Father Cantalamessa on Jesus

Father Cantalamessa on Jesus
"Between History and … History"



ROME, JULY 14, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of a talk given in Rome by the Pontifical Household preacher, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, on historical research concerning Jesus.

* * *

JESUS OF NAZARETH
BETWEEN HISTORY AND THEOLOGY
Talk given at a public debate held in Rome
12 May 2007

1. Jesus, between history and … history

It seems to me that, more basic than the alternative expressed in the title, "Jesus, between history and theology," is the alternative, "Jesus, between history and history." The notion of a rectilinear, univocal form of historical research concerning Jesus, leading progressively to a clear and complete picture of him is a myth which no serious historian of our day would claim to validate.

Leaving aside the diachronic variations -- that is to say, the historical reconstructions of Jesus that have come, one after the other, during the last two centuries -- let me look for a moment at the synchronic views, that is, those that have arisen simultaneously in one epoch, our own.

In the new introduction to her work: "From Jesus to Christ. The origins of the images of Jesus in the New Testament," Paula Fredriksen, Professor at Boston University, writes: "Paperbacks proliferate as the range of portraits of Jesus broadens. In recent scholarship, Jesus has been imagined and presented as a type of first-century shaman figure; as a Cynic-sort of wandering wise man; as a visionary radical and social reformer preaching egalitarian ethics to the destitute; as a Galilean regionalist alienated from the elitism of Judean religious conventions (like Temple and Torah); as a champion of national liberation and, on the contrary, as its opponent and critic -- on and on. All these figures are presented with rigorous academic argument and methodology; all are defended with appeals to the ancient data. Debate continues at a roiling pitch, and consensus -- even on issues so basic as what constitutes evidence and how to construe it -- seems a distant hope."[1]

Appeal is often made to recent discoveries that are supposed at last to have given historical research an advantage over the past, to wit the scrolls of Qumran, the library of Nag Hammadi, archaeological excavations, sociological research. Yet how variable the conclusions can be that are drawn from these new historical sources is clear from the fact that they have given rise to two images of Christ, one irreconcilably opposed to the other. On the one hand we have a Jesus "wholly and in all things Hebrew," and on the other, Jesus son of the hellenised Galilee of his time, imbued with a cynical philosophy.
Researches in sociology too tend to lead to diametrically opposed results, as E. P. Sanders, the great specialist on Jesus and Judaism has noted: For some, "Jesus' world faced a severe social and economic crisis, one that grew worse day by day. Palestine's small landholders were in a tightening noose of institutionalized injustices such as double taxation, heavy indebtedness, and loss of land. Peasant families fell ever more heavily into debt under the steady economic pressures of double taxation. The wealthy lent them money that they could not repay, charged very high rates of interest, and then foreclosed on the property… There was rising indebtedness and a declining peasantry, the social-economic infrastructure was in decline and poverty worsening." For others, on the contrary, "Galilee was urbanized, cosmopolitan and prosperous… in fact an epitome of Hellenistic culture… Jesus and his hearers spoke Greek."[2]
It is not surprising, then, that in the post-modern thinking a radical scepticism has developed. Here the alternative is no longer between history and theology, nor between one history and another, but between history and interpretation or literary criticism. The text is read without any regard for foregoing objective data; all turns upon the reader's direct confrontation with the text and the outcome is all subjective and relative.

The most recent, monumental (and in my view genuinely innovative) monograph on the historical Jesus, written by James Dunn of Durham University, England, ends off a review of the opinions with this assessment: "The loss of confidence in historical method in post-modern circles is thus complete. And so far as the quest of the historical Jesus is concerned, its results, particularly when the various Jesuses of the neo-Liberal quest are included, simply confirm the failure of traditional historical methodology. The simple and rather devastating fact has been that Gospels researchers and questers of the historical Jesus have failed to produce agreed results"[3].

What conclusion are we to draw from all this? That we might as well abandon research into the historical Jesus? Certainly not that. The author just quoted gives an example, devoting his monumental work to this very research. I believe that we can apply to historical research what the proverb says about God, that "he writes straight on crooked lines." It does in fact advance our knowledge of history, opening new horizons and formulating new hypotheses, some of which prove to be productive and enlightening. The very failure to find a commonly accepted alternative to the Gospel narrative is in itself an important historical acquisition.

The requisite in approaching research into the historical Jesus is above all a greater humility and an awareness of our own intrinsic limitations. Historical criticism has caused orthodox theology to be more humble and aware of the problematics, but historical criticism itself needs perhaps to accept its own limits, whether arising from the sources, or from the object of its investigations which -- hypothetically at least -- extends beyond the limits of history. The approach to the problematics, the pro and the con and the awareness of limits, is what in fact distinguishes the great scientific monographs on the Jesus of history from the works of writers in search of sensationalism whose works are triumphal processions marching to conclusions already obvious from the outset. Among the serious monographs, the most recent has been that of Gerd Theissen and Annette Metz, although it is questionable on many points.[4]

A mistaken methodology, against which the serious researchers are always on guard, is that of taking something "historically not demonstrable" simply "as historically false." Concerning many of the events related in the Gospels, history can only conclude that they cannot be supported on the basis of historical argument, yet this does not justify the conclusion that the narrative is therefore false.

It is particularly necessary to abandon the illusion that believers start with a preconceived idea when writing about Jesus, but unbelievers, unprejudiced, do not. John Meier, author of a major study on the historical Jesus, writes: "Whether we call it a bias, a tendenz, a worldview, or a faith stance, everyone who writes on the historical Jesus writes from some ideological vantage point; no critic is exempt. The solution to this dilemma is neither to pretend to an absolute objectivity that is not to be had nor to wallow in total relativism. The solution is to admit honestly one's own standpoint, to try to exclude its influence in making scholarly judgments by adhering to certain commonly held criteria, and to invite the correction of other scholars when one's vigilance inevitably slips."[5]

2. Jesus, Hebrew believer or cynic philosopher?

Speaking of the limits of historical research, I would like to highlight one that seems to me to be decisive. It concerns the possibility of an historical research on Jesus that not only prescinds from, but from the outset excludes any faith in God; in other words, the plausibility of what has at times been called "the Jesus of the atheists." I'm not now speaking of faith in Christ, in his divinity, but of faith in God, faith in the most commonly accepted sense of the term.

Far be from me the idea that non-believers have no right to concern themselves with Jesus. I am convinced that Jesus is "the patrimony of humankind" and that no one, and of course neither the Church, holds a monopoly on him. What I want to make clear are the consequences of keeping to that point of departure, and that the "preconceptions" of a researcher who does not believe have no less influence on research than those of one who does.

I am convinced that, if one prescinds from faith in God, one eliminates not only the divinity, that is the so-called Christ of faith, but also the historical Jesus "tout court"; nothing is left, not even Jesus the man. It is simply not possible to contest on historical grounds that the Jesus of the Gospels lived and worked relating to and aware of the heavenly Father, that he prayed and taught others to pray, that he based everything on faith in God. If this dimension is eliminated from the Jesus of the Gospels, his whole personality disintegrates and becomes incomprehensible.

But if we assume that God does not exist, Jesus is simply another one of the deluded many who prayed, adored, spoke with his own shadow or the projection of his own essence, to use Feuerbach's terms. And how would it be possible to explain the fact that this man's life, as they readily admit, "changed the world"? It would be tantamount to saying that truth or reason had nothing to do with the change in the world, but only illusion and irrationality. How then explain that this man continues, at a remove of two thousand years, to appeal to humankind as no other?

There is only one way out of this dilemma, and we need to recognise the consistency shown by those who in recent years have made it their own. The way out is the one mapped out in the ambit of the "Jesus Seminar" based in Berkeley, California. Jesus was not a Hebrew believer; he was basically a philosopher in the mode of the cynics[6]; he did not preach a kingdom of God, nor an approaching end of the world; all he did was pronounce words of profound wisdom in the style of a Zen master. His purpose was to reawaken in people a self-awareness, to convince them that they had no need of him or of any other god, because they themselves carried within themselves a spark of the divine[7]. Strange enough -- rather not surprising at all -- these are the things that New Age has been preaching for some decades!

How can this new image of Jesus be justified historically? Simply by taking as absolute the "Q" source (the collection of the sayings of Jesus based on the use Mark and Matthew made of them in their Gospels) and regarding it as the only document having any tenable link with a Jesus who really existed. But this is not good enough, because among the sayings of Jesus listed in that collection, there are some that are incompatible with that image of him. Thus the distinction is made between three successive layers in that document (itself hypothetical!), of which the oldest, called "Q3," alone authentic, could be taken as a nucleus of esoteric sayings approximating in kind those we find in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas. I studied classical philology and textual criticism during my university years, and know that on such premises there is no possibility whatsoever of hitting the mark. That approach leaves the data open to endless manipulation.

Before any of them, Nietzsche saw the dilemma clearly and resolved it in a way much more coherent than today's -- making of Jesus not a philosopher in the cast of Greek rationality, but its irreducible opposite.

3. Continuity or complete break? The "Jesus of Nazareth" of Benedict XVI

Let us move now to the alternative mentioned in the title of this paper, "Jesus of Nazareth between history and 'theology.'" After all of the immense effort that has been expended, from Reimarus to today, to free the historical Jesus from the Christ of ecclesiastical dogma, it will perhaps serve some purpose again to take into consideration the viewpoint of tradition and church dogma now that they have become more humble and more aware of their own limits, thanks precisely to historical criticism.

This, I believe, is what Pope Benedict XVI set out to do in his book "Jesus of Nazareth." Someone has accused him of bypassing in that way all the problems and doubts to which modern historical criticism has given rise. But I ask myself: what was the pope supposed to have done -- write yet another historical reconstruction in which to confront and discuss all objections? We heard, above, how long the list is of writers, believers and non-believers, who have done just that, and I cannot see how yet another such work, even if written by a pope, would have made any difference.

What the pope chose to do was to present in a positive light the figure and the teaching of Jesus as understood by the Church, starting from the conviction that the Christ of faith is also, rigorously, the Jesus of history. Since the pope has left everyone the liberty to criticise his book, I too permit myself a small reservation. I think that the continuity between the Christ of the kerygma and of dogma, for all that it is real, is not quite as rectilinear as is made to appear in the summary introduction to the book.

On this point, I think we can share the opinion of Theissen and Merz: "Christians, after Easter, spoke of Jesus more affirmatively (that is to say, they said greater and more important things) than the historical Jesus would have said about himself. This 'value plus' of post-Paschal Christology in respect of Jesus' pre-Paschal self-awareness, whether on the historical or on the objective level, is based on the actual event of Easter"[8].

