Archbsihop Ranjith on Sacramentum Caritatis

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UCAN: Changes in liturgy since Vatican II ‘mixed bag of results,’ Vatican worship official says in interview

UCAN: Changes in liturgy since Vatican II ‘mixed bag of results,’ Vatican worship official says in interview

By Gerard O'Connell
4/25/2007

UCANews

VATICAN CITY (UCAN) – Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don, secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, has spoken with UCA News about the recent apostolic exhortation on the Eucharist and its significance for the church in Asia.

The Vatican released the document, Sacramentum Caritatis (Sacrament of Charity), on March 13. That text, whose English version has more than 25,000 words and more than 250 footnotes, confirms the validity of the liturgical renewal prompted by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and endorses recommendations made by the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist in October 2005.

Archbishop Ranjith became one of the first appointments of Pope Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia when the pontiff assigned the Sri Lankan prelate to his present post on Dec. 10, 2005. In this position, he is particularly well placed to comment on the exhortation and its relevance for the church in Asia.

Archbishop Ranjith, 59, studied in Colombo and Kandy in Sri Lanka before going to the Pontifical Urban University in Rome where he gained a degree in theology. After Pope Paul VI ordained him a priest in St. Peter's Basilica on June 29, 1975, he pursued higher studies and gained a licentiate in sacred scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and a special certificate in biblical studies from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

He performed various pastoral and academic duties in Colombo until Pope John Paul II in 1991 appointed him auxiliary bishop of that archdiocese. In 1995, Pope John Paul named him bishop of Ratnapura. From 1995 to 2001, he served as secretary general of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Sri Lanka and chairman of the National Commission for Justice, Peace and Human Development.

In the latter role, he became deeply involved in searching for a solution to Sri Lanka's civil conflict. The government appointed him an emissary on peace negotiations with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka.

Pope John Paul II brought him to Rome on Oct. 1, 2001, as adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and appointed him on April 29, 2004, as apostolic nuncio to Indonesia and East Timor.

The following is the interview UCA News conducted with Archbishop Ranjith in early April. When he later reviewed the text, the archbishop supplied detailed notations for documents that he had cited in the interview:

UCA NEWS: How has the liturgical renewal initiated by Vatican Council II been carried out in Asia? What are its positive achievements and negative results?

ARCHBISHOP RANJITH: Generally, there have been many changes in the way liturgy was celebrated in Asia since the council. Some of us who were brought up in childhood under the liturgical orientations of pre-conciliar times know what these new changes were and how they affected our life as Catholics.

As your question indicates, there has been a mixed bag of results. Among the positive changes, I see the use of vernacular languages in the liturgy, which helped to lead the faithful to better understand the word of God, the rubrics of the liturgy itself, and a more responsive and shared participation in the celebration of the sacred mysteries.

Adaptations to local cultural practices have also been tried, though not always with good results. The use of the vernacular has at times helped in generating a theological vocabulary in the local idiom that eventually could be helpful to evangelization and the presentation of the message of the gospel to those of non-Christian religious traditions, which constitute the overwhelming majority of the people of Asia.

Some negative aspects have been the quasi total abandonment of the Latin language, tradition and chant; a far too facile interpretation of what could be absorbed from local cultures into the liturgy; a sense of misunderstanding of the true nature, content and meaning of the Roman rite and its norms and rubrics, which led to an attitude of free experimentation; a certain anti-Roman "feeling," and an uncritical acceptance of all kinds of "novelties" resulting from a secularizing and humanistic theological and liturgical mindset overtaking the West.

These novelties were often introduced, perhaps unknowingly, by some foreign missionaries who brought them from their own mother countries or by locals who had been to those countries on visits or for studies and had let themselves be uncritically absorbed into a kind of "free spirit" that some circles had created around the council.

The abandonment of the spheres of the sacred, the mystical and the spiritual, and their replacement by a kind of empiricist horizontalism was most harmful to the spirit of what truly constituted liturgy.

UCA NEWS: How is the new exhortation on the Eucharist relevant for the church in Asia?

ARCHBISHOP RANJITH: Seen as a whole, the document is for me something that re-echoes in the true sense of the word the reform of the Liturgy as it was understood and desired by the cCouncil. I mean not a rejection of positive developments of liturgical reform in force today but the expression of the need to be truly faithful to what was meant by Sacrosantum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Second Vatican Council, promulgated by Pope Paul VI on Dec. 4, 1963).

One could, in a certain sense, state that documents such as Ecclesia de Eucharistia ("The Church [draws her life] from the Eucharist," encyclical "On the Eucharist in its Relationship to the Church," Pope John Paul II, April 17, 2003), Liturgiam Authenticam ("Authentic Liturgy", instruction "On the Use of Vernacular Languages in the Publication of the Books of the Roman Liturgy," Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, May 7, 2001), and Redemptionis Sacramentum ("Sacrament of Redemption," instruction "On certain matters to be observed or to be avoided regarding the Most Holy Eucharist," Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, April 23, 2004) already started the needed adjustments reflective of the indications of the Council.

Sacramentum Caritatis crowns it all with a truly profound, mystical and yet so very easily understandable catechesis on the Eucharist that brings out best the fuller meaning of this most holy sacrament. Pope Benedict wants us to understand, celebrate and live the fullness of the Eucharist.

I feel that in the context of Asia such a call should naturally be appreciated, valued and lived. The basic orientations of Sacramentum Caritatis do reflect Asian values like the love of silence and contemplation, acceptance of a deeper life beyond that which is tangible, respect of the sacred and the mystical, and the search for happiness in a life of sanctity and renouncement.

The stress laid on these aspects makes Sacramentum Caritatis a valuable and important contribution towards making the Catholics in our continent live the Eucharist in a truly Asian way.

UCA NEWS: Which aspects of the document are most important for Asia's bishops, priests and Catholic faithful?

ARCHBISHOP RANJITH: From a general point of view, the call to consider the holy Eucharist as an invitation to become Christ himself, drawn and absorbed unto him in a profound communion of love, thus making his own glorious splendor shine out in us, is truly in line with the search for spiritual mysticism in the Asian continent.

As I mentioned, Asia is deeply mystical and conscious of the value of the Sacred in human life, moving a human being to look for the deeper mysteries of religion and spirituality. The tendency to banalise the celebration of the Eucharist through a somewhat horizontal orientation, often visible in modern times. is not consonant with that search. Hence, the general orientation of the document is good for Asia.

Going into details, I would say that its seriousness, the tendency to always accent the deeply spiritual and transcendental nature of the Eucharist, its Christo-centric outlook, faithful adherence to rubrics and norms [nos.39-40], interest in sobriety [no. 40], proper and dignified sense of celebration, use of appropriate art and architecture, chant and music, and avoidance of improvisation and disorder are all reflective of the Asian way of worship and spirituality. People in Asia are a worshipping people, with worship forms that are centuries old and not inventions of any single individual.

Adherence to rubrics in the other religious traditions in Asia is strict. Besides, their rubrics are profoundly reflective of the special role of the sacred. Thus, the seriousness recommended by the Supreme Pontiff is very much in consonance with Asian ways of worship.

UCA NEWS: Following the Second Vatican Council, there has been much talk, including among Asian bishops, of the need for inculturation of the liturgy. How has this developed in the Asian Churches? What remains to be done, or is it an open process without a concluding date?

ARCHBISHOP RANJITH: As the pope himself states in Sacramentum Caritatis, the principle of inculturation "must be upheld in accordance with the real needs of the church as she lives and celebrates the one mystery of Christ in a variety of cultural situations" [Sacr. Carit. 54]. We know that it is a need emerging from both the call to evangelization or the incarnation of the gospel message in various cultures, and the requirement of a real and conscious participation of the faithful in what they celebrate.

Yet, already Sacrosanctum Concilium indicated clear parameters within which the adaptations of the liturgy to local cultural patterns are to be carried out. It spoke of admitting into the liturgy elements that "harmonize with its true and authentic spirit" [SC 37], ensuring the "substantial unity of the Roman rite is preserved" [SC 38], provided such is decided by the competent ecclesiastical authority, meaning the Holy See and, where legally allowed, the bishops [cf 22: 1-2]. It also called for prudence, in the choice of adaptations to be introduced into the Liturgy [SC 40: 1], the need to submit such to the apostolic see for its consent, if needed, a period of limited experimentation [SC 40: 2] before final approval and consultation of experts in the matter [SC 40: 3].

Sacramentum Caritatis follows the same line, that adaptations of liturgy to local cultural traditions be handled according to the stipulations of the various directives of the church and in keeping with a proper sense of balance "between the criteria and directives already issued and new adaptations" [no. 54], and these too "always in accord with the apostolic see" [ibid. 54]. In short, inculturation through adaptations, yes, but always within clear parameters that ensure nobility and orthodoxy.

As for what has been carried out up to now, one cannot be altogether satisfied. Some positive developments are visible, like the large scale use of vernacular languages in liturgy, making the sacraments better understood and to that extent better participated, and the use of art, music and Asian gestures at worship. But a lot of arbitrariness and inconsistency can also be noted, arbitrariness through the permitting of all kinds of experiments and officialization of such practices without proper study or critical evaluation.

I once was listening to a radio talk given by a Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka who ridiculed Christians for allowing local drum beating in their churches without knowing that those beats in fact were chants of praise for the Buddha. This could be just one instance of unstudied absorption of local traditions that are per se incompatible with what we celebrate.

