am doing something I don’t really want to do, but must. The antonyms in this case are entertainment, fun, pastime. If I am going to the “salt mines,” the implication is that I cannot be having fun at work. Drudgery is the word that is the most descriptive negative synonym for work. In this situation, life is not lived, but spent looking forward to rest, whether it be after work, in retirement, on vacation, or during weekends. Most thought is to a time away from the misery of toil and labor.

Remembering how much time John Paul II spent in his encyclical writing about how good work is for man, let us close with these countercultural words. Work is, as has been said, an obligation, that is to say, a duty, on the part of man. This is true in all the many meanings of the word. Man must work, both because the Creator has commanded it and because of his own humanity, which requires work in order to be maintained and developed. Man must work out of regard for others, especially his own family, but also for the society he belongs to, the country of which he is a child, and the whole human family of which he is a member, since he is the heir to the work of generations and at the same time a sharer in building the future of those who will come after him in the succession of history. #16




Endnotes




1 I use the official Vatican translation of this document, found at www.vatican.va,   In this paper I quote John Paul II extensively and then see what information we can glean from each quotation. The goal is to understand his teaching on work and contrast it with popular conceptions of work in our culture. Note that within his quotations, italics are in the original.

 There are many topics he covers in this encyclical which are not germane to this paper because they cover issues of employment, indirect and direct employers, workers’ rights, labor movements, capital and labor, key to the social question, just wages, etc. A fascinating section of this encyclical, which I urge you to read prayerfully, concerns the Church’s development of a spirituality of work.

2 Footnote on concentric circles

3 See #5. 

4 This is interesting …Working at any workbench…a man can easily see that through his work he enters into two inheritances: the inheritance of what is given to the whole of humanity in the resources of nature, and the inheritance of what others have already developed on the basis of those resources, primarily by developing technology, that is to say, by producing a whole collection of increasingly perfect instruments for work. In working, man also "enters into the labor of others". #13 




For Personal Reflection and Group Sharing

• How would you define work? How does your definition compare with the one found in John Paul II’s encyclical on work?
• Do you agree that work is good for man? Describe some ways in which you see work as a good. Compare your descriptions with current cultural thoughts on work.
• Do you see a relationship between God’s command to procreate and to work? In what ways is work good for the family?

Response from Sean Hurt, former Peace Corp in Malawi, Africa:

This subject of work is surprisingly complex and multi-faceted. On one hand work can be a source of great misery. As Ronda pointed out in the introduction to this chapter, we associate it with the Fall. Furthermore, work can accompany an unhealthy focus on the material world. There are many people in American society who eat to work and not the other way around.

Superficially, it’s strange that there should be a profound connection between worship and work. But in Christianity we’re very familiar with the connection via the Third Commandment. We must carve out time consecrated to God. This saves us from a worldly perspective. So, we have a long history of understanding work as antithetical to worship. Therefore, it is interesting to consider how work can be complementary to worship of God. 

As the author points out, work makes us a special, different part of God’s Creation. We are unique from the rest of existence in this respect. Indeed, human work is a wondrous thing, because true work is creative. Through work, we create. Our nature of creation is what makes us, in part, an “image of God”.

The Eucharist recapitulates this powerful connection between God’s creation and human work. Jesus selects bread and wine for his body and blood. This is both “fruit of the Earth and work of human hands”. He could easily have picked something that was His creation only, like wheat and grapes, olives and pomegranates or honey and water. Instead, Jesus picked bread and wine. This, and not God’s creation alone, becomes our spiritual food and drink. Why does Jesus lift up human work in this way?

I think it’s insightful to look at work in a peasant society. In Malawi, we have a long dry season. Everything dies. The roads become dust. During this time, farming, the primary mode of Malawian work, is impossible. There is no irrigation. Wild fires break out everywhere, burning, destroying tree-crops, homes and forests. 

When the rains do return, which coincidentally come around Christmas, it’s a joyous occasion. Life has returned! The water shocks the sterile dust; the trees bloom and make such a pungent odor.  The sky thickens with flying ants and termites. Children dance, wildly, naked in the rains snatching them out of the air! The forests and orchards swell with fruits, mushrooms and tasty caterpillars! 

Along with God’s bounty, people feel the call back to their fields. A family leaves in the early morning after the first rain. The women carry babies on their backs. Young and old dig their gardens. Maybe three generations stand side by side, laughing, chatting, singing, swinging the hoe in unison. They till 3 acres this way, by hand. Two acres are for maize, and another is for soybeans or peanuts.  Like the farmer from parables, they plant the seed, and while they sleep, the maize germinates. They know not how. 

The harvest comes around Easter. The whole country-side rejoices, for the granary was empty. The mood is rapturous and festive. The harvest piles high into an ox-cart! This is also the season for weddings, and the village celebrates new life!

I’m telling you this because I want to paint a picture of work in Malawi. It’s different than in America. In Malawi, it feels like you and God are working together, blessing creation with bountiful life. We are both creators, in a sense.  Yes, the work is back-breaking and tedious, but it is their life, their culture, and, paradoxically, a celebration. 

I hope you see that American work is different. I don’t know what the difference is exactly, but there is a spiritual dimension to work that’s missing here. Maybe we’ve removed ourselves too far from work’s essence of co-creation. Maybe we’re too specialized. Maybe we’re so consumed by a man-made world that we no longer see God’s role in our economic lives. In any case, much work in America has lost its divine glory, but retained its drudgery.




Response of David Tate, Seminarian at Holy Apostles:

John Paul II refers to an abstract sense of work that caused a great conflict within me as I was a teenager slowly entering the adult world becoming a fully autonomous ‘person’. The beginnings of this started when I was in a para-Church youth organization. I was growing in my identity as a young man and as a young Christian. I was very happy in learning that according to God, my being had value. I was so happy in my growing faith, as well as the joys of being a child of God, that I started to feel that hungering after material possessions was a road that somehow seemed not worthy of my new spiritual life. Even until this day, I am troubled to understand the lack of certain abilities in my life at that time. One thing that does seem to come to my thoughts, which is hopefully something healthy in a young Christian mind, was that I recall that I felt like my home life with my parents was something secure. The thought never occurred to me that my parents might ask me to move out some day. 

To return the topic of ‘work’, I had connected work with being a Christian. In my young mind, whatever I was motivated to do was ‘work’; regardless of whether I got paid or not. This way of thinking was not acceptable to my dad. Even though my dad never threatened me with eviction, he did clearly state on more than one occasion that some of my activities were not a “real job”. My dad did not connect your ‘being’ with your ’job’. He understood that you worked for people that didn’t care about you, and in return, you walked away each day having a paycheck in your pocket. For him, the ‘work’ done was not in any way an extension of your being.




It appears that my dad and I were not in the same sphere. It is interesting that John Paul II has captured a place in between my dad and I. He has taught that ‘work’ is both an obligation and an extension of being. I believe my dad would be more satisfied with me today, but I also take great satisfaction in that somehow the Pope has given us a wink to say that we were both correct. Entertaining a Cheshire grin, I know one point that my dad and the Pope certainly agreed on, “From the beginning therefore he is called to work.”

When I think of ‘work’, I instinctively go to two distinctions. The first is individual. The second is communal. Having gotten past the basic point, I see work as diving again into the Good that point to ME and the good which points to the community. In the first category, an individual directly works out of his own needs. He is willing to trade time and effort knowing he will receive in return something he wants. In the second version of this selfish activity is an indirect desire to serve others, in so doing he ends up serving himself because he loves or cares for those he says he is trying to benefit. On the needy side, we work for ourselves and for our community because we need our self-esteem to be bolstered. We need to feel some kind of self-gratification, as well as the approval of our society.

When all is said and done, we cannot stress too much over the motives and pseudo-motives behind why we work. What we really need to do is to understand that we were made to work. This work involves the expressing of our talents, desires, and mission. These three come directly from the fact that we have been created by God with these motivations imprinted upon us.

God knows about these motivations because He has them in Himself. In His making us in His image, He has given us a reflection of His own self. He gives to each one a function and purpose to fulfill. (No one is created purpose-less.) Secondly, God has planted within us appetites that demand a source of being satisfied. Does not an athlete hunger for the reward that is felt by the body after physical exertion? All appetites seek being satisfied. C.S. Lewis suggested that God does not give us true appetites that cannot be fulfilled. And finally, the Existent things of the Universe are all bound in movement back to God. This means that each and every creature has a mission to fulfill. There must be very few humans that pass through life without asking, “What is the meaning or purpose of my life?” In a broad answer, these three aspects (talents, desires, and mission) encompass the “why” of the work we do. To recall the work of grace in our lives, we can restate the answer this way: It is grace that initiates us; grace that motivates us; and grace that leads us to the many and the final finish lines of our work. Work is natural and work is good.




 In quoting John Paul II, “[The family is] the first school of work”, we are reminded that procreation is at the heart of the Sacrament of Marriage; and that parents are the first teachers of their children. Anyone that has ever been in a relationship of any kind understands that another person becomes a burden to you. By burden we mean something in addition to yourself. Their life, their joys, their sorrows become an additional part of your life that you now carry around with you. Any science teacher will agree that carrying something is truly work. It is no surprise that we are at our most virtuous when we come to desire the additional burden of another person. In a strange way, we are led by compassion to do that which is the most beneficial for our self. When care for others.  We call into action our abilities and strengths to be used for the care of another. What parent doesn’t carry a burden for their child? What spouse doesn’t carry a burden for their beloved? What child, in their own way, doesn’t carry a burden for their mommy or daddy? Work is an unavoidable participation in a community. Can we not marvel at the great fruit of our labor after looking over the years of our many relationships? If relational love is work, and God is love, then who can deny that this work is truly the best kind of labor? 

Response from Kathleen Brouillette, student at Holy Apostles:

In his concept of work, as in every aspect of life, it seems that in our times man and his governments seek to remove God.  How can man see the value of work if not with its connection to his having been made in the image and likeness of God?  In each chapter this semester, we have seen man’s attempt to make himself a god, whether by imposing his power and will over others, relying on his own efforts to impose peace rather than on love and respect for his fellow man, failing to see one another as children of God, failing to respect the father figure and the priest as an example of spiritual fatherhood, or failing to understand the selfless giving that is love rather than the use of another person for one’s own fulfillment and gratification.  Mankind as a whole tends to see what is expedient rather than what is beautiful and true and good.

We have reduced work to a source of income. Governments have stepped in to take care of people far beyond their temporary times of need, rather than ensuring opportunities for them to achieve their own fulfillment as persons in the image and likeness of God. There is no incentive to work.  There is precious little joy in work, or in achievement.  In our times, the value of our work, as Dr. Toolin points out, is not in the person doing the work, but in the work being done – or in the amount of pay being received for it.  We take precious little pride or joy in our accomplishment, unless it is in the accomplishment of how much money we have made and how much “stuff” we have acquired.  

Isn’t it interesting that those who have the most money and the most “stuff” are, in too many cases, those who are least happy, least fulfilled, and least content.  They are seeking escape in drugs, alcohol, and sex, rather than taking joy in building families, giving good example, and making the world a better place – now and, as Dr. Toolin makes note, for those who will come after us.  

As Sean Hurt points out, we take no joy in our work in America, probably because our lives do not depend on what we do.  Our lifestyles are dependent upon it, but not our very lives.  Why work when there is no sense of working for something? Those to whom society looks in admiration are not the ones who are working hard to make a difference and lift man up, but rather the ones who score the most points or hit the most homeruns, and those in position to give out the most benefits and buy the most votes.  Few of these people are changing the world for mankind and for generations to follow, at least not in a positive and hope-giving way.

One polarization resulting from this attitude is reflected in a bumper sticker I recently saw:  “You are not entitled to what I earned.”  Surely we know how generous people are to others in need when disaster strikes, or when we share a common dilemma. We need to be careful of perpetuating a mindset of entitlement, which fails to inspire man to become his best self as a reflection of our very God.  A very different world might emerge if the Church formed us as partners with God in His work.




Response from Tommie Kim, Korean Post Master’s Student

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.” (Gen 2: 1-2)

I think the definition of “work” also evolved with time. In ancient times, the majority of work was physical labor.  Work was, in a certain sense, self-employed work and the reward was more directly provided depending on how much effort was invested. A diligent farmer made more earnings.  People were able to thank God for favorable weather that helped the farmers to bear more fruit.  Work was a basic means for living and there was a clear reason to thank God for “being able to work.”

In our times life has flourished with advanced technology and more conveniences.  Along with this advancement, the definition of work changed along with new values in life.  We live in a highly competitive environment where technology has replaced human physical labor.  As more significant income resulted from real estate and capital speculation, we have become impatient expecting immediate rewards and substantially more income than from the actual labor.  The subjective aspect of the enjoyment of the work hardly exists and it is all about making money to have enough to spend.  In the younger generation, it is only about making more money and so they find it very difficult to see why it is good to work in a way that improves the quality of the product or to know how to appreciate the work.  

Work is also involved in God’s command to procreate. What children see in the labor of their parents helps them understand the value of work in their own future lives. When children grow up witnessing the hard work of the parents to nourish them, children grow up appreciating life and they will carry this value into their own lives. Children who grow up with wealth and do not witness the work involved, take everything in life for granted.  Work and money are inseparable.  Money earned through work provides the necessities to live but there is more than just  financial income.  The value and quality of man developed through work cannot be compensated with only money.  There really is no good work or bad work because man does it all. Therefore, what is important is the fact that our work exists in harmony with the work of others.  We must be able to appreciate the entire workforce. 

“For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” (Ths II 3:10)
















 

Underlying Concepts for Catholic Pastoral Counseling
by Marti Armstrong MS

Marti  Armstrong 
has an MS in pastoral counseling from Iona College in New Rochelle, NY.  She has worked in substance-abuse counseling as well as bereavement counseling, including post-abortion bereavement counseling. Currently, she helps facilitate a bereavement group in her home parish, and volunteers, tutoring foreign students in English at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut.  She is a dedicated widow, and she also enjoys going to Georgia and Texas to visit her grandchildren.

Note from Dr. Chervin: As one who has benefited greatly from psychological counseling, pastoral counseling, and spiritual direction, I was happy that my friend and colleague Marti Armstrong wrote this sharing for us including her reasons for her work as a counselor. I believe that the twenty-first century Catholic Church will see a synthesis of insights from theology, philosophy, spirituality, and psychology so that those in these ministries may offer ample help to those in need of healing and inspiration.

I once heard a man wishing another well with: “May you never live in interesting times!”     Indeed, the twenty-first century might be described as “interesting times.”   We need only to look at the daily news reports, the legalized and illegal attacks on human life, the family, the Church and Christianity as a whole.  During this century of great material advances, great conveniences and comforts, pain, especially spiritual and emotional pain, has become more intense and pervasive. As we look around us, and even within ourselves, we see unprecedented material blessings, yet astounding widespread spiritual, mental, and emotional wounds.  It is safe to maintain that a majority of people today are looking for peace and healing in one way or another. What I would like to do here is describe pastoral counseling, its relevance, its uses, and some very practical applications.   

More than fifty years ago, I remember that psychiatry and clinical psychology were often limited to persons with severe mental and emotional disorders. Indeed, there has been often a stigma attached to the need for psychiatrists, psychologists, or counselors. Many were suffering from “falling through the cracks” as it were. They weren’t troubled “enough.” At the same time, in the early sixties, I recall going to a priest for direction. I was married and a young mother, and the priest actually volunteered to give me direction. When I mentioned this to my mother, her reaction was that she would not want to “bother” the priest. Hindsight, I thought that if people did not want to “bother” my father, who was a physician, they would not receive needed medical help, and we would be impoverished because of our unemployed father.  

During the nineteen sixties, a spiritual/psychological need became more prevalent. “My analyst says” became a popular phrase. People were attempting to “find themselves,” find peace, healing, and wholeness. Often, during a personal crisis, help would be sought from clergy of the various faith traditions, as well as from practitioners of psychiatry, psychology, and counseling. 

Some clergy did not trust psychology. Undeniably, some of their suspicions were well-founded. However, just as some directees needed medical help for physical disorders, some also needed help for emotional difficulties. As antibiotics were required for some at various times, anti-depressants or tranquilizers might be needed at others. Some well-meaning but misinformed directors, lay or cleric, implied that if the person directed had more faith, he or she would not need the medications or psychological help.

Meanwhile, the number of atheistic or antitheistic psychological counselors has been vast! A few years ago, I encountered a woman whom I had not seen in a long time. She had been active in the Church, attended daily Mass, and was a positive and inspiring influence on us who knew her. When I asked her how she was, she appeared quite dejected, explaining that after her husband died, she experienced depression as a result of her loss. What she described was normal, typical grief, the grief of a widow who had lost her husband. She decided to call a highly-respected psychologist. Rather than addressing her grief in an all-inclusive manner, when the psychologist learned that this woman was a devout Catholic who drew strength from her Faith, he began to treat her for “religious addiction”, suggesting that she give up daily Mass and church activities which had been such a consolation to her.

Upon hearing her story, I immediately gave this woman the name of a social worker whose approach was that of a pastoral counselor. Months later, again, I saw this woman transformed by the pastoral counseling work. She heartily thanked me for finding her the truly-helpful counselor. The irony of the situation is that the daily Mass and supportive Catholic community were precisely what she needed to sustain her during this difficult time. 

A further threat to the needed spiritual element in pastoral counseling is the widespread, hostile new form of atheism. An example of this is manifested in atheist Sam Harris’ book The End of Faith. He writes that it “is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions” (p. 70). Similar ideas are being perpetrated by other aggressive atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens.

One of my professors in graduate school told my classmates and me that, during that year, there was a proposed bill in the state legislature to permit licensed clinical psychologists to prescribe medications for anxiety or depression. He suggested to us that, should this bill become law, indeed, pastoral counselors would be needed more than ever. Often, when a patient is suffering from depression or anxiety, talking things out, venting, experiencing validation and understanding, are major supports. The psychiatrist may prescribe an antidepressant or other medication, while the clinical psychologist would use other means of intervention, not relying on prescription medicines. With the convenience to prescribe medications, the psychologist might be drawn to prescribe medication as an adjunct or even substitute for the talk therapy.

In my own personal experience, I once sought help for depression from a pastoral counselor at a time when life was not treating me very kindly. Since he ascertained that I was suffering from a form of depression that is coming from within, he recommended that I seek an antidepressant prescription from a physician. When I balked at the idea, he suggested an alternative means of therapy. 

He suggested that I begin to engage in some form of aerobic activity for thirty minutes or more, three or more days a week. Fast walking and swimming were highly recommended. I was in approximately the fiftieth year of my life, and within about a month of fast, aerobic walking, thirty minutes per walk, three days a week, I began to recognize that I had not felt this sense of wellness since the age of seventeen. When I was seventeen, I obtained my driver’s license, thus ending the long walks to and from destinations, enjoyed by me and my friends. This was a classic example of treating the whole person, a successful pastoral counseling outcome. Indeed, this is holistic approach is such an example, as well as the self-help, self-treating, that can accompany pastoral counseling. Like this approach, there is often a common-sense, home-remedy approach to life and healing in life.

In my own experience over the past several years, I have observed many practical and relatively simple supports for personal healing and wholeness. Here, again, I am stressing conditions of neuroses that are neither life-threatening nor serious. In other words, I am not referring to serious depression or psychosis or any condition where medical intervention is necessary. I remember a supervisor at a mental health clinic referring to most of us clinicians as the “worried well.” Having said this, I am referring to the idea that I cannot fix another person, nor can he or she “fix” me. What each of us, client and counselor alike, can do is work to encourage wholeness in oneself and in one another. I am convinced that the therapeutic relationship between counselor and client is a key element. However, in addition to this, and sometimes instead of this or following this (“this” being the counseling relationship), other resources must arise.

I encourage clients to keep a journal. It is quite remarkable what fruits are derived from journaling. When a person feels emotionally depleted, angry, depressed, or any number of feelings, he cannot always identify how he feels. However, in the process of writing out feelings and impressions, experiencing the pen on paper (or fingers on keyboard), emotions are unlocked, honest, undiscovered new feelings arise. There can be a spiritual, emotional, even a physical sense of relief, healing, the ability to yield to a new experience of peace and resulting growth. I remember having a client who was planning to have an abortion. When I could not talk her out of her decision, my supervisor suggested that I write out my feelings in my journal. I remember doing as she suggested, and the more I wrote, the more I was in touch with my own feelings, and I remember experiencing cathartic sobbing as I wrote. This did not change the woman’s mind, but there was an unforgettable feeling of peace in my own heart and soul. Journaling as a therapeutic aid can be so powerful that the client often can be weaned away from the need to see the counselor as much, if at all. I highly recommend journaling for everyone, whether one’s feelings are negative or euphoric, whether life situations are difficult or going smoothly. Not only is journaling helpful for emotional healing and growth, but it can be a powerful aid to spiritual growth.

Journaling and other projective techniques help a person attain better self-awareness, a great means of growth, healing, and self-actualization, as well as spiritual awareness and growth. Father Benedict Groeschel, teaching psychology of spiritual development, has used such a powerful projective technique for his students. In his class, we were given the assignment to write a Meadow-Mountain-Chapel Meditation. In this paper, we were encouraged to write about and describe in detail, from memory or imagination or both, a room, a meadow, a journey up a mountain, and a chapel. Part two of that assignment was learning how to recognize our own spiritual and emotional realities, needs, strengths, capabilities, and graces from the descriptions in our papers. This was a powerful, projective self-analysis as well as a very transforming, indeed, an extra life-giving experience for each of us. In this exercise, we generate symbols that lead us to healing and conversion. Here, a fine line is often drawn between emotional growth and spiritual transformation.  

Frequently, I have recommended support groups for people in emotional pain or crisis, or suffering from addictions. Unfortunately, some don’t know that such groups are free with an optional donation. 

A powerful tool for personal transformation is the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. The Twelve Steps have provided a time-tested help for individuals and groups. Here, peer pressure, empathy, encouragement, and gentle confrontation work together for mutual healing. There are Twelve Steps groups for alcoholics, drug addicts, overeaters, spouses and children of alcoholics, as well as for a general, broad range of people confronted with life’s struggles.  For those struggling with anger and other emotional and mental health issues, Emotions Anonymous, as well as Abraham Low’s Recovery International, are a great help.  By referring people to these self-help groups, we are helping them realize their potential for self-help, and for the additional mutual help to restore and heal one another. It is amazing to hear about a new member’s first meeting at Alcoholics Anonymous. That meeting can be a mix of new courage and a greater freedom. It can be like an entirely new life! In the Twelve Steps groups, particularly, the spiritual dimension is emphasized. 