Theissen and Merz saw that the two phases -- before Easter, and after -- relate to each other in the same way as implicit and explicit Christology do. Among the elements of implicit Christology that they find in the Gospels, not a few correspond with those on which Benedict XVI bases his argument in his book: the expression "Amen" in the particular way Jesus uses it; the self-confidence with which Jesus counterposes the authority of the Torah and of Moses with his "But I say to you …"; his particular way of relating to the Father and above all the distinction between "My Father" and "your father"; his forgiving sins; the superiority Jesus claims over the Baptist whom he defines as "the greatest of the prophets."[9]

It would be most ungenerous to fail to recognise the theological and spiritual richness of Benedict XVI's book on Jesus, and gauge it only against the measure of the historical Jesus. It is of course a book written by a believer for believers and for those who take an interest in knowing the Christ of tradition and of the Church. He himself declares that he does not want to enter into the debates that are proper to historico-critical research, but assuming them, to go beyond, seeking in wonderment a genuinely theological interpretation."[10]

The pope bases himself explicitly on canonical exegesis, that is, on that type of exegesis that presupposes the belief that God has not just one way of revealing himself to the world, the way of history; he has many other ways, among which the most important is biblical inspiration. This conviction allows not only the reading of "the fragment in the whole" (that is, a text within its context) as the moderns use to do, but also "the whole within the fragment" (that is, the entire Bible reflected within each of its parts) as the Fathers have done and on which the Church's spiritual reading of Scripture down through the ages is based. In a magisterial work, Henri de Lubac has demonstrated how coherent and fruitful this way of reading the Scripture has been[11].

It is very significant that the decision of the pope to keep to the Jesus of the Gospels is, on certain counts, confirmed in the monograph of James Dunn to which we referred above. In that work, after a lengthy and sharp analysis of the results of the research on the historical Jesus over the last three centuries, the writer comes to the conclusion that there has been no break between Jesus the preacher and the Jesus preached, and hence between the historical Jesus and the Jesus of faith. The Jesus of faith was not born after Easter, but was there in the first encounters with the disciples, who became disciples precisely because they believed in the Rabbi of Nazareth.

The difficulty in making the link between the Jesus of the synoptic Gospels and the real Jesus arises for the most part from the failure to take into account the laws that govern the transmission of the founding traditions of a community still without a written culture, as happened when accounts of Jesus were first formulated and circulated among groups of people. The study of these laws (even now verifiable among peoples of pre-literate cultures) shows that an event or a teaching held to be important for the history and for the life of the community can be transmitted with acute accuracy as to its essential elements, though in the particulars showing variations in each narration, to meet the requirements of the moment.

Historical criticism ("Formgeschichte," or history of form) has tacitly projected on the epoch of the New Testament the process which leads today to the final edition of a book: successive revisions, layers as it were, based one upon the other, adding to or subtracting from it some part. This has given rise to the illusion that one can work back from a layer to the one before, eventually to arrive at a hypothetical, original nucleus -- which almost always turns out to be a close reflection of the point at which the scholar concerned aimed at the outset.

What do we actually discover by taking this approach? Not -- at least directly -- the "hidden interiority" of Christ, what he thought of himself, but the "Jesus as remembered"; "remembered" however -- and this is where the difference lies -- not at a distance in time, after Easter, by disciples and communities that re-interpreted the events and the teachings as extraneous interests moved them to do, but by those who straight away began to tell, in story form, of what they themselves experienced and heard.

Read in this way, the scholar says, "the synoptic Gospels are examples of a model and technique of oral transmission that have guaranteed a stability and continuity in the tradition of Jesus greater than any of those ever imagined in the past."

4. Easter -- a watershed

For many historians, Easter does not represent a qualitative leap in Christology, but an absolute beginning. But the more historical research stresses this new beginning, the greater the difficulties with it become. Once we abandon the thesis of Reimarus, that the resurrection of Christ was a conscious fraud of the disciples, how can we explain such an absolute beginning? All the subsequent development of faith in Christ it is said to be based on the Resurrection, but then, when closely examined, it appears to have no basis at all, because the Resurrection itself is a matter of faith, therefore something subjective, not real. Christianity appears to be a massive upside-down pyramid, its point resting on the void.

This is not the place to call for yet another in the unending series of debates on the resurrection. I'll confine myself to citing an affirmation made by the English scholar, Charles H. Dodd, with which I wholly agree: "The assumption that the whole great course of Christian history is a massive pyramid balanced upon the apex of some trivial occurrence, is surely a less probable one than that the whole event, the occurrence plus the meaning inherent in it, did actually occupy a place in history at least comparable with that which the New Testament assigns to it."[12]

The resurrection, some say, is a metaphor; that is true, but the meaning of the metaphor, as Paul Ricoeur has pointed out, is not to give expression to something other than reality, but to say, of reality itself, something that cannot be said in any other way. The resurrection in itself is something positioned at the limits, or more properly, outside the limits of time and space and hence too of history, yet there is something that took place within time and space and that the historian must therefore set out to explain.

Two facts are offered for the historian's consideration, and it is these that permit him to speak of the resurrection: the first is the unanticipated and inexplicable faith of the disciples, a faith so tenacious as to stand firm even against the test of martyrdom; and the second is the explanation of such faith that the disciples left of it. The observation made by Martin Dibelius will always remain pertinent: "When the decisive moment arrived, and Jesus was taken, scourged and sentenced, the disciples cherished no expectation of a resurrection. They fled, and considered the cause of Jesus over and done with. What was needed, therefore, was something that in a very short time would not only bring about a radical change in their state of mind, but would move them to an entirely new kind of activity and to founding the Church. This 'something' is the historical kernel of faith in the resurrection."[13] There has been an endless number of attempts to find alternative explanations for this "something," but so far none has lasted much longer than its author.

5. The veneration of Jesus Christ

Where then, and when, did what we call 'Christianity' begin? If by 'Christianity' we correctly intend the veneration of Jesus of Nazareth as Lord, and as Divine, it began at Easter and Pentecost. Larry W. Hurtado, professor of New Testament Language, Literature and Theology at the university of Edinburgh, has taken up again the study of the origins of the cult of Jesus undertaken by W. Bousset at the beginning of the previous century, now on a new basis, in the light of what has come to be recognised as the Judaic, non-Hellenistic matrix of primitive Christianity. And the conclusion at which he arrives is that the veneration of Jesus as a divine figure burst out suddenly and unexpectedly, not little by little and later on, among circles of followers in the first century. More precisely, its origins are found among the circles of Jewish Christians of the very earliest years. It is only an idealistic way of thinking that continues to attribute the veneration of Jesus as a divine figure to the decisive influence of pagan religions and to the influx of gentile converts, holding it to have come about at a later stage and more gradually. The veneration of Jesus as 'Lord', that found adequate expression in cultic worship and in total obedience, was however widespread, not at all confined or attributable to particular circles, as for example the 'hellenists', or gentile Christians of a hypothetical 'Syriac Christ-cult'. Through all the diversity of primitive Christianity, faith in the divine condition of Jesus was incredibly widespread, common to all. Very nearly all of the 'heresies' of primitive Christianity postulated the idea of the divinity of Jesus. This was not in discussion. The problematical issue, rather, was whether there was room to consider him authentically human[14].

Clearly, if we compare the Jesus of the Gospels with the Christ of Nicea and Constantinople, the difference at first glance seems abyssal. So too, if we compare the scanned image of a human embryo in the womb with the child born and grown into adulthood, there seems to be an unbridgeable gap between the two, even though all that the grown man is, was seminally within the embryo. Didn't Jesus compare the kingdom he preached with the smallest of seeds, destined to grow and to become a great tree ? (Matthew 13:32).

According to the faith of the Church, this development, all the undeniable facts of history aside, is driven by one, inner and hidden force: the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one factor notably absent from all the historical research concerning Jesus. On hearing even mention of the name, the historian does an about-turn, growling that that belongs in another genre; it would be doing theology. But is it possible for the researchers into the history of Jesus to ignore something to which Jesus himself, in texts of inarguable authenticity, attributes his own ability to drive out demons and perform miracles? It has become the custom, today, to speak of Jesus and the first disciples as "itinerant charismatics," but what remains of a charismatic if the experience of the Holy Spirit is left out of consideration?

Paul and the Acts of the Apostles show that after Easter the community again and again had the experience of being guided by the Holy Spirit. John gives explicit expression to this awareness, linking it back to a promise made by Jesus: "I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of things to come" (John 16:12-13). A 'prophecy' after the event, one might say; true, but even in this case the event still remains to be explained!

The Holy Spirit is outside of the field of history, but his effects are historical and so deserve to be taken into consideration. This could be one of the areas where history and theology ought to work together, each one in its own way. This is what James Dunn, author of "Christianity in the Making," has done in his work, "Jesus and the Spirit. A Study of the Religious and Charismatic Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New Testament."[15]

6. One Christianity or many?

I still need to come to the issue raised by those who say that in the beginning there was not one Christianity, but many, that is to say, many different interpretations of Christ's message, gradually eliminated one by one by the growing weight of the orthodoxy imposed by the church of Rome. It is possible -- why not? -- to speak of different Christianities, but then of course we need to say the same of nearly every institution and of the great novelties of history. In that sense there was not one Jewish religion but many Jewish religions, nor one Renaissance but many Renaissances, nor one French Revolution but many French Revolutions, and so on, because each of these realities were the result of the processes of the interaction and refining of various factors and tendencies. Sociologists teach us that that is what usually comes about in a movement's development from its nascent status to the establishment that is its final result.

The idea put forward in some quarters, to begin again from the beginning, putting all of those possibilities into one bag -- that is, bringing all the old no-longer-held modalities into play again -- in order to bring to life a new, unedited form of Christianity, makes me think of the project to develop a new Esperanto, and of its demise.

We should rather accord to the orthodoxy of the origins the merit of having fought its battle with books and decrees, without having sent anyone, neither Marcion nor Valentinus nor Montanus, to the bonfire. Some will say orthodoxy didn't have the power to do that: true enough, but the fact remains that it was not done, and that at least in the early centuries of its history, orthodoxy did not impose its way by force and conquest but by argument and example of life. Its beginnings are clean; they are still worth examining, and they can still inspire us.

The notion of an orthodoxy that emerged victorious by eliminating its competitors under the powerful guidance of Rome is a pure legend. Orthodoxy was not established in its origins by way of a movement from the centre to the periphery, but on the contrary, by movement from the periphery towards the centre. The struggles against ebionite beliefs, docetism, and encratism did not move outwards from Rome, but all arrived in Rome from Antioch in Syria, from Asia Minor, from Alexandria in Egypt, from Carthage and from Lyon in France. Rome in the first two centuries and a half of Christian history was more the arbiter between the parties than a leading force in the struggles against heresy. Even in the Council of Nicea, the influence of Rome and of the West in general was minimal. Attributing to Rome the triumph of orthodoxy is, to a large extent, the consequence of a backward projection of later situations, if not of the present state of affairs!