By inconsistency I mean practices we introduce as adaptations but per se are incompatible with our culture, like just a bow instead of genuflection or prostration before the holy Eucharist, or communion in the hand received standing, which is far below levels of consideration given to the sacred in Asia. In some countries, instead of introducing liturgical vestments or utensils reflective of local values, their use has been reduced to a minimum, or even abandoned. I was at times shocked to see priests and even bishops celebrating or concelebrating without the proper liturgical attire. This is not inculturation but de-culturation, if such a word exists.

Inculturation means deciding on liturgical attire that is dignified and full of respect for the sacred realities celebrated, not abandoning them. I feel that the episcopal commissions on liturgy in Asia at continental, regional or national levels should, with the help of experts, study these issues carefully and seek ways and means to enhance the meaning, dignity and sacredness of the divine mysteries celebrated through solid adaptations that are critically selected and proposed to the Holy See for due approval.

A closer spirit of cooperation with the Holy See in this matter would be needed. There is too much drifting in the matter and even an attitude of "who cares?" that leaves everything to free interpretation and the creativity of single persons. Besides, I wonder if there is a sufficient awareness of what the council itself mentioned on the matter and the guidelines given in Varietates Legitimae ("Legitimate Differences," instruction, Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Jan. 25, 1994) and no. 22 of Ecclesia in Asia ("Church in Asia," apostolic exhortation on the Church in Asia, Pope John Paul II, November 6, 1999).

UCA NEWS: In No. 54 of Sacramentum Caritatis, Pope Benedict advocates "continued inculturation of the Eucharist" and calls for "adaptations appropriate to different contexts and cultures." What does this mean in Asia?

ARCHBISHOP RANJITH: Asia is generally considered to be the continent of contemplation, mysticism and a deep seated spiritual outlook on life. These orientations may have resulted from or even led to the origins of most world religions in this continent. Any attempts at inculturation of the liturgy or of Christian life cannot bypass these profoundly mystical orientations typical of Asia.

As Christians, we ought to show that Christianity is Asian in origin and it has an even profounder sense of mysticism within it that it can and wishes to share with others. It would be a pity if we strive to project our faith as an appendix of a secular and globalizing culture that endorses secular values and seeks to represent these in Asia. Unfortunately, sometimes in our way of doing things, we do project such an image. This makes us "foreigners" in our own continent.

Take, for example, the large scale abandonment of the cassock or religious garb by many priests and religious in Asia, even missionaries. They hardly understood that in Asian culture, persons dedicated to God or religion are always visible in his or her own garb, like the Buddhist monk or the Hindu sannyasi (holy man). This shows we do not understand what inculturation truly means. Often enough, it is limited to a dance or two during the Holy Mass or sprinkling of flowers, the arathi (closing prayer song) or beating a drum.

In mind and heart, however, we follow secular ways and values. If we are truly Asian, we should focus more attention on the mysticism of Jesus, His message of salvation, the great value of prayer, contemplation, detachment, simplicity of life, devoutness and reflection and the value of silence, and forms of liturgical celebration that focus great attention on the sacred and the transcendent. We Asians cannot be secularists who do not see anything beyond the visible and the tangible.

So too in liturgy, instead of concentrating on just a few exterior gestures of cosmetic value, we should focus on the accentuation of the mystical and the spiritual riches conveyed to us, and highlight these more and more even in our dress and behavior. The universal church would gain from a church in Asia that becomes a tangible expression of Christian mysticism in an Asian way.

UCA NEWS: Regarding inculturation, Pope Benedict encourages episcopal conferences to "strive to maintain a proper balance between criteria and directives already issued and new adaptations, always in accord with the apostolic see." Are bishops' conferences in Asia working along these lines?

ARCHBISHOP RANJITH: Generally, I notice a lot of goodwill on the part of the episcopal conferences in this matter. However, there are problems too. As I mentioned, it may be better to have a clear spirit of coordination between the FABC (Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences) and our congregation in this matter. The FABC does have regional coordinating bodies for human development, evangelization, inculturation, ecumenism and dialogue, education, social communication, etc., but I am not aware of such a body for liturgy and worship. Establishing such a regional body would certainly help.

Liturgy is important, for "lex orandi, lex credendi" (the law of prayer is the law of belief). It would then be able to animate and provide quality, meaning and proper awareness to the national episcopal commissions for liturgy on this all important component of ecclesial life. A lot of work still needs to be done in order to achieve better results.

The "proper balance" about which the holy father speaks is due to the need to ensure, on one side, a healthy spirit of openness to inculturation in the liturgy, and, on the other, the need to safeguard the universal character of Catholic liturgy, a treasure handed down to the church by its bi-millennial tradition.

UCA NEWS: Can you give a concrete example of what "maintaining a proper balance between criteria and directives and new adaptations" means?

ARCHBISHOP RANJITH: By "proper balance," the holy father means, on one side, faithfulness to the universal and Catholic tradition of the celebration of the holy Eucharist, enshrined in the Roman rite itself, and, on the other, the space provided in Sacrosanctum Concilium and Varietates Legitimae for adaptations. As No. 21 of Sacrosanctum Concilium indicates, there are "unchangeable elements divinely instituted" and "elements subject to change" in the liturgy. Only the latter may be changed, and even that is to be done on the basis of norms that the council itself laid out in the third chapter of the same document.

In the case of the Eucharist, it is the same approach. The Eucharist is not what the church made but what has been the Lord's own gift to us, a treasure to be guarded. Hence, even though exigencies of evangelization and of the inculturation of the gospel message in various situations demands a certain amount of diversity, this is not to be left to the whims and fancies of the individual celebrant. The areas open to diversity are limited and pertain to language, music and singing, gestures and postures, art and processions [SC 39]. In these areas, adaptation is possible and should be undertaken after proper study, due approval of the bishops and then the consent of the apostolic see [SC: Ch. III].

Thus, the sense of balance between safeguarding the essentials and seeking to integrate local cultural elements is very much needed if the church is to profit spiritually. At the same time, I would hold more essential not only adaptations of that type but the noble and dignified celebration of every liturgical act, making it reflect the mysticism of the East. It would be more helpful than just a series of external adaptations, even those introduced following established procedures.

Besides, the love of silence, a contemplative atmosphere, chant and singing reflective of the divine mystery celebrated on the altar, sober and decorous attire, and art and architecture reflective of the nobility of the sacred places and objects, are all Asian values often reflected in places of worship of other religions and more expressive of a truly Asian outlook on liturgy.

UCA NEWS: In no. 87 of the exhortation, the pope expresses concern about "grave difficulties" facing Christian communities "where Christians are a minority or where they are denied religious freedom" and where "simply going to Church represents a heroic witness that can result in marginalization or violence." Is he referring to Christian communities in Asia?

ARCHBISHOP RANJITH: The holy father is expressing his appreciation and encouragement of the heroic witness of some Christians for whom the practice of faith brings with it hardship, persecution and suffering. When we talk of such difficult situations, it does refer directly to places where there is explicit obstruction and persecution of the Christian communities. Such harassment is motivated at times by political factors, at other times by religious factors.

Some countries seek to impose or establish state sponsored "churches" to control the Catholic community that way. This latter type of attitude seeks to cut off the hierarchical bonds between these churches and the one of Peter in order to weaken them from within. Such attempts are not so successful, as the spiritual bonds, which cannot be broken that way, continue to link each ecclesial community to the universal church, the mystical body of Christ.

For me, however, another type of situation is more prevalent. It is generally common in Asia where, due to the predominance of one or the other world religion, there are restrictions and controls indirectly placed on the Catholic Church. In such situations, there exists an even worse form of undeclared harassment of Catholics. Missionaries are disallowed, it is difficult to construct ecclesial buildings as no permission for such is granted, public manifestations of faith are controlled, restrictions are placed on Catholic education, laws against conversion are put into force or proposed, and all kinds of discriminating acts are perpetrated. In short, in such situations one needs true heroism to profess and practice one's faith.

I would not name these countries as such, for obvious reasons, but the world knows who they are. Given this situation, the call of the supreme pontiff, "for greater religious freedom in every nation so that Christians, as well as followers of other religions, can freely express their convictions, both as individuals and as communities" [Sacr. Cari. 87] is timely indeed.

UCA NEWS: In no. 62 of the exhortatios, the pope suggests that celebration of Mass in Latin and use of Gregorian chant could be done on some occasions and in parts of the liturgy. What do you think Catholics in Asia feel about this? Have you detected a desire for the Mass in Latin among Catholics in Asia?

ARCHBISHOP RANJITH: Sacrosanctum Concilium never advocated total abandonment of Latin or of Gregorian chant. It stated that "the use of the Latin language, except when a particular law prescribed otherwise, is to be preserved in the Latin rites. ... But since the use of the vernacular ... may frequently be of great advantage to the people a wider use may be made of it especially in readings, directives and in some prayers and chants" [SC 36: 1-2]. Besides, it wished that "a suitable place may be allotted to the vernacular in Masses which are celebrated with the people, especially in the readings and 'the common prayer', and also as local conditions may warrant, in those parts which pertain to the people" [SC 54].

In the same passage, the council wished that care be taken to "ensure that the faithful may also be able to say or sing together in Latin those parts of the ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them" [ibid.].

The point is that the vernacular is not the normal language of the liturgy for Sacrosanctum Concilium but Latin, with permission being granted for the vernacular to be used in specific areas such as the readings, some prayers and chants and parts that pertain to the people. What is remarkable is that it advocates the use of Latin even in "those parts of the ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them" [SC 54].

Unfortunately, a quasi total abandonment of Latin took place almost everywhere soon after the council, so only the older generation of Catholics in Asia has an idea of the use of Latin in the liturgy and of Gregorian chant. With a strong vernacularization of the Liturgy and of seminary formation, the use of Latin did almost completely disappear from most of Asia.

