Benedict's "Condoms:" From Morality to Sanctity

Synderesis to Anamnesis

[1]

The facts: In the Seewald interview, “Light of the World,”to the remark that “Critics, including critics from the Church’s own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms,” Benedict XVI commented on the sensation of being provoked in a previous interview on the plane to Cameroon on March 17, 2009 by the complaint that the Catholic Church “is often considered unrealistic and ineffective” in the struggle to stop the contagion of AIDS.[2] He said to Seewald: “In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done.” He went on to say that there were two things that had to be done: “bringing out the human dimension of sexuality, that is to say a spiritual and human renewal that would bring with it a new way of behaving towards others, and secondly, true friendship…”[3] He then comments that “the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.”[4] Benedict

It is important to establish from the start that Benedict XVI is not talking about the morality of condom use. He is talking about the metaphysical anthropology of the human person as self-gift which can be enhanced in certain cases – never in the intrinsically evil case of contraception - by the use of the condom. To misunderstand this, and to think that he is talking about the moral use of the condom, is to side with the media that is hyping his remarks to be the condoning of condomized contraception, or to side with the orthodox conservatives who feel that they have to reduce the damage of the media hype that will trumpet Vatican approval of condomized contraceptive sex. Both sides are talking morality. Benedict is talking the recovery of the human person: sanctity.

Benedict XVI knows exactly what he is doing. For a man sensitive enough to realize that his book “Jesus of Nazareth” was a “huge risk” in confusing his personal theological ideas with the official Magisterium of the Church, he is certainly cognizant that to speak of the positive use of the condom to a media whose agendum is universal media consumption, is to wave the red flag. Concerning the book “Jesus of Nazareth,” he wrote in the same Seewald interview: “I very intentionally wanted the book to be, not an act of the Magisterium but an effort to participate in the scholarly discussion and an attempt to propose a form of exegesis, an interpretation of Scripture, that is not beholden to a positivist historicism but that also includes faith as an element of interpretation. It is obviously a huge risk to do this, given the contemporary exegetical landscape. But it has to be done if scriptural exegesis is really serious about being theology.”[5]

He is doing exactly this with regard to his remarks on the use of the condom in such a sexually charged atmosphere as the media, and he knows that there is a huge risk to do this. He will be misunderstood. And he has been by both media who see such a remark as advancing their agendum, and who control both the lights and the microphone of public opinion, while there are some conservative orthodox who may reduce such remarks only to conceptual moral categories. These latter will attempt to minimize the “damage.”

But since the general population as well as those in the Church are trapped in the global culture of consumption, media saturation and technological control of the environment where the self languishes in unencumbered isolation, they are incapable of setting off on “a new trajectory of thinking”[6] and “broadening reason”[7] by the experience of thinking of others. Hence, he risks startling.

Concretely, then, what did he say? “There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.”

Seewald then smells blood: “Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?” Benedict responds: “She [the Church] of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.”

Seewald’s question is the question of morality. But Benedict is talking anthropology and not morality. He is working on the level of the metaphysical architecture of the human person as subject (not the object of a concept) as to whether he is constitutively “substance” (the philosophic category of being a thing-in-itself and not-in-another) or relation (to-be-for-other). He is completely cognizant that the received understanding of the person as a substance/rational animal has pride of place in the general consciousness, pace the development of the person as subject-for-the-other that took place in Vatican II[8] and that has not been understood in the pew, on the altar, and a fortiori in the street. With the increase of positivism as the universal method of knowing, which dumbs reason down to the mere accumulation of facts and data bases thereof, and the turn to self-absorption in modern technical society, sexuality has been trivialized – or “banalized” as Benedict says – such that it is recreation, or a “contact sport” as the jargon has it.