It would be interesting to review the various forms of so-called alternative Christianities, in order to see which of them, if still in existence, would be accepted by those who lament their passing. Encratism surely not, because of its rejection of marriage and material possessions; certainly not Marcionism because of its radical anti-Jewish stance; nor I believe would the various forms of gnosticism or docetism find acceptance, rejecting as they do the material world and the real humanity of Jesus. As to the famous prophets and itinerant charismatics, so dear to modern researchers into the Jesus of history, we note a curious point: in our day a movement similar in many of its aspects has reappeared in spectacular fashion in Christian churches, yet there are students of the historical Jesus who look on this with irony and hold it to be nothing more than the fruit of fundamentalism, irrationality and religious enthusiasm. (I know something of this because, at times, I too am placed in this category!).

There is, it is true, a stream that finds favour today among many scholars, ebionism, that is, the form of Christianity that remains in practice within the matrix of Judaism, holding Jesus to be a man and keeping to the observances of the Torah. This is something of which we know very little, apart from the fact that they were isolated communities living in the east of the Jordan. There was no war against them, no bonfire of books. Paradoxically, orthodoxy has not suppressed their memory, as some say, but in fact preserved it. If it were not for the fact that certain of their writings are quoted by authors of orthodox Christianity, we would know nothing whatever about them. Concerned as they were with countering the much more belligerent Gnosticism, the orthodox writers gave them only passing attention.

Orthodoxy, however, did not content itself with fighting these alternative forms of Christianity, but made them its own after freeing them of any "sectarian" and heretical element. The instance of encratism survives in the Church in the life-states of virginity and monasticism; the instances of gnosis are taken up by the Alexandrines, Clement and Origen; the way of the itinerant prophets, after the initial crisis arising from Montanist excesses, was to emerge again in the Church in the mendicant movements of the Middle Ages.

7. Conclusion

I cannot end my analysis without drawing attention to a contradiction. All of the spasmodic research into the historical Jesus, when those who undertake it distance themselves from the Christ of the Church, becomes by definition a radical refutation of history itself. The history to which Jesus gave rise, that he created by his life, is not only not taken into consideration, but some make every effort to obliterate it in favour of a starting-point detached from it and in contrast to it.

In this there is no application of the hermeneutic principle of "the history of effects" ("Wirkungsgeschichte"), which takes into account not only the influences undergone but also the effects produced and the influences exercised. The interpreter, says H.-G. Gadamer, can not impose his own view on the tradition of the past that he is studying, but can begin to understand it adequately only thanks to that very tradition and to the extent that he shares in it. I don't believe this means that only those with an inward adherence to Christianity can understand anything about it, but it surely should put us on our guard against believing that only those who stand outside of it can say anything objective about it.

It is through the Church and by the Church that Jesus changed the world. Without "that error called Christianity," as someone has defined it[16], we would not be here to speak about him. Jesus would be, today, an obscure Galilean rabbi whose name we would find only if we were to read a note on the writings of Tacitus or Flavius Josephus. There would have been no Augustine, no Francis of Assisi, no Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Pascal; there would have been no Gothic cathedrals or Romanesque churches, no Dante, no paintings of the Renaissance schools, no Michelangelo or Sistine Chapel, Bach or his Passions, Mozart and his Masses. There would, above all, have been none of the innumerable crowds of men and women who, in the name of the Christ they knew through the Church, dedicated themselves utterly to the care of suffering humanity.

Can we be sure that our world would be a better place without all that? The history of Christianity has not been merely a matter of crusades, inquisitions and religious wars, even though, sadly, it has been that too.

--- --- ---

[1] P. Fredriksen, "From Jesus to Christ. The Origins of the New Testament images of Jesus," 2nd edition, Yale University Press, 2000.
[2] Cf. E. P. Sanders, "Jesus in Historical Context" [http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/oct1993/v50-3-article8.htm]
[3] J. Dunn, "Christianity in the Making," I, Grand Rapids, Mich. 2003, p. 97.

[4] G. Theissen and A. Merz, "Der historische Jesus: ein Lehrbuch," Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1999.
[5] J. Meier, "A Marginal Jew. Rethinking the Historical Jesus," Doubleday, New York 1991, p. 5-6.
[6] On the theory of Jesus as cynic, cf. B. Griffin, "Was Jesus a philosophical Cynic?" [http://www-oxford.op.org/allen/html/acts.htm].

[7] Cf. Harold Bloom, “Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings…”, published in an appendix to the Marvin Meyer edition of the Coptic "The Gospel of Thomas. The Hidden Sayings of Jesus," Harper Collins Publishers, San Francisco 1992.
[8] Op. cit. p. 624.
[9] Ib. pp. 636-646.

[10] Joseph Ratzinger - Benedict XVI, "Gesù di Nazaret," Rizzoli, Milano 2007, p. 409.
[11] Cf. H. de Lubac, "Exégèse médiévale. Les quatre sens de l’Ecriture," 4 voll., Aubier, Paris 1959-1964.
[12] C. H. Dodd, "History and Gospel," London 1952, p. 109.

[13] M. Dibelius, Iesus, Berlin 1966, p. 117.
[14] Cfr. L. Hurtado, "Lord Jesus Christ. Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity," Grand Rapids, Mich. 2003.
[15] J. Dunn, "Jesus and the Spirit. A Study of the Religious and Charismatic Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New Testament," SCM Press, London 1975.
[16] P. Hollenbach, "The Historical Jesus Question," in BTB 19 (1989), p. 20.

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Commentary on the Doctrinal Congregation Document

Commentary on the Doctrinal Congregation Document
"Dialogue Remains One of the Priorities of the Church"



VATICAN CITY, JULY 11, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is the text of a commentary on the June 29 document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The commentary, by the same dicastery, explains the intention of the document that clarifies the Second Vatican Council's teaching that the Church founded by Christ "subsists in the Catholic Church."

* * *

CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH

COMMENTARY ON THE DOCUMENT

RESPONSES TO SOME QUESTIONS REGARDING CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE DOCTRINE ON THE CHURCH

In this document the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is responding to a number of questions concerning the overall vision of the Church which emerged from the dogmatic and ecumenical teachings of the Second Vatican Council. This Council 'of the Church on the Church' signalled, according to Paul VI, "a new era for the Church" in which "the true face of the Bride of Christ has been more fully examined and unveiled."[1] Frequent reference is made to the principle documents of Popes Paul VI and John Paul II and to the interventions of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, all of which were inspired by an ever deepening understanding of the Church herself, and many of which were aimed at clarifying the notable outpouring of post-conciliar theology -- not all of which was immune from imprecision and error.

This present document is similarly inspired. Precisely because some contemporary theological research has been erroneous, or ambiguous, the Congregation's intention is to clarify the authentic meaning of certain ecclesiological statements of the Magisterium. For this reason the Congregation has chosen to use the literary genre of Responsa ad quaestiones, which of its nature does not attempt to advance arguments to prove a particular doctrine but rather, by limiting itself to the previous teachings of the Magisterium, sets out only to give a sure and certain response to specific questions.

The first question asks if the Second Vatican Council changed the previously held doctrine on the Church.

The question concerns the significance of what Paul VI described in the above mentioned quotation as 'the new face' of the Church offered by Vatican II.

The response, based on the teaching of John XXIII and Paul VI, is very clear: the Second Vatican Council did not intend to change -- and therefore has not changed -- the previously held doctrine on the Church. It merely deepened this doctrine and articulated it in a more organic way. This is, in fact, what Paul VI said in his discourse promulgating the Dogmatic Constitution "Lumen gentium" when he affirmed that the document had not changed traditional doctrine on the Church, but rather "that which was assumed, is now explicit; that which was uncertain, is now clarified; that which was meditated upon, discussed and sometimes argued over, is now put together in one clear formulation."[2]

There is also a continuity between the doctrine taught by the Council and that of subsequent interventions of the Magisterium which have taken up and deepened this same doctrine, which itself constitutes a development. In this sense, for instance, the Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "Dominus Iesus" merely reaffirmed the conciliar and post-conciliar teachings without adding or taking away anything.

In the post-conciliar period, however, and notwithstanding these clear affirmations, the doctrine of Vatican II has been, and continues to be, the object of erroneous interpretations at variance with traditional Catholic doctrine on the nature of the Church: either seeing in it a 'Copernican revolution' or else emphasising some aspects almost to the exclusion of others. In reality the profound intention of the Second Vatican Council was clearly to insert the discourse on the Church within and subordinate to the discourse on God, therefore proposing an ecclesiology which is truly theological. The reception of the teaching of the Council has, however, often obscured this point, relativising it in favour of individual ecclesiological affirmations, and often emphasising specific words or phrases which encourage a partial and unbalanced understanding of this same conciliar doctrine.

Regarding the ecclesiology of "Lumen gentium," certain key ideas do seem to have entered into ecclesial consciousness: the idea of the People of God, the collegiality of the bishops as a re-evaluation of the ministry of bishops together with the primacy of the Pope, a renewed understanding of the individual Churches within the universal Church, the ecumenical application of the concept of the Church and its openness to other religions; and finally the question of the specific nature of the Catholic Church which is expressed in the formula according to which the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church -- of which the creed speaks -- subsistit in Ecclesia catholica.

In the following questions this document examines some of these ideas, especially the specific nature of the Catholic Church together with what is implied ecumenically from this understanding.

The second question asks what is meant by the affirmation that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church.

When G. Philips wrote that the phrase "subsistit in" had caused 'rivers of ink'[3] to be spilt, he would probably never have imagined that the discussion would continue for so long or with such intensity as to have provoked the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to publish this present document.

This publication, based on the conciliar and postconciliar texts which it cites, reflects the concern of the Congregation to safeguard the unity and unicity of the Church, which would be compromised by the proposal that the Church founded by Christ could have more than one subsistence. If this were the case we would be forced, as the Declaration "Mysterium Ecclesiae" puts it, to imagine "the Church of Christ as the sum total of the Churches or the ecclesial Communities -- which are simultaneously differentiated and yet united," or "to think that the Church of Christ no longer exists today concretely and therefore can only be the object of research for the Churches and the communities."[4] If this were the case, the Church of Christ would not any longer exist in history, or would exist only in some ideal form emerging either through some future convergence or through the reunification of the diverse sister Churches, to be hoped for and achieved through dialogue.