This is rather unfortunate. I am not sure if there is a marked yearning for a return of Latin in the liturgy in Asia. I hope it would be so. Some Catholics who are aware of the beauty of Latin do express such a desire. They have seen or come to experience liturgies celebrated in Latin in Rome or elsewhere and are fascinated by it. Others are fascinated by the old Latin rite, the Pius V Mass now being celebrated in some places of Asia.

But the larger portion of Asian Catholics is still unaware of the value of Latin in the holy Mass. I wonder what they would say if some form of Latin is reintroduced. They might like it and, knowing the spirit of devotion that Asian Catholics carry within themselves, it would certainly help deepen their faith even further. Our people know that not all divine realities are within the reach of human understanding and that there should be room for some sense of spiritual mystery in worship.

Besides, it would be good for the church in Asia not to remain cut off from new trends emerging universally, one of which is a fresh appreciation of the church's bi-millennial Latin heritage. This is not to say we ought to abandon the vernacular and embrace Latin in toto. A sound and sober use of Latin as well as the vernacular, on the lines of Sacrosanctum Concilium, would be a gain for all. Besides, in Asia some other religions have preserved an official "liturgical" language, like Sanskrit for Hinduism and Pali for Buddhism. These are not spoken languages but are used only in worship. Are they not teaching us a lesson that a "liturgical language" which is not in common use can better express an inner mysticism of the "sacred" in worship?

UCA NEWS: The pope wants "future priests" to learn Latin in seminaries, so as to read Latin texts and sing Gregorian chant. How do you think young Asians studying for the priesthood regard that call? Will Asia's seminaries welcome it?

ARCHBISHOP RANJITH: There is no question of a welcoming. I think it is a need, and rather than falling into a well of isolationist narrow mindedness or a purely empiricist approach to faith that, by the way, is not Asian and does not leave room for an understanding of that which is transcendent, our priests and seminarians should be encouraged to open out to the wider reality of their faith, which is Catholic and universal, its bi-millennial roots and development and its mystical and sacred dimensions. And since Latin has been at the very root of much of the developments in theology, liturgy, and ecclesial discipline all along, seminarians and priests should be encouraged to learn and use it.

This would help the church in Asia not only to grasp better the content of the depositum fidei (deposit of faith) and its development, but also discover a theological language of its own, capable of presenting the faith to the peoples of Asia convincingly [cfr. Ecclesia in Asia 20]. Learning Latin is in no way a going backward but, on the contrary, going forward. Only thus could a truly profound process of inculturation take place. Any so-called theology not rooted in the fonts of sacred scriptures and the tradition of the church, prayed on one's knees and illumined by the light of a holy life is but empty noise-making and would lead only to disorder and confusion.

The same is true of liturgy. Latin is the ordinary liturgical language of the church. In the origin and development of the Roman rite, it had a major role to play. Thus, a sufficient knowledge of this language would facilitate a better understanding and appreciation of the beauty of what is celebrated. As the holy father stated, "the beauty of the liturgy is part of this mystery; it is a sublime expression of God's glory and, in a certain sense, a glimpse of heaven on earth" [Sacr. Carit. 35].

Celebrating in Latin thus would help build a sense of awe and respect as well as a profound spiritual link with what the Lord himself inspired the church to assume as its form of worship. This openness to Latin would also help the students appreciate better the role of Gregorian chant in the church. The holy father wishes that it "be suitably esteemed and employed" as it is the "chant proper to the Roman liturgy" [Sacr. Carit. 42]. Learning the simplicity and beauty of this great body of chant would also help musically talented priests and seminarians in Asia to be inspired by it and be able to compose dignified and prayerful chant forms that can harmonize better with the local culture. It would be presumptuous to assume that using Gregorian chant would harm inculturation of the liturgy. It could actually be beneficial.

UCA NEWS: Is there anything else you wish to tell churches in Asia about the exhortation and how they should implement it?

ARCHBISHOP RANJITH: A careful look at Sacramentum Caritatis convinces me more and more that it is not only a treasure trove of information, inspiration and a truly pastoral yet deeply theological reflection on the Eucharist but, more so, a document that seeks to bring to completion that which was truly desired by the Second Vatican Council and its document on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. The post-conciliar reform of the Liturgy, though laudable in some aspects, had not been all that faithful to the spirit of the council.

As Cardinal Ferdinando Antonelli, a member of the commission that worked on the reform then, attested: "I am not happy about the spirit. There is a spirit of criticism and impatience towards the Holy See which would not augur well. And then, everything is a study on the rationality of the liturgy and no concern for true piety. I am afraid that one day one would say of all this reform what was said about the reform of the hymns at the time of Urban VIII: accepit liturgia recessit pietas (as liturgy progresses, piety goes backward); and here accepit liturgia recessit devotio (as liturgy progresses, devotion goes backward). I hope I am wrong" [from the diaries of Cardinal Antonelli, April 30, 1965].

We have seen a lot of banalization and obscuring of the mystical and sacred aspects of the liturgy in many areas of the church in the name of a so-called "Konzilsgeist" (council spirit).

In the last 20 years or so, the church has sought to set the course of liturgical reform straight and in line with the indications of Sacrosanctum Concilium. Documents such as Liturgiam Authenticam, Varietates legitimae, Redemptionis Sacramentum and Ecclesia de Eucharistia are part of that attempt, and Sacramentum Caritatis, which is a collegial document in that it collects the propositions of the bishops' Synod on the Holy Eucharist, is the culminating moment, I would say, of that course of "setting things right." It truly is a correction of course and should be welcomed, appreciated, studied and put into practice.

The cultural heritage of Asia is deeply religious and conscious of the value of the sacred and mystical in human life. So the church in Asia should welcome this document and its orientations, which are directed very much towards a restoration of the profound values of spirituality and faith into liturgy most wholeheartedly and take necessary steps to implement its indications as zealously and as faithfully as possible.

This is my wish for the church in Asia, the continent of mysticism.

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Gerard O'Connell is the special correspondent in Rome for UCA News.

Conference papers

What makes for a succesful conference paper? And do such papers do anything to contribute to our understanding and to the art of teaching? Why do so many papers turn out to be a waste of time?

These are the questions that once again came to my mind, this time as I was sitting in on the Ancient Philosophy Society meeting the week before last. While there were some good papers (especially the one by Denis O'Brien), others were not so good.

With the custom of presenting papers at conferences comes the bad habit of reading the paper rather than presenting a lecture--because of the very nature of the format, authors of papers usually have the tendency to focus on their writing and creating a product as something to be read, rather than something to be heard. Instead of developing a succinct presentation of arguments, one feels free to craft in accordance with the demands of his own writing style and those of "conventional" prose, ignoring the impact of the finished text on the listener.

A related problem is that when one is focused on writing, rather than drafting an oral presentation for an audience, length is not the concern that it should be, especially if one is thinking of getting the paper published later. When the paper becomes too long for a live presentation, one must do some editing, either incorporating those changes into the text itself and then using this abridged version for the presentation, or one leaving notes and directions on the original paper (especially if he is a procrastinator), eliminating chunks of text as one reads the paper, and summarizing those texts as best as possible. This makes for a rather awkward presentation, as one is compensating for these edits as one reads the paper.

Rhetorical and lecturing skills become irrelevant when one is just reading from essay or paper. Even if the paper in itself is interesting and could even aid our comprehension of the topic, when we are reading it ourselves and can mull over it slowly and write notes, it is possible that it becomes a dreadful bore when read aloud. There are certain things that can be done to lead a reader to understanding that can't be done with an audience.

1. One source of failure is trying to do too much in a paper, especially by making a grand summary of the arguments in order to characterize a thinker or to attach a label to him, some sort of -ism.

2. Providing a good, thorough commentary of a "systematic" text may be more successful. But for this to be of use to the audience, they should already have a very good knowledge of the texts and of the puzzles. It is best to reduce the amount that listeners have to take on faith or trust. Then they can concentrate on relating what they are hearing to reality once they have determined that the commentary is good. (If they are not familiar with the author or the text, they can still refer what is being said to reality and judge its import, but they will be unable to determine the worth of the commentary and its accuracy. It is presumably the intention of the commentary's author to set forth a valuable commentary for its own sake, but that must still be judged by a greater good or end, namely that of philosophy itself, to which the writing of commentaries is ordered.)

3. Works that are not systematic are especially problematic for conference papers, as they require of the listeners an even greater familiarity of the texts in order for them to judge well the claims that are being made. (Is the problem made worse by questions of interpretation?) In order to be thorough, one will need to give a summation of the relevant texts, and refer to them. It should be obvious that this can be too overwhelming for the audience, unless they are given a list of the texts as a handout.

4. If it is necessary to refer to secondary literature, this should be done as sparingly as possible, at least while one is reading the paper. (The publication of the paper will facilitate an investigation of secondary sources.) Unless the subject of one's paper is precisely what someone else has written about a particular philosopher ot text in order to object to it, too many citations to secondary sources and diverging opinions can confuse the audience and obscure the main points one is trying to make.

Papers could be instantly improved if the author were to insert summaries and recapitulations into the text--this would be of benefit to an audience that is more intent on listening than on taking detailed notes. (Without those notes, it would be difficult to give an adequate response and critique--it is usually the case that during the Q&A session people ask for clarification and even a reiteration of the main points.)