What Benedict has in mind with his remark on the condom is a gesture (“a first step”) to recover the positive value of the person as gift – relation - even within the intrinsically immoral act of homosexuality. He is not talking about the use of the condom in heterosexual intercourse where it would be immoral as contraceptive, and therefore debilitating anthropologically as well. He is talking about the use of the condom in a homosexual act which is already immoral and anthropologically debilitated as self-gift (there can be no gift in the homosexual act since it cannot be received qua sexual), but now tending toward the “good” by avoiding the transmission of AIDS to another. It is an incipiently “good” act because there is conformity of condom use with the constitutive metaphysics of created person imaging the divine Persons as gift. The gift is not the homosexual act qua sexual, but the use of the condom as protection against AIDS. It is here, in this context of turning the person away from self toward a concern for another, where it is possible to make the moral qualification of “good.” Hence, Benedict remarks: “There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.”

It is important to note that the pope refers to “recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed” which (awareness) accrues to the experience of the self as transcending self. The self is not the Cartesian consciousness, but real being, and the experience of the self going out of self for another – in this case with the use of the condom for the sake of the other - is a new kind of experience for persons turned back on self. It is a new kind of consciousness or awareness that become attitude[9]. This outward turn – “a first assumption of responsibility” – can be the “way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants.” If there is growth in concern for the other in deeds, there will be a growth in the experience of self-transcendence, and with it a concomitant growth in the awareness of what is truly human in sexuality.

Benedict’s Goal: Awakening Consciousness to the Development of Vatican II

Benedict is working with an anthropology distinct from the received Greek-Stoic anthropology of substance/accident, and with an epistemology of consciousness that is distinct from a “conceptually articulated knowing.”[10] Reality for Benedict XVI is the Word of God,[11] and knowledge comes from hearing the Word and acting on it. The Word of God is a divine Person Who is relation to the Father, and like being known by like,[12] the one hearing the Word must also become relation.[13] Consequently, what is scored as an immoral action within a substantial-conceptual horizon, continues to be an immoral action. But there is a deeper metaphysical anthropology at work that sees who one is, coming as a result from what one does. It is possible to perform an intrinsically immoral homosexual action while at the same time attempting to “humanize” oneself by living a concern for another by the use of a condom. From the point of view of the sodomized act as the action of an in-itself substance, and conscience as the act of conceptual judgment, it is an immoral act under the rubric of attempting a sexual action that contradicts the nature of the human person toward mutual love and procreation. From the point of view of the human person as a constitutively relational image of God destined to make the gift of self, the use of the condom to inhibit the spread of AIDS that one may be infected with, can be “a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants.”

Clearly, the pope has startled everyone with this relatively low-profile disclosure. But, as I am suggesting, there is more hidden here than the condom issue. What is hidden is the entire epistemological shift of the Second Vatican Council from objectified knowing of “truths” to an experiential (and therefore realist and “objective”) knowing of the subject as receiver and doer of the Word. And what is hidden in this recovery of the metaphysical anthropology of Vatican II and its concomitant epistemology is the entrance into overcoming the sly atheism that is camouflaged under the regnant positivism of scientific and technological progress. In a word, Benedict XVI, as was John Paul II, is determined recover and rehabilitate reason by showing that reason cannot be restricted to knowing “things” stored away in data bases as a pseudo-wisdom prone to sag and wilt under the weight of “facts.”[14] Reason must be restored to the experience of God through the experience of the self as believer. It is in this sense that faith restores reason, not by providing new supernatural “facts,” but by enabling reason to experience the deeper reality of being as self-transcendent “I” in the reception of the Word of God.

Keynote Address to the National Catholic Bioethics Center (1991): Conscience and Truth.[15]

Concretely, Benedict offers a telling description of this in a 1991 address to the American Bishops. In the address “Conscience and Truth,” he offers his consternation at remarks of fellow student theologians in Germany over the accepted scholastic interpretation of conscience as capable of invincible ignorance. For example, it was held that perhaps Hitler and Stalin could be invincibly ignorant of the evil they had perpetrated and we would all be merrily in heaven with them because they simply did not realize what they were doing in the personal and historical milieu in which they were acting.