The Notification of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith concerning a book of Leonardo Boff is even more explicit. In response to Boff's assertion that the one Church of Christ "is able to subsist in other Christian Churches," the Notification states that "the Council chose the word "subsistit" specifically to clarify that the true Church has only one "subsistence," while outside her visible boundaries there are only "elementa Ecclesiae " which -- being elements of the same Church -- tend and lead to the Catholic Church."[5]

The third question asks why the expression "subsistit in" was used rather than the verb "est."

It is precisely this change of terminology in the description of the relationship between the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church which has given rise to the most varied interpretations, above all in the field of ecumenism. In reality, the Council Fathers simply intended to do was to recognise the presence of ecclesial elements proper to the Church of Christ in the non-Catholic Christian communities. It does not follow that the identification of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church no longer holds, nor that outside the Catholic Church there is a complete absence of ecclesial elements, a " churchless void." What it does mean is that if the expression "subsistit in" is considered in its true context, namely in reference to the Church of Christ "constituted and organised in this world as a society … governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him," then the change from est to subsistit in takes on no particular theological significance of discontinuity with previously held Catholic doctrine.

In fact, precisely because the Church willed by Christ actually continues to exist (subsistit in) in the Catholic Church, this continuity of subsistence implies an essential identity between the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church. The Council wished to teach that we encounter the Church of Jesus Christ as a concrete historical subject in the Catholic Church. The idea, therefore, that subsistence can somehow be multiplied does not express what was intended by the choice of the term "subsistit." In choosing the word "subsistit" the Council intended to express the singularity and non "multipliability" of the Church of Christ: the Church exists as a unique historical reality.

Contrary to many unfounded interpretations, therefore, the change from "est" to "subsistit" does not signify that the Catholic Church has ceased to regard herself as the one true Church of Christ. Rather it simply signifies a greater openness to the ecumenical desire to recognise truly ecclesial characteristics and dimensions in the Christian communities not in full communion with the Catholic Church, on account of the " plura elementa sanctificationis et veritatis" present in them. Consequently, although there is only one Church which "subsists" in one unique historical subject there are true ecclesial realities which exist beyond its visible boundaries.

The fourth question asks why the Second Vatican Council used the word "Churches" to describe the oriental Churches not in full communion with the Catholic Church.

Notwithstanding the explicit affirmation that the Church of Christ "subsists" in the Catholic Church, the recognition that even outside her visible boundaries "many elements of sanctification and of truth"[6] are to be found, implies the ecclesial character -- albeit diversified -- of the non-Catholic Churches or ecclesial Communities. Neither are these by any means "deprived of significance and importance" in the sense that "the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation."[7]

The document considers above all the reality of the oriental Churches not in full communion with the Catholic Church and, making reference to various conciliar texts, gives them the title "particular or local Churches" and calls them sister Churches of the particular Catholic Churches because they remain united to the Catholic Church through the apostolic succession and the valid celebration of the Eucharist "through which the Church of God is built up and grows in stature."[8] The Declaration "Dominus Iesus" explicitly calls them "true particular Churches."[9]

Despite this unequivocal recognition of their "being particular Churches" and of their salvific value, the document could not ignore the wound (defectus) which they suffer specifically in their being particular Churches. For it is because of their Eucharistic vision of the Church, which stresses the reality of the particular Church united in the name of Christ through the celebration of the Eucharist and under the guidance of a Bishop, that they consider themselves complete in their particularity.[10] Consequently, given the fundamental equality among all the particular Churches and among the Bishops which preside over them, they each claim a certain internal autonomy. This is obviously not compatible with the doctrine of Primacy which, according to the Catholic faith, is an "internal constitutive principle" of the very existence of a particular Church.[11] It will, therefore, remain necessary to emphasise that the Primacy of the Successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome, is not seen as something extraneous or merely concurrent with that of Bishops of particular Churches. Rather it must be exercised in service to the unity of the faith and of communion within the limits that proceed from divine law and from the divine and inviolable constitution of the Church contained in revelation.[12]

The fifth question asks why the ecclesial Communities originating from the Reformation are not recognised as 'Churches.'

In response to this question the document recognises that "the wound is still more profound in those ecclesial communities which have not preserved the apostolic succession or the valid celebration of the eucharist."[13] For this reason they are "not Churches in the proper sense of the word"[14] but rather, as is attested in conciliar and postconciliar teaching, they are "ecclesial Communities."[15]

Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress in the communities concerned and even amongst some Catholics, it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of "Church" could possibly be attributed to them, given that they do not accept the theological notion of the Church in the Catholic sense and that they lack elements considered essential to the Catholic Church.

In saying this, however, it must be remembered that these said ecclesial Communities, by virtue of the diverse elements of sanctification and truth really present in them, undoubtedly possess as such an ecclesial character and consequently a salvific significance.

This new document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which essentially summarises the teaching of the Council and the post-conciliar magisterium, constitutes a clear reaffirmation of Catholic doctrine on the Church. Apart from dealing with certain unacceptable ideas which have unfortunately spread around the Catholic world, it offers valuable indications for the future of ecumenical dialogue. This dialogue remains one of the priorities of the Catholic Church, as Benedict XVI confirmed in his first message to the Church on April 20, 2005 and on many other occasions, especially during his apostolic visit to Turkey (28.11.06-1.12.06).

However, if such dialogue is to be truly constructive it must involve not just the mutual openness of the participants but also fidelity to the identity of the Catholic faith. Only in this way will it be able to lead towards the unity of all Christians in "one flock with one shepherd" (Jn 10: 16) and thus heal that wound which prevents the Catholic Church from fully realising her universality within history.

Catholic ecumenism might seem, at first sight, somewhat paradoxical. The Second Vatican Council used the phrase "subsistit in" in order to try to harmonise two doctrinal affirmations: on the one hand, that despite all the divisions between Christians the Church of Christ continues to exist fully only in the Catholic Church, and on the other hand that numerous elements of sanctification and truth do exist outwith the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church whether in the particular Churches or in the ecclesial Communities that are not fully in communion with the Catholic Church. For this reason, the same Decree of Vatican II on ecumenism "Unitatis Redintegratio" introduced the term fullness (unitatis /catholicitatis) specifically to help better understand this somewhat paradoxical situation. Although the Catholic Church has the fullness of the means of salvation, "nevertheless, the divisions among Christians prevent the Church from effecting the fullness of catholicity proper to her in those of her children who, though joined to her by baptism, are yet separated from full communion with her."[16] The fullness of the Catholic Church, therefore, already exists, but still has to grow in the brethren who are not yet in full communion with it and also in its own members who are sinners "until it happily arrives at the fullness of eternal glory in the heavenly Jerusalem."[17] This progress in fullness is rooted in the ongoing process of dynamic union with Christ: "Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians."[18]

--- --- ---

[1] PAUL VI, Discourse (September 21, 1964): AAS 56 (1964) 1012.

[2] Ibid., 1010.

[3] G. PHILIPS, La Chiesa e il suo mistero nel Concilio Vaticano II , (Milano 1975), I, 111.

[4] CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, "Mysterium Ecclesiae," 1: AAS 65 (1973) 398.

[5] CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, Notification on the book of Father Leonardo Boff: "The Church: charism and power": AAS 77 (1985) 758-759. This passage of the Notification, although not formally quoted in the "Responsum", is found fully cited in the Declaration Dominus Iesus, in note 56 of n. 16.

[6] SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, "Lumen gentium," 8.2.

[7] SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, "Unitatis Redintegratio," 3.4.

[8] Cf. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, "Unitatis Redintegratio," 15.1..

[9] CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITHI, "Dominus Iesus," 17: AAS 92 (2000) 758.

[10] Cf. COMITATO MISTO CATTOLICO-ORTODOSSO IN FRANCIA, Il primato romano nella comunione delle Chiese, Conclusioni: in "Enchiridion oecumenicum" (1991), vol. IV, n. 956.

[11] Cf. CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, "Communionis notio," n.17: AAS 85 (1993) 849.

[12] Cf. CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, Considerations on the Primacy of the Successor of Peter in the Mystery of the Church, n. 7 and n. 10, in: L'Osservatore Romano, English Edition, 18 November 1998, 5-6.

[13] CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, "Communionis notio," 17: AAS 85 (1993) 849.

[14] CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, "Dominus Iesus," 17: AAS 92 (2000) 758.

[15] Cf. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, "Unitatis Redintegratio," 4; John Paul II, "Novo millenio ineuente," 48: AAS 93 (2001) 301-302.

[16] SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, "Unitatis Redintegratio," 4.

[17] Ibid, 3.

[18] BENEDICT XVI, "Deus caritas est," 14: AAS 98 (2006) 228-229.

Interview With Father Augustine Di Noia

The Subsisting Church of Christ
Interview With Father Augustine Di Noia



VATICAN CITY, JULY 10, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Some 30 years after the Second Vatican Council, the Holy See is reminding the faithful of an "essential" conciliar teaching.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released today the document titled "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine of the Church." The brief text clarifies what Vatican II meant when it said that the Church founded by Christ "subsists in the Catholic Church."

In this interview with Vatican Radio, Dominican Father Augustine Di Noia, undersecretary of the doctrinal congregation, discusses the major issues concerning this document.

Q: Could you outline the major points that the document addresses?

Father Di Noia: There really are two main points, and then some minor points.

The main point is to address the question of whether the Second Vatican Council changed the Church's teaching on the nature of the Church herself, and this document tries to clarify this point to say no -- it was a development, a deepening, but definitely not a kind of change in the sense of altering the way in which we think of the Church.

And the point is -- the fundamental point -- and this is the second thing, is how to interpret the expression of the Second Vatican Council, "Lumen Gentium," paragraph 8: "The Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church." It's this "subsists" that has caused a tremendous amount of questioning, and we're trying to address this.

Briefly, the point is, that instead of saying that the Church of Christ is the Catholic Church, the "subsists" is used to say the same thing [...] in order to make it clear that across the whole of history, and in the present, we are not in the state of having an imperfect Church that has yet to become the Church of Christ, but that the fullness of what Christ wanted the Church to be, he has established in the Catholic Church.

Then, of course, the other points, in order to explain how other Churches and ecclesial communities relate to this; the Vatican council did not want to exclude the possibility that there were in fact elements of ecclesial life -- valid sacraments or the means of grace. I mean, all of the Church/ecclesial communities that read the Scriptures, in that sense with faith, have a certain element of what Christ intended the Church to be.

Q: Why was it decided to have this document come out at this time?

Father Di Noia: That's an important question.

I suppose it has to do with the reaction to an earlier document, the famous " Dominus Iesus" that came out, if you recall, in 2000.

