Copernican Revolution in Sexuality Based on the Person

What Is Sexual Freedom?

Mary R. Joyce

"Sexual freedom is the liberty to act out erotic impulses as you choose without restraint as long as you don't hurt anyone." So say many insistent voices today.

The liberty they champion is the springboard of the so-called sexual revolution. From its very beginning, the main motivating force for this revolution and its version of sexual freedom has been an intense fear of sexual repression.

But what kind of freedom is motivated by fear? Is it even freedom at all? Is the liberty to be impulsive the true meaning of human freedom, including sexual freedom?

The "sexual revolution" seemed to liberate sex from its connection with procreation. As a result, women have felt freer to engage in sex activity without having babies, and to seek personal fulfillment in other achievements. At the same time, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, unmarried pregnancies, and abortions have become part of our way of life.

This situation is especially distressing for teenage girls. Many do not feel free to say no to a boyfriend. What reason can they give for saying no when contraceptives and abortions are so readily available? The girl who resists is labeled "frigid" or "abnormal" or "homosexual." She feels trapped into sex activity.

Under the guise of liberation, sex has become virtually compulsory. "Maximum copulation frequency" was once declared by some "experts" to be the ideal for human health and well-being. And many believed, and still believe, this propaganda without asking at least one good question about it.

What kind of freedom is compulsory sex? Is sexual impulsiveness the only alternative to sexual repression? Is the playboy philosophy the only option available to those who do not accept the Puritan-Victorian denial of sexual feelings? Isn't there a healthy middle ground in human sexuality between the torments of repression and the distressing consequences of impulsive expression?

Is There a Center Between These Extremes?

If there is no genuine, healthy middle ground, we will be forced to conclude that sex is not so good after all, and that it is really some kind of disease afflicting human nature.

All depends on what we see from our point of view. Do we think sexuality is the same as genitality? Do we really think there is only one way of being sexually active, that is, genitally active? Even if we think sexuality is broader in meaning than genitality, do we insist that genital sex is the center of our sexuality? Or do we sense that the center is deeper within?

If sexuality is the same as genitality, there can be no middle area between the extremes of repression and impulsive expression. We are clearly locked into one way of being sexually active. If we fear the results of repressing our sexual feelings, then we are forced to express them impulsively.

If there is a difference between sexuality and genitality, but if genitality remains the center, there still is no significant middle area between the two extremes. Sexual feelings are still directed primarily toward genital expression. Secondarily, these feelings may be suppressed or sublimated.

Suppression is a conscious form of restraint. For example, we spontaneously feel something, and decide whether we will or will not feel it any further at this time. If not, we stop the feeling, or suppress it. This conscious control can be healthy and good. It is often confused with repression, an unconscious denial that one even has certain kinds of feelings. Unlike suppression, repression is negative and harmful.

Sublimation is a process of redirecting genital-erotic feelings into other activities besides genital activity. Some of these other activities are sports and the creative arts.

But neither suppression nor sublimation are fully positive ways of being sexually active. Sigmund Freud, the founder of modem psychology, saw them as ways of resolving conflicts, and as adjustments to social demands for proper behavior. As such, suppression and sublimation are both negative and positive at once. They cannot be fully positive as long as human sexuality is seen as basically genital.

While the genital-centered version of suppression and sublimation offers a kind of middle ground between the extremes of repression and impulsive expression, their motivating force remains the restricting influence of social norms. When these norms are loosened or weakened by society, the motivating element collapses. The middle ground vanishes. As a result, impulsive expression tends to become a way of life.

If there is a solid, stable middle ground between the extremes of repression and impulsive expression, it cannot be based mainly on social norms. This central area must originate basically within the very structure of human sexuality itself. Yet this is not possible if genitality is, indeed, the center and primary purpose of human sexuality.

We need to inquire, then, about the structure underlying human sexuality, that is, the very nature of the human person.

What is a Person?

Clearly, genital sex is the primary purpose of sex in animals. But do we understand sufficiently our difference from animals, as well as our likeness?

Obviously, we are like animals. Does that mean we are animals? Obviously, too, we are like plants. We grow and reproduce like them. Does that mean we are plants? We can occupy space and can fall like rocks. Are we rocks? Likeness cannot become identity except by a falsifying leap of the mind.

We are not animals in any sense. We are persons in every sense. We differ from other persons (God and angels) by being bodily persons, which they are not. But every aspect of our body is person-al (person-all). Though animal-like, our eating, breathing, and sleeping are life processes of persons, not of animals.

Centuries of civilization have come and gone, yet we still have a biology-based concept of human personhood and consequently of human sexuality. But this view is really as archaic as the earth-centered view of Ptolemy which prevailed until Copernicus discovered that the sun, not the earth, is the center of the planetary system.

Copernicus started a revolution in astronomy. An entirely new way of thinking about the world began to develop.

Similarly, we still need a revolution in our way of seeing ourselves. We still need an entirely new way of thinking about our personhood and our sexuality. Our "Ptolemaic" viewpoint is regressive and outmoded.

We are not beings with a biology-based personhood, but beings with a person-based biology. The soul does not so much exist within the body; rather, the body exists within the soul (within the depths of the person). The soul's powers for knowing and loving include (assimilate) its bodily powers for digesting, growing, sensing, and the rest. [See endnote]

Just as it seems obvious to the naked eye that the earth is the center of the solar system (it surely looks and feels that way), it seems obvious that we are basically animals: that we are biology-based. But the obvious is not always true. We are person-based. And the center of our personhood is in our capacity for a receptive, affirming kind of human awareness that is deeply connected with the human heart (the core of our being).

A True Sexual Revolution

Because it surely looks and feels that way, people have always thought that the center of their sexuality is genital sex. But the center, like an inner sun, is their capacity for a receptive, affirming kind of sexual awareness that is deeply connected with the human heart.

Consider, for a moment, how everything uniquely human in genital sex originates in consciousness. Love, feelings of affection and desire, freedom and conimuni- cation, responsibility and decision, caring and sharing, perception and imagination are qualities of conscious- ness that make sex personal and interpersonal.

Human sexuality permeates all aspects of human consciousness. A man is a man not only in his anatomy and physiology, but also in his feelings, thought, and attitudes. These are not neuter. All powers of his consciousness express his sexual energy as an intimate aspect of his basically human energy. The same, of course, is true for a woman.

Human sexual energy, centered in powers of consciousness, is meant to be expressed basically, not in genital intercourse, but in mental and emotional intercourse. The intercourse of feelings, thoughts, and values between a man and woman is no more neuter than genital intercourse, and is much more essential for human sexual development. This deeper sharing involves their most basic way of being sexually active. Genital intercourse is meant to be an optional expression of the primary intercourse of persons: the intimate sharings of mind and heart.

Sex (genital intercourse) is neither biologically nor psychologically necessary for personal health. It is essentially free. We are free to choose, or not to choose, marriage and the genital expression of man-woman friendship and love. This version of sexual freedom is the new discovery of the true sexual revolution.