Benedict sensed something profoundly wrong with this abstract view of conscience which he deepened with his study of the Fathers of the Church and contrasted it with the Greek metaphysic of substance and its concomitant epistemology of conceptual knowing. He discovered that there were two theories of conscience working on two distinct anthropological and epistemological levels: 1) conscience as a conceptual act of judgment concerning states of affairs in the light of a rational nature situated in a substantialist anthropology; and 2) conscience as an experiential memory of the self which “he calls “anamnesis” (consciousness) that is embedded in the ontological structure of the self as “ontological tendency… toward the divine.”

1) The first, he accuses of “not insignificantly contribut(ing) to the diminution of the concept of conscience. Saint Thomas, for example, designates only this [first]….level as a conscientia. For him it stands to reason that conscience is not a habitus, that is a lasting ontic quality of man, but actus, an event in execution. Thomas, of course, assumes as given the ontological foundation of anamnesis (synderesis). He describes anamnesis as an inner repugnance to evil and attraction to the good.

“The act of conscience applies this basic knowledge [conceptual principles] to the particular situation. It is divided, according to Thomas, into three elements… according to the Aristotelian tradition’s model of deductive reasoning.”[16]

It is obvious that Benedict is placing a conceptually expressed “conscience” that is based on the experience of the senses and abstraction therefrom in contrast with a “conscience” that is a consciousness resulting from the experience of the self as a being transcending (going out of) self.

2) Concerning this second understanding of conscience, Benedict quotes Augustine: “‘We could never judge that one thing is better than another, if a basic understanding of the good had not already been instilled in us.’ This means that the first so-called ontological level of the phenomenon conscience consists in the fact that something like an original memory of the good and true (they are identical) has been implanted in us, that there is an inner ontological tendency within man, who is created in the likeness of God, toward the divine. From its origin, man’s being resonates with some things and clashes with others. This anamnesis of the origin, which results from the god-like constitution of our being, is not a conceptually articulated knowing, a store of retrievable contents. It is, so to speak, an inner sense, a capacity to recall, so that the one whom it addresses, if he is not turned in on himself, hears its echo from within, He sees: That ‘s it! That is what my nature points to and seeks.” [17]

The large point that Benedict is making is that conscience, at its depths, is not a “conceptually articulated knowing” from which we could “retrieve” concepts of “good” or “bad.” This has always been the point of incomprehension between a realist ethic and the idealism of the Enlightenment. A metaphysic of substance and an epistemology built on sense experience and abstraction could never give an experiential account of the moral categories of good and evil. The challenge that “ought” cannot be derived from “is” has always been the bone caught in its throat. But things change radically if the realist ontology is the very self of the agent that is not reducible to an idealist consciousness but is the “ontological tendency within man, who is created in the likeness of God, toward the divine,” and when experiencing itself as being, is a consciousness of the real. We would then be dealing with a moral theology based on the realism of being – the human person as image of the divine Relations - that is constitutively dynamic and conscious of the good and the bad insofar as the relationality is actively in tact. That is, good is the relation of self-gift. It cannot be merely assumed as Benedict describes Thomas as so doing. The relation as ontological tendency can be aided and abetted or thwarted and dumbed-down. Thus, bad or evil is the turning back on self and withdrawal within the self. The former is the ontologically based experience of the good. The latter is the ontologically based experience of evil. The experience that is in play here is of the self as ontological image. But we are more or less dynamized in the image according as we freely comply with it. And we therefore are more or less conscious of the good or the bad according to our ontological compliance.

In the interview, Benedict is pointing to the condom, not as having any moral relevancy in the rightness or wrongness of a sexual act, but as a gesture of giftedness to another that could enhance the ontological status of relation and possibly begin a process of enlightenment in consciousness that is directly affected by such an experience. That is, it could be the beginning of not being turned in on himself and, as he said in 1991, being able to hear “its echo from within” and seeing: “That ‘s it! That is what my nature points to and seeks.” He is saying the same thing now in 2010, but in terms of the beginnings of reconstituting one’s being as relation, not about a conceptual evaluation – such as having a “right intention”[18] - that is based on a non-relational metaphysic of substance. Conscience needs to be enlightened by the giving of the self. The more one is gift (like divine Person), the more one understands what is the good (like divine Person[19]). One needs to power the metaphysics of the self by concrete actions in order to turn up the volume of conscience as an inner sense that hears the ontological echo from within: That’s it! Or, that’s not it!