I remember that when I was working for the bishops' conference in the United States, and we had received advanced copies of this document, and I was asked to prepare the bishops for " Dominus Iesus," I said well, there is absolutely nothing new here, so the bishops will be fine with it. But as you know, the reaction to " Dominus Iesus" was extremely, let's say, contestative. I mean, it was a very difficult document.

What we saw was the people [...] didn't understand that not simply we had to speak of Christ as being the universal savior, but that the Church was the principle means by which the grace of Christ would be communicated to the world, and that, if you recall, created most of the controversy, certainly ecumenically.

So this was kind of a wake-up call. I'd say that "Dominus Iesus" was a wake-up call, that 30 years after Vatican II, people seemed to have forgotten something very essential that Vatican II taught. And so it was out of that moment that the cardinal members of the congregation -- and also other people, bishops and so on, raising questions about this -- the congregation decided to proceed with a clarification.

The document is called "Responses to [Some] Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church." It is a very narrow point, it's a relatively short document, as you know, and the commentary attached, so it's a very precise set of responses to questions that have arisen.

Q: How does this new document relate to previous documents speaking about the nature of the Church and ecumenism that have been released?

Father Di Noia: The response, the responses really, because there are a couple, do not add anything to the preceding teaching of the magisterium, but really are meant to recall and make more precise the authentic significance of the various doctrinal expressions used to speak about the Church in past magisterium.

See it's a very important point that -- experientially -- that when you go into a Catholic Church, essentially this document is reaffirming this point, this very fundamental point, that when you go into a Catholic Church and become a participant in the community there, with the round of Mass, and the sacrament of penance, and baptism, and confirmation, and everything else that goes on there, you will find everything that Christ intended the Church to be.

And even though there are divisions in Christianity, that does not mean that the Church does not exist perfectly. You see it's not that we have to repair or heal the divisions, we do have to seek the unity among all the different Christian communities that Christ willed, but the fact that not all Churches are in communion with the Sea of Peter does not mean that the Church is wounded to the effect that it no longer exists in its integrity.

Q: How can this document help in ecumenical dialogue?

Father Di Noia: The commitment of the Catholic Church to ecumenical dialogue is as Benedict XVI himself has said, and certainly Pope John Paul II said frequently as well, "irrenunciable."

That is to say, the Church is not backtracking on its ecumenical commitment. As you know, it is fundamental to any kind of dialogue that the participants are clear about their own identity, that is, dialogue cannot be an occasion to accommodate or soften what you actually understand yourself to be in order to achieve a sort of false sense of consensus.

It is a fundamental condition of dialogue really, that the participants are clear about what their self-identity is so that in a sense they are being truthful; they are coming to the table with a clear expression of what they understand themselves to be.

So in that sense it is never a backtracking of dialogue to be clear about what you are, but it's an essential condition for it, otherwise the results that you achieve, they're easily undermined by the truth about it.

The CDF on subsistit, etc.

CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH

RESPONSES TO SOME QUESTIONS REGARDING CERTAIN ASPECTS
OF THE DOCTRINE ON THE CHURCH


Introduction

The Second Vatican Council, with its Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, and its Decrees on Ecumenism (Unitatis redintegratio) and the Oriental Churches (Orientalium Ecclesiarum), has contributed in a decisive way to the renewal of Catholic ecclesiolgy. The Supreme Pontiffs have also contributed to this renewal by offering their own insights and orientations for praxis: Paul VI in his Encyclical Letter Ecclesiam suam (1964) and John Paul II in his Encyclical Letter Ut unum sint (1995).

The consequent duty of theologians to expound with greater clarity the diverse aspects of ecclesiology has resulted in a flowering of writing in this field. In fact it has become evident that this theme is a most fruitful one which, however, has also at times required clarification by way of precise definition and correction, for instance in the declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973), the Letter addressed to the Bishops of the Catholic Church Communionis notio (1992), and the declaration Dominus Iesus (2000), all published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The vastness of the subject matter and the novelty of many of the themes involved continue to provoke theological reflection. Among the many new contributions to the field, some are not immune from erroneous interpretation which in turn give rise to confusion and doubt. A number of these interpretations have been referred to the attention of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Given the universality of Catholic doctrine on the Church, the Congregation wishes to respond to these questions by clarifying the authentic meaning of some ecclesiological expressions used by the magisterium which are open to misunderstanding in the theological debate.

RESPONSES TO THE QUESTIONS

First Question: Did the Second Vatican Council change the Catholic doctrine on the Church?

Response: The Second Vatican Council neither changed nor intended to change this doctrine, rather it developed, deepened and more fully explained it.

This was exactly what John XXIII said at the beginning of the Council[1]. Paul VI affirmed it[2] and commented in the act of promulgating the Constitution Lumen gentium: "There is no better comment to make than to say that this promulgation really changes nothing of the traditional doctrine. What Christ willed, we also will. What was, still is. What the Church has taught down through the centuries, we also teach. In simple terms that which was assumed, is now explicit; that which was uncertain, is now clarified; that which was meditated upon, discussed and sometimes argued over, is now put together in one clear formulation"[3]. The Bishops repeatedly expressed and fulfilled this intention[4].

Second Question: What is the meaning of the affirmation that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church?

Response: Christ "established here on earth" only one Church and instituted it as a "visible and spiritual community"[5], that from its beginning and throughout the centuries has always existed and will always exist, and in which alone are found all the elements that Christ himself instituted.[6] "This one Church of Christ, which we confess in the Creed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic […]. This Church, constituted and organised in this world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him"[7].

In number 8 of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium ‘subsistence’ means this perduring, historical continuity and the permanence of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church[8], in which the Church of Christ is concretely found on this earth.

It is possible, according to Catholic doctrine, to affirm correctly that the Church of Christ is present and operative in the churches and ecclesial Communities not yet fully in communion with the Catholic Church, on account of the elements of sanctification and truth that are present in them.[9] Nevertheless, the word "subsists" can only be attributed to the Catholic Church alone precisely because it refers to the mark of unity that we profess in the symbols of the faith (I believe... in the "one" Church); and this "one" Church subsists in the Catholic Church.[10]

Third Question: Why was the expression "subsists in" adopted instead of the simple word "is"?

Response: The use of this expression, which indicates the full identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church, does not change the doctrine on the Church. Rather, it comes from and brings out more clearly the fact that there are "numerous elements of sanctification and of truth" which are found outside her structure, but which "as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, impel towards Catholic Unity"[11].

"It follows that these separated churches and Communities, though we believe they suffer from defects, are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation. In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church"[12].

Fourth Question: Why does the Second Vatican Council use the term "Church" in reference to the oriental Churches separated from full communion with the Catholic Church?

Response: The Council wanted to adopt the traditional use of the term. "Because these Churches, although separated, have true sacraments and above all – because of the apostolic succession – the priesthood and the Eucharist, by means of which they remain linked to us by very close bonds"[13], they merit the title of "particular or local Churches"[14], and are called sister Churches of the particular Catholic Churches[15].

"It is through the celebration of the Eucharist of the Lord in each of these Churches that the Church of God is built up and grows in stature"[16]. However, since communion with the Catholic Church, the visible head of which is the Bishop of Rome and the Successor of Peter, is not some external complement to a particular Church but rather one of its internal constitutive principles, these venerable Christian communities lack something in their condition as particular churches[17].

On the other hand, because of the division between Christians, the fullness of universality, which is proper to the Church governed by the Successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him, is not fully realised in history[18].

Fifth Question: Why do the texts of the Council and those of the Magisterium since the Council not use the title of "Church" with regard to those Christian Communities born out of the Reformation of the sixteenth century?

Response: According to Catholic doctrine, these Communities do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, and are, therefore, deprived of a constitutive element of the Church. These ecclesial Communities which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery[19] cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called "Churches" in the proper sense[20].

The Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, ratified and confirmed these Responses, adopted in the Plenary Session of the Congregation, and ordered their publication.

Rome, from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, June 29, 2007, the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.

William Cardinal Levada
Prefect

Angelo Amato, S.D.B.
Titular Archbishop of Sila
Secretary


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] JOHN XXIII, Address of 11 October 1962: "…The Council…wishes to transmit Catholic doctrine, whole and entire, without alteration or deviation…But in the circumstances of our times it is necessary that Christian doctrine in its entirety, and with nothing taken away from it, is accepted with renewed enthusiasm, and serene and tranquil adherence… it is necessary that the very same doctrine be understood more widely and more profoundly as all those who sincerely adhere to the Christian, Catholic and Apostolic faith strongly desire …it is necessary that this certain and immutable doctrine, to which is owed the obedience of faith, be explored and expounded in the manner required by our times. The deposit of faith itself and the truths contained in our venerable doctrine are one thing, but the manner in which they are annunciated is another, provided that the same fundamental sense and meaning is maintained" : AAS 54 [1962] 791-792.

[2] Cf. PAUL VI, Address of 29 September 1963: AAS 55 [1963] 847-852.

[3] PAUL VI, Address of 21 November 1964: AAS 56 [1964] 1009-1010.

[4] The Council wished to express the identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church. This is clear from the discussions on the decree Unitatis redintegratio. The Schema of the Decree was proposed on the floor of the Council on 23.9.1964 with a Relatio (Act Syn III/II 296-344). The Secretariat for the Unity of Christians responded on 10.11.1964 to the suggestions sent by Bishops in the months that followed (Act Syn III/VII 11-49). Herewith are quoted four texts from this Expensio modorum concerning this first response.

A) [In Nr. 1 (Prooemium) Schema Decreti: Act Syn III/II 296, 3-6]

"Pag. 5, lin. 3-6: Videtur etiam Ecclesiam catholicam inter illas Communiones comprehendi, quod falsum esset.

R(espondetur): Hic tantum factum, prout ab omnibus conspicitur, describendum est. Postea clare affirmatur solam Ecclesiam catholicam esse veram Ecclesiam Christi" (Act Syn III/VII 12).

B) [In Caput I in genere: Act Syn III/II 297-301]

"4 - Expressius dicatur unam solam esse veram Ecclesiam Christi; hanc esse Catholicam Apostolicam Romanam; omnes debere inquirere, ut eam cognoscant et ingrediantur ad salutem obtinendam...

R(espondetur): In toto textu sufficienter effertur, quod postulatur. Ex altera parte non est tacendum etiam in aliis communitatibus christianis inveniri veritates revelatas et elementa ecclesialia"(Act Syn III/VII 15). Cf. also ibid pt. 5.

C) [In Caput I in genere: Act Syn III/II 296s]

"5 - Clarius dicendum esset veram Ecclesiam esse solam Ecclesiam catholicam romanam...