It is not uncommon to hear a member of Alcoholics Anonymous describe himself as a “grateful alcoholic.” Often, his use of the term “grateful” includes his finding God through his alcoholism and ensuing recovery. What is learned is that sobriety—or emotional health, or other healing—involves a new, healthy relationship with God.

At the same time, support groups give members the opportunity to bring themselves out of their own personal discomfort, to listen to the stories and pain of their peers, to experience empathy as well as the support, encouragement, and challenges from the same peers. Listening, in these groups, as in every therapeutic relationship, is key. Knowing that one is both heard and understood is essential. In a group, the clients similarly exercise the kindheartedness of listening. Here is healing and help, individual, social, and spiritual. The individual has the blessing of give-and-take in a profound way.

Moderate forms of depression or reactive depression (such as depressions caused by a trauma such as the death of a loved one) can be somewhat—or even dramatically—alleviated by physical factors, such as diet and exercise, as I have mentioned earlier. Aerobic activity such as fast walking, swimming or skiing,  provide the individual with a release of serotonin, increasing the endorphins, imitating the physical response to antidepressants. Here, in the interest of health and safety, it is imperative that the client have clearance and permission from his own physician. In addition to exercise, a healthy diet and adequate sleep produce more favorable moods. A generous dose of the B vitamins, especially B-12, may enhance positive affect. Massage therapy benefits the system, especially where anxiety and depression are present. There are progressive relaxation exercises, especially one known as Jacobson’s Technique in which the muscles become so relaxed, that one professor compared it to a dose of a well-known tranquilizer. After all, in pastoral counseling, we are concerned with the whole person, body, mind, soul, so, as we can observe, the physical condition does contribute to one’s emotional well-being.

I would like to mention two of the most powerful “antidepressants” available. Their cause and effect are spiritual with emotional and even physical outcomes. The first antidepressant is gratitude. I challenge anyone who is in a blue mood (again, I am not speaking about serious clinical depression, though it probably would do no harm even there) to become aware of three to five things for which you can experience gratitude. It may be a simple as enjoying a sunny morning, or a compliment, or a good book, or a tasty cup of coffee. When a person experiences gratitude to one’s fellow men, even more so to God, good feelings ensue. This is especially true if this gratitude exercise is done at least on a daily basis. 

The second antidepressant is forgiveness. The amount of energy bound up by bitterness and resentment is enormous. The urge to be correct and prove it, to get even, to hold on to anger, is a devastating urge. So often, I have encountered profoundly depressed people who have legitimate grievances. For example, it is not only futile and counterproductive blaming others for past or present hurts. Being “right,” like revenge, may give the person some momentary relief, a sense of power and self-validation. However, clinging to that resentment actually causes a greater depletion of energy and a more serious and stubborn state of depression. The decision to forgive, not necessarily the feelings of forgiveness, yields a significant and often energizing experience of freedom. A very useful and grace-filled practice is to pray to God to help one to desire to desire to forgive. Here is a point where treatment and inner-healing prayer converge. This usually becomes an ongoing type of prayer, but the benefits are powerful.

Inner-healing prayer is a great means of healing, wholeness, and growth. At this juncture, such prayer, using images, memories, feelings, is a powerful and divinely-inspired means toward healing, as well as the end in itself. I knew a priest who highly endorsed inner-healing prayer. He spoke about a man who came to visit him for a few days. The visitor had been going for many years to weekly psychotherapy appointments, a time-consuming as well as financial burden for him. The priest introduced the gentleman to inner healing prayer. More progress was accomplished on that weekend than the previous twelve years of therapy combined. It goes without saying that what God can do in a cooperative and receptive individual surpasses the work of the most skilled human therapist. The relationship between God and each one of us transcends and expedites the therapeutic process. Inner healing prayer can be used in one’s private prayer as well as in a group experience. In fact, such prayer is often used in the context of charismatic prayer groups. Though this inner-healing prayer is suitable in spiritual direction or prayer groups or private prayer, it fits into the scope of pastoral counseling as well. This process can lead to or become that conduit most needed by the client. If the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance, are added to this prayer, the transformation can be miraculous. I have brought heavily burdened persons to Confession, and the contrast between their facial expressions before and after Confession is beyond description. Also, their expressed gratitude to God has been nothing short of dramatic. In the Eucharist, sometimes simply opening up oneself to the presence and divine healing of our Lord is all that is needed for extraordinary grace, growth and personal inner healing or comforting of past and present pains in life.

 
I hope this chapter helps to summarize the need, uses, applications, and potential of pastoral counseling as part of a twenty-first century Catholic life-style. In many ways, pastoral counseling and spiritual direction seem to overlap. Pastoral counseling is an ongoing process in which client and counselor meet frequently, often weekly. During this time, the counselor and client work through personal crises or needs with the goal of self-knowledge, affirmation, and healing and growth for the client. Listening is a key element. 

This applies to the counselor, who needs to listen and observe in depth. The client also needs to be able to listen to what he or she is saying or has said, its meaning; the counselor needs to facilitate that listening and interpretation in the client. The therapeutic relationship is needed. In spiritual direction, often the meetings are less often, sometimes once a month, and the object is to keep track of how the person is growing closer to God, the progress and obstacles in this process. Pastoral counseling is a means for us, counselors as well as clients, to have a healthier knowledge of ourselves and one another. In a larger sense, it gives us, the pastoral counselors, a concrete opportunity to reach out and participate and cooperate in the divine love and healing that is ours for the asking. This is a tangible way to respond to the appeal: “Love one another as I have loved you.” 

For Personal Reflection and Group Sharing:

• Based on the Baltimore Catechism’s definition of man as “a creature composed of body and soul, and made in the image and likeness of God,” can you how this definition fits in with the need for pastoral counseling? 
• Can you think of some physical activity that has enhanced your own mood, consequent thinking and spirituality?  Conversely, can you give an example of physical and emotional healing as a result of your own prayer-life and reception of the sacraments? 
• Can you think of a person in emotional pain who could benefit by your empathetic listening?
• Sometime this week observe your feelings,  and write them down. Be aware of any results        within you as a result.  

Asked by Ronda Chervin to add a little more to this chapter, these were some insights I thought were important:

When someone loses a loved one, a spouse, a child, or any beloved relation or friend, intervention is often required.    Sometimes, the funeral home will direct the bereaved to counseling help.  Here is another opportunity for the pastoral counselor to be of assistance.   When a spouse dies, for example, the new widow or widower is suffering from exceedingly deep grief, loss, emptiness.   In fact, the symptoms experienced by the bereaved are normal for grief, but they are so profound and vast, that if the person were not experiencing a loss,  those symptoms would be cause for a serious mental health diagnosis.  In our parish, we have a bereavement group.  Bereaved persons are able to be helped by expressing their grief, and at the same time, they are able to reach out to others suffering from grief.  They also learn about what to expect, as well as the normality of their symptoms during this time.   This can become a time for transformation of relationships with family, friends and acquaintances, and in a special way, with God.  The pastoral counselor walks along with the bereaved, helping toward healing and peace.  Actually, the basic practice of just listening to the bereaved is something anyone can do.

Often, during the bereavement process, a caring person, a friend, relative, or even a physician, may try to alleviate or eliminate the mourner’s symptoms.  Attempts at humoring or distracting the mourner may appear merciful, but the mourner needs to express that grief, the feelings, the memories.  Listening is the key.   In my own personal experience, shortly after my husband died, I had an appointment with my doctor.  He knew that my husband had died, and noticed my less-than-energetic demeanor.  Consequently,  he offered to prescribe an antidepressant.  All I could think was: “Don’t deprive me of my grief….Let me grieve naturally, experience my feelings, sadness, and rich memories too…let me truly live!”.   Yes, one needs to grieve, to go through that process and go on with his or her life.   This authentic  grieving produces healing.

In my own personal experience as a counselor, the most intense, and yet extraordinarily fruitful, counseling,  has been with persons suffering from post-abortion bereavement.  I was able to help post-abortion women  through Project Rachel.   Sometimes, a woman would be referred to one of us by a priest or someone who had learned of her secret suffering from her abortion or multiple abortions.  I don’t think I can begin to describe the pain these people experience.  I could perceive such profound pain, especially at the initial appointment.  Again, it was the listening, encouraging, unconditional acceptance that helped.   In almost each case, there was a deeply spiritual and transforming dimension.   It was not uncommon for the woman, through sacramental Confession and/or the suggestion of a priest, to become aware of her need for some post-abortion counseling.  Indeed, at least one woman reported beautiful mystical experience as a result of the Sacrament of Penance.  This ministry was an example par excellence of Divine intervention in the healing process. During this process,  the woman is able to accept her guilt, her grief, her lost child, the forgiveness of herself as well as others involved in the abortion.   It is also thought-provoking to note that numerous  people suffering from post-abortion syndrome were inclined to be Pro-Choice about abortion before the help and healing.  Afterward, often, the same persons became Pro-Life.  The pain unmasked and healed led to wisdom  and  transformation.   A very powerful source for post-abortion healing is the retreat known as “Rachel’s Vineyard”.  Post-abortive women and others involved in the abortions make this healing retreat.  This is a powerful retreat weekend, complete with Scriptural readings, healing exercises, sharing, supportive community-building, Mass and the Sacrament of Penance.  Rachel’s Vineyard retreats are available throughout the U. S. and other countries as well.  At a Rachel’s Vineyard weekend, one thing that seized me was the sense of fear, anger, near-despair in the faces of the retreatants on Friday night, contrasted with the peace, joy, and a newness of life on those same faces two days later, on Sunday afternoon.  The Rachel’s Vineyard retreatants also leave the retreat renewed, healed, and often outspokenly  Pro-Life.

 In the counseling process, we can learn some practical insights from psychiatrist Victor Frankl’s  concept  of logotherapy.  Dr. Frankl survived imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp, and surrounding that experience, he wrote the book “Man’s Search for Meaning”.   He was able to survive, physically, emotionally, and spiritually during this time mainly because of his own attitude. For example, he would imagine what a beloved person, such as his wife, might be  doing at that moment.  He focused on positive outcomes in his life and those of others.  He planned and mentally wrote  future  books.  His mind became wholesomely   distracted.  Indeed, he was using this same mind and imagination to influence his own feelings and emotions.  From this school of thought, logotherapy, the counselor is able to help the client focus on what positive outcome he may derive from his attitude, especially in a difficult and challenging situation.  The strong point of this mode of therapy is that the client is encouraged to find meaning in his life, even in, and especially in, very trying and even tragic circumstances.  Instead of being a victim of circumstances, one is encouraged to grow in spite of, and indeed through, the situation.   This can be very empowering in any of our lives.   In logotherapy, often through the positive use of the imagination, and journaling,  we can logically bring these elements to prayer.   The whole person, body, moods, mind, and soul, can be brought to the greatest  Healer. 

Dr. Conrad Baars also brought together the therapeutic process with his Catholic spirituality.  He recognized the need for affirmation in each of us.  Many persons suffer from poor self-esteem, feelings of inferiority and self-condemnation.  Often, this is the consequence of being raised by parents who did not affirm or build up the person emotionally, parents who did not know how to affirm this child.   Dr. Baars labeled  this condition, “deprivation neurosis”.  There are different degrees of being unaffirmed, ranging from mild symptoms in a large sample of all of us, to more pronounced neuroses, to those suffering from narcissistic personality disorder or borderline personality disorder.  What is needed in the therapeutic process here, is a counselor who genuinely gives the client the affirmation needed in the process, who is present to the client.  Self-affirmation is not a solution; one needs to be affirmed by another person to help in the therapeutic process.   While respecting our own boundaries, we can help the unaffirmed  persons who are in our lives.  Again, empathic listening, unconditional regard and acceptance, affirming the other, are keys to helping, even in a non-therapeutic setting.   If any of us feels a lack of affirmation, for whatever reason, from time to time, there is One who will always affirm each of us.  When one is feeling “deprived” or unaffirmed,  a prayerful reading of Psalm 139 can be a good resource for healing.

For Personal Reflection and Group Sharing:

• Based on the Baltimore Catechism’s definition of man as “a creature composed of body and soul, and made in the image and likeness of God,” can you how this definition fits in with the need for pastoral counseling? 
• Can you think of some physical activity that has enhanced your own mood, consequent thinking and spirituality?  Conversely, can you give an example of physical and emotional healing as a result of your own prayer-life and reception of the sacraments? 
• Can you think of a person in emotional pain who could benefit by your empathetic listening?
• Sometime this week observe your feelings,  and write them down. Be aware of any results  within you as a result. 

RESPONSES TO THIS CHAPTER:

Response of  Fr. Dominic Anaeto to the chapters and class discussion thus far:

One-sided thinking that I am right and you are wrong is not good. It would be better to be saying: you see something, I see something.  We should not be always thinking of division: I against them. We against them.  Differences between people can be seen as positive.  Between I know nothing, and I know everything, is I know something.  Extremes would be psychologism (the idea that everything religious people think of as real on a spiritual level is really only a manifestation of some psychological complex) vs. all is spiritual. The pastoral counselor, for example, could refer say a rape victim to a psychologist. 

Response of Sean Hurt: 

I have a general comment to make on the subject of pastoral counseling: evil exists; it's inside us and outside of us. That truth saves us from the tendency to objectify evil in the people we see around us. Nobody is evil incarnated. This was the fallacy I fell into as an atheist, that evil was best fought by fighting evil people. But evil is more like a disease that has infected us all. To fight the disease we have to heal ourselves and heal the people around us-- not destroy the terminally infected. Fight evil, not the people, and first learn to fight the evil within; then you can take the battle outside yourself.

During this century of great material advances, great conveniences and comforts, pain, especially spiritual and emotional pain, has become more intense and pervasive. As we look around us, and even within ourselves, we see unprecedented material blessings, yet astounding widespread spiritual, mental, and emotional wounds.

This is something I really observed coming back to America from Malawi. There is an incredible woundedness here, so much fear, hostility and competition. This lack of human solidarity is unknown in a Malawian village. In our places of work here in the United States we employ empty phrases like “professionalism” to mask our ruthlessness. In our personal relationships we stay cool and keep our distance instead of drawing ever nearer. We are so used to treating other human beings as means unto ends that we fail to see the pain it causes.

How do we cope with this pain? It seems to me, many of us learn to put on a “thick skin”, but in doing so we numb our humanity because we cannot selectively numb parts of ourselves. When we numb one piece, we numb the whole.

I remember the first time I entered a Catholic church when I was in my early twenties and a professed atheist. I’d never been in a church building prior to that day. It was not an event I could easily forget—it was dark inside at the end of the day, but little rays of light shone through the stained-glass and hung in the air thick with incense smoke from an earlier mass. There was a sense of stillness, of vastness, something now I recognize as holiness that I could dismiss, then, but could not ignore. The only sound to disturb the mysterious stillness was from a woman crawling on her knees praying the Stations of the Cross and I could do nothing more than perpetually glance over and think, “This woman is insane, these people are insane.” But still there is something you cannot ignore.

The mysteries of the church are at the same time incredibly compelling—yet seemingly insane. I think of the many disciples that abandoned Jesus when he revealed to them the necessity of eating his body and drinking his blood. They could not believe that teaching. Rationally, it’s nonsensical, but something, nonetheless, draws you in.

At some point in our journey of faith, I think we all have to deal with this notion of insanity. I draw strength by recalling the saints and holy people and their works of mercy that may well have been dismissed as mental illness. In my own story of conversion, they might say my religious beliefs are insane, but we judge by the fruits and the fruits of my conversion paint the opposite picture: of one saved from mental illness, from addictions, wounded relationships, consuming anger and resentments.

If God offers us hope and we choose despair; if He offers us joy and we take sorrow; if He offers life but we prefer death then, that, I think, is insane.

The decision to forgive, not necessarily the feelings of forgiveness,   yields a significant and often energizing experience of freedom.

Before my conversion I was probably the most unforgiving person I’d ever known. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, it was a form of self-made bondage. If you are hardhearted and unforgiving of other people’s shortcomings, inevitably you end up holding yourself to the same hard-hearted standard. Forgiveness allows you to accept your own faults and love yourself for what you are (which is a glorious creation of God).

In the Eucharist, sometimes simply opening up oneself to the Presence and divine healing of our Lord is all that is needed for extraordinary grace, growth and personal inner healing or comforting of past and present pains in life.

I can’t agree with the author more in terms of the healing that Christ offers. In the first few weeks of my conversion I came to know that healing very well. I won’t go into detail, but just say that Christ came in glory into my life, healed my heart of many years of pent up anger and resentment, healed many of my relationships and swept away a couple harmful addictions that had plagued me my whole adult life. I can say that, in the first few weeks of conversion, I experienced Christ mostly as a healer.

Response of David Tate:

God is a being of relationships. Since we are created in His image, then we, too, are beings of relationship. Our body influences our soul, and vice-versa. We have many physical parts that live in relationship with each other. In the same way, since we are also beings of relationship, we can say that analogous to our body parts, we also have many relationships that have an effect on each other. Just ask any married person how the parental-child relationships that their spouse had has influenced their own marital life. My friend from college grew up, and he had a child. That child, unfortunately, became a victim of child sexual abuse. That once-abused child is now grown, married, and has children of their own. The trauma of the abuse that happened years ago greatly hampers the family relationships to this day, even though the abuser ended up serving time in jail for child abuse. Only through pastoral counseling can my friend’s family ever begin to find some kind of rebuilding in their wounded relationships. Like the article coins, “falling through the cracks”, this should be re-stated. It has become a motto for living with abuse scars by the phrase, “living in the cracks.”

Regarding a true-life example for feeling mentally better after exercise, I am simultaneously recalling a very old memory and a very new one. When I was a boy growing up, television was that window of our home out into the world. The world was a much more interesting place then to my six year old mind, especially through what was shown on our black and white TV. I loved seeing Jack LaLanne do his exercises. He always seemed so happy and peppy. Matter of fact, he even had his dog, named Happy, with him on the show on occasion. He showed so clearly how exercising your body with a kitchen chair would pep you up. He even explained how the blood flowing brought wonderful oxygen so that you actually felt the wonderful tingle of life. The other example that comes from my recent times regards the Seminary work day. We are locked in on work days from 9:00 until 4:15pm. The manual labor of work day becomes a forced physical time where many times your mental troubles get sidelined due to the physical labor. As a Seminarian, it is very therapeutic to get into physical chores.

In terms of the sacramental life, my most emotional time in my life was when I was received into full communion with the Catholic Church as a student completing my RCIA program in Houston, TX. I had experienced transitory religious feelings in the non-Catholic life before. There was truly a feeling of ‘arriving’ when I went up for my first time to receive the Body and Blood of Christ. 

During my two semesters of the ministry of making visits in the hospital, I was blessed with only finding people that wanted to talk with me. I had heard of people trying to visit with some very difficult folks. Fortunately, I did not ascend to the harder cases in my short time in the Hospital Chaplaincy program. I found so often that people were just like me. I mean by this that normally we have to wear an emotional mask for many different reasons. Some reasons are simple and mundane, while others can be very deep-seated. I have at times tried to talk with people about my own personal needs. Because of the complexities that we humans have, I feel that very rarely have I been able to truly ‘click’ or maybe ‘unload’ is a more appropriate term. 

One conclusion that I have discovered is that there seems to be a void in my emotional life that I keep trying to fill, and it doesn’t quite happen. The reason for this being that I think in my childhood development years, and now having had my parents pass away, I have discovered unresolved issues that were not ‘taken care of’ regarding my needs (or at least perceived needs) as a child in my parents’ household. I would imagine that this might be true of many other people. I am hoping to learn how to incorporate this idea into my times with others as I progress toward priesthood.

Response of Tommie Kim:

“Inner-healing prayer is a great means of healing, wholeness, and growth.” “The relationship between God and each one of us transcends and expedites the therapeutic process.” “If the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance are added to this prayer, the transformation can be miraculous.”  

I agree with the author because I personally had the similar experience. When I first started writing books, I went through a time of  suffering deeply from insomnia. The more I tried to sleep, the more I became awake, falling into an endless string of thoughts.  As the sleepless nights continued, I was not able to focus on even the simplest daily routine of work. My emotions became extremely sensitive, reacting very impulsively to people around me. I started losing weight.  I was tempted to go for a medical consultation, but then realized that, in most cases, medications are only short term fix for a problem.  By recommendation from people around me, I started light physical exercise. It did help me to a slow recovery but what really helped eventually to overcome insomnia was prayer.   

Gradually I started concentrating and filling the time that I spent exercising with prayers. I was able to ease my tense emotions.  Prayer did help me emotionally and mentally. Exercise did help me physically. So both eventually worked out as a good solution.      




Response from Kathleen Brouillette:

…I have great gratitude for a young priest who heard me when I was in pain, and acknowledged my struggle.  He listened, as Mrs. Armstrong stressed in her chapter.  Surely, listening is significant in every relationship of our lives: from the most casual to the most intimate, from those in authority over us to those who are under our authority.  And recognizing people sometimes need more help than we can give, we can guide them to someone who complements our care for their souls, who will take care of the physical contributions to their suffering.  I once had a pastor, God rest his soul, who suggested that I move the woodpile from one side of the yard to the other during one long winter.  He was a wise man.

… Seeking forgiveness, and granting it, frees us of guilt and “baggage.”  Harriet Nelson, the wise Mom of the 50s family in “Ozzie and Harriet”, said, “forgive – not for others, but for yourself.”  Mitch Albom wrote in his beautiful book Tuesdays with Morrie about the life lessons learned from a dying man, “forgive, forgive everyone everything.” Coupling this medicine for our souls with the proper medicine for our bodies, we can soar to new heights. As someone once said, “Faith is stepping out into the darkness and believing one of two things will happen.  Either someone will be there to catch us, or we will be given wings to fly.” May the Church form us in truth, that we may help others find hope.