Benedict concluded that if one could say that Hitler or Stalin were ignorant at the time of the mass killings, and therefore innocent because they were working with an invincibly erroneous conscience at that time, that ignorance was not necessarily invincible. He concedes that, indeed, “No one may act against, as St. Paul had already said (Romans 14, 23). But this fact – that the conviction a person has come to certainly binds in the moment of acting – does not signify a canonization of subjectivity. It is never wrong to follow the convictions one has arrived at – in fact, one must do so. But is can very well be wrong to have come to such askew convictions in the fitrst place, by having stifled the protest of the anamnesis of being.

“The guilt lies then in a different place, much deeper – not in the present act, not in the present judgment of conscience, but in the neglect of my being that made me dear to the internal promptings of truth. For this reason, criminals of conviction like Hitler and Stalin are guilty. These crass examples should not serve to put us at ease but should rouse us to take seriously the earnestness of the plea, ‘Free me from my unknown guilt’ (Psalm 19, 13).”[20]

By way of conclusion, I suggest that this is what Benedict is doing with the condom remark. He has startled everyone with a change in perspective assuming that he is speaking about morality. In reality he is speaking about the very meaning of the human person as image of God, and, when all is said and done, he is speaking about the rehabilitation of the human person in overcoming a sub-human and banalized sexuality. He is ultimately talking about holiness. He is not speaking about morality, and it is for this reason that he can suggest the use of the condom as an act of kindness even within the context of an immoral act.

Rev. Robert A. Connor

330 Riverside Dr.

New York, N.Y. 10025

Tel. (212) 222 3285.

---

[1] Benedict XVI, “Light of the Word,” A Conversation with Peter Seewald, Ignatius (2010) 118-119.

[2] Ibid 193.

[3] Ibid. 193-194.

[4] Ibid 119.

[5] Ibid 169.

[6] Benedict XVI, “Caritas in Veritate,” #53.

[7] Benedict XVI Sixth European Symposium of University Professors “Widening the Horizons of Rationality” 7 June 2008.

[8] Karol Wojtyla wrote: “If we study the Conciliar magisterium as a whole, we find that the Pastors of the Church were not so much concerned to answer questions like ‘What should men believe?, ‘What is the real meaning of this or that truth of faith?’ and so on, but rather to answer the more complex question: ‘What does it mean to be a believer, a Catholic and a member of the Church?’” Sources of Renewal Harper and Row, (1979) 17. He then commented: “A ‘purely’ doctrinal Council would have concentrated on defining the precise meaning of the truths of faith, whereas a pastoral Council proclaims, recalls or clarifies truths for the primary purpose of giving Christians a life-style, a way of thinking and acting;” Ibid 18. In a word, the Second Vatican Council experienced a paradigm shift from an objectified knowing to an experience and consciousness of the believer as subject, and thus was categorized as “pastoral.” As such it represented a profound realist and intellectual development, and was described by Benedict XVI as awaiting its “hermeneutic of continuity;” Address to the Roman Curia, December 22, 2005.

[9] Since Vatican II can be characterized epistemologically as the turn from object to subject, this “enrichment of faith” which consists in working in the horizon of the “I” as gift (and for which the Council has been called “Pastoral”), has the double dimension (as described in Gaudium et spes #24) of “finding self by the sincere gift of self.” The gift of self becomes an “attitude” of self-transcendence/self-gift, and the “finding self” is the consciousness of being “another Christ.” Wojtyla divided his “Sources of Renewal” into these two categories: attitude – consciousness and subsumed the entire Vatican Council under those two rubrics.

[10] J. Ratzinger, “Conscience and Truth,” On Conscience, Ignatius (2007) 32.

[11] Benedict XVI, Keynote Address to the Synod on The Word of God, October 6, 2008.

[12] Benedict uses this epistemological principle in his “Thesis 3,” “Behold the Pierced One,” Ignatius (1986) 25.

[13] Cf. J. Ratzinger, “Behold the Pierced One,” Thesis 3, Ignatius (1986) 25-27.