The absence of a commonly supposed necessity for genital expression leaves a man and woman free for mental-emotional intercourse that does not lead necessarily to genital intercourse.

The bodily organ for mental-emotional intercourse is the brain. Though the brain is not a genital organ, it is the organ of consciousness at the center of human sexuality.

For the most part, the main organ of manhood and womanhood, the brain, has yet to be sexually activated. The absence of really significant thought about the meanings and values of man-woman existence, about their co-creative as well as their procreative purpose, has left many people sexually inactive no matter how genitally active their lives have become. Too much reflex and not enough reflection leaves the person sexually undeveloped, fixated, and retarded.

Activating the Center

Between the extremes of repression and impulsive expression is the true center of human sexuality with its main sexual organ the brain. By re-centering our awareness of our sexuality, and by activating this center, we strengthen the middle ground between the destructive extremes of our "Ptolemaic" self-concept. By developing a new "Copernican" self-concept, we become able to experience and to live our true sexual freedom.

The center of our sexuality, like the sun, radiates energy, light, and warmth. Before this "sun" rises in our self-awareness, however, our inner "sky" remains dark. And the darkness prevails as long as we think of ourselves as biology-based persons rather than as beings with a person-based biology. The night will persist as long as we think consciously or unconsciously that our sexuality is centered in genitality.

But when we begin to realize that our inner universe is centered in the "sun" of awareness, this "sun" will rise and radiate its energy, light, and warmth into our lives.

First, we need to discover and activate this "sun," this center within us.

By letting our feelings just be in our awareness without arousing them, and by welcoming them as energy for developing our whole manhood or womanhood, we activate the center. By thinking about the meaning and value of our sexual feelings, and by developing love and friendship in our hearts, we become sexually active in the first and most important way.

Clearly, this inner reception of sexual feelings into an affirming kind of awareness is radically different from both repressively burying them alive and from impulsively expressing them in outward behavior.

Sexual feelings that are freely received and affirmed are expressed within us before they can be freely expressed to another. This inner expression sensitizes and humanizes them, and develops their capacity for a fully interpersonal genital expression, authentic only in the context of marriage.

Erotic impulses, though they seem to want immediate, external expression, really want internal expression in the radiant center of human sexuality. In this way, erotic feelings and impulses are re-centered: from their biological component to their personal core. Due to this re-centering, sexual feelings and impulses act as stimulators of 1) self-awareness, 2) sexual development, and 3) self-and-sexual integration.

Erotic urges and impulses are needed to stimulate the main sexual organ, the brain, for the development of sexuality awareness. These feelings are needed also to stimulate the secondary sexual organ, the heart, for the development of sexual friendship and love. Only then are sexual feelings ready for genital expression in marriage.

Impulsive expression of sexual feelings leaves the center of human sexuality (its brain and heart) unstimulated and undeveloped. Marriage does not change this truth about impulsive expression. Thus, the inner kind of non-genital sexual life needs to be developed before the beginning of marriage and genital expression.

Three Kinds of Sexual Life

The inner kind of sexual life (the first kind) belongs to everyone, married or not. Every person is meant to receive (into an affirming kind of awareness) their sexual feelings as energy for developing their manhood or womanhood without genital activity. The person expands and deepens his/her inner space between feelings and actions so that feelings have plenty of room in which to develop without moving necessarily into actions.

Next, within leads to with.

Emotional and mental intercourse between male and female friends (without sex activity) expresses the second kind of sexual life. This second kind may be premarital, marital, or unconnected with marriage.

Finally, the third kind of sexual life is marriage, sex, and parenthood. Without considerable development in the first and second kinds of sexual life, the third is like trying to swim in a pool without water.

True Sexual Freedom

Sexual freedom is the ability to receive sexual feelings and impulses positively as energy for inner sexual development without resorting to repression or impulsive expression. The person's inner space between feeling and acting increases this freedom and makes it secure.

In the expanding and deepening inner space between feelings and actions, both suppression and sublimation become more positive. Their primary motivator is not outside pressure from social norms, but the need for inner sexual development of the person as a person, and as a man or woman.

Suppression, once it begins to serve inner sexual development, is more clearly understood as a means to a fully positive purpose. Sublimation becomes a conscious assimilation of sexual feelings as energy for developing one's manhood or womanhood. It acts by letting feelings just be without having to do anything. This new form of sublimation is basically different from the old form that makes feelings do something by redirecting energy from genital to cultural activities.

In the new perspective, the whole dynamic of sexuality becomes more open, more expansive, more human, and freer.

The first kind of sexual life increases true sexual freedom. A person who is sexually active in the first way no longer experiences "necessity" in genital sexuality. This person feels equally free to choose or not to choose marriage and genital expression. He or she experiences as much sexual fulfillment in one choice as in the other. Thus, genital intercourse, regarded entirely as an option, not as a bio-psychic necessity, even in marriage, becomes an expression of true sexual freedom.

In the context of this fully human freedom, coital union is liberated from driving urgency and elevated in meaning and value. Permanent or temporary abstinence is intolerable only to persons suffering from a "Ptolemaic" sense of self. Genital sex is an urgent necessity only when, through our main sexual organ, we think it is necessary.

When a man and woman learn to think more truly about themselves as sexual persons, they can experience for each other profound tenderness of perception and feeling with their bodies, emotions, and imaginations relaxed. They can discover that genital intercourse is not the only path to deep sexual intimacy. They become able to hold each other lovingly without necessarily getting involved in sex.

Young people need to know this truth about their sexuality. They need to understand that the delaying of genital expression is necessary for their personal and sexual development.

Those who experience the process of true sexual liberation become more vibrant, sensitive, loving, and creative people. They are able to sustain the wonderful human paradox of restraint in spontaneity. They become like the disciplined pianist who is able to play a Mozart concerto with genuine spontaneity. An unrestrained, undisciplined, undeveloped sexuality is like a child impulsively, though gleefully, pounding the keyboard.

The current plague of sexually transmitted diseases, unmarried pregnancies, and teen abortions ravaging the young is not a hopeless situation. By letting the "sun" rise, by re-centering our sense of our sexuality, by activating its center, and by communicating this deeper freedom effectively, we can change our impulsive culture. A real sexual revolution with its true meaning for sexual freedom can begin and develop in many people.

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Note: A person-based biology elevates and increases the meaning and value, as well as the moral integrity, of the human body.

Copyright (c) 1991 by Mary Rosera Joyce

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Ratzinger on Eschatology in Escriva

Given that the Parousia, in the mind of the Fathers of the Church, does not coincide simply with the Second Coming but is present now, and given that the Christian consciousness has been dominated by the Joachimite (of Fiore) absence of Christ since the 13 th century, the assertions of St. Josemaria Escriva are most telling for the recovery of the Christian experience and Christian consciousness. Cardinal Ratzinger says as much.