Another strategy is to focus on select point (or a few points) that is under dispute, or to make what is implicit in a text explicit (with the purpose of showing that the text is still relevant today, if what is explicit is insufficient). While I like an authentic live disputation, it is not clear to me if the format of a disputed question for organizing one's paper would be acceptable to one's peers. Still, such a clear presentation of arguments and objections would be beneficial to beginners in philosophy. Similarly, a compare-and-contrast of two or more philosophers should be attempted only if one can be both brief and thorough. In general and not only in papers, psychologizing (trying to read the author's mind and guess how he would react to such a question, or looking at the psychological causes that led him to hold a position) or speculative genealogies should be avoided. (This is not the same as looking at the principles that the philosopher endorses and then drawing conclusions from them--this is certainly valuable in showing that he is inconsistent, if what he explicitly holds contradicts what flows from his premises.)

The importance of defining terms cannot be emphasized enough; this basic step is so often ignored by philosophers today, perhaps revealing the confusion that exists in their own minds. The necessity of definitions will depend on the audience--some audiences may share the same lexicon. Nonetheless, this cannot even be assumed of all academics.

Analytic philosophers tend to rely on their own made-up jargon; can it be said that most analytic philosophers strive to use words univocally, and are thus forced to make up new words? It is easier to use common words as much as possible, along with analogical naming and figurative speech. However, it is true that some do not understand analogical naming and believe that all naming must be univocal. They may need to be disabused of this prejudice.

That's enough for now... more later if I think of anything more to say.

Anscombe, Modern Moral Philosophy

via Thomistica.net

The essay.

G.E.M. Anscombe, "Modern Moral Philosophy," Philosophy 33/124 (1958): 1-19.

Compendium of Practical Liturgy

here

The wave that destroyed Atlantis

The wave that destroyed Atlantis
By Harvey Lilley BBC Timewatch

Vatican commission: Limbo reflects 'restrictive view of salvation'

via Pontifications

ITC-LIMBO Apr-20-2007 (1,240 words) xxxi

Vatican commission: Limbo reflects 'restrictive view of salvation'

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- After several years of study, the Vatican's International Theological Commission said there are good reasons to hope that babies who die without being baptized go to heaven.

In a document published April 20, the commission said the traditional concept of limbo -- as a place where unbaptized infants spend eternity but without communion with God -- seemed to reflect an "unduly restrictive view of salvation."

The church continues to teach that, because of original sin, baptism is the ordinary way of salvation for all people and urges parents to baptize infants, the document said.

But there is greater theological awareness today that God is merciful and "wants all human beings to be saved," it said. Grace has priority over sin, and the exclusion of innocent babies from heaven does not seem to reflect Christ's special love for "the little ones," it said.

"Our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered ... give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision," the document said.

"We emphasize that these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge," it added.

The 41-page document, titled "The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized," was published in Origins, the documentary service of Catholic News Service. Pope Benedict XVI authorized its publication earlier this year.

The 30-member International Theological Commission acts as an advisory panel to the Vatican, in particular to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Its documents are not considered expressions of authoritative church teaching, but they sometimes set the stage for official Vatican pronouncements.

The commission's document said salvation for unbaptized babies who die was becoming an urgent pastoral question, in part because their number is greatly increasing. Many infants today are born to parents who are not practicing Catholics, and many others are the unborn victims of abortion, it said.

Limbo has never been defined as church dogma and is not mentioned in the current Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states simply that unbaptized infants are entrusted to God's mercy.

But limbo has long been regarded as the common teaching of the church. In the modern age, "people find it increasingly difficult to accept that God is just and merciful if he excludes infants, who have no personal sins, from eternal happiness," the new document said.


Parents in particular can experience grief and feelings of guilt when they doubt their unbaptized children are with God, it said.

The church's hope for these infants' salvation reflects a growing awareness of God's mercy, the commission said. But the issue is not simple, because appreciation for divine mercy must be reconciled with fundamental church teachings about original sin and about the necessity of baptism for salvation, it said.

The document traced the development of church thinking about the fate of unbaptized children, noting that there is "no explicit answer" from Scripture or tradition.

In the fifth century, St. Augustine concluded that infants who die without baptism were consigned to hell. By the 13th century, theologians referred to the "limbo of infants" as a place where unbaptized babies were deprived of the vision of God, but did not suffer because they did not know what they were deprived of.

Through the centuries, popes and church councils were careful not to define limbo as a doctrine of the faith and to leave the question open. That was important in allowing an evolution of the teaching, the theological commission said.

A key question taken up by the document was the church's teaching that baptism is necessary for salvation. That teaching needs interpretation, in view of the fact that "infants ... do not place any personal obstacle in the way of redemptive grace," it said.

In this and other situations, the need for the sacrament of baptism is not absolute and is secondary to God's desire for the salvation of every person, it said.

"God can therefore give the grace of baptism without the sacrament being conferred, and this fact should particularly be recalled when the conferring of baptism would be impossible," it said.

This does not deny that all salvation comes through Christ and in some way through the church, it said, but it requires a more careful understanding of how this may work.

The document outlined several ways by which unbaptized babies might be united to Christ:

-- A "saving conformity to Christ in his own death" by infants who themselves suffer and die.

-- A solidarity with Christ among infant victims of violence, born and unborn, who like the holy innocents killed by King Herod are endangered by the "fear or selfishness of others."

-- God may simply give the gift of salvation to unbaptized infants, corresponding to his sacramental gift of salvation to the baptized.

The document said the standard teaching that there is "no salvation outside the church" calls for similar interpretation.

The church's magisterium has moved toward a more "nuanced understanding" of how a saving relationship with the church can be realized, it said. This does not mean that someone who has not received the sacrament of baptism cannot be saved, it said.

Rather, it means that "there is no salvation which is not from Christ and ecclesial by its very nature," it said.

The document quoted St. Paul's teaching that spouses of Christians may be "consecrated" through their wives or husbands. This indicates that the holiness of the church reaches people "outside the visible bounds of the church" through the bonds of human communion, it said.

The document said the church clearly teaches that people are born into a state of sinfulness -- original sin -- which requires an act of redemptive grace to be washed away.

But Scripture also proclaims the "superabundance" of grace over sin, it said. That seems to be missing in the idea of limbo, which identifies more with Adam's sinfulness than with Christ's redemption, it said.

"Christ's solidarity with all of humanity must have priority over the solidarity of human beings with Adam," it said.

Liturgically, the motive for hope was confirmed by the introduction in 1970 of a funeral rite for unbaptized infants whose parents intended to present them for baptism, it said.

The commission said the new theological approach to the question of unbaptized babies should not be used to "negate the necessity of baptism, nor to delay the conferral of the sacrament."

"Rather, there are reasons to hope that God will save these infants precisely because it was not possible to do for them that what would have been most desirable -- to baptize them in the faith of the church and incorporate them visibly into the body of Christ," it said.

The commission said hopefulness was not the same as certainty about the destiny of such infants.

"It must be clearly acknowledged that the church does not have sure knowledge about the salvation of unbaptized infants who die," it said.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, was president of the commission and head of the doctrinal congregation when the commission began studying the question of limbo in a systematic way in 2004.

U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada now heads the commission and the doctrinal congregation. Cardinal Levada met with the pope to discuss the document Jan. 19 and, with the pope's approval, authorized its publication.

“La Civiltà Cattolica” Breaks the Silence – On Romano Amerio

“La Civiltà Cattolica” Breaks the Silence – On Romano Amerio
He was the most authoritative and erudite representative of criticism of the Church in the name of Tradition, but for decades the discussion of his thought was barred. The magazine of the Rome Jesuits has broken the taboo. Authorized from on high

by Sandro Magister

ROMA, April 23, 2007 – In “La Civiltà Cattolica,” the magazine of the Rome Jesuits printed with the prior scrutiny and authorization of the Vatican secretaiat of state, a review has been published that signals the end of a taboo.

The taboo is the one that has obliterated from public discussion, for decades, the thought of the most authoritative and erudite representative of criticism of the twentieth century Church in the name of the great Tradition: the Swiss philologist and philosopher Romano Amerio (in the photo), who died in Lugano in 1997, at the age of 92.

Amerio, although he was always extremely faithful to the Church, condensed his criticisms of it in two volumes: “Iota unum: Studio delle variazioni della Chiesa cattolica nel XX secolo [Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the Twentieth Century],” begun in 1935 and finalized and published in 1985, and, and “Stat Veritas. Séguito a Iota unum [Stat Veritas: Sequel to Iota Unum],” released posthumously in 1997, both issued by the publisher Riccardo Ricciardi, of Naples.

The Latin words in the title of the first volume, “Iota Unum,” are those of Jesus in the sermon on the mount: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter [iota] or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” (Matthew 5: 17-18). The iota is the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet.

“Iota Unum,” 658 pages, was reprinted three times in Italy, for a total of seven thousand copies, and was then translated into French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Dutch. It thus reached many tens of thousands of readers all over the world.

But in spite of this, an almost complete blacklisting fell upon Amerio in the Church, both during and after his life.

The review in “La Civiltà Cattolica” thus signals a turning point. Both because of where and how it was published – with the authorization of the Holy See – and because of what it says.

Strictly speaking, the review concerns a book about Amerio published in 2005 by his disciple Enrico Maria Radaelli. But without a doubt it is the great Swiss thinker who is at the center of the reviewer’s judgments.

And the judgments are largely positive, both on “Amerio’s intellectual and moral stature,” and on “the importance of his philosophical-theological vision for the contemporary Church.”

The reviewer, Giuseppe Esposito, is a psychologist who is well read in theology. Although he does not agree with Amerio in everything, he maintains that his thought “deserves more extensive discussion,” and “without prejudice.”