[14] John Paul II, “Faith and Reason,” #5: “reason…has wilted under the weight of so much knowledge and little by little has lost the capacity to lift its gaze to the heights, not daring to rise to the truth of being.”

[15] J. Ratzinger, On Conscience “Conscience and Truth” Ignatius (2007) 11-41.

[16] Ibid 37

[17] Ibid. 32.

[18] Consider George Weigel’s observation that the technical moral evaluation at play here is “what philosophers and theologians call subjective intention;” “Deflating the NYT Condom Scoop,” National Review, November 22, 2010.

[19] “No one is good but only God” (Mk. 10, 18).

[20] Ibid. 38.

The Meaning of Advent: Opus Dei and The "Development of Doctrine" in Vatican II

Adventus means “arrival” and is used as the Latin translation of the Greek word Parousia. Parousia means “presence,” or the beginning of a presence such as a king who bestows his presence on his subjects. “Advent reminds us, therefore, of two things: first that God’s presence in the world has already begun, that he is present though in a hidden manner; second, that his presence has only begun and is not yet full and complete, that it is in a state of development, of becoming and progressing toward its full form. His presence has already begun, and we, the faithful, are the ones through whom he wishes to be present in the world.”

This understanding of Parousia as Christ being already present, and yet not fully as He is to be, “has been thoroughly debased, so much so that the history of eschatology is nothing less than the history of an apostasy.”[1] That apostasy occurred around the year 1000. Without going into the cause of it, the result has been that we are dealing with a Christianity “for which grace and salvation are past, and the future holds only threat and judgment.”[2] What then of this middle time? A Christian life that is boring, Christ does not live now. He lived 2000 years ago, and He will come at the end. Until then, we live in the externals and go through the motions. Ratzinger asked: “However did we arrive at that tedious and tedium-laden Christianity which we moderns observe and, indeed, know from our own experience?”[3] How did we pass from the Maranatha (Come, Lord Jesus) to the Dies Irae (O Day of Wrath)?

It is in the light of this situation that we hear point 584 of St. Josemaria Escriva’s The Way : “Christ lives!” On the occasion of the Escriva’s beatification in 1992, Benedict wrote: “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.”[4]

“Already – Not Yet”[5]

THE ESCHATOLOGICAL NATURE OF THE PILGRIM CHURCH
AND ITS UNION WITH THE CHURCH IN HEAVEN

Lumen Gentium #48. “The Church, to which we are all called in Christ Jesus, and in which we acquire sanctity through the grace of God, will attain its full perfection only in the glory of heaven, when there will come the time of the restoration of all things.(237) At that time the human race as well as the entire world, which is intimately related to man and attains to its end through him, will be perfectly reestablished in Christ.(238)

“Christ, having been lifted up from the earth has drawn all to Himself[6]. Rising from the dead(240) He sent His life-giving Spirit upon His disciples and through Him has established His Body which is the Church as the universal sacrament of salvation. Sitting at the right hand of the Father, He is continually active in the world that He might lead men to the Church and through it join them to Himself and that He might make them partakers of His glorious life by nourishing them with His own Body and Blood. Therefore the promised restoration which we are awaiting has already begun in Christ, is carried forward in the mission of the Holy Spirit and through Him continues in the Church in which we learn the meaning of our terrestrial life through our faith, while we perform with hope in the future the work committed to us in this world by the Father, and thus work out our salvation.(241)

“Already the final age of the world has come upon us (242) and the renovation of the world is irrevocably decreed and is already anticipated in some kind of a real way; for the Church already on this earth is signed with a sanctity which is real although imperfect. However, until there shall be new heavens and a new earth in which justice dwells,(243) the pilgrim Church in her sacraments and institutions, which pertain to this present time, has the appearance of this world which is passing and she herself dwells among creatures who groan and travail in pain until now and await the revelation of the sons of God.”

---

[1] J. Ratzinger, “Eschatology,” CUA (1988) 5.

[2] Ibid 10.

[3] Ibid 8.

[4] 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.