Inaugural message at the Opening Ceremony of the symposium “Holiness and the World”

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

‘A song of praise to God arises from this vale of tears. Around God’s throne there is a growing choir of the redeemed, whose lives are now a selfless progress of love and glorification. Not only in heaven are these voices heard; they rise from us too, for a call comes to us from the throne, from the seat of God: “Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great” (Rev 19:5). It is an appeal to us too, here and now, to join in this eternal liturgy.’

I spoke these words a little over a year ago, in May 1992, in the homily at one of the Masses celebrated in thanksgiving for the beatification of Josemaría Escrivá.

It was only logical that, on such an occasion, I should evoke the heavenly liturgy: every beatification is an act whereby the Church, recognizing that one of her children has merited to enter the intimacy of God, should proclaim the convocation of heaven and earth. The Christian people, making its pilgrim way on earth, sometimes through great difficulties and bitter experiences, knows that it is part of something much bigger – the City of the saints which, begun and shaped on earth, will fill heaven.

It was logical, I say again, that in the thanksgiving Mass for a beatification, these essential perspectives of the Christian faith should be evoked and remembered: is not the Eucharistic celebration the point at which the Church confesses and shares more deeply in that union between earth and heaven which beatifications and canonizations speak to us about? But is it also logical to evoke similar perspectives on the present occasion, at the start of a scholarly meeting? A symposium: is that the proper place to make mystical and pious observations? Is it not rather the moment to allow scholarship to do its work, whether the scholarship that works on the data of history, subjecting the texts of the past to critical analysis, or that which engages in more abstract analysis, dealing in concepts and seeking proofs?

Theology, which is science in the fullest sense of the word, undoubtedly does produce some results when scholarship is applied to it. Despite that, it is not out of order to evoke in this context what goes on in heaven; indeed, one needs to do that, because theology only makes sense when viewed from that perspective. Thomas Aquinas coined a formula to describe this, a justly famous one and widely repeated: theology is a form of knowledge subordinate to the knowledge that God has and the knowledge that saints have. This statement is couched in Aristotelian terms and reflects those texts in which Aristotle showed that the sciences are not unconnected intellectual worlds, but bodies of knowledge which are connected with one another, in such a way that some are based on others and therefore are subordinate to others. These ideas about the interconnections between the sciences were worked out by Thomas Aquinas when he was establishing the bases of theology.

The Christian is a wayfarer, someone who does not see God, although the word of revelation gives him some insight into the mystery. Therefore, he does have knowledge, but for it he is dependent on the knowledge of another. Theology, which is born of faith, is, then, subordinate to the knowledge that God has of himself and in which the saints now partake in a direct and definitive way.

In describing things in this way, St. Thomas wanted to stress that the human heart’s yearning for truth, and more so the Christian’s, a yearning which is the origin of theology, is not the result of some illusion, is not some desire fated always to remain unfulfilled; it in fact represents a capacity God has inscribed on our spirit and a desire he will one day quench. Theology will find its ultimate outlet in vision, in that vision which is already a reality for the saints.

But to consider theology as a branch of knowledge subordinate to God’s knowledge and that of the saints, not only implies a tension towards eschatology, towards the final consummation, that moment when the truth, already glimpsed, made known through words, is fully revealed and we have that ultimate knowledge that belongs to the saints. It also implies, given the very nature of theology, a reference to that living union with God which is attainable, even on earth, by those who, putting their faith in the word of God, make that word their own and give their heart entirely to it. For God is at one and the same time, and inseparably, truth, goodness and beauty, and the unitive force of love not only leads one to let oneself be pierced by his love; it also leads one to study his truth.

The theologian should be a man of scholarship; but he should also, precisely because he is a theologian, be a man of prayer. He must pay attention to the developments in history and scholarship, but, even more than that, he needs to listen to the testimony of those who, having gone the full way on the path of prayer, have, even in this life, attained the highest reaches of divine intimacy; that is, the testimony of those who, in ordinary language, we call saints. As we have already pointed out elsewhere, (J. Ratzinger, To Look on Christ: Exercises in Faith, Hope and Love, New York, 1991, p. 33.) the knowledge of God, saints tell us, is ‘the reference-point for theological history; it is what keeps it right. In this sense, the work of theologians is always “secondary” to the real experience of saints. Without this point of reference, without being firmly anchored in such experiences, theology ceases to be real.’

Practicing theology, devoting oneself to theological research and teaching, does not mean carrying out a cold, disembodied work; it means concerning oneself with a God who is love, and who is reached by love.

Now that the cleft between ‘theologians’ and ‘spirituals’ which developed at the start of the modern age is a thing of the past, as is also the severe intellectualism which was one of the extremes of the Enlightenment stance, contemporary theology proclaims that there is indeed a close connection between theology and spirituality, thereby inviting spirituality back into the great Christian tradition. Therefore, it makes eminent sense to organize – as the culmination of a year designed to celebrate a beatification – a symposium; and it also makes sense that the words which open this session should evoke the heavenly liturgy, the choir of angels and saints who have attained the vision of God: for theology draws its nourishment from that vision and from anticipation of it in contemplative prayer.

So it is appropriate and even necessary for us as theologians to listen to what the saints have to say, in order to discover what their message means: it is a multifaceted message, for there are many saints, and each has been given his or her own charism; and at the same time it is only one message because the saints refer us to the one and only Christ, to whom they are joined and whose richness they help us to see. In this diverse yet unique symphony that is, as Möhler would say, the Christian tradition, what particular emphasis does Josemaría Escrivá bring? What impulse does he give theology? It is not for me to answer these questions: the speakers at this congress will tell us what they think, and to what they have to say will be added the thoughts of those who, sharing the spirit of Josemaría Escrivá and on account of his message, will devote themselves, as time goes by, to teaching and theological research.

However, there is something which one immediately notices when one comes in contact with the life of Monsignor Escrivá de Balaguer and his writings – a very vivid sense of the presence of Christ. ‘Stir up that fire of faith. Christ is not a figure that has passed. He is not a memory that is lost in history. He lives! “Jesus Christus heri et hodie, ipse et in saecula”, says Saint Paul, – “Jesus Christ is the same today as he was yesterday, and as he will be for ever”,’ wrote Josemaría Escrivá in The Way (584). This Christ who is alive is also a Christ who is near, a Christ in whom the power and majesty of God make themselves present through ordinary, simple human beings.

One can, then, speak of Josemaría Escrivá having a marked and special type of Christ-centeredness, in which contemplation of Jesus’ life on earth and contemplation of his living presence in the Eucharist lead one to discover God; and from God they throw light onto the circumstances of our everyday life. ‘The fact that Jesus grew up and lived just like us shows us that human existence and all the ordinary activities of men have a divine meaning. No matter how much we may have reflected on this’, he goes on, ‘we should always be surprised when we think of the thirty years of obscurity which made up the greater part of Jesus’ life among men. He lived in obscurity, but for us that period is full of light. It illuminates our days and fills them with meaning, for we are ordinary Christians who lead an ordinary life, just like millions of other people all over the world.’(Christ is Passing By, 14).