Joseph Ratzinger and Democratic Socialism
by Fr. Peter Kucer, MSA 

Fr. Peter Kucer, MSA, is an instructor of Church History and the Interim Academic Dean at Holy Apostles College & Seminary.  He completed his STD in Systematic Theology from the Catholic University of America in January, 2012, and worked in parish ministry before being appointed to the faculty at Holy Apostles in the fall of 2013.  His interests include the relationship of Catholic doctrine to history, politics, economics and scientific reasoning.  While teaching he is studying these relationships from the standpoint of stability and change.  Another relationship that is of great interest to him is between Catholicism and Judaism again from the standpoint of continuity and change.

Note from Ronda Chervin: 
Many Catholics in the United States simply assume that democracy, as in our history, is the only form of government that could be good under any circumstances. The views of Cardinal Ratzinger, later, of course, Pope Benedict VI, as explained by Fr. Kucer, help us to think the issue through freshly. I think it will be characteristic of 21st century Catholics to be seeking new forms of social justice. 

It is common for US Catholics to assume that the only viable political options are between Communism, or a totalitarian form of Socialism, and Capitalism.  What is not typically known is that there are other viable alternatives other than these two.  In this article, I will focus on one such alternative referred to by Pope emeritus Benedict XVI when he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.  From this point forward, in order to avoid confusion between the papal office and the office of a theologian, I will refer to Ratzinger and not to Benedict XVI.  

In Europe Today and Tomorrow, Ratzinger positively describes democratic socialism, a political system that is neither Communism nor is Capitalism.  According to Ratzinger, 
“In many respects democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine; in any case, it contributed toward the formation of a social consciousness.”  
After this assertion, he clearly distinguishes democratic socialism from Communism or what Ratzinger calls totalitarian socialism.  In describing the totalitarian aspects of this type of socialism Ratzinger writes:

The totalitarian model, in contrast, was associated with a rigidly materialistic and atheistic philosophy of history: history was understood deterministically as a process of advancement that passed through a religious and then a liberal phase so as to arrive at the absolute and definitive society, in which religion becomes a superfluous relic from the past and the business of material production and trade is able to guarantee happiness for all.  The scientific appearance of this theory conceals an intolerant dogmatism: spirit is the product of matter; morals are the product of circumstances and must be defined and practiced according to the goals of society: everything that fosters the coming of that final state of happiness and morality.  Here the values that had built Europe are completely overturned.  Even worse, there is a rupture here with the complex moral tradition of mankind: there are no longer any values apart from the goals of progress; at a given moment everything can be permitted and even necessary, can be “moral” in a new sense of the word.  Even man can become an instrument; the individual does not matter.  The future alone becomes the terrible deity that rules over everyone and everything.

It is important to recognize that for Ratzinger, it is not the political model of socialism which is problematic, but instead it is whether this political form tends towards totalitarianism.  Once a state, whether socialist or capitalist, claims total authority over its citizens’ lives it will, provided it is politically opportune to do so, overlook the fundamental right to life of its citizens, as was demonstrated in Capitalistic Chile under Pinochet’s rule or in the USSR under Stalin.  It is often overlooked, that a democracy, whether representational, as in the US, or direct, as in the case of Switzerland, whether a social democracy as in Germany or a capitalistic democracy as in the US, can share totalitarian features that although not as explicit as in the totalitarian state run socialism of North Korea, where a few “experts” decide the fate of the many, are still present.  

The main difference between a totalitarian state-run socialism and either a totalitarian capitalistic democracy or totalitarian socialistic democracy is that instead of a few dictating the life of the many, the many dictate the lives of a few.  In totalitarian forms of grounds up democracy, that need not be as obvious as pure mob rule, freedom of speech, freedom of worship and even the right to life of certain individuals, innocent from any crime, can be repealed by the many through a democratic process.  Unfortunately, due to the modern tendency of excessively exalting the qualities of democracy, this possible distortion of democracy is often forgotten.  In countering the modern mythologizing of democracy Ratzinger writes:

The purpose of all necessary demythologizing is to restore reason to its proper place and function.  Here, however, we must once again unmask a myth that confronts us with the ultimate and decisive question for a politics of reason: the myth that a majority decision in many or, perhaps, in most cases is the “most reasonable” way to arrive at a solution for everyone.  But the majority cannot be the ultimate principle; there are values that no majority as the right to repeal.  The killing of the innocent can never become a right and cannot be raised to the status of a right by any authority.




Now that key political terminology that I will use in this essay has been de-idolized, I will proceed in determining the relevancy in US politics of the non-totalitarian democratic socialism that Ratzinger refers to.  In doing so, I will first describe the historical context out of which Ratzinger affirms democratic socialism.  Second, beginning in the light of Germany’s political history, I will examine Ratzinger’s view of democratic socialism and of other political ideologies.  Lastly, both Ratzinger’s positive assessment of democratic socialism and his understanding of the relationship between the mission of the Church and political ideologies in the context of present day US politics will be discussed.

• Historical Context of Socialism in Germany:

Ratzinger’s understanding of socialism, especially its democratic variant, is influenced by how socialism developed in Germany, his home country.  In 1869, August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht founded the German Marxist Socialist party.  In 1875, it merged with the first German organized workers’ party founded in the 1860s by Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864), a German Jew and one of Germany’s first socialist political activists.  After the Marxist Socialist party merged with the Lassalleans, it was renamed in the 1890s as the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Germany.  In 1911, with the support of the SPD, the National Insurance Code of 1911 was established.  This internationally influential code “integrated the three separate insurance programs into a unified social security system, and compulsory coverage and benefits were extended to white-collar workers.  Survivors’ pensions for widows were also introduced in 1911.”  In 1919, the more radical members of the SPD splintered off to form the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). 

The KPD, unlike the SPD, was a strict, centrally organized political party whose leadership was intent on implementing the political directives of the USSR’s Communist International (Comintern).  As the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) became Stalinized, the KPD did likewise.  As it was Stalinized, the KPD became a hostile opponent to the SPD.  As described by Beatrix Herlemann, “The strong stance against the hostile ‘brother’ – social democracy – would run like a red thread through the entire history of the KPD.  Only twice – in the context of the popular front policy of 1935 to 1936 and in the forced unification of the KPD and SPD in 1946 – did it retreat from this position, and then only for short periods and because of strategic considerations.”  In the same year that the KPD was founded in, the SPD began to substantially participate in the formation of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), especially with respect to the Weimar’s welfare system.  This welfare system, writes David F. Crew, “[became] a bitterly contested terrain where Social Democrats and Communists battled one another for the support of the German working class.” 

Adolf Hitler’s coming into power in 1933 signaled the end of the Weimar Republic and its welfare system and the beginning of the German Reich which lasted to 1943.  During the time of the German Reich, Hitler violently suppressed both the SPD and the KPD.  In addition, he set out, with the aid of his National Socialist German Worker’s Party (NSDAP) otherwise known in English as the Nazi Party, to transform, according to racist ideology, the inherited Weimar welfare system.  According to Hitler, the racially inferior did not have the right to care under the German welfare system but rather ought to be sterilized, euthanized and even “exterminated”.  The SPD courageously resisted the Nazis’ aim of completely recasting the welfare state according to racist ideology.  This was heroically witnessed to by Kurt Schumacher, chairman of the SPD from 1946-1952.  Because of his resistance to the Nazi party Schumacher spent ten years in a Nazi concentration camp.  

After WWII and the subsequent fall of the Nazis from power, the SPD emerged, describes Hanna Schissler, “with immense moral authority.”  Unlike many of the other political parties under the Nazis who, explains Schissler, “had been severely compromised by their collaboration with the Nazis…[t]he SPD, in contrast, could claim a stance of unbridled and untainted opposition to National Socialism.”  In the 1950’s, the SPD gained even greater appeal by abandoning its identification with the working class, as influenced by its Marxist’s origins, and instead became a party for all people.  This decision led to significant electoral victories for the SPD in the 1960’s and in the 1970’s.  During this phase of self-transformation the SPD also, out of fear of both Nazi and Stalinist abuse of centralized state power, ceased advocating for state ownership of the means of production.  However, they did retain their goals of maintaining a social welfare state and of implementing, in a democratic manner, a European planned economy.  The latter goal was thwarted by the US Marshall Plan which emphasized free enterprise in Western Europe rather than large-scale socialization. 

The SPD, as presently known by Ratzinger, is a messy democratic political party that is not highly structured and centralized, as was the KPD and the Nazi party, but rather, as described by Peter Lösche, “is decentralized, fragmented, and flexible.  Local party organizations of various kinds…enjoy a high degree of autonomy, while organizations at the regional (Bezirk) or state (Land) level have their own, very considerable weight.  The party Executive (Parteivorstand) and the party Presidium do not stand at the summit of a centralized, pyramid-like structure; rather, they tend to function separately from the rest of the party.” It advocates a moderate, welfare state and, in a non-totalitarian manner, a moderately, planned economy.  When Ratzinger refers to Democratic Socialism his primary point of reference is the SPD as distinguished from the KPD and the NSDAP, also known as the Nazi party.

2.0 Ratzinger on Democratic Socialism and other Political Ideologies:

When Ratzinger’s remarks on socialism are read in light of the just presented historical context, then it becomes possible to correlate political terms that he uses with specific German parties.  First, Ratzinger’s positive appraisal of democratic socialism is to be understood with reference to the present SPD party which, as previously explained, promotes a welfare state that is moderately planned, democratic, decentralized and non-totalitarian.  Second, Ratzinger’s negative appraisal of the “rigidly materialistic and atheistic”  totalitarian socialism corresponds to Germany’s  KPD party which aimed at creating a state that is the totality of its citizens’ existence.  According to Ratzinger, this form of socialism failed not simply because of its “false economic dogmatism” but more fundamentally due to its “contempt for human rights” and by “their subjection of morality to the demands of the system and to their promises for the future.”  By making morality subordinate to the political system of communism, “man’s primordial certainties about God, about himself, and about the universe” are, argues Ratzinger, lost. 

Although Ratzinger positively appraises democratic socialism, as distinct from totalitarian socialism as exemplified by both Germany’s NSDAP (Nazi)and KPD parties, he is careful to reject any political model, including democratic socialism, as best representative of Catholic life formed by faith. Ratzinger clearly maintains that the Church is not to advocate any model of governance formed by political reason as a practical expression of theological faith. This leads Ratzinger to develop what his former doctoral student Vincent Twomey calls a “theology of politics”  in which faith and political reason are accorded a certain degree of autonomy from one another. This term was coined by Twomey, “to contrast with ‘political theology, a concept that Ratzinger rejects, namely, any theology, such as that of J.B. Metz or the classical forms of liberation theology, that involves the instrumentalization of either the Church or the faith for political purposes or the attribution of sacral or salvific significance to politics.”   An example of the Church’s indirect influence on politics is the witness set forth by Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her sisters in their personal dedication to the poorest of the poor.  Although they do not advocate any political ideology, they are not simply acting as a first response, Band-Aid solution to the problem of poverty but rather are, as official representatives of the Church and her politics of a not-yet and present Kingdom of God, challenging the consciences of those who make up and decide various political platforms.  Their courageous witness serve as a constant reminder to politicians of all parties, to take into account the needs of the poor which can never adequately be met only by distant, mechanical and technocratic means.

In defending the relative autonomy of faith from political reason, as well witnessed to by Mother Teresa and her sister, Ratzinger disagrees with theologians who after Vatican Council II “transformed de Lubac’s theology of Catholicity into a political theology that sought to put Christianity to practical use as a catalyst for achieving political unity.”   According to Ratzinger, this transformation does not follow de Lubac’s thought “to its logical conclusion.”   Rejecting this transformation of de Lubac’s thought does not mean, though, that Ratzinger is advocating an individualistic manner of perceiving Christianity in which grace mediated by the Church only has relevance for the individual soul and not also for man as a whole.

Rather, Ratzinger contends, by conceiving salvation as not only a matter concerning the individual soul but also as drawing people into communion with God and one another, de Lubac was not referring to the political but to Church, considered as a sacrament.  Understood in this manner, the inner politics of the Church, which are a sacramental sign of the heavenly Kingdom in our midst and yet still to come, are to serve as constant challenge to the politics of the world.  For example, in electing their nation’s leader what modern nation state has ever, as the Vatican does in electing the pontiff, prayed to the Holy Spirit for guidance?  Even though the Catholic Church does have a sacramentally based politics, this does not mean, though, insists Ratzinger it is to “directly establish man’s secular, political unity; the sacrament does not replace politics; and theocracy, whatever its form, is a misunderstanding.”  For Ratzinger, it is erroneous to view the Church as a sacrament of unity in this world’s political terms, since her unity is not due to her communion with men but to “God’s community with men in Christ and hence the communing of men with one another.”  This communion refers principally to the celebration of the Eucharist.  Consequently, “the Church”, writes Ratzinger explaining de Lubac’s thought, “is the celebration of the Eucharist; the Eucharist is the Church; they do not simply stand side by side, they are one and the same.”

Through the Eucharist the Church draws men together into a community of faith that, describes Ratzinger, “is different from that of every club, every political party…”  When the Church loses her identity by surrendering to politics, it then loses her “political interest because no spiritual force emanates from her.”   This force, according to Ratzinger, can only be retained by maintaining a clear distinction between both eschatological truths of faith and the Church’s Eucharistic sacramental identity from political goals and political reasoning.  According to Ratzinger, truths of faith which the Church, as an eschatological sign, has sacramental access to cannot be constructed politically by reason on earth.  Similarly, the Church cannot identify a political system as best representing these truths of faith.  This does not mean that the Church is to avoid engagement with the world.  Rather, the Church, in accordance with Ratzinger’s interpretation of Augustine, is to engage in the world by addressing spiritual and physical needs of man.  Addressing the needs of man should not, though, lead the Church to officially formulate in a political theology an ideal political system which is supposedly best suited to meet these needs.  

Consequently, Ratzinger strongly rejects the political theologies of both Alfons Auer and Johann Baptist Metz.  These two theologians confused truths of faith with political reason by proposing, writes Ratzinger, the “ecclesialization of everything.”  Auer and Metz integrate faith and reason in their common relationship to political reasoning to an extent that Ratzinger does not.  In contrast with Auer and Metz, Ratzinger maintains that even though salvation begins in this world it is not to be politicized, for it is primarily directed beyond this earthly world to the heavenly world, where reason will encounter divine truth without the mediation of faith.  According to Ratzinger, such political theologies attempt to replace the Church’s role of evangelizing the world with truths of faith to be received and which transcend the world with the role of “liberating the world within its worldliness” by actively making truth on earth.

In Introduction to Christianity, Ratzinger further argues that the politicization of theology is contrary to the Christian faith in the Trinity.  In order to understand his reasoning his concept of ontological truth as defined by consciousness, love and freedom needs further explanation.  Ratzinger describes truth in this manner by writing, “if the logos of all being, the being that bears up and encompasses everything, is consciousness, freedom and love, then it follows automatically that the supreme factor in the world is not cosmic necessity but freedom.”  After defining “the supreme factor in the world” as a rational love which necessarily entails freedom and unpredictability Ratzinger then concludes that “if the supreme point in the world’s designs is a freedom which bears up, wills, knows and loves the whole world as freedom, then this means that together with freedom the incalculability implicit in it is an essential part of the world.”

The above reasoning leads Ratzinger to reject political theology as principally defined by Hegel since Hegelian idealistic political theology, according to Ratzinger, ignores freedom as constitutive to the world including its politics.   In addition to rejecting an idealism that is taken up into political theology, Ratzinger also rejects Marx’s supposedly scientific, political theory which is similar to Hegel’s thought without the theological and spiritual aspect of Hegelian dialectics. Present, therefore, within his rejection of Hegelian political theology is also a dismissal of Marx’s approach to politics.  He spells out his rejection of Hegelian political theology in the following manner. According to Ratzinger, Hegel rejects love as constitutive of God since, as explained by Ratzinger, Hegel views the Triune nature of God as only “the expression of the historical side of God and therefore of the way in which God appears in history.”    Hegel, therefore concludes Ratzinger, is a Monarchist since the description of God as three persons in one divine nature “are regarded as only masks of God which tell us something about ourselves but nothing about God himself.”   

Ratzinger relates the Monarchism of Hegel and its early versions to political theology by writing:




Even in its early Christian form and then again in its revival by Hegel and Marx it has a decidedly political tinge; it is “political theology”.  In the ancient Church it served the attempt to give the imperial monarchy a theological foundation; in Hegel it becomes the apotheosis of the Prussian state, and in Marx a program of action to secure a sound future for humanity.  Conversely, it could be shown how in the old Church the victory of belief in the Trinity over Monarchianism signified a victory over the political abuse of theology: the ecclesiastical belief in the Trinity shattered the politically usable molds, destroyed the potentialities of theology as a political myth, and disowned the misuse of the Gospel to justify a political situation.




According to Ratzinger, such a political theology is contrary to Christian faith since, for orthodox Christianity, God is truly triune in himself and not simply as manifested to man in history.  By being triune, the truth of God is convertible with love.  True non self-centered love, after all, requires the presence of more than one person.  In the Trinity the mutual love the Father has for the Son does not overwhelm the Son but rather is eternally expressed and shared in the Holy Spirit.  In order for love to be true, as we learn from the Trinity, it must be free from compulsion and domination.  It follows that since the world is reflective of the truth of its creator it is “a world defined by the structure of freedom” and, to a certain extent, shares in the incomprehensibility of God.   Due to the freedom and incomprehensibility of the world, argues Ratzinger, no one political system can be promoted, in a Hegelian or Marxist sense, as definitive.  A Catholic approach to politics, as influenced by the truth of the Trinity impressed on all that exists, political unity must never be totalitarian, since this is opposed to the loving non-totalitarian truth of the Trinity, but rather is an assimilating unity that permits legitimate diversity.  Ratzinger, cautiously following Arnold Toynbee’s rejection of Oswald Spengler’s deterministic one-way only biologistic concept of history, which includes political history, brings out the freedom and incomprehensibility of the political processes by proposing more of a “voluntaristic view that places its bets on the powers of creative minorities and on exceptional individuals.”

Since he asserts that exceptional individuals, in particular the saints, such as Mother Teresa of Calcutta, rather than an ideal political system, is how Christianity transforms the political, Ratzinger insists that the eschatological Kingdom of God as proposed by faith is not in itself “a political norm of political activity.”  In rejecting faith as a political norm for political activity he writes, “The Kingdom of God which Christ promises does not consist in a modification of our earthly circumstances ... That Kingdom is found in those persons whom the finger of God has touched and who have allowed themselves to be made God’s sons and daughters.  Clearly, such a transformation can only take place through death.  For this reason, the Kingdom of God, salvation in its fullness, cannot be deprived of its connection with dying.” 

This view of Ratzinger is in accordance with his manner of defining truth as ultimately a personal reality and not as located in a general, ideal practice set forth by a political ideology.  By being personal, truths of faith are primarily relevant for causing conversions in individuals through their transformation in Christ and not in bringing about a structural political change.  Once again, the non-direct political, but not a-political, example set by Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her sisters well exemplifies this ecclesial way of engaging and challenging the political context she is situated in.

In summary, despite Ratzinger’s positive appraisal for democratic socialism, as primarily understood in reference to the German SPD party, he makes, as demonstrated previously, a clear distinction between political opinion and ecclesial faith.  This distinction follows from his moderate integration of the reason-faith relation that respects a clear differentiation between political reasoning and truths of faith.  According to Ratzinger the papacy is to be especially respectful of this distinction by taking care not to side with any one political party.  In this way, he writes, the pope as a non-political center “can be effective against the drift into dependence on political systems or the pressures emanating from our civilization.”  “[O]nly by having such a center” argues Ratzinger “can the faith of Christians secure a clear voice in the confusion of ideologies.” 

Furthermore, according to Ratzinger, in her present “painful ‘between’” state on earth the Church (in this context understood through the ordained and consecrated life) shares in the suffering of mankind “from within” by relating to the world non-politically.  She does so, asserts Ratzinger, by offering moral norms for politics and not by presenting herself as an ideal “political norm of political activity.”  For Ratzinger, the fundamental moral norm to be defended by the Church within the political arena is the right to life.  The killing of the innocent, which includes abortion, “cannot”, declares Ratzinger, “be made right by any law.”  While, for Ratzinger, the Church, as publicly represented by the bishops, is to be a moral authority in the world she is neither to focus her efforts on addressing specific political/economic issues nor is she to advocate any one political ideology.  This does not mean she may not legitimately critique in a broad way specific economic/political positions and events such as the US led invasion of Iraq.  However, it is not her role to come up with a detailed political/economic plan to serve as a blue print for the US, or any other country, to follow.  

By refusing to be directly political, the Church especially through her bishops and other public representatives, writes Ratzinger, maintains her non-political identity as “an open space of reconciliation among the parties” while avoiding “becoming a party herself.”  Even though Ratzinger does not want the Church, as narrowly defined by the clergy and consecrated life, to officially advocate any one ideology he does not intend this to be interpreted that individuals, including bishops, are not permitted to express their private opinions in this matter.  As we have seen Ratzinger, in expressing his personal opinion, not to be confused with ecclesial faith, clearly states, “In many respects democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine; in any case, it contributed toward the formation of a social consciousness.”  We will now answer the question of how Ratzinger’s private political/economic leanings and public, sacramental representation of the Catholic Church are relevant for the US?  

3.0 Ratzinger’s Political Views in the Context of US Politics:  

As is quite evident in the current US political climate, Socialism is portrayed negatively by both mainstream Democrats and Republicans.  According to a recent poll done by Pew Research, “The word 'socialism' triggers a negative reaction for most Americans, but certainly not for all. Six-in-ten (60%) people say they have a negative reaction to the word, while just 31% have a positive reaction. Those numbers are little changed from April 2010.”  The negative association that the term socialism bears in the US has a particular impact on those who are running for office or are in office.  The term is typically used in order to either discredit an opponent or to reassure the voter that a candidate, by not being a socialist, is a moderate.  