In particular, he writes, “it seems simplistic to relegate his reflection – and that of Radaelli – to the sphere of nostalgic traditionalism, as a position now irrelevant, incapable of comprehending the new movements of the Spirit.”

On the contrary, the reviewer maintains, Amerio’s thought “confers a form and a philosophical framework upon that ecclesial component which, following in the path of Tradition, reaches out to safeguard Christian specificity and identity.”

For Amerio, this form and philosophical framework are found in “the primacy of the truth about love.”

As is well known, the link between truth and love is at the center of Benedict XVI’s teaching.

Here, then, is reproduced the review that appeared in “La Civiltà Cattolica” on March 17, 2007, n. 3762, pages 622-623.

The reviewed book, the first one systematically dedicated to Romano Amerio’s life and thought, is the following:

Enrico Maria Radaelli, "Romano Amerio. Della verità e dell’amore [Romano Amerio: On Truth and Love]", Marco Editore, Lungro di Cosenza, 2005, pp. XXXV-340, 25 euro.


"In love with the truth and with the Church..."

by Giuseppe Esposito


A passionate devotee of Romano Amerio (1905-97), Enrico Maria Radaelli presents his life, word, and thought, placing the reader before an intellectual production that unfolded over a period of about 70 years.

And so here is Amerio as philosopher, philologist, historian, and also theologian, with his important contributions on Descartes, Giacomo Leopardi, Alessandro Manzoni, but above all on Tommaso Campanella.

The author’s primary intention is that of bringing back to light the figure of his master after the ostracism that followed the publication, in 1985, of his “Iota Unum.” This is the text that synthesizes Amerio’s thought, and, for the author, it is a true “metaphysical compendium of Catholic knowledge” (p. 135), capable of furnishing convincing and solid arguments in support of the faith.

The book, translated into seven languages, was not received well in Italy, and Amerio was branded as a traditionalist, preconciliar, Lefebvrist. But according to Radaelli, it is an error to reduce all of Amerio’s thought to his position on Vatican Council II.

This is, in the first place, because “Iota Unum” did not originate directly from the Council, nor from esteem for the schismatic bishop Marcel Lefebvre (whom Amerio criticizes for his separation from ecclesial communion), but is instead a collection of reflections begun thirty years earlier, and pertaining to more general topics.

In the second place this is because dwelling on controversy trivializes the important fundamental question Amerio raises, well represented by the author in the title: “On Truth and Love.”

This is the nucleus of Amerio’s thought: the primacy of truth over love. Subverting this order, and thus producing a “metaphysical dislocation of essences,” for Amerio is inevitably translated into an attack against Christ, the Word of God, the Logos. It is for this reason that he wrote “Iota Unum,” and, presenting it to Augusto Del Noce, defined it as an attempt to “defend essences against the waywardness and syncretism of the spirit of the age” (p. 231). And to Del Noce, who was fascinated by his argument, it seemed that “the ultimate philosophical problem for the ‘Catholic restoration’ that the world needs is that of the order of essences” (p. 233).

In love with the truth and with the Church, preoccupied with the secularization of Christianity, with its reduction to morality and works at the expense of the primacy of Christocentrism, Amerio criticizes “fundamentalist ecumenism,” the dissolution of the Christian identity in religious relativism, the renunciation of the Truth in favor of respect for other-truths, the reduction of the one true religion to one of the various possible religions.

It is decisive to pose the absolute centrality of the Word: “The absolute value attributed to the divine reality of the Word (Logos), as well as of the facts that religion derives from it, [...] shelter man from the disorientation of relativism” (p. 19).

This is a reminder not to undervalue the risks inherent in naturalism, and in any “conception of the Spirit cut down from the supernatural to the natural, [...] from the religious to the cultural, from the spiritual to the intellectual” (p. 130).

For Radaelli, what happened in the end was precisely what his master feared: “The subversion of the principles according to which reason is replaced in its first causality by love, plans by realization, intellect by freedom, ideas by praxis, [...] the classical values of religious naturalism seem to have the upper hand against the supremacy of the supernatural” (p. 206).

The author, with carefully chosen and deliberately apologetic language, highlights Amerio’s intellectual and moral stature, and clarifies the importance of his philosophical-theological vision, for the contemporary Church as well. The result is certainly a defensive, impassioned harangue that is sometimes grating, but it is above all a provocation to engage Amerio’s “powerful thought.”

Of course, it is not possible to share the negative judgment extended to the Council in its entirety and to all the positive things it produced.

Furthermore, there is a questionable attempt to explain all of Christianity’s current difficulties as if they were almost entirely the result of a deviation from the dogma of the Logos, of the demotion of Truth to second place after love. The reality is more complex, and one cannot trace everything back to just one aspect: in this case, there is the risk of philosophical reductionism.

And yet the Amerian hypothesis deserves more extensive discussion, and it seems simplistic to relegate his reflection – and that of Radaelli – to the sphere of nostalgic traditionalism, as a position now irrelevant, incapable of comprehending the new movements of the Spirit, if it is not in fact – with allowances for due caution – almost an obstacle to His action.

But if one frees oneself from fundamentalist prejudice, the nucleus of Amerio’s reflection becomes a stimulus for thought.

And this is not a matter of an isolated metaphysical view of Christianity: it confers a form and a philosophical framework upon that ecclesial component which, following in the path of Tradition, reaches out to safeguard Christian specificity and identity.

In this perspective, the work of Radaelli, by reproposing the deep Amerian theoretical questions, invites one to confront these without prejudice, in a more serene way.

The text, knowledgeably introduced by Antonio Livi, dean of the faculty of philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University, is also accompanied by interviews with Amerio and reviews of “Iota Unum,” as well as by a small glossary to aid the reader. Together with the list of Amerio’s works, the indices of names, persons, places, and topics are complete and very useful.

Why Karl Marx Supported Libertarianism

Why Karl Marx Supported Libertarianism

Robert George on Politics and Conscience

Robert George on Politics and Conscience

"Freedom Is a Two Way Street""

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 21, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is the text of an address by Robert George on political obligations and moral conscience.

* * *

XIII General Assembly
Program of the Preparatory Meeting of September 29-30, 2006
Casa Bonus Pastor
Vatican City

Political Obligations, Moral Conscience, and Human Life

Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence
Princeton University

The Catholic Church proclaims the principle that every human being -- without regard to race, sex, or ethnicity, and equally without regard to age, size, stage of development, or condition of dependency -- is entitled to the full protection of the laws.

The Church teaches that human beings at every stage of development -- including those at the embryonic and fetal stages -- and those in every condition -- including those who are mentally retarded or physically disabled, and those who are suffering from severe dementias or other memory and mind-impairing afflictions -- possess fundamental human rights. Above all, each of us possesses the right to life.

Now this teaching is disputed by some. There are those, including some Catholics, who deny that human embryos are human beings. They assert that and human embryo is merely "potential" human life, not nascent human life.

The trouble with this position is not theological but scientific. It flies in the face of the established facts of human embryology and developmental biology. A human embryo is not something distinct in kind from a human being -- like a rock or potato or alligator.

A human embryo is a human being at a particular, very early, stage of development. An embryo, even prior to implantation, is a whole, distinct, living member of the species Homo sapiens. The embryonic human being requires only what any human being at any stage of development requires for his or her survival, namely, adequate nutrition and an environment sufficiently hospitable to sustain life.

From the beginning, each human being possesses -- actually and not merely potentially -- the genetic constitution and epigenetic primordia for self-directed development from the embryonic into and through the fetal, infant, child, and adolescent stages and into adulthood with his or her unity, determinateness, and identity intact. In this crucial respect, the embryo is quite unlike the gametes -- that is, the sperm and ovum -- whose union brought a new human being into existence. You and I were never sperm or ova; those were genetically and functionally parts of other human beings.

But each of us was once an embryo, just as each of us was once an adolescent, and before that a child, an infant, a fetus. Of course, in the embryonic, fetal, and infant stages we were highly vulnerable and dependent creatures, but we were nevertheless complete, distinct human beings.

As the leading textbooks in human embryology and developmental biology unanimously attest, we were not mere "clumps of cells," like moles or tumors. So the basic rights people possess simply by virtue of their humanity -- including above all the right to life -- we possessed even then.

Another school of thought concedes that human embryos are human beings; however, it denies that all human beings are persons. There are, according to this school of thought, pre-personal and post-personal human beings, as well as severely retarded or damaged human beings who are not, never will be, and never were, persons.

Proponents of this view insist that human beings in the embryonic and fetal stages are not yet persons. Indeed, logically consistent and unsentimental proponents say that even human infants are not yet persons, and therefore do not possess a right to life; hence, the willingness of Peter Singer, Michael Tooley, and others to countenance infanticide as well as abortion.

Permanently comatose or severely retarded or demented human beings are also denied the status of persons. So euthanasia is said to be justified for human beings in these conditions. Although some who think along these lines will allow that human individuals whom they regard as "not yet persons" deserve a certain limited respect by virtue of the purely biological fact that they are living members of the human species, they nevertheless insist that "pre-personal" humans do not possess a right to life that precludes them from being killed to benefit others or to advance the interests of society at large.

Only those human beings who have achieved and retain what are regarded as the defining attributes of personhood -- whether those are considered to be detectable brain function, self-awareness, or immediately exercisable capacities for characteristically human mental functioning -- possess a right to life.

The trouble with this position is that it makes nonsense of our political, philosophical, and, for many of us, theological commitment to the principle that all human beings are equal in fundamental worth and dignity.