R(espondetur): Textus supponit doctrinam in constitutione ‘De Ecclesia’ expositam, ut pag. 5, lin. 24-25 affirmatur" (Act Syn III/VII 15). Thus the commission whose task it was to evaluate the responses to the Decree Unitatis redintegratio clearly expressed the identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church and its unicity, and understood this doctrine to be founded in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium.

D) [In Nr. 2 Schema Decreti: Act Syn III/II 297s]

"Pag. 6, lin. 1- 24: Clarius exprimatur unicitas Ecclesiae. Non sufficit inculcare, ut in textu fit, unitatem Ecclesiae.

R(espondetur): a) Ex toto textu clare apparet identificatio Ecclesiae Christi cum Ecclesia catholica, quamvis, ut oportet, efferantur elementa ecclesialia aliarum communitatum".

"Pag. 7, lin. 5: Ecclesia a successoribus Apostolorum cum Petri successore capite gubernata (cf. novum textum ad pag. 6, lin.33-34) explicite dicitur ‘unicus Dei grex’ et lin. 13 ‘una et unica Dei Ecclesia’ " (Act Syn III/VII).

The two expressions quoted are those of Unitatis redintegratio 2.5 e 3.1.

[5] Cf. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, 8.1.

[6] Cf. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Decree Unitatis redintegratio, 3.2; 3.4; 3.5; 4.6.

[7] SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution, Lumen gentium, 8.2.

[8] Cf. CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, Declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae, 1.1: AAS 65 [1973] 397; Declaration Dominus Iesus, 16.3: AAS 92 [2000-II] 757-758; Notification on the Book of Leonardo Boff, OFM, "Church: Charism and Power": AAS 77 [1985] 758-759.

[9] Cf. JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Letter Ut unum sint, 11.3: AAS 87 [1995-II] 928.

[10] Cf. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, 8.2.

[11] SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, 8.2.

[12] SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Decree Unitatis redintegratio, 3.4.

[13] SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Decree Unitatis redintegratio, 15.3; cf. CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, Letter Communionis notio, 17.2: AAS, 85 [1993-II] 848.

[14] SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Decree Unitatis redintegratio, 14.1.

[15] Cf. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Decree Unitatis redintegratio, 14.1; JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Letter Ut unum sint, 56 f: AAS 87 [1995-II] 954 ff.

[16] SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Decree Unitatis redintegratio, 15.1.

[17] Cf. CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, Letter Communionis notio, 17.3: AAS 85 [1993-II] 849.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Cf. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Decree Unitatis redintegratio, 22.3.

[20] Cf. CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, Declaration Dominus Iesus, 17.2: AAS 92 [2000-II] 758.

Creation of wealth

How can the amount of goods [and services?] be increased?

Increase in number of people [producers/laborers].
Increase in the "efficiency"/"helpfulness" of tools.
What else enhances productivity? What limits productivity, the capacity to produce or the amount that is actually produced? If no one consumes the [extra] goods/services, is there any point in generating them? What about the need for trade and foreign markets? Is this justifiable, in the name of wealth creation? But how much is enough?

Are there limits to consumption? (Perhaps there isn't a limit to possession.)

A "liberal" critique of the Austrian school

Austrian School of Economics
A collection of liberal essays critiquing the Austrian School of Economics.

But from the viewpoint that economics is a true, mathematicized science.

Wesley J. Smith, In Defense of Human Exceptionalism

In Defense of Human Exceptionalism
By Wesley J. Smith

Two Orthodox blogs to keep an eye on

This is Life! Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis
Cathedra Unitatis

The Devil, a tinkerer with life?

If the devil has a thorough understanding of life and development, would it not be possible for him to manipulate the parts of organism and thereby generate new forms of life? (Dinosaurs? Large insects? And so on?) Monsters? What for? Perhaps to mock God. Perhaps to wage war against other living things, or... could it be, even human beings? There is so much we do not know about what happened at the beginning, and the consequences of the rebellion of the demons on the material universe.

While the devil cannot create ex nihilo, if there is a natural mechanism by which new species/body types can be generated from pre-existing ones, then cannot the devil by his power to act upon bodies and move them cause the same effects?

CIEL colloquium on the Divine Office, 2006

CIEL speakers say Divine Office is another victim of liturgical revolution


Brian Mershon
October 3, 2006


From the October 5 issue of The Wanderer.

Oxford, UK — The prayers of the Church that every priest prays daily, the Divine Office, have been stripped of much of their theological content and ruined, according to several academics speaking at the CIEL 2006, the 11th International Colloquium of historical, canonical, and theological studies on the Roman Catholic liturgy. The colloquium was held at Merton College, Oxford, September 13-16.

Previous attendees and speakers have included the late Michael Davies, teacher, writer, and former president of International Federation of Una Voce (FIUV), Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, and Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos.

This key finding, little known to many Catholics, but mentioned repeatedly by the presenters, was but one of the academic highlights of this conference with more than 160 delegate attendees, of which 29 were priests, with nine religious, two deacons, and two Anglican clergyman. Ten countries outside of the UK were represented, with 24 participants from the United States.

Priests from the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Society of St. John Cantius Canons, Ignatian Social Justice, as well as diocesan priests and monsignors, were among the attendees.

Dr. László Dobszay teaches at Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, Hungary. During his paper presentation "Music Proper to the Roman Liturgy," he gave his assessment of the Divine Liturgy. He is also the author of The Bugnini Liturgy and the Reform of the Reform.

"No one speaks of the ruination of the Divine Office," he said. "The Church knows that one of the keys to understanding Sacred Scripture is by reading the psalms every day. The psalms reflect on the orations [in the liturgy] and vice-versa; they are linked."

The Rev. Dr. Michael Lang is the author of Turning Towards the Lord, published by Ignatius Press. He resides at the London Oratory of St. Philip Neri, and he was ordained a priest in 2004.

Fr. Lang moderated many of the academic talks, and he echoed the results of Dr. Dobszay's research: "The destruction of the Roman breviary began with [the reforms] of Pope St. Pius X," he said. "It is no longer the Roman breviary."

Archbishop Ranjith, the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, gave a presentation April 27, 2006 in Rome as an introductory presentation to Fr. Lang's "important study" Turning Towards the Lord. At this presentation, Archbishop Ranjith said, "In fact, in the foreword to this book, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI...affirms that 'to the ordinary churchgoer, the two most obvious effects of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council seem to be the disappearance of Latin and the turning of the altars towards the people. Those who read the relevant texts will be astonished to learn that neither is in fact found in the decrees of the council'."

And in an impassioned, illuminating conclusion to the 12 academic papers delivered over the three and one-half day colloquium at Merton College, the Rev. Dr. Laurence Hemming of Heythrop College in London, said, "The breviary of 1911 is a truncated version" of the Roman breviary.

"Even the 1568 breviary was a truncation," indicating that significant modifications to the daily prayer book of the Church have been made over the past 400 years, of questionable spiritual value.

The Rev. Dr. Alcuin Reid, London, spoke on "Sacrosanctum Concilium and the Organic Development of the Liturgy." Dr. Reid is most known in academic circles in the Church as the author of The Organic Development of the Liturgy, published by St. Michael's Abbey Press.

The then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a long and glowing review of this book. In it, he said: "At the end of his book, the author enumerates some principles for proper reform: This should keep being open to development, and continuity with the Tradition, in a proper balance; it includes awareness of an objective liturgical tradition, and therefore takes care to ensure a substantial continuity."

Cardinal Ratzinger continued, "The author then agrees with the Catechism of the Catholic Church in emphasizing that 'even the supreme authority in the Church may not change the Liturgy arbitrarily, but only in the obedience of faith and with religious respect for the mystery of the Liturgy' (CCC, n. 1125)."

For instance, Dr. Reid said that a "juridical positivism" by Pope Paul VI gave us new eucharistic prayers. "The liturgical positivism concept was very important to the reformers," he said. He also explained how one of the council fathers in an interview said, "The liturgy is not to become a cut-and-paste plaything of pastors, liturgists, and other experts."

These three new eucharistic prayers drafted by the liturgical commission and approved by Pope Paul VI have since multiplied to at least 13 approved by the Holy See, at last count.

"Cuckoo eggs were placed in the middle of the Roman liturgy," he said. "Let me make it clear: they are valid, but that is not enough." Dr. Reid said.

The Rev. Dr. Hemming of Heythrop College in London, during his paper "Theological Perspectives on the Traditional Liturgy," affirmed this balanced understanding of the liturgy.

"How it is done matters! Every single action and word [of the priest] really matters!"

This blind obedience and understanding of the Holy Father as having supreme fiat over everything helped create this chaos as much as anything. Indeed, Fr. Lang repeated our current Pope's own words in a talk he gave prior to taking possession of St. John Lateran after his election. He quoted Pope Benedict XVI as saying, "The Pope is the humble servant of Tradition and nothing more."

In other words, theological, philosophical, and juridical positivism, especially when it comes to the sacred liturgy, is outside the scope of his jurisdiction. His vocation is to "hand on" what he has been given.

Caution Against Unjust Labels

In Dr. Reid's paper, he also cautioned Catholics against stereotyping and making unfair accusations about those attached to the Latin liturgical traditions.

"Traditionalists are often portrayed as unfaithful," Dr. Reid said. "It is time to abandon these uncritical assessments of such Catholics."

He did, however, set the boundaries of two perspectives he called untenable to faithful Catholics. "One is to claim that no further development from the 1962 missal or calendar is possible."

However, Dr. Reid did state that it was his personal opinion that the vast liturgical calendar changes such as the suppression of Septuagesima, ember days, and many other such innovations cannot be substantiated by the texts of Sacrosanctum Concilium, nor from the intentions of the council fathers.

While the uncountable and drastic changes to the liturgy from 1970 to the present are indeed a rupture with true organic development, many Catholics attached to the classical Roman rite (Traditional Latin rite) do not realize that Pope Pius XII and many of his Predecessors made selective, but noticeable, changes to the liturgy during their pontificates, Reid said.

For instance, the entire Holy Week underwent substantial reform during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII. While the Missal of 1962 and that of Pope St. Pius V remain, in essence, the same, there were still changes made.

"Two, to claim to accept Pope Paul VI's reforms uncritically" is also untenable to faithful Catholics. In other words, those Catholics who uncritically accept the entirety of reforms from Pope Paul VI and thereafter and call into question Catholics who are more critical, is not a reasonable and tenable position, according to Dr. Reid.

He went on to address a question of how and when he personally thought any future reforms of the 1962 missal would or should occur by stating that potential "developments" of the 1962 calendar are currently a severe pastoral concern.

"Lots of people are bruised, but I think it [the 1962 missal] needs to be left alone for a while. We certainly don't want to scandalize some people even more nor disrupt possible reconciliation with others," he said.