For example, as reported by Politico, the presidential candidate Mitt Romney avoided calling President Barack Obama a socialist directly since, “I don't use the word socialist or I haven't so far, but I do agree that the president's approach is government heavy, government intensive, and it's not working.”  In commenting on Romney’s statement, Alexander Burns, writing for Politico, then states, “That answer is consistent with Romney's general approach to speaking about the president, describing Obama as a good and well intentioned person who's not up to the job of turning the country around.”  Implied within this comment is that Obama would not be a good and well intentioned person if he were directly promoting socialist ideology.  Later, in his 2012 book, No Apology, Romney attempts to discredit President Obama by associating him indirectly with socialism by writing, “It is an often-remarked-upon irony that at a time when Europe is moving away from socialism and its many failures, President Obama is moving us toward that direction.”  To counteract such an opinion, President Obama explicitly distanced himself from socialism, “When” reports The Nation, “he began talking deficit reduction last summer—with a proposal for a little bit of tax fairness combined with a suggestion that he was open to negotiations with regard to the future of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security—Obama went out of his way to explain that his was not ‘some wild-eyed socialist position.’”  However, as was described in the first section of this essay similar programs were advocated by the Socialists in Germany, in particular Theodor Christian Lohmann, who under Otto von Bismarck helped to draft Germany’s social security plans.  Lohmann in Communismus, Socialismus, Christenthum proposed reforming Germany by looking to socialist theories for inspiration.

In contrast with the general US fear of socialism, which can be understood as an excessive reaction to the European revolutions of 1848 and the subsequent cold war, Ratzinger is not irrationally frightened by the mere prospect of socialism.  He recognizes it as a political system that, along with other political systems, can be compatible with Christianity as long as it is not expressed according to the totalitarian version.  Democratic socialism, for Ratzinger, served as a “salutary counterbalance” between more radical positions.




Starting from its initial premise, democratic socialism was able to become part of the two existing models, as a salutary counterbalance to the radical liberal positions, enriching and correcting them.  It proved, furthermore, to be something that transcended denominational affiliations: in England it was the party of the Catholics, who could not feel at home either in the Protestant-conservative camp or among the liberals.  In Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm, too, many Catholic centrists felt closer to democratic socialism than to the rigidly Prussian and Protestant conservative forces. 




The “two existing models” that Ratzinger refers to, (the laicist model in which all religions are completely relegated to the private sphere, a tendency in France, and a state supported Church model, evident in German history) do not have direct parallels in the US, especially in relationship to US Catholics who do not as a block of voters gravitate towards one specific party.  Nonetheless, the concept of democratic socialism serving as a “salutary counterbalance” is something that the US political arena could benefit from.  Currently, US politics tends to be bipolar, either Democratic or Republican.  A third intermediary party, whether socialistic or not may help the US political environment to be get out of its entrenched binary thought, become less polemic and more open to dialogue and genuine listening to opposing sides and viewpoints, in accordance with the Catholic concept, inspired by the Trinity, of an assimilating political unity and not a totalitarian political unity.

With that said it is important to acknowledge that Western Europe, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, has been described as experiencing a Eurosclerosis.  This term is used in reference to Western Europe’s difficulty in funding their welfare state, their wide spread low birth rates, their rapidly aging populations, their high unemployment rates, and their slow job growth.  Taking these aspects into account, the question arises as to whether the Western European social welfare state model is a viable one for the US to pattern itself on.  Furthermore, as has been acknowledged by many, if Western Europe had not accepted US aid, for example in post WWII Marshall Plan, and had not relied on US leadership and military protection it would have been impossible for any Western European country to develop and sustain their welfare programs.  Likewise, since the US was relied upon, along with constant barrage of criticisms, as the Western military might to keep chaotic anti-Western European forces at bay, the US was not able to develop a similar welfare program.  It could no, since a significant portion of tax dollars, which could have been used to build up a social safety net, was instead used to support a US military budget that far exceeds any Western European military budget.  Finally, it has been pointed out that Democratic Socialism has been relatively successful in small countries, such as in Denmark and Sweden, since they are small and homogenous.  In contrast, the US is a large and highly diverse country politically, economically and culturally.  Could these differences pose an unsurmountable obstacle for the US in its attempts to enact a similar democratic socialism?

The issue of whether democratic socialism is viable for the US is not, though, the main one that Ratzinger’s reflection on politics has to offer for US politics.  (Even though, as has been pointed out, a third major party that shares some features in common with European Democratic Socialism could greatly help in ending the current hardened bi-polar political scene in the US.)  What the US can greatly benefit from Ratzinger’s political views is his recognition that since all political parties are necessarily imperfect, theological attempts to so integrate faith with political reason that the two become practically indiscernible from each other ought to be rejected.  Since any political ideology, by being reflective of this fallen world, are imperfect, it is imperative for the Church, in its official capacity, to remain ascetically detached from political parties while, at the same time, encouraging a multitude of political expressions, as long as they are not totalitarian, to spring up and in their competitive struggle for votes and thus purify to one another in their overlapping relationships.  

Ratzinger’s political views on the proper relationship of Church and political ideologies are a direct outcome of his understanding of how reason is to relate to faith.  According to him, although reason and faith are integrated and related to one another, they, at the same time retain a degree of autonomy within their perspective realms.  He, therefore, opposes attempts to couple faith with socialism, as has been proposed in Europe, or in the case of the US, with capitalism as evident in more conservative politics typically associated with the Republican Party. Marrying any political ideology to faith would, according to Ratzinger, abolish, to the detriment of both faith and politics, the vital distinction between faith and politics.  Faith suffers in such a scheme since, at the price of being immanent by being totally integrated with one political system, it loses its transcendence.  Politics likewise suffers in this system since, argues Ratzinger, it would no longer be accountable to a reality that is distinct from it, thus greatly increasing the possibility of political regimes veering off into totalitarianism. According to Ratzinger, by maintaining a clear distinction from any one political system, faith, in respecting the different qualities that each system has to offer, is better able to come to the aid of all political systems.  

The essential way, for Ratzinger, that faith comes to the aid of political systems is by defending truths that are naturally known within the political realm but often are either ignored or forgotten.  This means that the principle space where truths of faith overlap political reason is defined by positions on specific moral teaching such as on abortion.  Within this space, in which concerns of the Church and concerns of politics overlap one another, the Church, as she is currently doing through the US Bishops, is to remind the political sphere of moral truths that are received by man through his reason and affirmed by the hierarchy of the Church.  In this moral sense faith as lived out by the Church is normative for politics but its normative dimension stops here. Faith is not, contends Ratzinger, to be seen as “a political norm of political activity.”   The truths that the Church is to uphold as normative for political activity, reminds Ratzinger in a memorandum sent to Cardinal McCarrick in 2004 and made public in July of the same year, do not all have the same weight, nor do all have the same degree of clarity on what constitutes a position from being right from wrong.  For example, when it comes to abortion and euthanasia, the Catholic Church teaches that the only legitimate position to hold is that these acts are intrinsically evil, and, consequently, can never be morally justified.  In making these distinctions Ratzinger writes:




Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.




Although the Church, as represented by Ratzinger, clearly grants the greatest moral weight to moral issues dealing with the beginning of life and the end of life, this does not mean that moral issues that concern men and women between these two stages are of no importance to the Church.  They certainly are, as repeatedly asserted by Pope Francis.  When it is acknowledged that there exists a healthy, legitimate diversity of opinion among US Catholic on how to address issues such as immigration, taxation and health care reform, then the marked tendency for US Catholics to idolize either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party will diminish.  In addition, when US Catholics resist the tendency to idolize a political party while demonizing the opposing party, they, including those who rightly cannot in conscience vote for the Democratic Party that seems wedded to a pro-abortion position, will be freed to see that even the party they oppose cannot be wrong on all issues in all ways, especially ones concerning pragmatic thought and application.  Idolization, forbidden by the first commandment, prevents one from acknowledging deficiencies within the political party one adopts and blinds one to the need of a purifying presence of another party, and hopefully the purifying presence of more than one.

In summary, the essential teaching US Catholics can learn from Ratzinger’s thought is that the maintenance of clear and not hazy boundaries between political reasoning and truths of faith is ultimately beneficial to politics since it allows the Church to be “an open space of reconciliation among the parties”  and, as a result, grants to Catholics the interior freedom to judge a political party they may adopt according to the supranational ethics encouraged by the Church. The moral supranational ethics of the Church founded in universal truths also encourages Catholics to transcend their political party when it tends towards totalitarianism and to avoid idolizing the political party they adopt.

Conclusion:

In this essay, we have distinguished Democratic Socialism from totalitarian socialism.  Next we examined the historical context in which Ratzinger positively appraises socialism in its democratic form. This was followed by examining, in light of Germany’s political history, Ratzinger’s take not only on democratic socialism but also on all political ideologies in relationship to the Church’s mission.  Finally, in the context of present day US politics, Ratzinger’s assessment of democratic socialism, while insisting that the Church is never to officially promote any political ideology no matter how attractive it may appear, was discussed. 

These various steps in the thought of Ratzinger were taken with the hope of finding a way to lessen the US’s highly polarized political environment.  We saw that in Europe democratic socialism, by mediating between two political options, helped to bring about greater dialogue and cooperation.  In stating this Ratzinger writes, “Starting from its initial premise, democratic socialism was able to become part of the two existing models, as a salutary counterbalance to the radical liberal positions, enriching and correcting them.”  However, upon appraising some key differences between US and Western Europe political and economic history the question arose as to whether democratic socialism could ever serve the US political environment in such a positive manner.  However, Ratzinger’s ascetic detachment as an official representative of the Church even from persuasive aspects of Democratic Socialism can teach US Catholic a very important lesson.  Following the example of Mother Teresa’s indirect political influence the best way, as proposed by Ratzinger, for the Catholic Church, sacramentally speaking, in the US to have a positive effect on politics is to avoid presenting the faith as “a political norm of political activity.”  This means that great caution is to be taken not to be tempted to wed the faith to what is currently defined as liberal politics or conservative politics.  As pointed out by Ratzinger, such a marriage would contradict the very nature of Christianity, especially as it was lived out in its early stages.  In explaining this Ratzinger writes:




When Christianity was looking in the Roman world for a word with which it could express, in a synthetic way understandable to everyone, what Jesus Christ meant to them, it came across the word conservator, which had designated in Rome the essential duty and the highest service necessary to render to mankind.  But this very title the Christians could not and would not transfer to their Redeemer; with that term, indeed, though could not translate the word Messiah or Christ or describe the task of the Savior of the world.  From the perspective of the Roman Empire, indeed, it would necessarily seem that the most important duty was that of preserving the situation of the empire against all internal and external threats, since this empire embodied a period of peace and justice in which men could live in security and dignity…Nevertheless, Christians could not simply want everything to remain as it was…The fact that Christ could be described, not as Conservator, but as Salvator certainly had no political or revolutionary significance, but it necessarily indicated the limits of mere conservatism and pointed to a dimension of human life that goes beyond the causes of peace and order, which are the proper subject of politics.




May we as Catholics in the US remind ourselves of this most important lesson taught to us by the early Christians.  Being a follower of Christ does not necessitate that one identifies with a conservative or a liberal political party.  Rather, being a follower of Christ, being a Catholic, primarily entails an ever greater participation in Christ as savior who, regardless of the reigning political ideologies of the day, wishes to purify and redeem all of existence, all ideologies.  As His disciples our principle mission, while not diminishing the role of politics in this world, is to proclaim “Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” by relying not on worldly, political wisdom but on the power that comes from the Spirit so that our faith will “rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.”

Questions

• Is the political system of democracy necessarily coupled with capitalism?  Why or why not.  
• Can the political system of democracy be coupled with socialism?  Why or why not.
• Can a democracy become totalitarian?  If so, why?  If not, why not?
• What determines when a political system is no longer compatible with Catholic faith?
• Historically, why did Ratzinger claim, “In many respects democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine; in any case, it contributed toward the formation of a social consciousness.”
• Do you agree with Ratzinger’s claim, why or why not?
• According to Ratzinger, how may the Church, when presenting herself officially, legitimately engage the political world?
• Based on the article, how do you suggest a priest, when publicly speaking, represent the Church’s relationship to politics?

Science and Theism by Sebastian Mahfood, PhD

Dr. Sebastian Mahfood, OP, serves as Vice-President of Administration at Holy Apostles College & Seminary in Cromwell, CT, Provost of the Sacred Heart Institute for the Ongoing Formation of Clergy in Huntington, NY, Director of the Catholic Distance Learning Network of the National Catholic Educational Association's Seminary Department, and secretary of the board of the Institute for Theological Encounter with Science and Technology. He is an Adler-Aquinas Fellow, a member of Georgetown University’s Delta Phi Epsilon Foreign Service Fraternity, and a Lay Dominican of the Queen of the Holy Rosary Chapter in the Province of St. Albert the Great. He holds a doctorate in postcolonial literature and theory from Saint Louis University along with several master’s degrees in the fields of comparative literature, philosophy, theology, and educational technology. Among his publications include his book on African narrative socialism entitled Radical Eschatologies: Embracing the Eschaton in the Works of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Nuruddin Farah, and Ayi Kwei Armah. He lives in St. Louis with his wife, Dr. Stephanie Mahfood, and children, Alexander and Eva Ruth.

Note from Dr. Chervin: This chapter is part of another book I have been writing with Dr. Mahfood called Catholic Realism: Key to the Refutation of Atheism and Evangelizing Atheists.  I asked my coauthor to allow this chapter to also be part of Toward a 21st Century Catholic World-View. 

Introduction
That science is limited is due to the fact that it deals with nothing more than material creation. Everything it measures, then, is only that which is manifest in some way within the realm of the senses. For that reason, science has no way to disprove the immeasurable, no way to discount philosophy or metaphysical realities that are purely spiritual. Science is not without its importance, however. What science can do is provide us with demonstrations of causality. Some effect lies before us as a fait accompli, and its very presence is suggestive of some causal agent that brought it about. Our own presence here is a case in point since the body, as Blessed John Paul II has said, is the sign of the person. As material beings, we can identify in the presence of one another a material cause, but we are also spiritual beings created in the image and likeness of God, which means we can identify in our communion with one another a formal cause.

Evidence of this, in fact, may be found our being persons of communion. “That man should speak is nature’s own behest,” our great ancestor Adam is made to say in the eighth sphere of Dante’s Paradiso, “but that you speak in this way or that/ nature lets you decide as you think best” (Canto XXVI, 130-2). The same is true with our science—that we pursue the mechanics of this world with wonder is in our nature; the manner in which we do it is up to us. It is far better to have a manner resonant with our nature than it is to have one that is out of joint with it. That is how this chapter addresses the question of Catholic realism—by showing that science and theism are mutually supportive of one another when we understand their roles. “Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.” Pope John Paul II, June 1, 1988, letter to Rev. George V. Coyne, SJ, Director of the Vatican Observatory. [1] 

This visible world, according to Dr. Tom Sheahen, director of the Institute for Theological Encounter with Science and Technology, is the world science can access, with microscopes and telescopes, etc. It occupies space and time and is made out of atoms. This is where sciences like physics contribute. But there is an ‘invisible’ part of creation, which has been revealed to us in Scripture. Humans have access to a portion of this. It's a mistake to think science comprehends it. 
The visible and the invisible things, precisely because both were created by God, enable parallel and complementary paths toward him. Concerning the visible things, Aristotle wrote in his Metaphysics, “All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses.” Pope Benedict XVI, in an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on October 28, 2010, said, "The Church is convinced that scientific activity ultimately benefits from the recognition of man’s spiritual dimension and his quest for ultimate answers that allow for the acknowledgement of a world existing independently from us, which we do not fully understand and which we can only comprehend in so far as we grasp its inherent logic. Scientists do not create the world; they learn about it and attempt to imitate it, following the laws and intelligibility that nature manifests to us."[2] 

This provides the context for the transition to the invisible things. The scientist’s experience as a human being is therefore that of perceiving a constant, a law, a logos that he has not created but that he has instead observed: in fact, it leads us to admit the existence of an all-powerful Reason, which is other than that of man, and which sustains the world. This is the meeting point between the natural sciences and religion. As a result, science becomes a place of dialogue, a meeting between man and nature and, potentially, even between man and his Creator. [3] 

The potential dialogue that exists here between man and his Creator becomes an actual dialogue when man pursues his science by seeing the Creator as the cause of the created thing. Each new thing we learn, then, magnifies our understanding of the glory of God on whom we are able to gaze with increasing wonder at his sense of order, harmony, and design. The beauty of the natural world attracts us, and what is drawn toward beauty is drawn toward the reality of the person who made it. After all, while we learn about the world and come to know it through its effects, we do not create it; rather, it is created by God who knows it as its cause. 

The potential dialogue that exists here between man and his Creator becomes an actual dialogue when man pursues his science by seeing the Creator as the cause of the created thing. Each new thing we learn, then, magnifies our understanding of the glory of God on whom we are able to gaze with increasing wonder at his sense of order, harmony, and design. The beauty of the natural world attracts us, and what is drawn toward beauty is drawn toward the reality of the person who made it. After all, while we learn about the world and come to know it through its effects, we do not create it; rather, it is created by God who knows it as its cause. To begin to bring about an understanding of the relationship between faith and science, then, what is needed is a framework that advances the concept of causality, which Aristotle defines simply as that which brings something else about and is its reason for being. Aristotle explains that four causes exist, namely the formal cause, the efficient cause, the material cause and the final cause. The formal cause is the kind of thing something is. A cat, for instance, has a particular form that distinguishes it from a dog, and this form is predicated on the specific difference (the thing that makes something one species and not another). The specific difference identifies a thing’s nature, so we can speak in terms of the common nature of a cat or of a dog. The efficient cause is that which initiates a thing’s coming into existence. The study of an efficient cause is necessarily, then, the study of agency, of an identifiable being that brought something else into being. The material cause is the “stuff” of which something is made. The material cause of this chapter presently on the screen, for instance, is pixel and plastic. The final cause is the end for which something is made, the purpose, that is, of a thing. It is easy to identify the purpose, or a range of purposes, for any given object. Even if people differ on their understanding of a thing’s purpose, they will agree that a given object in their hand has some purpose as demonstrated by their using it, as Marshal McLuhan demonstrated in his study of our technologies as an extension of our persons. Every person, place, event and thing (that is, all nouns) is explainable in terms of all four causes. 

Two things belong to providence--namely, the type of the order of things foreordained towards an end; and the execution of this order, which is called government. As regards the first of these, God has immediate providence over everything, because He has in His intellect the types of everything, even the smallest; and whatsoever causes He assigns to certain effects, He gives them the power to produce those effects. Whence it must be that He has beforehand the type of those effects in His mind. As to the second, there are certain intermediaries of God's providence; for He governs things inferior by superior, not on account of any defect in His power, but by reason of the abundance of His goodness; so that the dignity of causality is imparted even to creatures. (emphasis ours, ST I, Q. 22, Art. 3) Or, more concisely, God's immediate provision over everything does not exclude the action of secondary causes; which are the executors of his order, as was said above (19, 5, 8). (ST I, Q. 22, Art. 3, ad. 2) 

Our establishing only these two things, then, knowledge of the necessity of the four causes and an understanding that efficient causes need to be thought of as both natural and supernatural, provides the frame on which all other things can hang. The reason is that it allows us to then posit, for instance, that every physical object has a natural origin but that our cosmology points to a first, non-material cause, predicated by the question, where did the matter of which that physical object is composed come from? The question arises because all matter is contingent as evidenced by the fact that it changes. Any contingent being requires an agent, or causal being, to bring it about, and natural options, precisely because they are natural, can be only intermediary, not the ultimate, source of a thing’s being. 

Once we agree that a thing has an efficient cause that is also supernatural, it is not that far of a leap for us to understand that it has a final cause to which its form and matter are oriented so that all its causes work together in the realization of the thing’s purpose. If we were to make a tool, we would do so with our end in mind, and that end would cause that tool to take a certain kind of form and be made with a certain kind of material so that its cause (its efficient cause) could create it for the purpose it was intended. It is no different with the human person, who is created for a certain end (two, since a human person is made for both natural and supernatural happiness), and whose soul is so made that it can form a body from organic matter that has the capacity to glorify God with its life. 

Scholastic Science 
The medieval period in European history can be characterized as having taken place between the age where the study of philosophy was unencumbered by Divine revelation and the age where the study of philosophy sought independence from Divine Revelation. In that long period of philosophical Scholasticism, stretching from the life of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius (AD 480–524 or 525 ), who brought the philosophy of Aristotle into Christendom in his many translation efforts, one of which was Porphyry’s Isagoge, an introduction to Aristotle’s Categories, which provided the framework for Aristotle’s Physics, to the death of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), Christian philosophers sought to reconcile faith and reason.4 Muslim philosophers, too, sought this kind of reconciliation in a period of activity extending from the life of Al-Kindi (c. 801–873) to the death of Ibn Rushd (1128–1198), but Islam called its pursuit in this area a Golden Age, and its catalog of accomplishments enabled, in part, the Christian European Renaissance. [5] 

To advance the discussion to faith-supported advancement in science, the Islamic world during its scholastic period provides us with an excellent example of scientific advances guided by a theocentric worldview.  By the time of the European Renaissance, Muslim advancements in science and technology had dwarfed those of Europe for four centuries. Christian Europe, on the other hand, pursued most of its scientific advancements following its scholastic period under an increasingly anthropocentric and materially reductionist worldview that slouched toward and finally fell into solipsism. [6]  Robert Augros and George Stanciu address this Western worldview in their book The New Story of Science (1984) when they explain what they mean by the Old Story of Science, “that there was in the 17, 18, and 19 centuries the gradual building up of a world view in physics and cosmology that was progressively more materialistic” (p. ix). 

The Muslims proved over a thousand years ago that a resurgence of an authentic intellectual tradition—one, that is, that pursues the relationship between faith and science—would benefit from a return to a strong faith tradition because our understanding of created things requires a concomitant understanding of the ultimate source of their creation. This is not to say that we have not made significant advances in science and technology during the modern period (which in Church history is defined as the years between 1274 and the present day), but that those advances have not necessarily been oriented to our loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, or in loving our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27). 