It generates puzzles that simply cannot be resolved, such as the puzzle as to why this or that accidental quality which most human beings eventually acquire in the course of normal development but others do not, and which some retain and others lose, and which some have to a greater degree than others, should count as the criterion of "personhood."

The superior position, surely, is that human beings possess equally an intrinsic dignity that is the moral ground of the equal right to life of all. This is a right possessed by every human being simply by virtue of his or her humanity. It does not depend on an individual's age, or size, or stage of development; nor can it be erased by an individual's physical or mental infirmity or condition of dependency.

It is what makes the life of even a severely retarded child equal in fundamental worth to the life of a Nobel prize-winning scientist. It explains why we may not licitly extract transplantable organs from such a child even to save the life of a brilliant physicist who is afflicted with a life-threatening heart, liver, or kidney ailment.

In any event, the position that all human beings equally possess fundamental human rights, including the right to life, is the definitively settled teaching of the Catholic Church. It is on this basis that the Church proclaims that the taking of human life in abortion, infanticide, embryo-destructive research, euthanasia, and terrorism are always and everywhere gravely wrong.

And there is more. For the Church also teaches that it is the solemn obligation of legislators and other public officials, as servants of the common good, to honor and protect the rights of all. The principle of equality demands as a matter of strict justice that protection against lethal violence be extended by every political community to all who are within its jurisdiction.

Those to whom the care of the community is entrusted -- above all those who participate in making the community's laws -- have primary responsibility for ensuring that the right to life is embodied in the laws and effectively protected in practice. Notice, by the way, that the obligation of the public official is not to "enforce the teaching of the Catholic Church," it is, rather, to fulfill the demands of justice and the common good in light of the principle of the inherent and equal dignity of every member of the human family.

Yet, today many Catholic politicians, including the Democratic leaders of both houses of the United States Congress and the Republican governor of New York and the former Republican governor of Pennsylvania, are staunch supporters of what they describe as a "woman's right to abortion."

Most of these politicians also support the creation and government funding of an industry that would produce tens of thousands of human embryos by cloning for use in biomedical research in which these embryonic human beings would be destroyed.

Catholic politicians in the United States and in other nations who support abortion and embryo-destructive research typically claim to be "personally opposed" to these practices but respectful of the rights of others who disagree to act on their own judgments of conscience without legal interference.

Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo famously articulated and defended this view in a speech at the University of Notre Dame in 1984. Recently, Cuomo revisited the issue, speaking in Washington at a Forum on Politics and Faith in America. He offered an argument which, if successful, not only justifies Catholic politicians in supporting legal abortion and embryo-destructive research, but requires them to respect a right of people to engage in these practices despite their admitted moral wrongfulness.

Cuomo asserted that holders of public office -- including Catholic office-holders -- have a responsibility "to create conditions under which all citizens are reasonably free to act according to their own religious beliefs, even when those acts conflict with Roman Catholic dogma regarding divorce, birth control, abortion, stem cell research, and even the existence of God."

According to Cuomo, Catholics should support legalized abortion and embryo-destructive research, as he himself does, because in guaranteeing these rights to others, they guarantee their own right "to reject abortions, and to refuse to participate in or contribute to removing stem cells from embryos."

But Cuomo's idea that the right "to reject" abortion and embryo-destructive experimentation entails a right of others, as a matter of religious liberty, to engage in these practices is simply, if spectacularly, fallacious. The fallacy comes into focus immediately if one considers whether the right of a Catholic (or Baptist, or Jew, or member of any other faith) to reject infanticide, slavery, and the exploitation of labor entails a right of others who happen not to share these "religious" convictions to kill, enslave, and exploit.

By the expedient of classifying pro-life convictions about abortion and embryo-destructive experimentation as "Roman Catholic dogmas," Cuomo smuggles into the premises of his argument the controversial conclusion he is trying to prove. If pro-life principles were indeed merely dogmatic teachings -- such as the teaching that Jesus of Nazareth is the only begotten Son of God -- then according to the Church herself (not to mention American constitutional law and the law of many other republics) they could not legitimately be enforced by the coercive power of the state.

The trouble for Cuomo is that pro-life principles are not mere matters of "dogma," nor are they understood as such by the Catholic Church, whose beliefs Cuomo claims to affirm, or by pro-life citizens, whether they happen to be Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics or atheists. Rather, pro-life citizens understand these principles and propose them to their fellow citizens as fundamental norms of justice and human rights that can be understood and affirmed even apart from claims of revelation and religious authority.

It will not do to suggest, as Cuomo seems to suggest, that the sheer fact that the Catholic Church (or some other religious body) has a teaching against these practices, and that some or even many people reject this teaching, means that laws prohibiting the killing of human beings in the embryonic and fetal stages violate the right to freedom of religion of those who do not accept the teaching.

If that were anything other than a fallacy, then laws against killing infants, owning slaves, exploiting workers, and many other grave forms of injustice really would be violations of religious freedom. Surely Cuomo would not wish to endorse that conclusion.

Yet he provides no reason to distinguish those acts and practices putatively falling within the category of religious freedom from those falling outside it. So we must ask: If abortion is immunized against legal restriction on the ground that it is a matter of religious belief, how can it be that slavery is not similarly immunized?

If today abortion cannot be prohibited without violating the right to religious freedom of people whose religions do not object to abortion, how can Cuomo say that the prohibition of slavery by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1866 did not violate the right to religious freedom of those in the 19th century whose religions did not condemn slaveholding?

Cuomo says that the Catholic Church "understands that our public morality depends on a consensus view of right and wrong," but it would be scandalous to argue that Catholics should have opposed a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery in the 19th century, or legislation protecting the civil rights of the oppressed descendants of slaves in the mid-20th century, on the ground that "prudence" or "realism" requires respect for "moral pluralism" where there is no "consensus" on questions of right and wrong.

At one point at the forum on Politics and Faith, Cuomo suggested that laws against abortion and embryo-destructive research would force people who do not object to such things to practice the religion of people who do. But this is another fallacy. No one imagines that the constitutional prohibition of slavery forced those who believed in slaveholding to practice the religion of those who did not.

Would Cuomo have us suppose that laws protecting workers against what he, in line with the solemn teaching of every Pope from Leo XIII to Benedict XVI, considers to be exploitation and abuse have the effect of forcing non-Catholic factory owners to practice Catholicism?

At another point, in denying that there was any inconsistency between his willingness as governor to act on his anti-death penalty views but not on his anti-abortion views, Cuomo denied ever having spoken against the death penalty as "a moral issue." He claimed, in fact, that he "seldom talk[s] in terms of moral issues" and that, when he speaks of the death penalty, he never suggests that he considers it a moral issue.

Then, in the very next sentence, he condemned the death penalty in the most explicitly, indeed flamboyantly, moralistic terms: "I am against the death penalty because I think it is bad and unfair. It is debasing. It is degenerate. It kills innocent people." He did not pause to consider that these are precisely the claims made by pro-life citizens against the policy of legal abortion and its public funding -- a policy that Cuomo defends in the name of religious liberty.

The fact is that Catholics and others who oppose abortion and embryo-destructive research oppose these practices for the same reason we oppose postnatal homicide. Pro-life citizens of every faith oppose these practices because they involve the deliberate killing of innocent human beings.

Our ground for supporting the legal prohibition of abortion and embryo-destructive research is the same ground on which we support the legal prohibition of infanticide, for example, or the principle of noncombatant immunity even in justified wars. We subscribe to the proposition that all human beings are equal in worth and dignity and cannot be denied the right to protection against killing on the basis of age, size, stage of development, or condition of dependency.

One cannot with moral integrity be "personally opposed" to abortion or embryo-destructive research yet support the legal permission of these practices and even, their public funding as so many Catholic politicians do, including most Catholic Democrats and some Catholic Republicans in the United States. For by supporting abortion and embryo-destructive research they unavoidably implicate themselves in the grave injustice of these practices.

Of course, it is possible for a person wielding public power to use that power to establish or preserve a legal right to abortion, for example, while at the same time hoping that no one will exercise the right. But this does not get such a person off the moral hook. For someone who acts to protect legal abortion necessarily wills that abortion's unborn victims be denied the elementary legal protections against deliberate homicide that one favors for oneself and those whom one considers to be worthy of the law's protection.

Thus one violates the most basic precept of normative social and political theory, the Golden Rule. One divides humanity into two classes: those whom one is willing to admit to the community of the commonly protected and those whom one wills to be excluded from it.

By exposing members of the disfavored class to lethal violence, one deeply implicates oneself in the injustice of killing them -- even if one sincerely hopes that no woman will act on her right to choose abortion. The goodness of what one hopes for does not redeem the evil -- the grave injustice -- of what one wills. To suppose otherwise is to commit yet another fallacy.

If my analysis so far is correct, the question arises: What should the leaders of the Church do about people like Cuomo and his successor as New York's Governor, Republican George Pataki who evidently takes the same position? What should they do about those who claim to be in full communion with the Church yet promote gravely unjust and scandalous policies that expose the unborn to the violence and injustice of abortion?

In the run up to the last election, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke offered an answer. He declared that public officials who support abortion and other unjust attacks against innocent human life may not be admitted to Holy Communion, the preeminent sacrament of unity.

Pro-life citizens of every religious persuasion applauded the archbishop's stand. Critics, however, were quick to condemn Archbishop Burke. They denounced him for "crossing the line" separating church and state.

But this is silly. In acting on his authority as a bishop to discipline members of his flock, who commit what the Church teaches are grave injustices against innocent human beings, Archbishop Burke is exercising his own constitutional right to the free exercise of religion; he is not depriving others of their rights.