There are two things we can learn from these reflections on the life of Jesus, from the deep mystery of the fact that God not only became man but also took on the human condition, making himself the same as us, except for sin (Heb 4:15). First of all is the universal call to holiness, to whose proclamation Josemaría Escrivá made such a contribution, as Pope John Paul II recalled in his homily during the beatification Mass. But also, to give body to this call, there is the recognition that holiness is reached, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, through ordinary life.

Holiness consists in this – living our daily life with our sights fixed on God; shaping all our actions to accord with the Gospel and the spirit of Faith. Each and every theological understanding of the world and of history derives from this core reality, as many passages in the writings of Josemaría Escrivá so clearly and incisively show. ‘This world of ours,’ he proclaimed in a homily, ‘is good, for so it came from God’s hands. It was Adam’s offence, the sin of human pride, which broke the divine harmony of creation. But God the Father, in the fullness of time, sent his only-begotten Son to take flesh in Mary ever Virgin, through the Holy Spirit, and re-establish peace.

In this way, by redeeming man from sin, “we receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4:5). We become capable of sharing the intimacy of God. In this way the new man, the new line of the children of God (cf. Rom 6:4-5), is enabled to free the whole universe from disorder, restoring all things in Christ (cf. Eph 1:9-10), as they have been reconciled with God (cf. Col 1:20).’(Christ is Passing By, 183).

In this splendid passage, the great truths of the Christian faith (the infinite love of God the Father, his goodness which is responsible for creation, the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, divine filiation, identification of the Christian with Christ…), are linked up to shed light on the life of the Christian, particularly the Christian living in the midst of the world, with all his complex secular involvements. Underlying dogmatic insights are projected onto everyday life, and that life is encouraged to rethink, to really take to heart, the Christian message in its entirety; a spiral movement is set in motion, which involves and supports theological reflection.

But, as I said before, it is not for me to do that work, but simply to launch this symposium. I hope that what I have said, and my desire that your study of Josemaría Escriva’s spiritual message, will contribute to the development of theology to the benefit of the whole Church.


Inaugural message at the Symposium “Holiness and the World” on the founder of Opus Dei, organized by the Faculty of Theology of the Roman Atheneum of the Holy Cross, from 12 to 14 October at the Palazzo Apollinare di Roma.

October 11 in Opus Dei as New Eschatological Consciousness

Outline for An Understanding of the Significance of October 11, 1943 in Opus Dei for the Reappraisal of Christian Consciousness in the Church

The Eschatology of Joseph Ratzinger:

1) The first millennium had a consciousness of Christ as present in the world: “Behold I am with you all days even unto the consummation of the world” (Mt. 28, 20).

After the split between the Church in the East and in the West, there began a decline in Mystagogy, i.e. the experience and consciousness of Christ in the West. There was a sense of arrested “development” in becoming a “person” and a concomitant increase in the sense of “progress” in dominating matter by science and technology. Those criss-crossing vectors have become extreme in our day.

2) Hence, the second millennium has been characterized by this thinness of “integral human development” because the true meaning of man – as expressed by Vatican II – is the Person of the God-man, Jesus Christ, who is the revelation not only who God is, but who man is. Hence, take Christ out of the equation, and there is a loss of humanity and an increase of clericalism and secularism. True secularity which is a function of the full experience of the divine and the human in the Person of Christ disappears from view. Such is today.

3) Enter Opus Dei and the locution to St. Josemaria on August 7, 1931 that he is to inaugurate the spirit of becoming “other Christs” at the heart of the secular world. In a word, lay faithful and ministerial priests are radically equal as sacramentally inserted into Christ the priest – whose priesthood consists in mediating between himself and the Father for us. He stands before the Father not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with His own Blood [See Chpt. 9-11 of Hebrews]. He is Mediator between Himself and the Father, and that Christological anthropology must become ours. Hence, we are to be “priests [mediators] of our own existence” as the Logos was of His as man. In this, laity and priest are radically equal.

They are irreducibly diverse in that the relationality of the lay faithful is to the world while the ministerial priest is to be totally at the service of activating the priesthood of the laity.

4) This dynamic in Opus Dei was to become the catalyst of the revolution that took place in Vatican II, particularly in developing the document Lumen Gentium in 1964. This dynamic is at the root of proclaiming the universal call to sanctity that is the catalyst of the global culture that is to emerge: the new civilization of love.

Development:

“Appositio Manuum,” October 11, 1943: Nihil Obstat on Opus Dei: Today should be a feast for the universal Church since what happened for Opus Dei today in 1943 happened for the universal Church in the promulgation of Lumen Gentium (The “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church”) on November 21, 1964 during the Second Vatican Council. On this date in 1943, the Holy See put its hands over Opus Dei approving the radical equality of laity and priests as “sharing one and the same basic theological condition and belong (ing) to the same primary common category.”[1] The founder of Opus Dei, St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer remarked: “In Opus Dei we’re all equal. There’s only a practical difference: priests are more bound to place their hearts on the floor like a carpet, so that their brothers and sisters may tread softly.”[2]

In a word, the canonical struggle for Opus Dei to find a juridical mould to hold the radical equality of laymen and priests as having the same vocation, spirituality and formation anticipated the struggle to achieve the radical equality of the “People of God” (soon to be upgraded to the terminology of “Communio”[3]). A like struggle took place in the Second Vatican Council that rewrote its preparatory schemas, most notably Lumen Gentium, from a clericalized and hierarchialized ecclesiology to one calling for recognition of the radical equality of all the baptized in Christ with what can be called a functional diversity of hierarchy, laity and religious.

The History:

With Opus Dei, it all took place in 1943. On February 14, “Fr. Josemaria was celebrating holy Mass in the center of Opus Dei’s women’s branch in Madrid. Suddenly, during holy sacrifice a new light shone in his interior. Once again God had entered his life and marked out the way. `When I finished celebrating Mass I designed the seal of the Work, Christ’s cross embracing the world, in the very heart of the world, and I could speak of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross’…

"Fr. Escriva now saw, with a clarity that confirmed the earlier lights, that God wanted … as an integral part of Opus Dei, a priestly body to perpetuate Christ’s actions, especially the Mass, which represents and makes present the supreme immolation of the Cross. The Cross must be inscribed in the world, reaching the four cardinal points, brought by each Christian with his life and work. To make this possible, so that ordinary Christians – with their common priesthood – might be one with Christ and make him present among men, they must be backed by like-minded sacred ministers, as instruments of Christ to communicate life and grace. Hence, as the Church is structured so also must Opus Dei be, in its own way.” [4]

Since the Church had not yet gone through the Second Vatican Council, it would be more accurate to say that Opus Dei was struggling with the absence of a juridical structure and an adequate theology before and in preparation for that the Church was going to go through from 1962 to 1965 and beyond.

“What aims was the founder trying to accommodate? He sought the canonical erection of a priestly [read clerical or ministerial because the laity by baptism are already “priestly”] group or body within the total pastoral phenomenon of Opus Dei, so he could count on priests from the lay ranks of Opus Dei and formed according to its spirit, ascribed to the Work with no change in their secular condition. They would answer to the President General [the problem of incardination had to be solved] for the exercise of their ministry: pastorally tending to the members of Opus Dei and cooperating with them in their apostolic endeavors.