In pursuit of the relationship between faith and reason, John Paul II begins his encyclical letter Fides et Ratio (1998), "Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves." [7]

 As we continue through the second decade of the twenty-first century, especially, we find compelling reasons to articulate once again this relationship between faith and reason, and we can do this by reaching into the Western European intellectual tradition and relying upon the method used during the Islamic Golden Age. One of the most compelling of these reasons is refuting in a real way the rise of the New Atheism that, according to Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker, seeks the political power it needs to advance the culture of death identified in Evangelium Vitae by Blessed John Paul II. [8,9] 

It is only when we have fully grasped this relationship between our theology and our science, indeed, that our arts will flourish with a truer purpose than they have long known. Philosophy, which at its core is the thought process of a human person contemplating the source of all created being, is necessarily a spiritual activity, for it is the exercise of the rational faculties, of the immaterial part of humankind. It is the very kind of activity, in fact, that enables us to transcend our material existence. For a philosopher to say that everything is material is, therefore, absurd, for in the very process of articulating that concept, the concept itself is negated. A proper philosophical anthropology is instructive on this point. [10] Essentially, the soul is a spiritual thing in a composite relationship with the matter that it forms. 
To think that matter is “all that matters” is to limit ourselves significantly. If we are composite beings, then that reality brings about a particular way of looking at the world. We find, namely, that a relationship exists between material and immaterial things and that some immaterial things that cannot be known by our senses or our intellects and have been, consequently, revealed to us by a Person who is our Creator. This is the essence of Christian theism, which is a faith seeking understanding, to quote St. Anselm. If we are going to make headway on understanding who we are and what we are doing as we interact with the material world in which we find ourselves, we have, consequently, to approach our search for understanding in the attitude of faith rather than in the attitude of skepticism. What we want to do is reclaim Scholasticism, not as defined through the lens of the Enlightenment that has informed so much of modernity, but through its own understanding of itself, an understanding that is apparent in what the Muslims did with it in terms of advancing the principles of science through the strength of their faith. 

The Catholic Church: Leading from the Front 
In The Phenomenon of Man, Fr. Teilhard de Chardin, the priest who came up with the idea that one day our technologies would connect every one of us with one another for the purpose of strengthening our relationship with Christ, writes, 
After close on two centuries of passionate struggles, neither science nor faith has succeeded in discrediting its adversary. On the contrary, it becomes obvious that neither can develop normally without the other. And the reason is simple: the same life animates both. Neither in its impetus nor its achievements can science go to its limits without becoming tinged with mysticism and charged with faith.
This realization is a kind of intellectual time bomb set to go off sometime during the twenty-first century as the chasm initiated by people like René Descartes that separated the pursuit of an understanding of the natural world from the pursuit of an understanding of the supernatural world starts to be spanned in the popular consciousness. 
The natural world, after all, was understood by Aristotle and the scholastic philosophers who followed him to be the first level of abstraction, that is, the level of material being where things like earth, fire, water, and air (in fact, all material phenomena—wood, for instance, and bricks) were manifest to the sensory perceptions. Anything that we can see, hear, feel, touch, or taste falls into the realm of this first level of abstraction. It is the realm that most of us understand because we can apply our senses to it in a meaningful way that allows us to develop a percept that can be transformed by our minds into a universal concept. We have to touch fire only once, for instance, before we get the universal concept of “hotness.” After that experience, the sight of any fire will be a signal to us to avoid coming into contact with it. When a child holds a magnet and attracts a paper clip, furthermore, he or she “gets” the concept of attraction, that some things by their very nature are attracted to other things due to the nature of those things. 
While the concept of attraction is highly applicable in the visible world, it is also applicable in the invisible world, which, after all, was understood by Aristotle and the scholastic philosophers who followed him to be the third level of abstraction, that is, the level of immaterial being where things like God, angels, and departed human souls are not manifest to the sensory perceptions. This is the spiritual realm, the realm in which faith is required, faith, which Hebrews 11:1 defines as “evidence of things not seen; the substance of things hoped for.” Because we cannot see them, the materialist would argue, they simply cannot exist, and the kind of philosophical anthropology (like that of Sigmund Freud) that argues for the existence of a material soul denies any practical value of faith and hope. The fullness of truth expressed in Catholic Realism is that we are drawn by love. We are attracted to it in a real and palpable way, and the source of that attraction is none other than God, the person who brought us into being for our own sake to live in eternal communion with him. Our exploring the world that teaches us all sorts of things about its Creator is the most fundamental way we can discover him. 

Scientific truths, of course, like philosophical truths, are not meant to replace articles of faith. They do, however, contribute to our praise of God. In 2012, Dr. Tom Sheahen did a short survey of a few advances of the past hundred years, the span of time put forth by Augros and Stanciu as “the new story of science,” in an article entitled “Scientific Theories,” which starts with the Jewish Albert Einstein, who did not believe in a personal God, qualifying what he did believe as follows:
"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God." 
Sheahen ends with the Catholic Fr. George LeMaitre: 
In 1912, we had no idea of separate galaxies. There were some fuzzy objects out there, but telescopes weren't good enough to resolve what they actually were. Astronomy was still a fascinating field, but there was not yet a field of cosmology. Then along came Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which was a comprehensive theory uniting space and time and gravity. Einstein's theory was totally different from what people had previously assumed. But Einstein's previous theoretical accomplishments (four important new theories in 1905) assured that many scientists at least paid attention. By 1918, a prediction of Einstein's theory was verified via an experiment conducted during a solar eclipse, and that greatly enhanced the credibility of General Relativity. 

Soon many more scientists got interested, because it was possible to associate the huge amount of observed astronomical data with a theory that made sense of it all. The measurable difference in light arriving from some very distant stars (the “red shift”) provided convincing evidence that the universe was expanding—and that begged for an explanation. Einstein's equations of general relativity involved tensor calculus, which was unfamiliar to most scientists at the time, but a few set out to solve those equations for special conditions of the universe. Einstein, who once said, “I want to know God's thoughts...the rest are details,” himself believed that the universe was in a “steady state,” hardly changing at all. 

Around 1922, a Russian named Alexander Friedmann worked out a solution for a universe expanding from a singular starting point; unfortunately, he died soon thereafter and his work wasn't noticed. Working independently, Georges LeMaitre, a Belgian Catholic priest, solved Einstein's equations for a universe starting at time t = 0 and expanding from a singular point to its present size. He turned that in as his doctoral thesis to both Harvard and M.I.T. in 1925, and that was quickly noticed in the western scientific world. When Einstein heard of LeMaitre's work, he scoffed at it; and that disdain put LeMaitre into an uphill struggle. The impression of a steady unchanging universe “out there” was very strong in those days, and the thought of everything starting off at a single point was incomprehensible to most physicists. Other critics sneeringly invented the phrase “big bang” to pile on the ridicule. 

The disdain for LeMaitre didn't last long. Better telescopes were built, and other galaxies beyond our own Milky Way were found. By 1929, Edwin Hubble's observations permitted a calculation of how fast the universe was expanding, and it was all consistent with LeMaitre's theory. Einstein himself eventually came to agree with LeMaitre—for the simple and honorable scientific reason that LeMaitre's theoretical solution accounted for the data. Einstein's theory of general relativity, meanwhile, became fully accepted throughout the scientific world. With his scientific respectability secure, LeMaitre moved into higher circles within the Catholic Church, and became a key scientific advisor to Pope Pius XII. In 1950, a most interesting backstage drama took place, which shows what real scientists think about even the best scientific theories. 

Pope Pius XII saw that the big bang theory coincided very nicely with the narrative in Chapter one of the Book of Genesis, and was going to declare it to be true, a doctrine of faith. Obviously that would have been a huge accolade for LeMaitre, a permanent vindication of his theory. Instead of rejoicing at this, LeMaitre himself talked the Pope out of it. LeMaitre explained that no theory in physics, however elegant or reliable, is truly final. Every theory can always be revised; every theory can be contradicted (and thereby destroyed) by a single experiment. LeMaitre knew his history well: only a century earlier, “the ether” seemed a sure thing. 

In 1963, new evidence from radio astronomy gave further evidence that indeed the universe originated in a sudden explosion, and the competing “steady state” theory was abandoned. The big bang became the only game in town. However, with the passage of yet another half-century, recent observations have indicated that some correction may be necessary to Einstein's theory: there may well be some additional force (customarily termed “dark energy”) that causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate. In the years ahead, will general relativity or the big bang be corrected?  Stay tuned. 

It is enormously to the credit of Fr. Georges LeMaitre that he stood up to sustain the independence of science and religion. LeMaitre had an enduring confidence that both science and religion are complementary pathways to knowledge, but scientific theories can stand or fall on their own, and don't need religion to referee. As Albert Einstein said, "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." More recently (1987), Pope John Paul II stated their complementary relationship very cogently: “Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.”

Conclusion 

What we need to pursue is the restoration of the friendship between scientists and theologians who are both pursuing the same truth—the nature of the world in relation to its Source. For the materialist, that source is natural, and it dead-ends in the ephemeral material world. For the realist, that Source is supernatural, and it is God. Our science and our philosophy should point to the ultimate source of being, and we cannot find that in anything ephemeral—only in that which is eternal, in that which is God. 
The relationship between faith and science takes an interesting turn in an era where New Atheists like biologist Richard Dawkins seem to be gaining ground in their fight against faith-based thinking. It may be important to remember that there was a time when Christian faith was not an issue in philosophy and science. Philosophers like Aristotle and scientists like Archimedes seemed to get along fine without it, each reaching the apex of achievement in their respective fields. 
The question posed by the atheists and the New Atheists on whether our reliance on God somehow diminishes our understanding of our own value as human persons and our own capacity for intellectual acuity is really a non-question. We already know we are temporally finite because our bodies die over time, and we already know we are limited as evidenced by a myriad of factors, not the least of which involves failing memories and various incapacities in our ability to understand the fullness of the disciplines that lie remote from our own. 
It actually increases our understanding of our own value as human persons to know that an infinite being, a necessary being, cared enough for finite, contingent beings such as us that he brought us into being in the first place and has reserved for us an eternal destiny in joyful communion with him if that is our choice. It actually increases our understanding of our intellectual acuity if we know that the light of our understanding has a source beyond our own limited intellects toward which we can strive. 

If we know that an eternal, perfect Being created us and has a plan for our salvation, then the most reasonable thing to do is to rely on that Being to provide us with the grace to achieve it. For this reason, we individual substances of a rational nature must cultivate an understanding of the relationship between ourselves and our Creator. Those of us who are not Pelagians have to ask ourselves the very simple question—what good is the exercise of our reason if it is insufficient by itself to save us? 
The short answer is that faith and reason cooperate with one another in our understanding who we are—our identity—which is most perfectly revealed by Christ himself who fully reveals mankind to himself. They are the two wings about which Christ spoke to St. Catherine of Siena as recorded by St. Raymond of Capua when he said, "You have two feet to walk and two wings to fly." With both these wings in flight, we are buoyed up by God's love. 
Even so, we yet hit a limitation. As strong as we are created in the image and likeness of God whose natural law is written on our hearts, we need supernatural grace to perfect our natural gifts, and God provides it through the Holy Spirit who works within us. For us to gain by it, though, we have to consciously participate in the activity of God, in pursuing what Pope John Paul II called in section 41 of Veritatis Splendor a participated theonomy, since, in his words, “man's free obedience to God's law effectively implies that human reason and human will participate in God's wisdom and providence.” We are lost otherwise and fall into wrath and rebellion. 

Dante Alighieri is also of great help here as he makes explicit in his Paradiso that there are things in the mind of God that the created being cannot know. Though our hope lies in our salvation, God’s mind is deeper than we can plumb, and that is a good thing because he shares of it with us is sufficient for our capacities. Dante writes in Canto XIX, 
"In the eternal justice . . . The understanding granted to mankind is lost as the eye is within the sea: it can make out the bottom near the shore but not on the main deep; and still it is there, though at a depth your eye cannot explore." (lines 58-63) 
While we have limits to what our science can do for us, we are not bereft of understanding. This understanding puts a new gloss on the relationship between faith and reason, between our faith and our science. We are at our best when we pursue our activities in full participation with the God who created us with the capacity to do so, who created us as creatures for our own sake, and who takes delight in us when we pursue our desire to understand the nature of created things with full awareness that there is a Creator whose mind has put all those things together. In the effort to advance a culture of life, after all, we must return to the work of understanding the relationship between our theology and our science. In doing so, we will find ourselves pursuing a new Golden Age. 

Footnotes:
1 Available at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/letters/1988/documents/hf_jpii_let_19880601_padre-coyne_en.html

2. Pope Benedict XVI, “Papal Address to Science Academy,” October 28, 2010, available at http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/papal-address-to-science-academy. 

3 Ibid. 

4 The length of this period is misleading, though. The next great scholastic effort made by the West after the death of Boethius did not occur until the twelfth century, the one that gave Averroes and all his great commentaries to the West. 

5 For a full treatment of this, see Jonathan Lyons, House of Wisdom (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009). Other resources pertaining to this point include the following: Mirza Tahir Ahmad, "The Quran and Cosmology." Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge and Truth. (North Haledon, NJ: Islam International Publications, 1998). Available online at http://www.alislam.org/library/books/revelation/part_4_section_5.html; M. B. Altaie, "The Scientific Value of Dakik al-Kalam," Islamic Thought and Scientific Creativity. Vol. 5, No. 2 (1994): 7-18. Available online at http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/dakik.pdf; Douglas Cox, "The Cosmology of the Koran" (2010). Available online at http://www.sentex.net/~tcc/quran-cosmol.html; Jon McGinnis, "Arabic and Islamic Natural Philosophy and Natural Science." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Dec. 19, 2006). Available online September 1, 2011, at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arabic-islamicnatural/. 

6 A goal it accomplished in 1992 when the American Supreme Court adjudicated in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that “[a]t the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. (1992). Accessed August 14, 2011, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgibin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=505&invol=833 

7 John Paul II. Fides et Ratio. September 14, 1998. Accessed August 14, 2011, at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-etratio_en.html 

8 Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker, Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins' Case against God (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2008). 

9 John Paul II. Evangelium Vitae. March 25, 1995. Accessed August 14, 2011, at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jpii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae_en.html 

10 To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, we are not “bodies,” we are “souls” that form bodies; that is, our souls are the form of our bodies. Mere Christianity (San Francisco: Harper, 1952), p. 129. This is also what Statius explains to Dante in Canto XXV of the Purgatorio---that the work of the soul is to form an operative body that can manifest itself materially within the material world. Dante Alighieri. (1308-1321). The Divine Comedy: The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and the Paradiso. Trans. by John Ciardi (1957). New York: New American Library. 

For Personal Reflection and Group Sharing:

      1.  Briefly explain what is meant by the idea that the book of nature and the book of Scripture were both written by the same Author, and they will not be in conflict when properly read and interpreted.

      2.  The New Atheism relies a great deal on science as a means by which to disprove the existence of God, but how can it not do so legitimately?  

      3.  Why must we cultivate an understanding of the relationship between ourselves and our Creator if we are to live the fullness of Truth?


Response of Sean Hurt:

A framework for refuting anyone, particularly atheists, who believe that only efficient and material causes are valid is to advance the understanding not only do we need to know that all four causes are necessary for a complete comprehension of a thing, but that we also need to know that agency, the efficient cause, is both a natural and a supernatural phenomenon.

When I was an atheist, I actually encountered arguments like this from Ronda. I can’t tell you how little they perturbed my perception of the world. Maybe arguments like these work on other atheists but not on me. In any case, Jesus gave a good model of how to deal with someone with a sort of concrete, materialist point of view. Remember when Nicodemus asks Jesus about being born again? He wants to understand it in a material, concrete way. He asks Jesus if we can reenter our mother’s womb! I’m always amazed at how Christians get pulled into arguments like this and try to explain things reasonably. Jesus does the opposite. He speaks even more enigmatically, but more profoundly —“Amen, amen I say to you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit…” Now, those are wondrous, intriguing words. They are difficult to ignore, but from a “scientific” point-of-view utter nonsense. Jesus is trying to break Nicodemus concrete understanding of the world. He’s trying to draw him into thinking spiritually and symbolically. 

To think that matter is “all that matters” is to limit ourselves significantly.

I used to be a materialist like this. I thought that truth was the most important thing, and so we must be very careful in discerning the truth. Naturally, science seemed like the most reliable, rigorous way of getting to that truth, and so I thought that I should only believe in what can be scientifically proven. In a certain sense I guess that’s right. If you mull over scientific literature with a critical eye, probably you’ll never profess an untrue belief. In the same strand, you’ll probably never believe in anything of any consequence either!

It’s easy to sit on a tower of reason and look down on a mire of revelation. It’s clean on the tower; reason is ours—in our control. But the world of faith is messy, because we must trust in God to believe it. From the tower, it’s also easy to bash faith with all its jumps in logic filled-in with little miracles. But if you stay on the tower, you may see the precious light that saves, but you can never follow it.

It actually increases our understanding of our own value as human persons to know that an infinite being, a necessary being, cared enough for finite, contingent beings such as us that he brought us into being in the first place and has reserved for us an eternal destiny in joyful communion with him if that is our choice.

As an atheist I attacked the Christian faith. It’s one thing to argue why a certain philosophy is incorrect, it’s quite another to prove a philosophy morally wrong. That was a thorn in my side. I had no doubt that God was bunk, but I couldn’t really show that believing in God was wrong. I relied on this flimsy claim. That faith promulgates disordered criteria for accepting truth. That’s hardly compelling. So, there was a conflict there. I was sure that religion was false, but it seemed to do so much good.  Even as an atheist I envied the faithful for their simple conviction while I marveled at my own moral impotence. So, this burning question rose up in my heart at the time of conversion, “is it not good to believe in something that helps you be good, even if it seems incorrect?”

 Think of what it means if you really believe in God.  Every human being was willed to life by God. All these people sitting around you are special, precious pieces God’s creation—cherished by Him, loved by Jesus. Could I ever treat others as fully human without faith in this principle? And if faith in this principle is possible, don’t we have a duty to learn it?

We are at our best when we pursue our activities in full participation with the God who created us with the capacity to do so, who created us as creatures for our own sake, and who takes delight in us when we pursue our desire to understand the nature of created things with full awareness that there is a Creator whose mind has put all those things together. In the effort to advance a culture of life, after all, we must return to the work of understanding the relationship between our theology and our science. In doing so, we will find ourselves pursuing a new Golden Age. 

I’m a scientist, so the author is talking about something I’m intimately involved in. I really agree with his conclusion, that we must develop the relationship between theology and science. However, I wish that we could add something here. How do we start this process? In all practicality, how can I inform my science with my faith and vice versa? What can I do concretely?

Response of Tommie Kim, a Korean Post Master’s student at Holy Apostles. 

In order to understand what it means the idea that the book of nature and the book of Scripture are both written by the same author, we must acknowledge the fact that both visible and the invisible things are all created by God as we proclaim it in the Nicene Creed.  Dr. Tom Sheahen mentions that science only has access to visible world and the visible world can occupy space and time.  But the invisible part of the creation can only be accessed by human and this is something science cannot comprehend.  Science and theism thus cannot conflict each other but help each other.  Pope John Paul II provides clear understanding of this connection. “Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.”

The New Atheism relies great deal on science as a means by which to disprove the existence of God. But it cannot do so legitimately because they cannot comprehend the invisible and have no way of disproving the immeasurable.  Neither can science.  For Atheist, the name God exists only as label because they still refer to “God” they do not believe in.  So in a certain sense, it is not the existence of God that Atheist do not believe in but rather God’s omnipotence that they neglect to believe in.  Most often, this is because Atheists have no direct experience of God in their life.  It is very difficult to convince anyone to a belief in God through logical means. It is only through direct experience of God that faith can be obtained.  However, what I perceive as the one of the cause to affirm people into Atheism is the Christians themselves.  For Atheist who does not believe in the power of God’s omnipotence and the Holy Spirit, perceive God through Christians they encounter. We must be aware that our lives are not building higher wall between God and Atheist.  I recall saying why the world is deteriorating with so many Catholics when the sea is salted with only 4% of salt in it.   

We live in an age of ever abundance source of intellectual sources and highly advance technology. The level of technological advancement exceeded our expectation and we all wonder what the next progress will lead us into.  Because science and technology achieved what thought was impossible, there is a tendency that this is affecting human moral. We realize the need of the science and technology but at the same time must bare I mind that almighty science (scientism) can never replace almighty God.  Our lives will be at risk if we do not realize this limit.  “We are at best when our activities are in full participation with the God who created us with the capacity to do so, who created us as creatures for our own stake, and who takes delight in us when we pursue our desire to understand the nature of created things with full awareness that there is a Creator whose mind has put all those things together.”   As we are now entering the new Golden Age of advanced technology, it is necessary that we build our understanding on relationship between theology and science, between faith and reason.  Otherwise, science will reach the dark end where destruction of human dignity, faith and truth awaits. In the field of scientific research, a positivistic mentality took hold which not only abandoned the Christian vision of the world, but more especially rejected every appeal to a metaphysical or moral vision. It follows that certain scientists, lacking any ethical point of reference, are in danger of putting at the centre of their concerns something other than the human person and the entirety of the person's life. Further still, some of these, sensing the opportunities of technological progress, seem to succumb not only to a market-based logic, but also to the temptation of a quasi-divine power over nature and even over the human being.

Response of Kathleen Brouillette, a student at Holy Apostles. 

What is it about the Church that makes so much of society try to discredit Her?  Scientists with their “proofs,” atheists with their doubts, media with their sensational headlines and half-truths – all attack the Church.  Interestingly, the Church seeks to work together with all of them for the betterment of mankind, and to bring us all closer to the Truth.

Holy Mother Church knows, in Her wisdom, that together the book of nature and the book of Scripture tell the complete story of creation, and of mankind’s place in it.  She knows that man is body and spirit, shaping his life in the cosmos designed by the Creator, and that all things work together for our good to accomplish the will of God.  We cannot obtain a clear picture of that unless we understand the origin and end of body and soul, the cosmos and man, the visible and invisible.

In the relationship between faith and science, the Church leads the way, and yet is accused of being archaic and irrelevant.  Last week, for example, there was a story about pluripotent stem cells being created from one’s own adult stem cells, and “programmed” to become whatever type of cell is necessary to bring about healing.  I learned about pluripotent cells at least six years ago in a science class here at HACS.  At the same time, the media was full of anti-Catholic stories about the necessity of embryonic stem cells because of the death of Christopher Reeve, and the efforts of Michael J. Fox to find a cure for his own Parkinson’s Disease.  Years of negative press and sensationalized, selective half-truths claimed that the Church is against stem cell research because of Her stand against embryonic stem cell use.  She has, however, been very much in the forefront of adult stem cell research - gathering scientists and funding their work.  Most of the success with stem cells has come, NOT from embryonic stem cells anyway, but from adult stem cells.  That truth has gotten little press, perhaps because the position of the Church can’t be criticized.