"The Roman rite has suffered severe damage and its urgent repair is required."

Keys To The Texts

Dr. Reid outlined what he considers to be the proper hermeneutics of interpreting Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy — the hermeneutical "keys" or lens from which we should adjust the resulting liturgical reform.

He noted that the first chapter's "General Principles" approved by the council fathers was the first starting point. From here, we go to paragraph numbers 14 through 19, especially the often misinterpreted, "Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the Liturgy."

Dr. Reid rightly points out that actuoso participatio, the Latin original, might be better translated as "actual participation" due to the fact that modern man views the word "active" to mean gestures, singing, or responding only, and often omits, silence, meditation, and contemplation, which, of course, are integral to Christian prayer, and are indeed "actual participation."

In fact, others who have dealt with this key terminology and its deeper spiritual and theological understanding say that "actual contemplative participation" in the sacred liturgy is perhaps an even higher spiritual goal than merely going through rote gestures without any idea or concept of the fundamental meaning behind them.

And Dr. Reid also explained the importance of paragraphs 15 through 19, which speak of the necessity for a renewed liturgical formation for all, especially the clergy. Without a true and thorough historical, theological, and philosophical education and formation of the clergy based upon sound liturgical theology, any true renewal is far in the future.

Dr. Hemming delved deeply into this education and formation of the clergy in his talk on the theological perspectives of the liturgy. Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 16, reads, "The study of Sacred Liturgy is to be ranked among the compulsory and major courses in seminaries and religious houses of studies; in theological faculties it is to rank among the principal courses. It is to be taught under its theological, historical, spiritual, pastoral, and juridical aspects."

In other words, since "The Eucharist is the 'source and summit of the Christian life'" (CCC, n. 1342) and "As does the whole of the Christian life, the moral life finds its source and summit in the Eucharistic Sacrifice" (CCC, n. 2031), all theological and pastoral disciplines should be ordered to, by, and from a proper liturgical theological foundation.

"You cannot have the liturgy as the linchpin of the Church, and then say that a deformed liturgical reform had no effect," Dr. Hemming said.

Sacrosanctum Concilium emphasizes this point again within paragraph n. 16. "Moreover, other professors, while striving to expound the mystery of Christ and the history of salvation from the angle proper to each of their own subjects, must nevertheless do so in a way which will clearly bring out the connection between their subjects and the liturgy, as also the unity which underlies all priestly training. This consideration is especially important for professors of dogmatic, spiritual, and pastoral theology and for those of Holy Scripture."

Liturgical Theology Is Foundation

Dr. Hemming said, "Liturgical theology means theology from which every other theological study takes its life and meaning; theology has no other home without its foundation in the sacred liturgy." Many Benedictines especially, and other monastics have known and taught this for years, and Dr. Hemming highlighted during his talk, "Sacred Scripture's true and proper place is within the home of the sacred liturgy."

Dr. Hemming referenced Fr. Aidan Nichols' book, Looking at the Liturgy: A Critical Look at its Contemporary Form (Ignatius Press, 1996) where the theologian sees an overemphasis on the reformers rationalizing the liturgy in an attempt to make it more understandable or more comprehensible, especially to modern man. Dr. Hemming identifies the primary philosophical flaw of this perhaps excessive rationalism of the sacred mysteries.

"This caused confusion," he said. "The confusion that arose was as to who was supposed to be the center of the liturgical reform — man or God?"

People will often complain about not being able to understand what is happening at Mass, Hemming said, which confirms the experience of many Catholics who attend both the modern and classical Roman rite. To some, it appears to be incomprehensible, he said.

"But we must remember that incomprehension is part of divine worship. The liturgy is the unfolding of intelligibility of what faith is made known by God."

In other words, it is a mystery. That is why they are called "the sacred mysteries." "Mysterium" is a Greek word equivalent to the Latin word sacramentum. By definition, a mystery, in theological terms, is something of which we can ponder and explore the depths, but can never completely comprehend nor fathom.

"In other words, this subject, the rationality and the mystery of the liturgy, has become the center of the question of the liturgy," Hemming said.

"God is the center of worship."

"More Inclusive"

Dr. Sheridan Gilley from Durham University presented a paper on "Roman Liturgy and Popular Piety." Dr. Gilley emphasized that prior to the liturgical revolution, the priest was obliged to celebrate Mass in a certain way, but the faithful were free to participate in the Mass in any way they liked; whereas nowadays the priest is free to choose how he wishes to celebrate, but the faithful are forced to participate in a very particular way.

"The old rite made for a more inclusive Church." According to Dr. Gilley, prior to the 1970 liturgical reforms, there was a book published called 30 Ways to Hear Mass, and there was only one way for the priest to say Mass. Now, there are a myriad number of ways for the priest to say Mass, but the lay faithful are all coerced into one way of hearing it.

Dr. Sheridan's research showed that the popular piety of Catholics, particularly in Ireland in the 1800s, included rosaries, pilgrimages, sodalities, exposition and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, jubilees, triduums, shrines, and retreats, often with organized spiritual direction given by their priests.

Catholicism was in the very fabric of their being, and this use of sacraments and devotions sprang from their rich liturgical life.

This parish-based sacramental system carried the faith and the liturgy into their daily lives. It was part of their very culture.

Fr. Joseph Santos of Holy Name of Jesus Parish in Providence, R.I., gave a paper on the history of the Rite of Braga (Portugal), which showed one example of the multiple variations of the Roman rite that have flourished in the Church for centuries. The rite of Braga is almost 1,400 years old in its current state and it is almost exactly the same.

Pristas' Work Read By Curia

Dr. Lauren Pristas, Caldwell College, New Jersey, presented a paper entitled "The Development of the Roman Calendar." Fr. Lang introduced Pristas and said that a senior curial official called her work "a bombshell."

She is the author of The Collects of the Roman Missal: A Study of the Liturgical Reform. Her work has been published in Communio and other academic publications, and she systematically compares the changes in the wording and theology of the orations of the missal of 1970 with those of the 1962 missal from an academic historical perspective.

In her talk at the CIEL Colloquium, she explained the early history of the development of the liturgical calendar. She said research shows the development of the liturgical calendar began very early, before AD 325, and that the celebration of Christmas appears around AD 354.

"There is no such thing as history nor future for God or from the divine perspective," Pristas said. "Eternity is the ever-present now from a divine perspective."

Therefore, for human beings who are incarnate living in a material world, the cycle of the liturgical years assists us in living life more closely in union with God and His angels and His saints than mere daily living according to secular calendars, Dr. Pristas said.

"The liturgical year works through the participation in the sacred mystery itself, not principally through imitation, prayer, and meditation," Pristas said. "Even the non-baptized can imitate and meditate.

"These [methods of prayer] are helpful, but they are not the principal ways of appropriating Christ's mysteries." By living the liturgical calendar and participating as often as possible in the divine mysteries, we become more attuned to God and His will and plan for our lives and for the world.

"The spiritual participation in the mystery of salvation comes through the living out of the feast itself, not principally through imitation, meditation, nor even contemplation," Dr. Pristas said. We must live and appropriate the liturgical calendar. Spiritual reading and prayer and silence and devotions are helpful, but all must be tied back to the Church's liturgical year, in which we can most fully partake of the sacred mysteries.

Latin In The Liturgy

The Rev. Dr. Lang presented a paper entitled, "The Early Development of Christian Latin as a Liturgical Language." He traced the development of the use of Greek to Latin as the primary language in the early Church, and despite the popular historical revisionism within much of the U.S. Church, Fr. Lang said that vulgar Latin was never used in the liturgy. He said it was a much higher prose like British liturgical language found in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, for instance.

"Stylized Christian Latin was used, but not the vulgar tongue," Fr. Lang said. He also informed us that research points to the fact that the baptismal formula was solidified in Latin in the second century.

As examples of a richer prose being used, he said that even for the Homeric epics The Iliad and The Odyssey, a specific type of language was used for these stories when told orally. It was not the language of everyday use, he said.

Today, the words "Hosanna," "Alleluia," and "Amen" are preserved in their original language in order to maintain their solemn character, Fr. Lang said. They are more expressions of sentiments and exclamations than they are denotative in nature.

Fr. Lang said, that by using biblical terminology, in the very early Church, there was a controlled freedom in the content and style of the early anaphoras, or eucharistic prayers, within the bounds of orthodoxy, of course. However, as the rite developed and the Church spread, the formulation of the anaphoras and other prayers gradually became more fixed.

From AD 360 to 380, the transition from the use of Greek to Latin was almost complete, Fr. Lang said, primarily for the eucharistic prayer. The Kyrie, of course, was maintained in Greek.

After Constantine allowed freedom to Christianity, Christian feasts replaced pagan festivals, thereby becoming holy days or holidays, Fr. Lang concluded.

Brian Mershon is a commentator on cultural issues from a classical Catholic perspective. His trade is in media relations, and his vocation is as a husband to his beloved wife Tracey and father to his six living children. He attempts to assist his family and himself in attaining eternal salvation through frequent attendance at the Traditional Latin rite of Mass, homeschooling, and building Catholic culture in the buckle of the Bible Belt of Greenville, South Carolina.

Genome transplant in bacteria

ScienceDaily: Scientists transplant DNA in bacteria
Creation of artificial life brought a step closer by DNA ...
Scientists Swap Genes in Bacteria - washingtonpost.com

June 29, 2007
Scientists Transplant Genome of Bacteria
By NICHOLAS WADE
Correction Appended

Scientists at the institute directed by J. Craig Venter, a pioneer in sequencing the human genome, are reporting that they have successfully transplanted the genome of one species of bacteria into another, an achievement they see as a major step toward creating synthetic forms of life.

Other scientists who did not participate in the research praised the achievement, published yesterday on the Web site of the journal Science. But some expressed skepticism that it was as significant as Dr. Venter said.

His goal is to make cells that might take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and produce methane, used as a feedstock for other fuels. Such an achievement might reduce dependency on fossil fuels and strike a blow at global warming.

“We look forward to having the first fuels from synthetic biology certainly within the decade and possibly in half that time,” he said.

Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, said the transplantation technique, which leads to the transferred genome’s taking over the host cell, was “a landmark accomplishment.”

“It represents the complete reprogramming of an organism using only a chemical entity,” Dr. Ebright said.

Leroy Hood, a pioneer of the closely related field of systems biology, said Dr. Venter’s report was “a really marvelous kind of technical feat” but just one of a long series of steps required before synthetic chromosomes could be put to use in living cells.

“It’s a really worthy accomplishment, but I hope it doesn’t get hyped to be more than it is,” Dr. Hood said.