Freedom is a two way street. No one is compelled by law to accept ecclesiastical authority. But Archbishop Burke -- and anyone else in the United States of America or other freedom-respecting nations -- has every right to exercise spiritual authority over anyone who chooses to accept it. There is a name for people who do accept the authority of Catholic bishops. They are called "Catholics."

In many cases, the charge that Archbishop Burke and other bishops who adopt the policy of excluding pro-abortion politicians from Communion "are crossing the line separating church and state" is also hypocritical. A good example of this hypocrisy comes from the Bergen Record, a prominent newspaper in my home state of New Jersey.

Bishop John Smith of Trenton did not go as far as Raymond Burke had gone in forbidding pro-abortion Catholic politicians from receiving communion. Bishop Smith did, however, in the words of the Bergen Record, "publicly lash" Governor James McGreevey, a pro-abortion Catholic, for his support of abortion and embryo-destructive research.

For criticizing the governor on these grounds, the Record lashed the bishop in an April 25th editorial. The paper accused him of jeopardizing the delicate "balance" of our constitutional structure, contrasting Bishop Smith's position unfavorably with President John F. Kennedy's assurance to a group of Protestant ministers in Houston in 1960 that he, as a Catholic, would not govern the nation by appeal to his Catholic religious beliefs.

Since the Record had seen fit to take us back to 1960 for guidance, I thought I would invite its editors to consider a case that had arisen only a few years earlier than that. In a letter to the editor, I proposed a question that would enable readers to determine immediately whether the editors of the Bergen Record were persons of strict principle or mere hypocrites.

I reminded readers that in the 1950s, in the midst of the political conflict over segregation, Archbishop Joseph Rummel of New Orleans publicly informed Catholics that support for racial segregation was incompatible with Catholic teaching on the inherent dignity and equal rights of all human beings.

Archbishop Rummel said that "racial segregation is morally wrong and sinful because it is a denial of the unity and solidarity of the human race as conceived by God in the creation of Adam and Eve." He warned Catholic public officials that support for segregation placed their souls in peril. Indeed, Rummel took the step of publicly excommunicating Leander Perez, one of the most powerful political bosses in Louisiana, and two others who promoted legislation designed to impede desegregation of diocesan schools.

So I asked the editors of the Bergen Record: Was Archbishop Rummel wrong? Or do Catholic bishops "cross the line" and jeopardize the delicate constitutional balance, only when their rebukes to politicians contradict the views of the editors of the Record? To their credit, the editors published my letter -- but I am still waiting for them to reply to my question.

Now, some good and sincere people have expressed concern that Archbishop Burke and bishops of similar mind are guilty of a double standard when it comes to demanding of politicians fidelity to Catholic teaching on justice and the common good.

They point out that the bishops who would deny communion to those who publicly support abortion and embryo-destructive research do not take the same stand against politicians who support the death penalty, which Pope John Paul II condemned in all but the rarest of circumstances, and the U.S. invasions of Iraq, of which the Pope and many other Vatican officials were sharply critical.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church indeed teaches that the death penalty should not be used, except in circumstances so rare these days as to be, in words of the late Pope, "practically non-existent." However, two points must be borne in mind in considering the obligations of Catholics and the question whether Catholic politicians who support the death penalty have in fact broken faith and communion with the Church.

First, neither the Pope nor the Catechism places the death penalty on a par with abortion and other forms of direct killing of the innocent. (Indeed, the Church will probably never equate the death penalty with these forms of homicide, even if it eventually issues a definitive condemnation of the practice.)

Second, the status of the teaching differs from the status of the teaching on abortion. As John Paul II made clear in the great encyclical "Evangelium Vitae," the teaching on abortion (as well as on euthanasia and all forms of direct killing of the innocent) is infallibly proposed by the ordinary and universal magisterium of the Church pursuant to the criteria of "Lumen Gentium," No. 25.

The same is plainly not true of the developing teaching on the death penalty. Moreover, Cardinal Avery Dulles and others have interpreted the teaching against the death penalty as essentially a prudential judgment about its advisability, not a moral prohibition following from the application of a strict principle.

As it happens, I don't agree with their analysis, but no one will be able to say with confidence from a Catholic point of view which side in this debate is right until the magisterium clarifies the teaching. So, it cannot be said that supporters of the death penalty are "obstinately persisting in manifest grave sin," and may or should be denied Holy Communion pursuant to Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law.

No one can legitimately claim for opposition to the death penalty the status of a definitively settled moral teaching of the Church. (Nor can one claim that the Church teaches or will ever teach that the death penalty -- except in cases where it is applied unjustly -- involves the grave intrinsic injustice attaching to any act involving the direct killing of the innocent.)

Regarding the question of the U.S. invasions of Iraq, it is important to understand the precise terms of Catholic teaching on just and unjust warfare. These terms are set forth with clarity and precision in the Catechism.

In line with the Church's historic teaching on the subject, neither Pope John Paul II nor Pope Benedict XVI has asserted that opposition to the war is binding on the consciences of Catholics. John Paul II's statements opposing the use of force in the run up to both invasions plainly questioned the prudential judgments of political leaders who, in the end, had and have the right and responsibility (according to the Catechism and the entire tradition of Catholic teaching on war and peace) to make judgments as to whether force is in fact necessary.

That is why the Pope and the bishops have not said, and will not say, that Catholic soldiers may not participate in the war. This contrasts with their clear teaching that Catholics may not participate in abortions or other forms of embryo-killing or support the use of taxpayer monies for activities involving the deliberate killing of innocent human beings.

I wish to close with a word to those in politics and the media -- Catholics and non-Catholics alike -- who have expressed anger, even outrage, at the world's Catholic bishops for teaching that the faithful must never implicate themselves in unjust killing by supporting legal abortion and embryo-destructive research.

In scolding the bishops, the editors of the New York Times , for example, have insisted that "separation of church and state" means that no religious leader may presume to tell public officials what their positions may and may not be on matters of public policy.

But if we shift the focus from abortion to, say, genocide, slavery, the exploitation of labor, or racial segregation we see how implausible such a view is. When Archbishop Rummel excommunicated the segregationist politicians in the 1950s, far from condemning the archbishop, the editors of the New York Times praised him.

They were right then; they are wrong now.

[Text adapted]

William Mahrt, Beauty and Liturgy

Via NLM:

Beauty and Liturgy: On the Apostolic Exhortation

By William Mahrt

n February 22, the Feast of the Chair of Peter, Pope Benedict issued an apostolic exhortation, Sacramentum Caritatis, a document resulting from the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, meeting in Rome last Autumn. In it the Holy Father summarizes salient points of discussion from the synod with recommendations for teaching and practice.

At first the document seems a bit of a potpourri, because it ranges widely through a great diversity of topics discussed by the synod. Some have already criticized it for having no teeth, no regulations, without which its discussions will remain in the realm of theory. Some have excused its lack of regulations as being an act of collegial reportage from the synod. Some have complained that it did not include their own desiderata; we musicians, for example, would have liked to have found more authoritative statements on the implementation of a greater return to Gregorian chant and polyphony.

But that is not his method. Benedict is no longer in charge of overseeing issues of doctrinal orthodoxy. He is now universal shepherd, and his method seems to be to establish first the fundamental principles as a basis for practical applications. Already we have seen it in Deus Caritas Est. Here he had the wish of Pope John Paul II that charitable works throughout the world be encouraged, which formed the second part of the encyclical. The first part, however, established a strong theoretical basis for the second by a quite original discussion of caritas. The traditional discussion of the two types of love had mainly drawn distinctions between caritas (agape in Greek) and amor (eros in Greek), but Pope Benedict explored the interrelation and the mutual interaction between these two kinds of love in an exemplary and inspiring exposition of fundamental principles which formed the foundation for the more practical discussion which followed.

The same is true for the apostolic exhortation. If one were to try to discern the most fundamental issue behind the present practice of the Mass in the parishes, one might say that it all too often focuses upon the congregation and too infrequently upon God. Indeed, it was one of my principal criticisms of Music in Catholic Worship that this document was almost exclusively anthropocentric and not sufficiently theocentric (see my “Toward a Revision of Music in Catholic Worship“). From this any number of difficulties flow, including a general de-emphasis upon the sacred and a corresponding incorporation of popular secular musical styles into the liturgy with a resulting loss of much of the tradition of sacred music.

Pope Benedict in Sacramentum Caritatis meets such a situation head-on by dealing with the most fundamental reality: the Eucharistic liturgy must be Christocentric. This places the apostolic exhortation along-side Deus Caritas Est, where the Eucharist is the most profound expression of Christ’s love for us. There follows a rich exposition of the Old Testament precedents of the Eucharist and their fulfillment in the sacrifice of Christ, in the relation of the Eucharist to the other sacraments, to the last things, and finally to the Virgin Mary.

On the ground that there is a binding relation between belief and practice, between lex orandi and lex credendi, he develops this relation by discussing the role of beauty in liturgy:

The liturgy is inherently linked to beauty: it is veritatis splendor. . . . In Jesus we contemplate beauty and splendor at their source. This is no mere aestheticism, but the concrete way in which the truth of God’s love in Christ encounters us, attracts us and delights us, enabling us to emerge from ourselves and drawing us towards our true vocation, which is love. . . . Beauty, then, is not mere decoration, but rather an essential element of the liturgical action, since it is an attribute of God himself and his revelation. (¶35)

Pope Benedict addresses the question of popular participation. He understands that it must be more than externally active participation:

The active participation called for by the Council must be understood in more substantial terms, on the basis of a greater awareness of the mystery being celebrated and its relationship to daily life. (¶52)

Preparation for this more substantive participation ought to include a cultivation of inner dispositions, aided by recollection and silence, by fasting, even by confession. Moreover, “the primary way to foster the participation of the People of God in the sacred rite is the proper celebration of the rite itself.” (¶38)

If all of this were understood well, our everyday liturgical problems would admit of much easier solution. If beauty is a compelling need in the liturgy, then we must choose the most beautiful music possible. If the focus upon Christ is the all-encompassing theme, we should comprehend more easily the reasons that the pax should be given with reserve immediately before we are to receive him in the sacrament. Pope Benedict draws such practical applications, including some quite specific recommendations for the use of chant and Latin (included in the section of documents, below).