  A real synthesis between faith and reason can only come about, in my opinion, when the brilliant minds at work in the Church speak out; when the Church demonstrates and makes known that She is at the forefront of progress, supporting research, science, psychology etc. in their proper perspective. How many people know Catholic priest Gregor Mendel pioneered the field of genetics, or Catholic priest Georges LeMaitre first presented the theory that the cosmos is expanding (originally dismissed and then supported by no less than Albert Einstein)?  

Being at Holy Apostles, I have read many Papal documents and have been exposed to the true position of the Church on scientific progress.  I would never have known about them had I not been here.  There is no mention of them from the pulpit.  The average man in the pew is not even aware they exist, let alone how to access them.  Here, again, is an area where formation of the clergy and the people is critical.  I believe that it is truly essential for the Church to do a better job of getting her entire message out there! 

Agnostic scientist and author Robert Jastrow admits, in God and the Astronomers, “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream.  He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

The Person as the Basis for Love
in Karol Wojtyla’s Love and Responsibility
by Margaret Posner

Margaret Posner earned an MA in Spanish literature from San Diego State University, and presently is studying in the MA program in philosophy at Holy Apostles College and Seminary.

Note from Dr. Chervin: Karol Wojtyla, better known as John Paul II, now canonized, was my favorite Pope and is one of the philosophers I teach. However, I was delighted to find that one of my own M.A. students, Margaret Posner, could write about his philosophy even better than I ever could!

This chapter explores important points that reveal how Karol Wojtyla’s discussion in Love and Responsibility rests on the notion of the person. The sections sub-titled “Observation” provide an elaboration of these themes with related topics that could be integrated in a course or lecture focusing on Wojtyla’s personalist philosophy. The comments found in the “Observation” sections are based on common knowledge or current events that can exemplify Wojtyla’s perspectives; it is important that these observations be less formal in tone as  opposed to the more explanatory style applied to the analytical portion of this chapter.  The observations, therefore, are more free-flowing and unreferenced. This contrast is aimed at providing a more relaxed sample of potential commentary that can be integrated into marriage preparation courses, or any other course dealing with issues underlying the person.  Since these courses on not held in rigorous academic settings, a more conversational tone may help in the assimilation of important concepts. For example, topics that deal with mutual respect between spouses can be referred back to Wojtyla’s emphasis on the intrinsic dignity of the person, discussed in the analytical portion of this chapter. The observations may supply a potential commentary on this subject in a less analytical manner. Wojtyla’s unique personalist approach offers a solid frame in which the sacredness of love and its connection to the person is fully appreciated.  His manner of intertwining the person with the truths that underpin the concept of true love represent an important contribution to Catholic Realism, specifically that of the twenty-first century.

The Person as “I”
Wojtyla begins his thoughts on love and responsibility by first delineating the differences between a person and a thing.1  Although this may seem like an elementary distinction to make, it is clear that this simple, yet profound difference is the axis upon which his entire thesis revolves. Inanimate things and animals do not have free will—the defining hallmark of a person that pre-supposes self-awareness and interiority. In describing the person, Wojtyla highlights the fact that even though one person can never be substituted by another, this in itself does explain what a person is.2 The crux of the matter lies in the interior life of the person and how this aspect intersects with the exterior world. The “I” is therefore not simply a pronoun determining originality or irreplaceability; it is an entire experiential synthesis in time that cannot exist identically in another person. Therefore, man in the world “[…] strives to assert himself as an ‘I’ […] since the nature of his being demands it.”3  Additionally, the interiority of a person connotes a spirituality that naturally directs itself to “truth and goodness” since man’s existence revolves around his striving to obtain goodness “at its fullest.”4 Acknowledging that truth cannot be separated from goodness is crucial in understanding man’s innate aspiration toward these two principles.  

Observations

Notice how Wojtyla joins the theme of the spirit with that of truth and goodness.  He doesn’t just mention the spiritual aspect as a constitutive component of man, but connects it to man’s innate desire for transcendence, namely obtaining truth and goodness, two principles whose source is God.  Up to this point, he has presented a structured view of man and personhood that is not just generic.  He explores the meaning of man as a person demonstrating that man is not limited to thinking and desiring in general, rather, he uses these abilities for their natural end—achieving truth and goodness.  Man’s rationality naturally identifies goodness and his ability to desire it, points him in this direction.  So far, the seemingly obvious distinction made initially between a thing and a person begins to unveil the depth behind this difference.
Having described the nature of the person in terms of possessing an interior life, Wojtyla stresses that this interiority is the cause of man’s deep connection to the world.  His inner life makes him able to establish fixed bonds and become “intimately involved” with the exterior world, where there are other persons doing the same.5  Wojtyla’s keen insight into the depth of the self as the cause of this connective relationship with the world is a point that may easily be overlooked.   Man, in secular terms, is usually considered as a part of the world, in the same way plants or animals live in their natural habitat.  His relationship to the world is considered as limited to the natural realm and predicated mostly on his adaptive characteristics.  

While it is true that biologically, man is equipped to survive in his natural setting, his ability to live humanly, as a person, is not solely based on his innate capacity for inhabiting the planet.  If this were so, man would be no different than an animal and his connection to the exterior world would not have the “intimate” character that Wojtyla emphasizes.  In fact, Wojtyla underscores man’s ability for self-determination, a capability that lies within his rationality, as the distinguishing mark of his personhood.6  Understanding that the way in which man perceives, takes hold and functions in the world, within a context of moral and practical values, stems precisely from his inner life does not take away from the notion of man’s natural environment as the necessary component for the unfolding of his nature.7  Wojtyla emphasizes the importance of man’s interiority when he analyzes man’s reaction to any type of exterior input as not merely a robotic reciprocation, but as a change in his relationship with the world.  As he puts it, man’s entire nature, his “I” demands that he act with his whole self.8  Contrastingly, when man sees himself through the lens of routine activity, his reaction to external prompts in general are not considered as being the cause of any type of change in man’s relationship to the world.  Yet Wojtyla’s ability to see through man’s commonly-accepted self-image, that of a being merely capable of rationally interacting with his environment, brings out the spiritual dimension  intrinsic to man’s nature.

Wojtyla upholds man’s goal within the context of his inner and exterior life as that of achieving “truth and goodness,” he then denotes that the incommunicability of the “I” is where all true conceptions about education and culture begin.9   Incommunicability of the person can be defined as the irreplaceable quality of a person as such.10  Therefore, in addressing marriage, love and responsibility must rest on a clear understanding of the person, as the unique, unrepeatable “I”.11   Any explanation that does not adhere to this understanding of the person cannot purport to present an accurate view of the sacred, sacramental relationship between a man and a woman, each as a unique son or daughter of God.  Recognizing Wojtyla’s  personalist premise as essentially united to the sacramental nature of love, enables one to assimilate his discussion on how the “I” as a subject can also be an object, as opposed to being objectified, when he or she is the object of another “I”.12  In order to adequately analyze man within the subject-object context, Wojtyla stresses the two possible meanings of the word “use.”13   

The Person and the Meaning of “to Use”

Wojtyla states that a person can never use another person as a mean’s to an end, as in the first meaning of the word “use.”14 In fact, doing this can be considered a transgression of the other’s essence, which is intrinsically evil, and goes against the man’s innate desire for truth and goodness.  Furthermore, using the other for one’s end is also an evil act on the part of the user.15 


Observations
When a person is considered as an instrument, he or she is, in a sense, stripped of the dignity that comes with being a person.  It could be said that in this case, the personhood of the other is not just simply ignored or overlooked, but the entire meaning of personhood is removed from the existential context of those affected, including the user and the used.  Wojtyla’s insight here serves not only to signal the effect of using a person as an end in particular relationships, his point shows the ramifying societal effects of viewing persons as ends.  The far-reaching results of this “using” attitude produce a utilitarian mentality that influences nearly all aspects of society.  As utilitarian principles in man-woman relationships flourish, they also root themselves culturally, becoming a  norm.  Additionally, utilitarian principles promote the societal re-definition of important aspects related to genuine love, family and offspring.  

To clarify the extended influence of utilitarian principles in non-marriage-related issues, it would be helpful to use a fairly recent episode from the economic arena:  In the financial world, the unfair banking practices that caused many people to lose their homes, exemplified how some corporations used the consumer as a means toward an end.  The lack of safeguards to protect the financial security and livelihood of these people were never factored into the banking strategies that culminated in significant losses for the unwary clients.  The solutions to the problem were implemented as an afterthought and only helped some of the victims. The corporate attitude which brought all this about fits well with Wojtyla’s perspective on how the other can be considered a means to an end. The building collapse in a Bangladesh sweat shop that killed as many as 800 workers is another example of how these persons were used in order to achieve an economic end, while their personal safety was not considered as they labored away, producing income for their employers.  

A person in the man-woman relation can also suffer this type of utilization, unless, as Wojtyla asserts, the full value of the other as a person forms the basis for the relationship. Utilization can be exercised by simply assuming the other is there to satisfy an emotional or psychological need.  If the other is seen as a means to an end, namely, fulfilling some sort of emotional satisfaction, authentic love cannot be considered the basis for this bond.  If the man or woman is used, rather than loved for his or her own sake, his or her full value as a person does not exist in the relationship. 

The Person as Equal to the Other

Wojtyla presents love as the antidote against the utilization of the person.  He brings out a very commonsensical, yet insightful point:  When two people have a good in common, there is no subordination of either one of the members.16  He demonstrates the inter-connectedness of man’s capacity for love, free will, and the desire to achieve a common good,  noting that truth and goodness summarize the yearnings of the human spiritual life;  the sincere desire for the attainment of a common good erases any trace of subordination in relation to the other.17  The only subordination possible in this scenario is focused on the good they are both striving for.  In the case of the man and woman, their common desire to love each other’s person nullifies any subordination one may feel toward the other.  Consequently, the equal footing Wojtyla refers to is the natural outcome of two people seeking a common good.18  

Observation

Elaborating on this topic, one could hypothetically see how two people seeking different goods are not unequal with respect to each other; working toward different goals simply shows they are each working for a different purpose.  The important concept is that in a marital relationship, there must me an overriding goal that represents a common good both spouses work to obtain, as for example, the understanding that both must help each other in their spiritual journey toward heaven.  Two people searching for a common evil, on the other hand, would easily fall prey to an unequal scenario.  In this case, the resulting subordination of one person to another could be the natural result of the negative goal which they both share and the ramifications of this goal could translate into utilization.  Wojtyla’s discussion of how the common good eliminates any subordination or utilization of the other could be thought of as a formula where the end goal determines which factors are at work in a marriage.  



Another scenario that comes to mind in reference to Wojtyla’s affirmation that a common good cancels out subordination is the ill-formed idea of women being automatically subordinate to the man simply because of gender.  The term “subordination” here represents a negative meaning that uses gender as a basis for oppression and to some extent, de-personalization; it is not the same meaning referred to by St. Paul in Ephesians 5:24: “Therefore as the church is subject to Christ, so also let the wives be to their husbands in all things.” The bond between the church and Christ is based on the love of each individual for Him.  There is no de-personalizing aspect to this love; on the contrary, each individual is called to reach his or her maximum potential in loving Christ. This distinction serves to support Wojtyla’s thought that both the man and the woman must enter the marriage relationship, consciously striving for the common goal, namely, the good, as the ultimate purpose of their marriage.  Coming into a marriage without this truth in mind transforms the relationship into a contractual type agreement, vulnerable to subordinating scenarios, rather than a sacramental commitment of mutual respect. 

Joining Wojtyla’s context that identifies the person as possessing a spiritual, unique and unrepeatable inner life, to marriage’s goal of a common good, contrasts with the current societal view of marriage that does not uphold the intrinsic value of the person.  The cultural norms that have apparently caused these misrepresentations of marriage cannot have resulted from a desire for genuine “truth and good,” as advocated by Wojtyla.  Prevalent assumptions regarding the subordination of either the man or the woman have seemingly re-defined marriage into more of a functionalist unit of society, as opposed to a loving family relationship between a man and a woman.  It is clearly not difficult to see that if a man or woman feels oppressed in any type of relationship, including that of marriage, there can be no equal footing or common good for which to strive for.  When this occurs, the true objective of marriage, is obliterated.  

Subordinate-type relationships in marriage, perhaps influenced by cultural or religious reasons, may be partially to blame for militant feminist trends.  It is common knowledge that movements claiming to prevent the oppression of women point to marriage as the cause of subordinating relationships.  Without delving deeply into the multiple factors involved in militant feminism, it is clear that the misinterpretation marriage as that of being an unequal contractual enterprise may be the core reason inciting feminist, anti-marriage ideologies.  Frequently, feminists define marriage as a social construct implemented by men in order to uphold their superiority over women.  To answer this, Wojtyla describes man’s intrinsic desire for “truth and good” joined together and aimed at a common good.   Clearly, the authentic love relationship in marriage that upholds the complementary aspect the spouses aspiring for a common good cannot equate with the feminist view of marriage.

The Person and Authentic Love
Wojtyla’s emphasis on equality is addressed in his discussion of equality in marriage with affective-emotional experiences. These responses can only be authentically grounded in love when the subject and object of these experiences are seen as equals:  “This equality between the subject and object of activity forms a special basis for emotional-affective experience…”19  At first, it may seem that Wojtyla is simply re-iterating the importance of equality, but actually, this foundational equality becomes the basis for sexual moral ethics.  The fact that there exists a morality within the emotional-affective contexts of the spouses highlights their equality, without nullifying their complementarity.20  It should be noted that Wojtyla refers to complementarity as an “ontological need.”21  He explains that a man needs a woman to “to complete his own being, and woman needs man in the same way.”22  Considering marriage’s ontological dimension sheds additional light on the meaning of complementarity.

Additionally, Wojtyla cautions that due to the rational nature of man, one is potentially capable of isolating pleasure in the affective activity of the union; in doing so, the person becomes a means to this end.23  Here again, the person is used and his dignity is transgressed.  Wojtyla is very direct when he distinguishes between attitudes that may be held by both the man and the woman, stemming from egoism but disguised as love.24   The intention behind these postures is contrary to the dignity of the person since they represent a union of egoisms within a context of convenience, in opposition with the true equality that generates mutual respect.25  His strong stance reveals a keen awareness of how distorted representations of love can be used as excuses for objectifying the other.  Distinguishing between valid affective responses in marriage and those responses that are the result of using the other as a means to an end is an essential element in Wojtyla’s personalistic analysis.

Wojtyla’s approach to defining love and responsibility revolves around a  personalist core as do the themes within his discussion.  An important topic stemming from the personalist notion emphasizes how true love affirms the value of the person, and how loving itself becomes a “personalistic norm.”26  Recalling his initial distinction between a person and a thing, Wojtyla presents gender as resting on the personhood of the man and the woman.  He accentuates how human beings possess value firstly as a persons, and only secondly as a man or a woman.27 It is important to see that Wojtyla’s secondary placement of gender does not relegate it  as a constitutive principle of the person, to a non-essential position.  His discussion is focused on the value of the person as primordial, especially when the other is considered as an object of another’s affective response.  In other words, the subject must look at the other as a person who is a man or woman.  In doing do so, the affective response will be contained in the context of all those values that comprise the inherent dignity of personhood. 

For this reason, he states that “The value of the person as such must be clearly distinguished from the particular values present in a person.”28 He elaborates on what is meant here by the value of the person:  “[…] the person as person, and not of a distinct nature individualized in a way all its own, independent, then, of particular physical or psychic characteristics.”29  What Wojtyla presents is the paradigm of value derived from personhood overriding any other consideration when one person uses at the other as an object.   It follows that although the masculinity or femininity of the other is an integral part of the person, the reason for his or her value flows directly from the personhood principle.  Of course one can also be valued as a man or woman, but this type of value is encased in the person of each and cannot be separated from it-- a crucial distinction for Wojtyla.  Establishing this unity of personhood with gender dismisses validity of using the other’s gender as a source of affective responses when separated from the personhood principle.  He further states that the affective response of the subject must always be “somehow adjusted to the knowledge that the human being concerned is a person.”30   In other words, loving a man or women because of their gender is not the same as loving this man or this woman.  

Appreciating the value of the person within the affective responses of the subject, therefore, can be seen as the pivotal factor that creates the required setting for the expression of true love, as opposed to a scenario where utilization leads to inequality and subordination of the other.  Wojtyla’s precise description of the prerequisites that must conform to personalistic norms allows him to define true love as a virtue, packed with all the affective responses proper to the relationship between a man and a woman.31  He states that love is not limited to the emotional aspects or to the senses.  He underscores the fact that love is a product of the will “and has at its disposal the resources of the will’s spiritual potential…”32 Wojtyla’s analysis, therefore, reveals how the core of true love between a man and a woman is configured by free will, a spiritual faculty, since both the subject and object of this love are spiritual beings: “ …it [love] is an authentic commitment of the free will of one person (the subject), resulting from the truth about another person (the object).  Love as a virtue is oriented by the will towards the value of the person.”33  In light of the foregoing explanation, one can now understand that the “truth” of the other is his or her value as a person. Wojtyla’s exposition of love does not present the virtue of love as a possible option between a man and a woman in a relationship; rather, it strongly implies that any type of relationship not based on respect for personhood is actually a utilization of the other, under the guise of love.34 

Observation

Wojtyla’s in depth exploration of the nature of love, the nature of the person and the interconnectivity of values within the man-woman relationship sets forth truths that are not difficult to grasp.  Yet, the secularist perspectives on love revolve around other relationship elements such as romance, emotional satisfaction, and convenience.  These issues are spuriously raised above the level of essence, which is the level being addressed by Wojtyla.  The fact that he grounds his discussion on the person as a spiritual being generates concrete conclusions on the true nature of love.  The secularist view, on the other hand, produces relativistic notions of this relationship, resulting in a re-definition of love that allows the utilization of the other.  Wojtyla’s discussion resides in the essence of the person and the points he makes stem from this base.  Although his concepts seem easily accessible, his ability to join these truths requires deep philosophical insights on the nature of the person, and their connection with love in the man-woman relationship.  The secularist view frequently assumes that its perspectives are based on practical human norms that need not be linked with any philosophical ideal.  It would seem that the main stumbling block for the secularist view is Wojtyla’s premise acknowledging the spiritual dimension of the person. 

While this assertion may seem irrelevant to the current relativistic definition of love, its absence in current ideological trends appears to be the governing force behind the moral confusion misrepresenting relationship issues between men and women. Wojtyla’s discussion, then, can be considered a philosophical treatise on the true nature of love and responsibility; it is not simply a guide to getting along lovingly in a relationship.  Once can go even further and say that his manner of unfolding the themes stemming from the Catholic personalist position discloses his intention of reaffirming the necessary components of true love against the backdrop of secularist views.  This position is particularly evident when he implies that a person can be actually used under the pretense of being loved, as discussed above. His intense focus on the person and his subsequent connecting of all themes to this crucial point allows him to solidly present those reasons for which the dignity of the other should always be cherished.  His main assertion, namely, that love can only be called love when it is directed toward the person leaves no space for any other definition of love.35 He seems to answer the alternative stance that would consider love as mere “emotional attitude” towards a person of opposite sex.36  Having an “emotional attitude” toward the femininity or masculinity of the other is in itself a blurred psychological response that, as he puts it, “fades in the emotional consciousness of a man or a woman if it is not firmly tied to affirmation of the person—that specific person to whom the man owes his experience of ‘femininity’ or the woman her experience of ‘masculinity’.”37 

The Person and Cognition

Another theme discussed by Wojtyla, to re-affirm the person as foundational within the context of love between the man and woman, is his focus of cognition as a power that not only reflects reality, but is also aware of truth.  He notes that if cognition were a material power, man would not be aware of truth and falsehood. His description of cognition leads him to make a metaphysical observation of truth:  “Truth is a condition of freedom.  Without this faculty, man would inevitably be determined by them [material goods].”38  If man’s power to have self-determination is non-existent, using the power of self-determination to choose falsehood unavoidably leads to utilizing the other.  Furthermore, if one’s treatment of the other is not grounded on respect for the personhood of the other, the relation becomes analogous to falsehood taking over the subject.39  We can see how Wojtyla’s analysis of the spiritual aspect of cognition with respect to truth and personhood lends to an understanding of how fictitious love can take over a relationship while pretending to be true love.  Wojtyla’s insightful delineation of how matter takes over when the spiritual dimension is ignored serves as a basis for understanding one of the ways in which individuals can become imprisoned in a relationship based on other principles antagonistic to love and the true definition of the person. A common example of this possibility can be the apparent love a spouse can use as an excuse to remaining in an abusive relationship.  External factors other than true love keep the battered spouse in an oppressive situation; these may include financial convenience or emotional need. Clearly, Wojtyla’s vision into the nature of cognition, truth, and its connection to genuine love leads back to acknowledging the full value of the person within the man-woman relationship.

After Thoughts

Wojtyla’s inquiry into love demands that one graft the meaning of the person into those values that are generated from love between a man and woman.40 His emphasis on how true love involves unifying, under the concept of the person, different aspects involved in the relationship between a man and woman, can only be understood in light of an authentic appreciation of the person.  It is also clear that throughout the chapters, Wojtyla has emphasized how “…the person is much more an interior than a body.”41 And because of this, the love of both persons not only unites them on a physical, emotional and psychological level, it joins them at the level of their interiority, a broader principle containing all that which constitutes their unique person.  It is within this context that, a child can be conceived, being that this child, as a spiritual being, also possesses the inner life that both parents will have helped to fashion.42   And it is within this union of spiritual persons-- the only worthy setting for the Divine creative act to happen-- that God infuses the transcendental soul of another unique human being;  the importance of the person as the basis for love takes on a sacred character.  Any version of love that does not fit into Wojtyla’s model cannot be considered authentic.

                                                             Works Cited

Crosby, John,   The Personalist Papers, 
(Washington D.C: Catholic University of America Press, 1996).

                          The Selfhood of the Human Person, 
(Washington D.C: Catholic University of America Press, 1996).

Wojtyla, Karol, Love & Responsibility, 
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994.