One reason for Dr. Venter’s optimism is that he says his institute is close to synthesizing from simple chemicals an entire genome, 580,000 DNA units in length, of a small bacterium, Mycoplasma genitalium. If that genome can be made to take over a bacterium using the method announced today, Dr. Venter should be able to claim that he has made the first synthetic life form. The bacterium would be identical to nature’s version, but would demonstrate how precise control could be achieved over every aspect of the machinery of living cells.

Biologists have long been able to move useful genes into bacteria and other organisms in a process called genetic engineering. The idea of synthetic biology is to carry out genetic engineering in a more extensive and systematic way.

Synthetic biologists, who held their third annual meeting in Zurich, Switzerland, this week, hope to create biochemical processes and then choose the gene sequences that will direct these processes and build the DNA from scratch. The scientists’ goal is to select and reorder the genetic machinery developed by evolution just as an engineer might assemble an efficient circuit board from existing components.

Dr. Venter hopes to lay the basis for a new approach to synthetic biology by first synthesizing whole genomes in the laboratory and then making them take control of, or “boot up,” a living cell. His new report accomplishes the second of the two steps, at least in Mycoplasma. His team, which includes a distinguished biologist, Hamilton Smith, purified the full DNA from one kind of Mycoplasma and showed that it could take control of another, making the host cell switch over to producing proteins specified by the inserted DNA. Dr. Smith said he was not sure whether the inserted genome destroyed the host genome or just made the cell divide, assigning the two genomes to different daughter cells.

Booting up cells with new genomes is a major limitation in synthetic biology, Dr. Venter said. With that hurdle now crossed, it will be possible to “design cells in future to manufacture new types of fuel and break our dependency on oil and do something about carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere.”

Dr. Hood, co-founder of the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, said the next step on Dr. Venter’s agenda, putting a functional synthetic genome into an organism, would be more significant.

“Synthesizing a whole chromosome and getting it to function will be a really remarkable step that will be much closer to the golden vision of creating new organisms,” he said.

George Church, a leading systems biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that the new report was “good science” but that it had been achieved in an organism, Mycoplasma, that is unsuitable for industrial uses. As for Dr. Venter’s assertion that his result is “an enabling technique,” Dr. Church said, “The door to synthetic biology is already wide open, and people are pouring through it.”

Dr. Church agreed with Dr. Venter’s forecast that synthetic biologists could produce fuels within 10 years. He noted that LS9 Inc. in San Carlos, Calif., was producing laboratory amounts of petroleumlike fuels in bacteria.

Dr. Venter is more colorful and less publicity shy than most academic biologists. But he has many solid achievements to his credit. They have so far been in sequencing, or decoding, genomes.

He pioneered methods for sequencing the first bacterium, Haemophilus influenzae, and raced the government to a draw in sequencing a draft version of the human genome in June 2000. Though unable to produce a complete version because he was forced out of Celera, the company he headed, Dr. Venter devised a better method than his government-supported rivals, one that has become the standard way to sequence genomes.

Dr. Venter has always sought academic credit by publishing his results in scientific journals and now directs a nonprofit research laboratory in Rockville, Md., the J. Craig Venter Institute. But he has another foot firmly planted in the commercial world. He has set up, and the Venter Institute largely owns, Synthetic Genomics, whose goal is to make alternative fuels to oil and coal. He has also applied for far-reaching patents on the uses of synthetic life forms.

The report today may be less significant if his research team is unable to repeat the success in more useful organisms than the Mycoplasma bacterium. Dr. Church said a quite similar experiment with Escherichia coli, a standard laboratory organism, was accomplished in 1958 by two French scientists, François Jacob and E. L. Wollman.

Dr. Venter’s next goal, creating the first synthetic bacterium, could have broader interest. At the Zurich meeting this week, his colleague Dr. Smith reported progress in synthesizing a Mycoplasma genome from scratch saying, according to a Nature blog, that he had already constructed it in the form of 101 long DNA fragments. When stuck together, they would comprise the whole genome.

Dr. Venter said Dr. Smith had traveled at least that far.

“We are weeks to months away from booting up that chromosome,” Dr. Venter said.

The longest piece of DNA synthesized so far, he explained, is 35,000 units long, whereas the Mycoplasma genome or chromosome is 580,000 units.

The synthetic Mycoplasma, if the Venter team is successful, would be identical to the natural kind and should present no conceivable hazard. But synthetic biology is a technique with potentially far-reaching consequences like environmental effects and misappropriation by terrorists. In addition, the ability to synthesize living organisms may provoke philosophical comment.

Scientists have taken the initiative in assessing the effects with the hope of staying far enough ahead of events to avoid regulation. A report on the possible dangers of synthetic biology is being prepared for the Sloan Foundation by scientists at M.I.T., the Venter Institute and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Dr. Venter said that he was filing for many more patents and that his team was trying to scale up methods of synthesizing DNA and “watermarking chromosomes in fun ways to make it unequivocal they are manmade.” He said he had no plans to use Mycoplasma as a production organism and was developing other bacteria.

“This is an area where things will happen at an exponential pace,” he said. “Once people know you can do chromosomal transplants, that will trigger new approaches.”

Others may already have raced ahead using old-fashion genetic engineering to put new genes into standard microbes. Steve delCardayre, vice president for research at LS9, said it had developed a strain of standard industrial microorganism that produced hydrocarbons from treated agricultural waste.

The present strain, which Dr. delCardayre called adolescent, is “very close to meeting an economic threshold” and will be tested in a pilot plant early next year. The youthful microbe already produces an ethanol-like product, at 65 percent of the cost of corn-derived ethanol, Dr. delCardayre said. LS9 fuels, he added, will meet the same diverse needs as petroleum does, can be transported in existing pipelines and be used in existing vehicles.

Correction: June 30, 2007


A picture caption yesterday with a front-page article about a scientific advance in the effort to create synthetic life forms misidentified the scientist pictured. He is J. Craig Venter, who directs the institute that made the breakthrough, not Hamilton Smith, a biologist who worked on the project. The article also misstated the educational affiliation of George Church, a biologist who commented on the research. He is at Harvard Medical School, not M.I.T.

New Method For Reading DNA Sheds Light On How Cells Define Themselves

New Method For Reading DNA Sheds Light On How Cells Define Themselves

Science Daily — As a fertilized egg develops into a full grown adult, mammalian cells make many crucial decisions -- closing doors of opportunity as they adopt careers as liver cells, skin cells, or neurons. One of the most fundamental mysteries in biomedicine is how cells make such different career decisions despite having exactly the same DNA. By using a new kind of genomic technology, a new study unveils a special code -- not within DNA, but within the so-called "chromatin" proteins surrounding it -- that could unlock these mysterious choices underlying cell identity.

A research team led by scientists at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and the Massachusetts General Hospital has created genome-wide chromatin maps for embryonic stem (ES) cells and two cell types derived from them, by applying a powerful new technology for sequencing DNA. The work, published in the July 1st advance online edition of Nature, provides a framework for mapping the complete chromatin landscape of almost any kind of cell. One of the most surprising findings suggests that cells contain an explicit chromatin-based code that reveals the developmental choices they have already made as well as those decisions that lie ahead.

"Unraveling the mysteries of chromatin holds great promise for understanding how cells in the body -- with nearly identical DNA -- assume such different forms and functions," said co-senior author Bradley Bernstein, an associate member at the Broad Institute and an assistant professor at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. "By applying a new technology for sequencing DNA, we have been able to look across the genome at chromatin, with greater resolution and efficiency than ever before."

Chromatin proteins are more than just packing material for the genome. By virtue of different chemical groups fastened to them, these proteins influence which parts of the double helix are open -- or not -- to the cellular machinery, thus controlling which genes get turned on or off.

To decipher this "epigenetic" code requires ways of determining precisely which chromatin proteins sit at which locations along a cell's DNA. In principle, scientists could infer the locations by using specialized DNA chips. In practice, though, the technique has proven slow and expensive to construct genome-wide maps of mammalian chromatin. But now, a new method of massively parallel DNA sequencing has given rise to a powerful approach for readily churning out whole-genome maps of chromatin structure. The technology -- based on single-molecule sequencing -- makes it possible to read billions of DNA letters simultaneously. "Single molecule-based methods for decoding DNA are now throwing open the doors to a plethora of unexplored questions in chromatin, epigenetics and many other areas of biology," said Bernstein.

Empowered by this new technology, the researchers set out to study chromatin in cells with drastically different behaviors. They analyzed an assortment of chromatin proteins, each with a distinct chemical tag that switches genes either on or off. The scientists examined these proteins in mouse ES cells -- known for their unusual ability to form nearly any tissue -- as well as two other types of descendant cells that are more limited in the developmental paths they can choose.

One of the most remarkable findings involves a way of using chromatin to look into a cell's past to determine the developmental decisions it has already made, and to peer into the future to read its potential choices. The fortuneteller lies in a unique form of modified chromatin known as a "bivalent domain", which marks the control regions of important genes. Such domains merge both activating and repressive chemical tags, keeping genes quiet yet poised for later activity.

Bivalent domains had been noted for their role in ES cells, helping keep these cells' developmental options wide open. But with the new genome-wide chromatin data, the scientists discovered that these domains also function in more specialized kinds of stem cells. In neural stem cells, for example, bivalent domains sit near genes important to various types of brain cells, but are notably absent from genes that would be active only in, say, skin cells or blood cells.

"Looking at a cell through a microscope often cannot tell you what kind of cell it is, or more importantly, what it has the potential to become," said first author Tarjei Mikkelsen, a Broad Institute researcher and a Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology graduate student. "But by decoding its chromatin on a genomic scale, we can now begin to systematically address such questions."

"Our understanding of the basis of cell identity -- the way that a liver cell knows that it is different from a skin cell -- has been rather vague, much like our understanding of heredity was prior to our knowledge of DNA," said Broad Institute director Eric Lander, a co-senior author of the study. "The chromatin maps suggest that it may be possible to directly read out a complete description of all of a cell's past commitments and its future potential. If true, this would have enormous implications for our understanding of developmental biology and for guiding regenerative medicine."

In addition to shedding light on key developmental decisions, chromatin maps also contain other sorts of new biological information. One type of chromatin modification marks not the control regions of genes, but their "bodies" -- from where genes first begin to where they end. The scientists found that these "body" marks identify not only typical genes -- that is, the ones that encode proteins -- but also so-called "non-coding" genes that only produce RNAs. These marks could provide a practical handle for precisely mapping all of the genes in the genome, a task that has proven quite challenging by other methods.

Reference: Mikkelsen et al. (2007) Genome-wide maps of chromatin state in pluripotent and lineage-committed cells. Nature; DOI:10.1038/nature06008

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

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