“But the 1917 Code of Canon Law permitted only ascription to a diocese or a religious institute…. Among the non-religious associations or societies, only some, the so-called Societies of common life without vows (title 17, book 2, CIV 1917) enjoyed the faculty of incardinating priests, if with the Holy See’s approval this were established in their constitutions or granted to them by papal indult….

“With the light of February 14, Opus Dei’s founder decided to take a new juridical step. He proposed to the ecclesiastical authority a formula he characterized as `the only viable solution within the framework of the present law. I am ready to yield in the words, so long as the document itself always affirms in a precise way the true substance of our way.’ The step would solve immediate problems, though still not totally satisfactory.

“In choosing this solution for the sake of having priests, the founder did not see Opus Dei as such being transformed into a Society of common life. Rather as he explained in a 1944 Letter, his idea was: `to transform a small nucleus of our Work, made up of priests and some laymen approaching ordination, into a Society of common life without vows, the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross…. [5]

The Shortcomings: 1) “Opus Dei appeared as something secondary: as an association proper to and inseparable from the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, when the fact of the matter is that none of these two parts of our Work is secondary. Both of them are principal.”[6] “The priests and lay people who are the protagonists of a single pastoral phenomenon, united in self-giving, are co-responsible for a single mission, to whose realization both actively contribute. The function of the ministerial priesthood consists in making present in the organism of the Work Christ’s face and grace, mainly through the sacraments.”

2) “(E)ven though the new juridical formula clarified that Opus Dei members were not religious, the figure of Societies of common life was seen by most canonists as approaching the religious state. This formula, therefore, could sow confusion. The founder did all he could to stress the differences….

“The founder spared no pains to reflect and safeguard in the best way possible Opus Dei’s secularity. But the limitations of the juridical figure remained. In itself it was incapable of faithfully expressing the reality of Opus Dei. While the additional refinements managed to safeguard the substance, they did not achieve a fully satisfactory fit. It was the `least inappropriate’ solution from among the possible ones.... In 1944 he wrote, `For the moment there is no better arrangement’ … `Let’s pray and live in a holy way,’ he added, `the spirit we have received from God, and he will give us the definitive juridical structure to preserve us faithful to our vocation and to render us effective in the tasks of our apostolate.’[7]”[8] The whole of this would have to wait for the creation of a doctrinal and juridical paradigm shift or revolution that would make it possible for Opus Dei to take its correct place as “a little bit of the Church.”[9] This revolution and paradigm shift was the Second Vatican Council.

The Parallel between the Radical Equality in Opus Dei (October 11, 1943) and the Radical Equality of All in the Church (November 21, 1964.

The Evolution of Lumen Gentium in the Second Vatican Council: As Opus Dei was struggling for diocesan and pontifical recognition as a secular phenomenon where laymen and priests were equally called to holiness, the Church of the Second Vatican Council was going through a like struggle in re-interpreting itself as a people of God that was radically equal with a functional diversity within this same and equal people of being hierarchy, laity and religious. Writ small, Opus Dei was going through what the Church was about to go through writ large:

The first schema for Lumen Gentium consisted of, I: The Mystery of the Church; II: The Hierarchy; III. Laity; IV: Religious…. The significance of this is the identity of the Church with the Hierarchy. The Church being considered primarily hierarchy, then comes derivatively, the laity and the religious. Concerning this schema and the others, then-Cardinal Ratzinger commented : “The situation was that proposals had already been worked out in Rome for the composition of the Curia, the commissions. And the expectation was that there would be an immediate vote on the basis of those proposed lists. Now, many of the Father didn’t want that. Then both Cardinal Lienart and Cardinal Frings rose to their feet and said that we cannot simply vote at this time, that we have to get in contact with one another in order to find out who is suitable for what, that the elections have to be postponed. That was the first drumbeat at the beginning of the Council.”[10]
Following on that “the chapter of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium devoted to the People of God was significantly transposed. As is well known, this chapter appeared as the result of dividing into two parts an earlier draft entitled De Populo Dei et speciatim de laicis, which came after the section dealing with the Hierarchy. The new arrangement placed the chapter De Populo Dei second in the Constitution precisely to emphasize the condition which is common to all the Christifideles, who are dealt with in greater detail according to their different functions, in later chapters: the hierarchy in chapter III, the laity in chapter IV and the religious in chapter VI.”[11]

Further on, Alvaro del Portillo continues,


“It is extremely useful to trace… the steps of Vatican II…. (I)n drafting the text of the Constitution Lumen Gentium an attempt was made to distinguish clearly the view of the People of God as a whole from the various missions fulfilled by the members. Or, in other words, an effort was made to separate clearly the rights and obligations common to all the members of the People of God from those which are specific to particular categories of the faithful: deacons, priests and bishops, (this is to say the members of the Sacra Hierarchia) in one category, the laity in another and religious in a third category. For this reason the division of what was originally one chapter (De Populo Dei speciatim de laicis) into the present chapters II (De Populo Dei) and IV (De laicis)… is highly significant as regards distinguishing the generic concept of `members of the People of God’ (the condition common to all on the place of equality) from the other, specific concept, a typological description of which would center around the characteristic layness (Laicus). Laicus in the terminology of the council does not denote the generic concept of member-of-the-Church, but rather a special category which includes neither clerics nor religious.”[12]

[1] Alvaro del Portillo, Faithful and Laity in the Church, Ecclesia Press, Shannon Ireland (1972) 19.
[2] Pedro Rodriguez, “The Place of Opus Dei in the Church” Opus Dei in the Church, Scepter (1994)38.
[3] “Communio” is a deeper and more exact formulation of the meaning of the Church than “people of God” since the unity it expresses is not only a likeness in one aspect, but a “pluriformity” of radically disparate persons. The Extraordinary Synod of 1985 says, “The ecclesiology of communion is the central and fundamental idea of the Council’s documents. Koinonia/communion, founded on Sacred Scripture, has been held in great honor in the early Church and in the Oriental Churches to this day. Thus, much was done by the Second Vatican Council so that the Church as communion might be more clearly understood and concretely incorporated into life.” The Synod then says, “Here we have the true theological principle of variety and pluriformity in unity, but it is necessary to distinguish pluriformity from pure pluralism. When pluriformity is true richness and carries with it fullness, this is true catholicity;” The Extraordinary Synod 1985: Message to the People of God.
[4] Fuenmayor, Gomez Iglesias, Illanes, The Canonical Path of Opus Dei, Scepter MTF

---

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

II) Decretum Laudis: February 24, 1947.The Pontifical Approval of Opus Dei: February 24, 1947: The Secular Institute

The Fact: On February 24, 1947 “The Priestly Society of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei” was granted pontifical approval de iure as a Secular Institute – in fact, the first – which was formalized in the Decretum laudis, “Primum Institutum.” De facto, Opus Dei’s real nature transcended this juridical conceit, but had to wait for the Second Vatican Council and its provision for the "personal prelature" (see below).