                                                                Footnotes


1 Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsability, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994), 21.
2 Ibid., 22.
3 Ibid., 23.
4 Ibid., 23.
5 Ibid., 23.
6 Ibid., 24.
7 Ibid., 23.
8 Ibid., 23.
9 Ibid., 24.
10 John Crosby, The Selfhood of the Human Person, (Washington D.C.: Catholic Universary of America Press, 1996), 41.  Crosby refers to this innate characteristic as that which "...sets the person in relation to other persons..." and sustains that a person is not repeatable in any sense and does not share in the being of any other person.
10 Ibid., 22.
11 John Crosby, The Personalist Papers, (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. 1996), 19.  Crosby elaborates on individual uniqueness and dignity: "...this unrepeatable person has value, and the person has it, not as just being unrepeatable, but as being this unrepeatable person."
12 Ibid., 21.
13 Ibid., 25.
14 Ibid., 26.
15 Ibid., 27.
16 Ibid., 28.
17 Ibid., 28.
18 Ibid., 29.
19 Ibid., 33.
20 Ibid., 81.
21 Ibid., 81.
22 Ibid., 81.
23 Ibid., 33.
24 Ibid., 39.
25 Ibid., 39.
26 Ibid., 121.
27 Ibid., 122.
28 Ibid., 122.
29 Ibid., 298.
30 Ibid., 123.
31 Ibid., 123.
32 Ibid., 123.
33 Ibid., 123.
34 Ibid., 123.
35 Ibid., 124.
36 Ibid., 123. 
37 Ibid., 124. 
38 Ibid., 115.
39 Ibid., 115.
40 Ibid., 198.
41 Ibid., 260.
42 Ibid., 260.


                                            Study Questions

• 
  
• 1. When have you experienced or known of authentic love vs. persons using others under the title of love?  Give examples.
• 2. Can you apply Wojtyla’s personalist approach to themes related to family life?
• 3. Within the personalistic context of Wojtyla, explain the characteristic of uniqueness in man.
• 4. How does commitment tie into true love?
• 5. Can you give examples of fictitious love relationships?
• 6. How is the sacramental aspect of marriage connected to true love?
• 7. Do you think is possible to unconsciously use a person as a means to an end?
• 8. Explain the relationship between truth and love?
• 9. Can you give examples that demonstrate Wojtyla’s view of equality between spouse
• 10. Considering Wojtyla’s view of the person, is complementarity between genders a social  construct?

Response from Sean Hurt, who was in the Peace Corp in Malawi, Africa (in italics are the lines from the chapter and in regular type the responses of Sean Hurt).   

The corporate attitude which brought all this about exemplifies Wojtyla’s perspective on how the other can be considered a mean to an end. The building collapse in a Bangladesh sweat shop that killed as many as 800 workers is another example of how these persons were used in order to achieve an economic end, while their personal safety was not considered as they labored away, producing income for their employers.

Talking about these 2 examples from capitalist society in which humans were treated as means unto ends is like talking about two parts of the ocean that are wet. It’s all wet—it can be nothing else but wet.  Talking about these two incidents as if they are isolated obscures the deep-rooted evil of capitalism. It constantly and inexorably tends toward treating people as commodities. It is characterized by a competition which is inherently wounding to human solidarity. Really, look at the typical life of a middle-class American and ask yourself, “how many times a day does that person use another human being as a means to an end?” Do we really treat the cashier or waiter much different than a machine—accepting bills and turning out change? What about all the people who made the things we use every day? Do we know them, did we respect their personhood? Did we pay them a fair wage and ask how they’re getting along? Of course not! Not even close!

The author says, “The far-reaching effects of this “using” attitude produce a utilitarian mentality that can influence nearly all aspects of society”. I can’t agree more, but I think she dramatically understates how deep this utilitarian mentality has advanced in America. We don’t even perceive how wounded modern, industrial society has become. We’re used to using. We can’t even imagine an economy not based on using people. We’ve come to accept it as a necessary evil because we know no other way. But it is possible. 

In the Malawian village, things are different. You know the grocer at the trading center—to exchange money and products without an exchange of humanity is unthinkable. You talk; you converse with the man who made your mat and you know the woman who sold you tomatoes. You know them, you know their families. I remember when the house of the grocer in our village burnt down. We all knew, and we all came along and gave a little money to rebuild their place. There was an exchange there, not of commodities, but of trust, of intimacy, of solidarity—a security of knowing that, if the same thing happened to me a 1000 people would be there to help. You can’t replace that with an insurance policy. Now, I’m not saying that there’s nothing good about capitalism. But still, the fundamental structure of our modern economy is totally irreconcilable with the gospel message.

Additionally, Wojtyla cautions that due to the rational nature of man, one is potentially capable of isolating the pleasure in the affective activity of the union; in doing so, the person becomes a means to this end.

There are, of course, many cultures and sub cultures within mankind and each one deviates from the true life-in-Christ in some way or another. Among the particular culture I came from which is young- liberal-white-middleclass American I would say that there is a general belief that anything two consenting adults want to do to each other  in the bedroom is morally legitimate. Upon conversion I obeyed Church teachings, but I didn’t really understand them regarding this issue. It wasn’t until I came to view it through this lens of personhood that I finally understood. There are so many moral teachings about sex to the point Christians seem like sex-hating prudes. But there’s a good reason for that. It’s so easy to use human beings as objects of sexual pleasure.

 As I was saying in the previous comment, there are so many ways that we use people as means unto ends. Commoditized humanity is now part of American culture because it’s an underlying tenant of our economic life. Is it surprising then that this view of personhood has spilled into our sexual lives?




Response from Tommie Kim, a Post Master’s Student from Korea at Holy Apostles College and Seminary:

It is important to draw parallels between the notion of personality and culture in order to provide justification for their kinship and to understand their reciprocal influence.  Definitions of culture are diverse and can be translated into diverse interpretations.  Similarly, definitions and understandings of personality are also very different according to psychological, philosophical and theological interpretations. 

Culture in most general sense can be defined as a relation or as a system of relations.  However, if relation is considered in its ontological sense, only personality can enter into relationship just as Wojtyla explains, “the crux of the matter lies in the interior life of the person and how this aspect intersects with the exterior world.” 

Confucianism perhaps best explains the complementarity between genders as a social construct.  Confucianism is based on ancient texts that advocate conformity to the law of Heaven, or so called Ultimate Reality that centers on loyalty, especially the filial piety of a son to this father.  Another aspect of Confucianism is based on obedience to rulers, respect for elders, loyalty in friendship, and subservience of wife to husband.  Somehow, this traditional construct has deeply influenced Korean society.  So a woman first must obey and follow the orders from her father, then husband and later her son.  Due to such a strong patriarchal tradition and culture, the role and personhood of man and woman was, in the past, strictly distinguished and demarcated.  Domestic life of women was enclosed away from the public world inhabited by men. 

The Catholic Church has played a crucial role in demolishing this social and cultural discrimination between genders and has helped to heal the conflict that such discriminative life had created.  However, no one can claim that the old tradition was completely wrong.  The modernized life, calling for equality between man and woman, has brought forth numerous broken homes and extramarital relations.

The common goal for marriage in the past was to create a loving family with children. Marriage today no longer has this goal.  Marriage is chosen for the sake of fulfilling financial and emotional needs of each other. In our times, it is difficult to differentiate between true love vs selfish love. I think it is because people have lost the spiritual meaning of our existence, directed toward truth and goodness.  People are simply trying to survive a life that is changing at a fast pace. Along with this change in life-style, the concept of marriage has also lost its authentic purpose.  Love needs to be accompanied by responsibility, but parents no longer want to take  responsibility, or to sacrifice for  children and family.  

Commitment needs to be part of true love because loving a person means taking responsibility for other persons. Being responsible means that true love needs to respect the dignity of the person, just as yourself. 

Priestly Ministry in Community
by
Fr. Dominic Anaeto

Fr. Dominic Anaeto is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Nnewi, Nigeria. He holds a license in spirituality from Gregorian University in Rome, a doctorate in pastoral theology from the Lateran University, also in Rome, and a diploma from the Christian Institute for the Study of Human Sexuality at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Illinois. He is a certified counselor on topics related to human development and human sexuality. He functions as a director of spiritual life which involves giving spiritual conferences, moderating retreats, seminars, and days of recollection. He offers pastoral counseling and spiritual direction to individuals and groups. Presently, he is a professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut.

Note from Dr. Chervin: I asked Fr. Dominic to write this chapter because I admire him as a priest who exemplifies the qualities he describes here. For better or worse, lay Catholics in academe and especially at seminaries, spend quite a bit of time thinking about the characters of priests in the past and what we would like priests to be like in the future. Fr. Dominic has spent years in the formation of priests in Nigeria and in the United States. I find in his insights just the synthesis I have been seeking of leadership and warmth of ministry. 

Introduction

The pastor is a mediator between God and his people. He is the middle ground between humanity and divinity. On the one hand, he communicates the essence of divinity to humanity and on the other hand, he brings humanity and its problems to divinity. Simply put, being the good shepherd who acts in persona Christi, he ought to be well equipped in the image of Christ so as to live up to the demands of this mediatorship.

Christ, as the self-revelation of God become incarnated within the human culture, understands the human condition. He felt the pains, sufferings, difficulties, joys and the hilarious moments of the human person. Christ equally manifested human emotions himself (Cf. Jn. 11:35) and hence the confidence expressed in his priesthood in Heb. 4:15, “for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.”

No wonder then, the Church professes the full humanity of Jesus Christ without fear of equivocation. From the standpoint of his humanity, he was and is able to understand the yearning of the human spirit, and, from the standpoint of his divinity, he is ever able to satiate these deepest yearnings.  The pastor, who represents Christ in his ministry of sanctification, governance, and teaching should also manifest to an excellent degree this complementary polarity of being. In as much as he is not of the world and thus ought to have a profound connection with the divine, he should also realize that he is in the world and that the joy and hope, grief, and anguish of the man of the world should genuinely find an echo in his heart (GS no.1).

It is therefore, against this background, that this paper examines the necessity and inevitability  of affectivity in pastoral ministry for our Catholic life in the twenty-first century which Pope Francis has stressed right from the beginning of his pontificate. In the recent address to the  Pontifical Representatives and Apostolic Nuncios on June 21, 2013, he states, “Pastors must know how to be ahead of the herd to point the way, in the midst of the flock to keep it united, behind the flock to prevent someone being left behind, so that the same flock, so to speak, has the sense of smell to find its way.”

The Mission of the Pastor to the People of God

The mission of a pastor expresses in synthesized form the varying aspects of the prophetic, regal and priestly ministry without bypassing anyone of these roles.[1],[2] Each corresponds to the three main functions of Christ: Priest, Prophet and King. These functions are not to be understood as separate activities of Jesus during his life, as if, for example, the priestly function corresponds only to his three hours as priest and victim on the cross. They are rather dimensions that penetrate all his life and ministry. They correspond to the functions of preaching, of cult, and of government. The ministry of a pastor should be understood as an integral process in his ministry.

J. Galot, the theologian, states that these three functions become, in Jesus, the expression of the love of a shepherd and from there they take their inspiration.[3] The image of the good shepherd becomes for Galot “a principle of unity” as that will go a long way to understand and express all the priestly functions.[4]  Pastoral charity expresses in an eloquent manner what the shepherd image means for the ministerial priesthood. It is the source and unifying criterion of all the activities of the ecclesial minister.
The shepherd image gives a sense of unity to the life and ministry of the ministerial priesthood. It allows no dichotomy between the two. The priest does not become holy in spite of his ministry, but rather through his ministry. It is through the Eucharistic cult or in the Eucharistic assembly of the faithful that the pastor exercises in a supreme degree his sacred function.[5] The Eucharist is the principal and central raison d’etre of the sacrament of the priesthood. The priest carries out his principal mission and expresses himself in all his fullness in celebrating the Eucharist.[6] It is only through the Eucharist that the pastor can be truly so to the people of God and also a relevant spiritual leader of his community.[7]

The priest is in a certain way “from the Eucharist” and “for the Eucharist.” He is also responsible for the Eucharist in a special way. The ministry of the pastor is not, of course, limited to celebrating the Eucharist: “it is a service which includes the proclamation of the word, the sanctification of the faithful through the sacraments and the leadership of God’s people in communion and service.”[8] The Eucharist is the point from which everything else comes forth and to which it returns. The priesthood was born in the upper Room together with the Eucharist. [9]   

The Place of Pastoral Charity in the Ministerial Priesthood

Pastoral charity removes from the ministerial priesthood the note of power in the sense of authoritarianism.[10]. The priest’s authority must be understood in evangelical terms as service, as full dedication, as commitment, which are all the result of love for Christ extended to the flock.  The exercise of this authority must therefore be measured against the model of Christ, who by love made himself the least and the servant of all.[11] Within the context of the struggle for authority and leadership, Christ made it clear to his apostles that “the greatest among you must be your servant” (Mk. 10:42). Christ himself realized this ideal in his person when he washed the feet of the apostles demonstrating leadership by service (John 10:1-14). This ideal of leadership continued in the early years of the Church until the Church came in contact with the state and established a relationship. As a result this relationship, bishops and priests became royal figures and received royal privileges. Hence, in the Tridentine Church, the priests are seen at the center of attention and the whole Church was at the service of the clergy.

However, Vatican II  revised this status quo with its emphasis on servant leadership which can be aptly expressed in Christ’s mission mandate “not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many” (Mt 20:28). Thus, in many of the conciliar documents of  Vatican II, this emphasis on service, which also is  correlated with the idea of communion, is seen all over as stressing the importance of the servant leadership in pastoral ministry today (Cf. PO 6 and 9).

The pastor must make sure that all of these pastoral roles flow from love and are motivated by love. This is after the example of St. Peter who received the mandate to feed the flock of Christ after his confession of his love. Hence, the pastor must be self-effacing and not demand anything in return for his ministry. In fact, pastors should not be afraid to lay down their lives for their sheep and, being a model to their flock (Cf. I Pet 5,3), they must foster a growing holiness in the Church by their love. 

Wherever this love flourishes, class distinction disappears and the pastor will no longer be afraid that his weaknesses may be discovered. Such a fear can make the pastor feel lonely even while in a community of the people of God. It is only love that conquers such loneliness.

The Pastoral Implications of the Pastor’s “Being                            with” the People of God

The pastor, while carrying out his ministry must be involved in the affairs of his people. As someone taken  from  among them who has also tread the paths they are treading, he is in a better  position to understand their plight; in other words, he must be sensitive to what they are going through ( Heb 5:1-3). He should try to provide solutions to the problems of the people of God, after the manner of Christ,whether the problem is spiritual, physical, or psychological.
The Code of Canon Law presents a powerful description of the activities of a parish priest thus:
So that he may fulfill his office of pastor diligently, the parish priest is to strive to know the faithful entrusted to him. He is therefore to visit their families, sharing in their cares and anxieties and, in a special way, their sorrows, comforting them in the Lord. If in certain matters, they are found wanting, he is prudently to correct them. He is to help the sick and especially the dying in great charity, solicitously restoring them with the sacraments and commending their souls to God. He is to be especially diligent in seeking out the poor, the suffering, the lonely, those who are exiled from their homeland, and those burdened with special difficulties.[12]

He must act not so much as the stern judge but rather as the merciful Samaritan. Pouring oil and wine into bleeding wounds, practicing charity, kindness, and pity, consoling and blessing the people of God all fall under his sacrificial duties. The pastor, of course, carries these innumerable duties with significant challenges, yet there are also consolations when a pure and holy life, a life dedicated to God in virtue, blossoms under his guiding hand. Such an experience more than compensates the priest for the bitter trials that are prepared for him in other quarters.

The Council Fathers made it clear that the faithful themselves have obligations towards their pastors by stating that, “They should treat them with filial love as being their fathers and pastors. They should also share their priests’ anxieties and help them as far as possible by prayer and active work.”[13] The Council advises priests to recognize, promote, and foster the cooperation of the laity in the apostolate and in the same pastoral ministry within the Christian community, not hesitating to “give lay people charge of duties in the service of the Church” and to “give them freedom and opportunity for activity and even inviting them when opportunity occurs, to take initiative in undertaking projects on their own.”[14] This is consistent with respect for the dignity and freedom of the children of God, but also with Gospel service.

One of the dangers noticeable today is the so-called democratism which practically negates the true doctrine of the distinction between the common and ministerial priesthood. The so-called democratism is a great temptation because it leads to a denial of the authority and capital grace of Christ and distorts the nature of the Church. Such a view damages the very hierarchical structure willed by its Divine Founder. Therefore, the mentality which confuses the duties of the priests with those of the lay faithful cannot be permitted in the Church. No one may licitly change what Christ has wanted for his Church. It is indissolubly linked with its Founder and Head who alone may provide her, through the power of the Holy Spirit, with ministers in the service of the faithful. There must be a cross-fertilization of ideas between the pastor and the people of God. The pastor must see to it that the “ministerial priesthood is at the service of the common priesthood.”[15] The tendency to individualism must be eschewed. The pastor should try to foster the positive qualities of Christian family life both in the parish house and in the parish community.[16]

The pastor should always be ready to engage in collaborative ministry with the lay faithful. He should cultivate attributes that make for good human relations, such as: respect for others’ welfare, generosity, openness, truthfulness, ability to listen, ability to engage in dialogue, ability to take advice and correction, ability to delegate functions and responsibilities, basic trust, humility and above all, charity towards everyone.[17] The people of God would want to know the whereabouts of their pastor especially in his official engagements. Therefore, it is demanded that he communicates constantly with the people of God. The community of Christ’s faithful cannot be truly so if communication is lacking.

It is not enough for the pastor to live in a community; he must minister in that community. To be able to minister, the pastor must drop his defenses. Sometimes these defenses are natural and they help us to manage crises but also they can be used negatively to distort reality and shy away from truth. The more the pastor keeps his defenses, the more he separates himself from his inner being, others, and God. Hence, he distances himself from Jesus Christ who is the source and model of the ministerial priesthood. J. O’Donnell and S. Rendina, in their book about the priesthood and spirituality, put it so clearly that

the ministerial priesthood has no sense if it is not lived out as a personal expression of the love which the priest bears for Christ. The spirituality of the priest consists in the fact that his love for Christ leads him to a love for Christ’s people.… For the ordained priest, the love of Christ becomes sacramental and incarnate in the love of Christ’s people. The two become for him a seamless garment in which prayer and ministry are woven into a unified pattern, for it is the same face of Christ which is revealed in both.[18]

The pastor should not look at the people of God in his community as do psychologists view their clients who have problems to be solved. He should rather be with the people of God as a vulnerable brother who loves and is loved, cares and is cared for. When this basic attitude is lacking, shepherding can turn into a mere exercise of power with an authoritarian tone. This contradicts the ideal of a vulnerable brother and leader who is needed by the people of God and also needs the people of God.  Thus, there is an essential unity between the shepherd and the flock. It is only when the pastor surrenders himself to God that he can be free to serve others without using them for his own self-interest. The pastor, in fact, is a master and leader, but he is also a disciple; he is one who renders holy, but he himself should be rendered holy. He is a shepherd, but, like all the other faithful, he is part of the flock.[19] Letting God be God is the only basis for a well-ordered love of ourselves and our neighbor in fulfillment of the Great Commandment.[20]

The pastor should not pathologize or label any of the people of God as being dysfunctional, “mental” or sick. He should see the woundedness of the people of God as genuine efforts at living and coping with their life situation of hurt and disappointments. When the pastor develops his own affectivity, then he can be more empathetic. This affectivity cannot be developed if the pastor lives only in the head and not also in the heart. The pastor should not block away his emotions because Christ did not do so. The pastor must realize and accept his need for intimacy and love in leadership. Such intimacy and love while ministering are not merely ministerial intimacies but also the intimacy of close relations: the ability to relate one’s deepest feelings to the other and then to be ready to make the accompanying sacrifices involved.

It is almost a sine qua non for pastors to cultivate warm, healthy friendship and good adult relationships with fellow priests, laymen, and women. These relationships should not be exclusive or secretive. He should respect boundaries in these personal and or professional relationships. He should be at home, at peace, and comfortable with his celibacy, even as he experiences the sacrifice and the difficulties that such entails. He must meet and minister in an appropriate place or setting, and at appropriate times. While the human experience of intimacy is important, and can serve as a pathway to God, this does not involve touching or gestures that properly belong to courtship, engagement, and marriage.[21]  Pastors are frequently required by daily pastoral and spiritual life to renounce their own convenience and constantly to seek not their own advantage but what benefits the salvation of the members of the community.[22]

An efficient and effective pastor must develop skills for attentive listening to the people of God in their problems. He should not only listen with the ears but be wholly attentive to the feelings. He must develop skills of acceptance, non-judgment, patience, and faithfulness which involves confidentiality in information shared with him by any member of Christ’s faithful. In fact, the entire life of the pastor should speak louder than whatever skill or techniques he uses in teaching; for one who is so regarded that the people are called his flock, must carefully consider how necessary it is for him to maintain a life of rectitude.[23] Gregory the Great emphatically states that,

The ruler should be exemplary in his conduct, that by his manner of life he may show the way of life to his subjects, and that the flock, following the teaching and conduct of its shepherd, may proceed the better through example rather than words. For one who by the exigency of his position must propose the highest ideals, is bound by that same exigency to give a demonstration of those ideals. His voice penetrates the hearts of his hearers the more readily, if his way of life commends what he says. What he enjoins in words, he will help to execution by example.

The Christocentric Dimension of the Being of the Pastor

The biblical anecdote of Jn. 15:1-17 make it clear that Jesus is the true vine and that the only sufficient condition for bearing good fruit is to remain ever attached to Jesus as the branches are to the vine. Christ remains always the principle and source of the unity of the life of the pastors and their ministries.[24] Therefore, pastors will achieve the unity of their life by joining themselves with Christ in the recognition of the Father’s will and in the gift of themselves to the flock entrusted to them (cf. I John 3:16).[25] Blessed John Paul II of blessed memory made it clear that it is “only in loving and serving Christ the Head and Spouse will charity become a source, criterion, measure and impetus for the priest’s love and service to the Church, the Body and Spouse of Christ.”[26] The identity of the priest is rooted in his particular relationship with Christ. His election and consecration, by the power of ordination, configures him to Christ.[27] He is a sacramental representation of Christ a living instrument of Christ the eternal priest.[28],[29] In his ministry, the priest does not act in his own name; he acts in persona Christi representing Christ who acts through him with the power of the Holy Spirit.[30] But if he acts in person Christi, he also acts in persona ecclesia because they represent the People of God, the Church, to which they are united in Spirit.[31]

Therefore, for the pastor to develop meaningful affectivity in his ministry without faltering, he must cultivate a deep sense of inter-personal relationship with Christ, the Master, without which a high sense of meaninglessness would pervade the pastoral ministry. Without this deep-rootedness in Christ, the pastor can fall into the extremes of sympathy (being totally emotionally captured by the problems of the people to the point of irrationality) or apathy (being totally severed from the people to the point of tyranny).