Actually, we cannot expect everything from one document. It is, after all, an apostolic exhortation following upon the synod of bishops. It responds to the discussions of the synod, and it is true that collegiality calls for a kind of reportage from the wishes of the bishops. This does not mean that Pope Benedict does not express his own wishes, for on numerous occasions he turns to the first person and says “I ask,” “I reaffirm,” “I wish.” But he is also clear what the fathers of the synod wanted, and so when it comes to Gregorian chant,

I desire that, in accordance with the request advanced by the synod fathers, that Gregorian chant be suitably esteemed and employed as the chant proper to the Roman liturgy.(¶42)

This we had already heard from the preparatory documents for the synod; it is still good that it comes to us now with his authority and with his desire. But we have not heard the last from Pope Benedict concerning liturgy and music. What we have heard, though, is a continuing commitment to Gregorian chant as the proper music of the Roman Rite, now in the context of a Eucharist ecstatically focused upon the love of Christ and this as the source of beauty in the liturgy and thus of music. It behooves us to read the whole document carefully for this central vision and not just the paragraphs on music, for it expresses the deep foundations of our liturgy and music.
___________
William Mahrt is associate professor of music at Stanford University, and editor of Sacred Music. This article appears as an editorial in the Summer 2007 issue.

Robert Coles, Gluttony

HARVARD DIARY
Gluttony

By Robert Coles
November 1995

Robert Coles is Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities at Harvard Medical School, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and a Contributing Editor of the NOR.

These days in the privileged precincts of America, gluttony is an all too evident aspect of our existence -- the overweight ones as victims, the determinedly thin ones as prideful winners in a constant war against temptation. I doubt Adam Smith and other early apologists for capitalism ever imagined how central to its survival a hyped-up consumerism would one day become -- the endlessly clever and manipulative messages that tell us to want more and more, hence by implication to live, always, on the very edge of dissatisfaction. Every day, in countless shopping malls across the land, millions of us assemble in an almost desperate effort to acquire things, as if our very worth as human beings is at stake. Young people in droves use those same malls as hang-outs, places to pass the time of day, places where they can gawk and themselves be regarded, and trysting places too -- in movies and restaurants and in the nearby armies of cars, themselves a memorial to a progression of sorts: from a helpful convenience to an economic and social necessity, not to mention a psychological instrument that lends itself to all sorts of symbolic expressions, all sorts of idiosyncratic needs, aspirations.

For many years I never did understand why such a desire to get, to have, to buy and buy, to eat up, to wear then set aside in favor of tomorrow's garb, to drive this car -- why all that hungry inclination to possess, to own (and show to others) amounts to a serious sin. Gluttony and greed struck me as serious, present-day vices, but not especially evil in a spiritual sense. But during my Catholic Worker days (when I had the opportunity to help out at a "hospitality house," and talk at some considerable length with Dorothy Day), I began to learn otherwise -- learn from her, and others close to her, not the virtues of asceticism (a misconception in the minds of some: that she and Peter Maurin were committed ideologically to a kind of Catholic Puritanism), but the distinct danger of a materialism that gets out of hand, becomes outright gluttony, hence sin. Here is Dorothy Day to help us, me, in 1968, to understand the progression I have just mentioned -- a response, on her part, to my inquiry as to her attitude toward possessions: "I'm not the one to judge others -- I have enough to do trying to keep myself in line [with respect to moral matters]. But I know -- from personal experience, that's how I know -- that anything, just about anything can turn into a trap for us: we want it, we get it, we want more, and more, and more -- and we're not [thereby] only greedy, we're ‘sinful.'"

She paused long enough for me to tell her that I didn't quite follow her move (for me, then, a leap) from greed to sin, unless we were embracing a kind of self-denial or self-abrogation that itself, so I was intent on arguing, could become quite sinful -- a manifestation of pride. Soon enough, I heard this: "I've never been interested in saying no to people -- to myself: no to good food, and no to nice clothes, and no to travel. I've loved all that in the past, and I still do, even if I live differently now [than was the case during her 20s, when she was, by her own description, a Greenwich Village bohemian of sorts]. I happen to enjoy myself here [at the Catholic Worker hospitality house on the lower east side of New York City]. I mean, these days fill me up -- I like talking with our guests [the poor whom she served a daily lunch], and I like being part of a community. You may think I'm an advocate of austerity, but that's because I conceal my gluttony!"

Her gluttony! I laughed -- and looked for her wry, ironic smile, so familiar to me by then. But I soon realized she was dead serious. I didn't have to speak in order to elicit the following disquisition of sorts: "You think I'm fooling! You haven't seen me in a book store! You haven't seen me when someone wants to borrow one of the books I love and tell people to read. When push comes to shove, when someone takes my words to heart, and asks me for a novel of Dickens or Tolstoy or Dostoevsky -- right there on my shelf, and not being read by me now and in the foreseeable future -- I'm likely to freeze. Oh, I don't say what's on my mind; I try to be nice, and often I'll lend the book, but I'm sure to ask that it be returned soon, and to tell you the truth, I'm almost counting the days, the hours, until that book is safely back here!

"You may consider all this trivia, but I don't -- because I see in myself not only the wish for more and more books, and the wish to hold onto them for dear life, but the meaning of this: I get so taken up with something, I lose all sense of [moral, spiritual] perspective -- and that's what gluttony meant, I think, to the Church Fathers -- you behave as if your life depends on eating this or getting that, rather than on God's judgment of how you're living this life He's given you!"

There was much more explanatory and self-critical comment; and I began to understand what she was getting at. Gluttony for her was not a matter of being challenged secularly: appetite control in the interest of longevity. Nor was gluttony a violation of a Puritan ethic -- the notion that less is better, by virtue of John Calvin or some environmental guru. Gluttony, for her, was a universal possibility, something that can arise in the poor (or those like her who essentially choose poverty) as well as the well-to-do: a hunger for something, a possessiveness about something, that becomes distracting, indeed -- a means by which one loses sight of God, amidst one's frantic eyeing of one or another object or option. Even the vernacular expression of being a "glutton for punishment" has an interesting implication to it that Dorothy Day would surely recognize: We can take on so very much hardship in this world, prove ourselves (proudly) virtual martyrs, and all the while overlook the why, the supposed purpose of such a sacrificial effort. A lived series of burdens become, themselves, a collective acquisition of a kind.

Gluttony, in a sense, is one of the more devious sins -- it is meant to be a diversion, and it readily succeeds to the point that we may recognize the nature of the deed (the eating, the collecting, the amassing, the buying and buying, spending and spending), but we overlook the larger significance of the particular preoccupation as it gets lived out. Put differently, gluttony shows us materially or emotionally driven, but we are all too apt to overlook the spiritual consequences -- and maybe, as well, the spiritual cause. "I don't have the time to go to church," I heard once from a patient -- and then, an explanation: "I could make the time, I know, but I don't see eye to eye with the Pope these days." Not a rare comment, and one I did not at the time choose to challenge. Instead, I listened as he moved directly on to what he did have the time to do -- go to auctions in search of stamp collections and a certain kind of "country antique": chairs, tables, lamps, all of which (save the stamps) he stored, ostensibly for his children, grandchildren. I had no interest in judging, even interpreting his actions and interests -- we had other things, pressing hard on him, to discuss. But I thought I'd heard something important, had been unselfconsciously taught something, yet again, by this person, a thoughtful and sensitive man who had a way of dropping provocative asides as he told of his life, its vicissitudes as well as its relative good fortune.

Unwilling to immerse himself in religious issues which vexed him, and which maybe threatened a comfortable adjustment to a contemporary, late 20th-century American set of values, he chose another road: that of catalogs, then shops, then bidding wars. He and his wife would chide themselves occasionally, laugh derisively at their "greedy ways," but were not at all inclined to understand them -- and by that last observation, I don't fault them in the psychiatric sense. It is tempting, of course, for all of us to do just that -- look for the covert emotional sources of just about anything we do. But there, too, we can become gluttons -- anxious to accumulate ideas, interpretations, theories, explanations. The issue is essentially ethical, if not spiritual -- in the words of David Riesman, not a theologian, but a shrewd, knowing observer of our end of the century (end of the millennium!) habits, preferences: "affluence for what?" That "what" is rhetorical of course, meant to turn our heads, to prompt a moment's pause -- so that we might wonder what it is that we want out of life -- what it is that we truly believe, what our purpose is in this time we're given here. In three carefully chosen words, a social essayist was suggesting that affluence (and the gluttony that can so inspire us to get money, then use it to satisfy dozens of tastes, if not sate ourselves) can go thoroughly unexamined by us, to our collective and personal detriment, both. No longer hungry in our bellies, we are hungry in our souls -- and sometimes mistake that hunger for a "psychological problem," when it is a larger, more "existential" one, of the kind that both Dorothy Day and David Riesman had in mind, I think, when they took a look at all of us as we take on the moral perils that go with life in this rich country of ours.