The Secular Institute was not a happy fit for Opus Dei because a) Opus Dei remained dependent upon the Sacred Congregation for Religious (whereas Opus Dei is characteristically “secular”); and b) it set Opus Dei in the context of the states of perfection which heretofore involved the taking of vows, living common life as separation from the world, and wearing distinguishing dress to indicate pertinence to that state. All of this was foreign to the spirit received by St. Josemaria Escriva which he summed up like this: “Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it.”[1] The immense advantage of such pontifical approval, however, was the ability to expand internationally to all dioceses pending the approval of the local Bishops.

The Obstacle: The Code of Canon Law of 1917 was the first compilation of the law of the Church. At the time Escriva was looking for a juridical solution for Opus Dei, the Code “was at its apex. After a period in Church history when a consensus had been reached that the old sources of legislation lacked the clarity and vitality to confront the grave and great questions facing the Church… the Codex was seen as the answer. It would foster the formation and improvement of the clergy to direct the ecclesiastical organization, while offering improved or new channels for pastoral action. This view was solidly grounded. But one must also recognize that, without doubting the Code’s undeniable advantages, it was sometimes applied too rigidly. The traditional flexibility of Canon Law to welcome renewing and rejuvenating movements in the pastoral life of the Church was curtailed. Some even claimed that what was not regulated or recognized in the Codex could have no citizenship in the life of the Church. A phrase circulating in Rome and attributed to… the Secretary of State until 1930 and principal mover of the new Code, had acquired the status of a maxim: quod non est in Codice non est in mundo: what is not found in the Code does not exist in the world.”[2]

The Intention of Escriva: “What did I want? A place for the Work within the law of the Church, in accordance with the nature of our vocation and the demands imposed by the expansion of our apostolates; a full approval from the Magisterium for our supernatural way, including a clear and explicit description of our spiritual character. The growth of the Work, the multitude of vocations of people of every class and walk of life, all this which was a blessing from God urged me to try to obtain – from the Holy See – full juridical approval for the way which our Lord had opened up.”[3]

The Reality That Did Not Fit: The radicality equality of vocation of laymen and priests who formed the same juridical class. “Thus to the question, What is the ecclesiological nature of Opus Dei? One could reply: `It is an institution whose internal structure replicates the basic ecclesial articulation between the common priesthood of the faithful, possessed by virtue of baptism, and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood, possessed by the clerics incardinated in it.’
“So, what we find in Opus Dei, different yet complementing one another, are the two ecclesial forms of participating Christ’s priesthood. We find both the `substantial’ priority of Opus Dei’s lay faithful, at whose service is the priestly ministry, and the `functional’ priority of the sacred ministry, in whose head (the prelate) resides the sacra potestas that governs the prelature. The clergy’s `function’ priority was described by the founder when he said that the ministerial priesthood `impregnates with its spirit our personal life and all our apostolic work.’…Graphically, the founder told the Work’s priests that their task is to be a `carpet’ for others. He wrote: `In Opus Dei we’re all equal. There’s only a practical difference: priests are more bound to place their hearts on the floor like a carpet, so that their brothers and sisters may tread softly.’” [4]


Vatican II (Lumen Gentium): The Key to the Radical Equality of All the Baptized:

“The basis of this whole problem and the key to its solution lies in one incontrovertible fact, emphasized with unprecedented vigour by the Second Vatican Council, namely that all persons who belong to the Church have a common fundamental legal status, because they all share one and the same basic theological condition land belong to the same primary common category. All the faithful, from the Pope to the child who has just been baptized, share one and the same vocation, the same faith, the same faith, the same Spirit, the same grace. They are all in need of appropriate sacramental and spiritual aids; they must all live a full Christian life, following the same evangelical teachings; they must all lead a basic personal life of piety – that of children of God, brothers and disciples of Christ – which is obligatory for them before and above any specific distinction which may arise from their different functions within the Church. The all have an active and appropriate share – within the inevitable plurality of ministries – the single mission of Christ and of the Church. Therefore it follows logically that within the Church all members have certain fundamental rights and obligations in common.”[5]

The Personal Prelature


The Final Step: The Prelature as guardian of 1) the oneness of the subjective vocation of both laity and priests forming a "communio": each, being sacramentally irreducible [by Baptism and Orders], makes the total gift of self being dynamized to do so by the pastoral charity (fatherhood) of the Prelate; and 2) secularity as “characteristic” whereby the world of work and family is the occasion of the self-giving.

The Conciliar Decree Presbyterorum Ordinis #10 reads: “Where the nature of the apostolate demands this, not only the proper distribution of priests should be made easier but also the carrying out of special pastoral projects for the benefit of different social groups in any region or among any race in any part of the world. For this purpose there can with advantages be set up some international seminaries, special dioceses, or personal prelatures and other institutions to which, by methods to be decided for the individual undertaking and always without prejudice of the rights of the local ordinaries, priests can be attached or incardinated for the common good of the whole Church.”

On August 6, 1966, Paul VI wrote the Apostolic Letter Ecclesiae Sanctae for the implementation of, in our case, Presbyterorum Ordinins #10: It read:

“(4) Furthermore, in order to accomplish special pastoral or missionary tasks for various regions or social groups requiring special assistance, prelatures may usefully be established by the Apostolic See. These would consist of the secular clergy specially trained and under the rule of a prelate of their own and governed by statutes of their own.

“It would be the duty of such a prelate to erect and govern a seminary for the suitable training of students. He would have the right to incardinate such students under the title of service to the prelature and to promote them to Orders.

“The prelate should show care for the spiritual life of those he promoted under the title mentioned above, and for the continuance of their special formation and their particular ministry, by making arrangements with the local ordinaries to whom they are sent. He should also make provision for suitable means of living either by such agreements as are mentioned above or out of the resources of the prelature or by appropriate subsidies. He should also make provision for those who through illness or other reasons are obliged to relinquish their post.

“There is no reason why laymen, whether celibate or married, should not dedicate their professional service, through contracts with the prelature, to its works and enterprises.

“Such prelatures shall not be erected without first hearing the views of the episcopal conferences of the territory in which they will serve. In the exercise of their function care is to be shown that the rights of the local ordinaries are not infringed and that close relations are kept with the episcopal conferences at all times.”

John Paul II erects Opus Dei as a personal prelature: November 28, 1982: Apostolic Constitution Ut Sit of universal extension.


[1] St. Josemaria Escriva, “Passionately Loving the World,” Scepter (2002) 5.
[2] “The Canonical Path of Opus Dei,” Scepter (1994) 139.
[3] Letter 25 January 1961.
[4] Pedro Rodriguez, “The Place of Opus Dei in the Church,” Opus Dei in the Church (Scepter (1994) 38.
[5] Alvaro del Portillo, “Faithful and Laity in the Church,” Ecclesia Press (Shannon, Ireland) (1972) 19.