To guard against these risks, the pastor needs to first develop affectivity in his relationship with the Master.

 Affectivity in Ministry

Today we speak of affective balance and maturity as the core element of all human maturity. When we are seeking to test a candidate for the priesthood or religious life, we go to this core element of maturity that we call affective balance and maturity. With mere intellectualism, it is impossible to have affective balance. We recall the beautiful expression of Blaise Pascal which is profoundly insightful: “Man is neither an angel nor a beast. If he plays the angel, he will end up eventually playing the beast.” If one finds it difficult to accept his human affectivity, which is the core of his human person, obviously, he will have trouble in life. The heart cannot be starved of affectivity without seeking for revenge.

The taste for God in prayer is necessary for the balance in a Christian life. More so for the balance of a consecrated Christian life, it is necessary because by God’s own gift of celibacy, we dedicate to God the deepest natural development of this side of our being. But not because we have dedicated this are we to be starved of affectivity. As consecrated persons, our hearts must be fed on God and in God in all that we do for the sake of God.

There is a great fundamental danger and risk in the life of consecrated persons, priests, and religious who have not trusted the way to their affectivity to and to their brothers and sisters in God.  Example are so numerous of people who have great human capacity and tremendous intellectual qualities but who are so caught up in the world of their human capacities and intellectual qualities that they are never fully integrated personalities. They can be intellectual giants but spiritual infants because they have not fed their affectivity. In fact, the more one has human and intellectual capacities, the more need there is to feed the affective dimension.

However, we need to understand equally strongly the crucial need for the education and purification of affectivity. We do not speak of letting affectivity run loose. It is also in this process of the education of affectivity that we see the objective harm that the classical background training and pedagogy has done. Generally, we are in the habit of running away from affectivity as a coping strategy. This is because we are afraid, anxious, and guilty about the expression of affectivity. It is really unbelievable how we tend to handle the whole world of the heart with tragic results. The first stage in the process of the education of affectivity is to become conscious of the experience of affectivity, then, through it to be free for God and, in God, for other brothers and sisters.[32] It is not anything to be guilty of or that we must consistently seek out ways of suppressing.

Conclusion  

Since pastors, while exercising their pastoral ministry, should give much to others, they should as well replenish themselves with wisdom and grace. They should be on their guard so that no one who approaches them should be disappointed but may find in them light for their intelligence, warmth for their own heart, support for their own journey.

This strength needed for effective pastoral ministry cannot be acquired without priests putting on the heart of Jesus, a heart that loves and loves to the end. Therefore, constant communion with Jesus in prayer is the only channel through which this “putting on of heart” can be realized. Of course, his ministry is not without difficulties but his consolation should be that he has done the work assigned to him without losing any of the flock entrusted to his care.

We conclude with a strengthening admonishment which St Paul used while addressing the “elders” of the Church in Miletus. “Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock the Holy Spirit has given you to guard. Shepherd the Church of God which he has acquired at the price of his blood” (Acts 20:32).

For Personal Reflection and Group Sharing

1. Discuss in detail the pastoral implications of collaborative ministry.

2. Pastoral charity expresses in an eloquent manner that the Shepherd image means for the ministerial priesthood.  Discuss.

3. Discuss the necessity and inevitability of affectivity in pastoral ministry for Catholic life in the twenty-first century

4. The Pastor is supposed to be "for" his people and "with" his people. Can there be any tension in those roles? If there is, how can it be resolved?

RESPONSES TO FATHER DOMINIC’S CHAPTER ON PRIESTLY MINISTRY IN COMMUNITY:

Written by Sean Hurt, Dr. Chervin’s grandson-in-law, who wrote this while a catechumen entering an  RCIA program.  (Fr. Dominic’s words are italicized with Sean’s comments in regular print.)

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.”

I want to add another verse from scripture onto this, just to highlight how deep this communion is between God and mankind. I’m referring to some of the last words Jesus spoke before giving up his spirit on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” I can’t tell you how perplexing this verse was to me. At first it seems like Jesus was acknowledging his helplessness on the Cross. The Catechism explains that, in this final outcry, Jesus assumes our position as sinners. So, Jesus, while not sinning himself, stands in solidarity with us, even as sinners.

The pastor, who represents Christ in his ministry of sanctification, governance, and teaching should also manifest to an excellent degree this complementary polarity of being.

… This is important for peace. As I said, I came from a family hostile to religion. Growing up, I got through most of my life without ever knowing a religious person. I just kept in this clique of atheists. I can’t tell you the extent to which Ronda, and a Christian friend, influenced my direction in turning to Christ. Because before I met them, I just thought, “Oh, all Christians are stupid or crazy.”  It’s so easy for an atheist to hate Christians and hate God if they don’t have a Christian friend whom they respect.

Wherever this love flourishes, class distinction disappears and the pastor will no longer be afraid that his weaknesses may be discovered. Such a fear can make the pastor feel lonely even while in a community of the people of God. It is only love that conquers such loneliness.

The author brings up a bunch of interesting topics here—love, solidarity, fear, loneliness, and weakness. I’d like to elaborate more on these from my own experience. I know the fear that causes loneliness. It’s a fear that people will discover my weaknesses and they will lose all respect for me; that fear leads to self-alienation. This is the loneliness Father Dominic is talking about. Other people call this building-walls or pushing-others-away. You can still make relationships but they’re built on respect for authority; the author calls for a relationship built on love.

When we love each other, we see each other fully. “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” Our fear is what impedes us from loving. However, we can abandon our fear (through Christ) and trust that we are loveable and in turn, we can love others in spite of their weakness. There is another level where we love their weakness, and our own weakness, too. Indeed, weakness is part of God’s plan who distributes the talents unevenly so that people will need each other. So, this love is a basis for human solidarity.

One of the dangers noticeable today is the so-called democratism which practically negates the true doctrine of the distinction between the common and ministerial priesthood.

 I agree with the author’s point here, but I don’t entirely agree with the way he deals with the subject. Whenever we talk about “dangers” to the Church, I wish we could begin with an empathetic attempt to understand the underlying motivation of those who promulgate them. I understand the impulse to democratize the church; I don’t agree with it, but I understand. I think a lot people here in America, in this generation, have a strong distrust of authority. Think of the word” authority.” It can make your hair stand-up. In my mind I associate it with police states, crooked bosses, Stalin, Hitler, etc. There are all sorts of reasons for this distrust of authority: the on-going ideological war between democracy and totalitarianism, changes in parenting styles, unloving parents, etc.

So, I’m just saying that it’s important to recognize dangers to the faith, like democratism, but let’s respond to it empathetically, seeing the great wounds, fear, and despair in the people that advocate for it.

The pastor should not look at the people of God in his community as psychologists view their clients who have problems to be solved. He should rather be with the people of God as a vulnerable brother who loves and is loved, cares and is cared for. When this basic attitude is lacking, shepherding can turn into mere exercise of power with authoritarian tone

I think what the author is talking about here is very important. Here the author portrays the authority, the pastor, in such a radically different light—as the “vulnerable brother.” Authority brings to mind many different (usually awful) things; one thing it doesn’t connote is vulnerability. In this age, the hardest part of the Creed to state is, “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.” We hate authority, because we don’t trust it.  We don’t think of authority as loving guidance, but as cruel exploitation. I love what this author is saying. The pastor reveals himself to us, not only as the Vicar of Christ but as a fully flawed human, who needs us as much as we need him.

Now, what the author is saying is nothing new; it’s already expressed so perfectly in symbols and language we use to talk about priesthood. The pastor is the shepherd, our “father.” The filial and pastoral symbolism is perfect, but maybe the symbol is so trite to us now that doesn’t make an impact.

The pastor must realize and accept his need for intimacy and love in leadership.

Again, this language is so shocking. How often do we encounter the words “love and intimacy” associated with the word “leadership”? This is because our normal, American interactions with leadership occur in our places of employment. The workplace culture fosters “professional relationships” and “emotional detachment.” The motivation of that leadership is ruthless material self-interest. So, that’s our normal, everyday experience with leadership and hierarchy. American workplace culture contributes to our distrust of authority as self-interested and exploitative. So, you can see that the pastoral paradigm of leadership is just totally foreign to us.

Response from student-seminarian David Tate:

1.      Collaborative Ministry in its simplest form is something very easy. When taking into consideration the aspects of the human male ego, it suddenly gets very complicated. I see in the structure of collaborative ministry the combining of two leverage points that can bring easy success to ministry if combined in the right manner. There needs to be a well- trained priest. He must be able to have access to a great number of solutions for various critical situations. The delicacy here is found in how he brings those solutions into the life problems of the congregation. 

The second leverage point is the work of the Holy Spirit – divine grace. The life of a parish is very different from the military, the government, or a corporate atmosphere. Collaborative is basically meaning to co-labor; to labor together. The secular world is used to people giving orders. It is interesting in the religious world, where you imagine respectful deference being given in abundance, with people that follow obediently a set of rules, like perfectly behaved sheep, order giving is the last welcome component of a local parish. For the local priest, tact is by far the most important tool in his clerical bag.

To summarize, the goal of a priest in his “co-laboring” means that he is truthful, instructive, and cajoling all at the same time, using a priestly tone that is always tenderly inclusive and encouraging. For the priest, he has a tough job ahead of himself because he is, “He is the middle ground between humanity and divinity.”

In a parish family, the average person acts more analogously to a teenager, than to a child. One wrong slip of the priest brings anger and rebellion, severely jeopardizing future open cooperation. For this reason, from the first day at a new parish, the priest needs to work everyday building a strong bond of trust between himself and the congregation. The greater the bond of trust is in the future, then the greater the cushion of forgiveness will be when a priest does directly or indirectly act offensively. On a positive note, it is true that the mark of a very successful collaborative ministry is, in fact, the level of trust that a priest has gained with his parish. The dangerous part in earning trust comes when the “teenager” meets the challenges of adult spiritual life. Just like it is easy to spoil the children that we love, so also if a priest does not prepare parishioners to embrace humility, hard work, and true love of God and others, then the presumed trust bears bitter fruit for it can become only self-serving. At such times ll the work of the priest will burn up as so much hay and stubble, without any eternal remnant. 

2.      In our previous discussion above, the various levels of maturity were mentioned. So also with the expression of pastoral charity, it is mandatory that priests are aware of the different abilities that exist in parishioners to love. Some Church Fathers spoke of our ways of responding to love that has been extended to us. The greatest difficulty in expressing charity (that is, God’s charity) is that we are not God. AsPersona Christi we can only depend on the grace given to us, as we are not naturally disposed to divine charity.  By His daily grace though, the priest can grow in “being the good shepherd who acts in persona Christi.” The hope of every priest is that pastoral charity permeates our person as a priest, teacher, and brother to our parishioners. The authority that is characteristic to the priest should also be well lubricated with divine charity. Through all these scenarios, divine charity would never cause oppression or insecurity in a person…

3.      As was stated, the effective leader is like the perfect shepherd who can express his presence among the sheep by going ahead of the sheep, and being a leader to follow; by walking with the sheep to keep them comforted; and by going at the rear, and keeping an eye out for ones that could wander off and become separated. This understanding has never been out of fashion. Why is this statement true? It is true because God has never changed, and the presence of sin has never changed. The cure for mankind’s sin is Christ. The job of the priest is to express Christ. The affective love of Christ is a constant. The affect of the Persona Christi is a constant. 

The last thing the priest wants to do is get involved in some gimmick that is touted to decrease spiritual fat without any change in diet or exercise! Instead, the priest realizes that hard work, prayer, and obedience will “develops his own affectivity, then he can be more empathetic [more charitable].” The Sacraments and pastoral charity are his first tools. It was, is, and always will be the function of the priest to be Persona Christi for his sheep.

Response of student Kathleen Brouillette, parish DRE:

The most outstanding part of this chapter, for me, is Father Dominic’s statement, “The priesthood was born in the upper Room together with the Eucharist.”  As many times as I have taught my students that the Last Supper was the First Communion, and also the institution of the priesthood, the exact way Father phrased his statement had me in tears as I read it.  God is so unbelievably good.  The significance of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, as well as in the priest who acts in Persona Christi, is strikingly brought home to me in Father’s statement.  How intertwined these two truths, these two sacraments!

If we understand and appreciate the truth and significance of the Eucharist and the Mystical Body of Christ, we must have profound reverence for the priests, who act in Persona Christi, and without whom there can be no sacraments.  We must give to them the love and support we look to receive from them. But how do we get to that point?

As vital as it is that we are taught and understand our faith, we also need to understand the fall of the father figure after World Wars I and II and the Great Depression.  In Dr. Arden’s course on the Psychology of the 1950s (Dr. Angelyn Arden teaches psychology and other courses in the humanities at Holy Apostles) we explored this topic, which was particularly eye-opening.  Men came home wounded emotionally as well as physically, and women came more and more to the fore as strong figures in the family as well as society. Fathers either lost their proper place as head of the home, or over-compensated by denying their vulnerability and being particularly patriarchal in the negative and non-holy sense of the word.  Children and teens rebelled against their parents’ conventionalism.  That rebellion of youth against authority spilled over into faith and the Church. 

Pope Pius XII addressed the significance of the father figure in the midst of a decline into materialism in his 29 October 1951 address, Moral Questions Affecting Married Life, comparing it to the significance of God the Father Himself:  “At the birth of the child, hasten…to place it in the arms of the father…it is an act of homage to and recognition of the Creator, an invoking of the Divine blessing, the duty of carrying out the office given by God with devotion and affection…what praise, what reward will He reserve for the father who has cherished and reared for Him the human life entrusted to him, a life worth more than all the gold and silver in the world!”

Indeed this quote can be applied as well to our spiritual fathers in the priesthood.  If we can only understand and appreciate the unique role of the priest as the bridge between Christ and us! We are placed in their care from our new birth in Christ. They are placed in authority over us for our good.  If they carry out their office, God will give them great reward, worth more than anything in this world.  We need to help form one another, in a sense. The priesthood can be a very lonely life.  As fathers in the 50s needed family support and healing, we must help heal each other’s wounds in the Body of Christ, share our struggles and lift each other up, share our humanity and strive to live in the dignity of having been made in the image and likeness of God.  We must, as St. Paul says in Eph 5:21, “serve one another out of reverence for Christ.”  That’s a choice we can all make.

   [1] The prophet of old already enumerated the duties of one whom the Holy Spirit has chosen and sent for the salvation of the people: he is to announce the joyful news of the Truth, he is to console those whose hearts are broken with sorrow, he is to bind the wounds of the afflicted, to preach the mercy of the Lord (Is 61: 1-3). Pastors in fact, should be a rock of truth and at the same time should have a heart full of tenderness, so that every brother can hold on to him for support as he travels the path of life.

[2] “L’immagine del pastore riesce  ad esprimere bene in sintesi I vari aspetti del  ministero, profetico, regale, sercerdotale, senz trascurarne nessuno,  P. Laghi , “Le principali chiavi di lettura” in  Vi daro pastori second il mio cuore: Esortazione Apostolica “Pastores dabo vobis” di S.S. Giovanni Paolo II circa la formazione dei sacerdoti nelle circostanze attuali, (25 Marzo 1992). Testo e commenti, Prefazione di S.E. il Card. Angelo Sodano, Quaderni del L’Osservatore Romano 20, Citta del Vaticano 1992, 193-201. (This article was amplified in: “Pastores dabo Vobis” Presentazione”, Seminarium  32(1992) 505-517.)

[3] Cf. J. GALOT, Teologia del Sacerdozio,  Nuovo Collana di Teologia Cattholica 14, Firenze 1981,  142.

[4] Cf. J. GALOT, Teologia del Sacerdozio, 142. Christ remains always the Great Shepherd of the flock; he associates to himself some chosen ones who remain completely dependent on him. The minister remains always a member of the flock, underlining the fact that he is to continue to follow Jesus, the Good Shepherd. A very close relationship is created between the shepherd and the sheep, so that one does not exist without the other.  

[5] LG 28.

[6] JOHN PAUL II, “Address to Priest Jubilarians” in Rome, 22 April 1982,  L’Osservatore Romano, ed. English, 10 May 1982, p.16.

[7] Cf. L’Osservatore Romano, ed. English, 17 May 1982, p. 2.

[8] St Augustine, struck by the duties of the pastor who guides the people on the way of salvation, said once to his faithful: “It may be that many normal Christians follow a more easy way leading to God, making a more rapid progress as the weight of responsibility on their shoulders is light. But we must render account to God first of all of our lives as Christians and then in particular of the service we have performed as pastors” (Cf.  Serm. 46: 1-2).

[9] Cf.  L’Osservatore Romano,  ed. English, 5 April 2000, p. 4.

[10] Pastoral charity removes the danger of activism and functionalism (Cf. CONGREGAZIONE PER IL CLERO, Direttorio, n. 44. This same pastoral charity is the dynamic inner principle capable of unifying the many different activities of the priest. In virtue of this pastoral charity the essential and permanent demand for unity between the priest’s interior life and all his exterior actions and the obligations of the ministry can be properly fulfilled, a demand particularly urgent in a socio-cultural and ecclesial context strongly marked by complexity, fragmentation, and dispersion. Only by directing every moment and every one of his acts towards the fundamental choice to give his life for the flock can the priest guarantee this unity which is vital and indispensable for his harmony and spiritual balance. ( Pd V 23)

[11] CCC. No. 1551. The sanctification of the people of God, entrusted to the pastor, which is essentially pastoral must be lived with humility and coherence. It can also be subject to two opposite temptations: The first is that of exercising his ministry in an overbearing manner (Lk 22: 24-27, 1 Pt 5: 1-4) while the second is that of disdaining the configuration to Christ Head and Shepherd because of an incorrect view of community. The first temptation was also strong for the disciples themselves and was promptly and repeatedly corrected by Jesus; all authority is exercised in the spirit of service, as Amoris Officium ( Cf. St Augustine, In Johannis Evangelium Tractatus, 123, 5, CCL 36,678 and as  unselfish dedication for the good of the flock (Jn 13: 14; 10: 11).

[12] CIC, c. 529 & 1

[13] PO 9

[14] PO 9

[15] CCC.  no. 1547.

[16] Catholic Bishop’s Conference of Nigeria, I Chose You, The Nigerian Priests in the Third Millennium,  Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, 2004, p. 20.

[17] On the negative side, priests should strive not to be arrogant, rude, selfish, opinionated, ill-mannered, ill-tempered, abusive, lazy, disrespectful, or partial in their judgments and decisions. Catholic Bishop’s Conference of Nigeria, I Chose You, The Nigerian Priests in the Third Millennium,  Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, 2004, p. 22.

[18] “Il sacerdozio ministeriale non ha senso se non e vissuto come espressione personale dell’amore del sacerdote per Cristo. La spiritualita del prete consiste nel fatto che is suo amore per Cristo lo conduce ad un amore per  il popolo di Cristo…. Per il sacerdote l’amore di Cristo diventa incarnate e sacramentale nell’amore per il popolo di Cristo. Questi due amori formano un’unita inscindibile in cui la preghiera e il ministero sono integrati in modo taleche lo stesso volto di Cristo viene rispecchiato in ambedue” ( J. O’Donnell, S. Rendina, Sacerdozio,  e Spiritualita Ignaziana, Roma 1993,  49-50.

[19] Trape A., Il Sacerdote: uomo di Dio al servizio della Chiesa, Considerazioni patristiche,  Collana Studi Agostiniani I, Roma 1988, p. 192-193.

[20] J. Navone, The Dynamic of The Question in Narrative Theology, Editrice Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, Roma 1986, p. 57.

[21]  Catholic Bishop’s Conference of Nigeria, I Chose You, The Nigerian Priests in the Third Millennium,  Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, 2004, p.  25.

[22] Cf. PO 13

[23] St. Gregory the Great,  Regular Pastoralis II, I.

[24] PO 14

[25] Frisque, J., -Congar Y.  (ed.), Les Prệtres, Dềcrets “Presbyterorum Ordinis” et “Optatam Totius”: Textes Latins et Traductions Francaises, Paris 1968, p. 169.

[26] John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Pastores dabo vobis  (25 March 1992)  (AAS 84 (1992) 23.

[27] PO 2, PDV 21.

[28] PDV 15

[29] PO 12

[30] “The priesthood of  presbyters, while presupposing the sacraments of initiation, is nevertheless conferred by its own particular sacrament. Through that sacrament presbyters, by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are signed with a special character and so are configured to Christ the Priest in such a way that they are special character and so are configured to Christ the Priest in such a way that they are able to act in the person of  Christ the Head” (PO 2; CCC,  1563.  The Second Vatican Council speaks of presbyters as ministers who do not have “the supreme degree of the priesthood” and who in exercising their power depend on bishops. On the other hand, they are associated with them “by reason of their priestly dignity” (LG 28; CCC 1564) Presbyters too bear “the image of Christ, the supreme and eternal Priest” (LG 28) Therefore, they participate in Christ’s pastoral authority: this is the characteristic note of their ministry, based on the Sacrament of Holy Orders conferred on them. In the New Testament books, it is not always easy to distinguish between “presbyters” and “bishops” regarding the duties assigned to them. In this chapter, too, I will follow the same principle of the New Testament of referring to the duties of the bishops and priests as pastoral ministries—duties of  a pastor.

[31] Okeke, Cornelius Uche, On Being a Fulfilled Catholic Priest, Understanding the Experience of Meaning and meaninglessness in the Priesthood, Rex Charles and Patrick limited, Nimo, 2008, p. 31-32.

[32] John of the Cross in his Ascent to Mount Carmel, all the stages that he puts there, including the stages of the dark night, of the senses, and of the Spirit, are expressions of an going education and purification of affectivity. The same with Teresa of Avila in her Interior Castle, the soul’s progression through the mansion is nothing but stages of on-going education and purification of affectivity. The exercises of St. Ignatius are all about the education and purification of affectivity at a very deep level.