Hope: Virtue? or Anthropology?

Thoughts on Hope as Found in Pieper’s “Hope”

"Look, you can sit around and say, ‘Oh I expect at the end of history, there will be the resurrection of the dead, etc…

!! Get me a hamburger!!

"What about now? Why do you get up in the morning? This search for the definitive in the provisional, it’s the most important thing about our lives. It’s not something we do in addition to being human; it is what it means to be human. It is the ‘life in us’,,, We are structurally this search.” [Msgr Albacete - retreat to priests in Malverne 2009]

* * * * * * * * * * *

It was always perplexing for me to find Pieper’s take on “hope.” He had written that “It would never occur to a philosopher, unless he were also a Christian theologian, to describe hope as a virtue. For hope is either a theological virtue or not a virtue at all. It becomes a virtue by becoming a theological virtue.”[1]

My immediate reaction to that has always been: Perhaps hope is not a virtue in the sense of accident of a substance at all, because man is not really “substance” as “thing-in-itself” at all. In his chapter (II) “Hope As a Virtue,” Pieper goes on to say: “When we say, then, that hope is a virtue only when it is a theological virtue, we mean that Hope is a steadfast turning toward the true fulfillment of man’s nature, that is, toward good, only when it has its source in the reality of grace in man and is directed toward supernatural happiness in God.”[2] [3] He goes on to say: “Justice, for instance, is already a true virtue, a clear tending toward good, even outside the supernatural order. When justice ceases to be directed toward good, it ceases to be justice. Hope, on the other hand, can also be directed – even in the natural sphere – toward what is objectively bad and yet remain real hope. Natural hope lacks the distinctive quality of virtue: quod its sit principium actus boni, quod nullo modo mali – that it is so ordered to good that it cannot possibly turn toward evil.” He says further: “Obviously, hope experiences this firmness of orientation toward good above all as a God-given turning to God, that is, as a theological virtue.”[4]

Reconsidering the point in the light of the most recent encyclical, “Charitas in Veritate,” consider the recent point of Benedict XVI on the meaning of “integral development.” And notice that “development” is contrasted with “progress” in that “progress” can be in “things” whereas “development” is about “persons”. This resonates with the theme of virtue. Benedict says: “The theme of development can be identified with the inclusion-in-relation of all individuals and peoples within the one community of the human family… This perspective is illuminated in a striking way by the relationship between the Persons of the Trinity within the one divine Substance. [Note, however, that God cannot properly be called “Substance” in a philosophic sense since there can be no “accidents” in God]. The Trinity is absolute unity insofar as the three divine Persons are pure relationality. The reciprocal transparency among the divine Person is total and the bond between each of them complete, since they constitute a unique and absolute unity.”[5] And then: “God desires to incorporate us into this reality of communion as well: ‘that they may be one even as we are one’ (Jn. 17, 22)….”[6] Now, more forcefully: “The Christian revelation of the unity of the human race presupposes a metaphysical interpretation of the ‘humanum’ in which relationality is an essential element.” [7]

The encyclical “Spe Salvi” affirms that we are saved by knowing God. But one can only know God by becoming God (Mt. 11, 27): “like is known by like.” At root, hope and faith are not virtues as accidents of a substance, but acts of the whole person, a gift of the whole self to the revealing Christ. Faith is not merely “informative” but “performative.” The entire encyclical is about the object of hope. And he concludes that we hope for the life that we image which is God’s life. And Christ is the revelation of the Father. Hence, we hope to performatively become Christ. That is the “development” toward which we are yearning and longing, and for which we “hope.” And this longing is to take place “now” in that the Kingdom of God is here and now. It is the Person of Christ present as Love in the world. The Baptist’s question: “Are you He who is to come, or shall we look for another?”[8] And the answer: “God and tell John what you have seen and heard: “The blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the Gospel preached to them, and blessed is he who is not scandalized in me.”[9]

I conclude suggesting that it seems that hope is not really a virtue in the philosophic Aristotelian sense of accident in an anthropology of “substance,” but a state of being-in-development-as relation, which is a distinct anthropology. It is taken from above as image and likeness of the Trinitarian Persons with its prototype in Jesus Christ as revelation and meaning of man. What is achieved joy in Him as self gift on the Cross is hope in us as ever renewed self-gift.

---

[1] Joseph Pieper, “Hope as a Virtue,” On Hope Ignatius (1986) 25.

[2] Ibid 26

[3] Ibid

[4] Ibid

[5] Benedict XVI “Charitas in Veritate” #54.

[6] Ibid

[7] Ibid

[8] Lk. 7, 19.

[9] Lk. 7, 22-23.

The Defeat of Subsidiarity by Stealth

Incomprehensible Legislative Language = Impossible Democracy

CNSNews.com

Finance Committee Democrat Won’t Read Text of Health Bill, Says Anyone Who Claims They’ll Understand It ‘Is Trying to Pull the Wool Over Our Eyes’
Friday, October 02, 2009
By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Thomas Carper (D.-Del.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, told CNSNews.com that he does not “expect” to read the actual legislative language of the committee’s health care bill because it is “confusing” and that anyone who claims they are going to read it and understand it is fooling people.

“I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life,” Carper told CNSNews.com.



Carper described the type of language the actual text of the bill would finally be drafted in as "arcane," "confusing," "hard stuff to understand," and "incomprehensible." He likened it to the "gibberish" used in credit card disclosure forms.

Last week, the Finance Committee considered an amendment offered by Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) that would have required the committee to post the full actual language of the proposed legislation online for at least 72 hours before holding a final committee vote on it. The committee defeated the amendment 13-10.

Sometime in the wee hours of this morning, according to the Associated Press, the Finance Committee finished work on its health-care bill. "It was past 2 a.m. in the East--and Obama's top health care adviser, Nancy-Ann DeParle in attendance--when Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the committee chairman, announced that work had been completed on all sections of the legislation," said the AP.

Thus far, however, the committee has not produced the actual legislative text of the bill. Instead the senators have been working with “conceptual language”—or what some committee members call a “plain English” summary or description of the bill.

Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who sits on the committee, told CNSNews.com on Thursday that the panel was just following its standard practice in working with a “plain language description” of the bill rather than an actual legislative text.

“It’s not just conceptual, it’s a plain language description of the various provisions of the bill is what the Senate Finance Committee has always done when it passes legislation and that is turned into legislative language which is what is presented to the full Senate for consideration,” said Bingaman.

But Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who also serves on the committee, said the descriptive language the committee is working with is not good enough because things can get slipped into the legislation unseen.

“The conceptual language is not good enough,” said Cornyn. “We’ve seen that there are side deals that have been cut, for example, with some special interest groups like the hospital association to hold them harmless from certain cuts that would impact how the CBO scores the bill or determines cost. So we need to know not only the conceptual language, we need to know the detailed legislative language, and we need to know what kind of secret deals have been cut on the side which would have an impact on how much this bill is going to cost and how it will affect health care in America.”

Carper said he would "probably" read the "plain English version" of the bill as opposed to the actual text.

In a Thursday afternoon interview outside the hearing room where the Finance Committee was debating the final amendments to the still-unseen bill, Carper explained why he believes it would be useless for both members of the public and members of the Senate to read the bill’s actual text.

Committee members did not have a “clue,” he said, when one senator recently read them an example of some actual legislative language. When you look at the legislative language, he said, “it really doesn’t make much sense.”

“When you get into the legislative language, Senator Conrad actually read some of it, several pages of it, the other day and I don’t think anybody had a clue--including people who have served on this committee for decades--what he was talking about,” said Carper. “So, legislative language is so arcane, so confusing, refers to other parts of the code—‘and after the first syllable insert the word X’--and it’s just, it really doesn’t make much sense.”

Carper questioned whether anybody could read the actual legislative text and credibly claim to understand it.

If this bill became law, it would mandate dramatic changes in the U.S. health care system.

“So the idea of reading the plain English version: Yeah, I’ll probably do that,” said Carper. “The idea of reading the legislative language: It’s just anyone who says that they can do that and actually get much out of it is trying to pull the wool over our eyes.”

Carper compared the full legislative language of the bill to credit card disclosure documents that he described as “gibberish,” meaning that “you can’t read it and really know what it says.”

When asked if Republican members of the committee should have a chance to read the full text of the bill if they believe they are capable of understanding it, Carper suggested Republicans would only pretend to understand the bill when in fact they would not understand it.

“They might say that they’re reading it. They might say that they’re understanding it,” said Carper. “But that would probably be the triumph of man’s hope over experience. It’s hard stuff to understand.”

Carper said if Americans were given the chance to read the actual text of the bill he believes they would decide that it made little sense for either them—or members of Congress—to read such texts because of the difficulty in understanding them.

“I think if people had the chance to read that they’ll say you know maybe it doesn’t make much sense for either the legislators or me to read that kind of arcane language,” said Carper. “It’s just hard to decipher what it really means.”

CNSNews.com correspondent Edwin Mora contributed to this report.

Here is a full transcript of the CNSNews.com interview with Sen. Tom Carper (D.-Del.):

Nicholas Ballasy, CNSNews.com: I wanted to ask you if you plan, if you’re going, to read the entire actual text of the health care bill before the committee votes on it.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.): I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life. We, we write in this committee and legislate with plain English and I think most of us can understand most of that. When you get into the legislative language, Senator Conrad actually read some of it, several pages of it, the other day and I don’t think anybody had a clue--including people who have served on this committee for decades--what he was talking about. So, legislative language is so arcane, so confusing, refers to other parts of the code—‘and after the first syllable insert the word X’--and it’s just, it really doesn’t make much sense. So the idea of reading the plain English version: Yeah, I’ll probably do that. The idea of reading the legislative language: It’s just anyone who says that they can do that and actually get much out of it is trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

Ballasy: Do you think--

Carper: But that’s a very good question and I’m glad you asked it, Nicholas.

Ballasy: Do you think Republicans on the committee should be able to read the entire full actual text of the bill?

Carper: I, I--They might say that they’re reading it. They might say that they’re understanding it. But that would probably be the triumph of man’s hope over experience. It’s hard stuff to understand.

Ballasy: And the American people as well--

Carper: I use it to like, for example, credit card disclosures. If you actually read the stuff, you say, you read it and say, like dozens of pages: ‘What does this say?’ And this is one of the reasons why we’ve directed, among others, banks to use plain, plain language, plain English to explain what they’re doing, so that the gibberish, you can’t read it and really know what it says.

Ballasy: The American people--do you think they should be able to read the bill online? Some have called for the bill to be online for at least 72 hours. Do you think they should be able to read the entire full actual text?

Carper: If people who work here on a daily basis and work with the legislation and shape the legislation--You know, we are pretty good at understanding the plain English version of the legislation. I think that should be certainly online and made available. The idea of folks--and what we’re, I think we’re doing, on my website is actually giving people an example of what legislative language looks like and how incomprehensible it can be. And I think if people had the chance to read that they’ll say you know maybe it doesn’t make much sense for either the legislators or me to read that kind of arcane language. It’s just hard to decipher what it really means.

Ballasy: Last question for you. If members on the committee, whether it’s Republican or Democrat, want to read the legislative language--if they feel they can understand it--will that language be available? Do you know where that language is? Have you seen any of the language or the full actual text?

Carper: In the time that I’ve spent here, I’ve seen plenty of legislative language and I know more often than not it’s almost incomprehensible as to what it means. Because what you do is you take certain language and you insert it in other parts of the law, other parts of the bill, and it frankly almost defies comprehension in many instances. Why that is a value and why someone should need to read that, or feel the need--I don’t understand. The idea, is actually like, say, I get my credit card disclosure and I have a one or two page summary written in plain English and then I have like 40 or 50 pages written by an attorney or a bunch of attorneys that is almost impossible to understand--Why you would insist on reading the stuff that’s incomprehensible as opposed to the plain English language that’s ordered by law so that people can understand it, that’s beyond me.

Benedict's Meaning of "Eschatology:" "Get Me a Hamburger!"

Lorenzo Albacete preaching a retreat to priests in Malvern, Pa 2009:

“(Benedict XVI) says. ‘What can I trust?’ This is what was propelling those guys who came together to form that monastic movement. What is trustworthy? What has real value? The non-real, superfluous, will not survive. Nothing can be built on it, Jesus Himself said that. You can’t build on the sand, you need to know where the rock is. Only that will survive. What is the sand? What is the rock?”

In the midst of this cultural collapse what do we do? We have ethical fights. Good vs. Bad. Orthodox vs. heretical. Instead of gong to the roots of our faith. We tried say this in the statement we put out about the dispute of President Obama going to Notre Dame…. We said, this is the time to find out what is a Catholic university… The reality of Christ’s presence as a stunning surprise in the midst of our search, and what it does to us. This is what these guys got together to deal with. They wre looking to escape, to escape the cultural debate, if you wish. Or even the ethical one. And find out the origin of it all, wyhat is really important. What does my humanity really mean? The Holy Father says, that they had an ‘eschatological orientation.’ But watch out, he says, because that is ‘not to be understood as what happens after the end of the world,’ or otherworldly. Not after personal death, nor at the end of the world. What they were looking for is now: ‘how to find the definitive in the provisional, now.’ The eschatological is the definitive. Certainly you can use it to describe what will be so at the end of history. But you can use it now. It’s not at the end of history that my interests lead me to, but now. It’s not the end of history – it’s getting up in the damn morning! Why do I get up? What can I expect from this day? Look, you can sit around and say, ‘Oh I expect at the end of history, there will be the resurrection of the dead, etc…’ Get me a hamburger. What about now? Why do you get up in the morning? This search for the definitive in the provisional, it’s the most important thing about our lives. It’s not something we do in addition to being human; it is what it means to be human. It is the ‘life in us’,,, We are structurally this search.”