[5] J. Ratzinger, “Dogma and Preaching,” Franciscan Herald Press (1985) 72-81.

[6] Jn 12, 32. Consider the experience of the locution to Escriva during the Mass of August 7, 1931 in which he hears the exegesis of this verse and its bearing on the meaning of Opus Dei. Cf. J. Coverdale, “Uncommon Faith” Scepter (2002) 89-90.

Santa Claus

Joseph CArdinal Ratzinger

From his most ancient biographer, a certian Archimandrite Michael, says that Nicholas received his dignity from Christ's own sublime nature just as the morning star receives it brilliance from the rising sun. Nicholas was a living imitation of Christ... Tradition has always equated Santa Claus with the Bishop Nicholas who participated in the Council of Nicaea [325] and, together with that first great assembly of bishops, helped to formulate the affirmation of the true divinity of Jesus Christ. What was at stake here was the core of Christianity, whether Christianity was to become just another sect or something really new, faith in the Incarnation of God himself. Was Jesus of Nazareth only a great religious man, or had God himslef actually become, in him, one of us? So, ultimately, the question was this: Is God so mighty that he can make himself small; is he so mighty that he can love us and really enter our lives? For if Glod is too far away from us to love us effectively, then human live too is only an empty promise. If God cannot love, how can man be expexcted to do so? In professing faith in God's Incarnation there, it was ultimately a case of affirming also man's capacity to live and die in a human manner. The figure of St. Nicholas, Santa Claus, illustrates and symoblizes ithis connection....

"Nicholas was a living imitation of Christ... another of the legends expresses it very beautifully in this way: Whereas all the other miracles could be performed by a magicians and demons, and thus were ambivalent, one miracle was absolutely transparent and could not involve any deception, namely, that of living out the faith in everyday life for an entire lifetime and maintaining charity. People in the fourth century experienced this miracle in the life of Nicholas, and all the miracle stories which accrued subsequently to the legend are only variations on this one, fundamental miracle, which Nicholas's contemporaries compared, with wonder and gratitude, to the morning star reflecting the radicance of the light of Christ. In this man they understood what faith in God's Incarnation means: in him the dogma of Nicaea had been translated into tangible terms.... This at the deepest level, is the message of all Santa Claus figures: from the light of Christ we are to light the flame of a new humanity, caring for the persecuated, the poor, the little ones - this is the core of the legend of St. Nicholas" - Seek That Which is Above Ignatius (1986) 22.

Knowledge and Love of God are Reciprocal

Pontiff's Address to Theological Commission Members

2010-12-03

Whoever has discovered in Christ the love of God, infused by the Holy Spirit in our hearts, wishes to know better the one who loves him and whom he loves. Knowledge and love sustain one another in turn. As the Fathers of the Church affirmed, whoever loves God is impelled to become, in a certain sense, a theologian, one who speaks with God, who thinks of God and seeks to think with God, while the professional work of the theologian is for some a vocation of great responsibility before Christ and before the Church. To be able to study God himself professionally and to be able to speak with him -- "contemplari et contemplata docere" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Super Sent., book 3 d. 35 q. 1 a.3 qc. 1 arg.3) -- is a great privilege. Your reflection on the Christian vision of God can be a valuable contribution both for the life of the faithful as well as for our dialogue with believers of other religions and also with nonbelievers.

In fact, the word itself "theo-logy" reveals this communicative aspect of your work -- in theology we seek to communicate, through the "logos," what we have seen and heard" (1 John 1:3). However, we know well that the word "logos" has a much wider meaning, which includes also the sense of "ratio," "reason." And this fact leads us to a second very important point. We can think of God and communicate what we think because he has gifted us with a reason in harmony with his nature. It is no accident that John's Gospel begins with the affirmation "In the beginning was the Word ... and the Word was God" (John 1:1). To receive this Logos -- this divine thought -- is in the end also a contribution to peace in the world. In fact, to know God in his true nature is also the sure way to ensure peace. A God who is not perceived as the source of forgiveness, justice and love, could not be light on the path of peace.

Just as man always tends to connect his knowledge with the knowledge of others, knowledge of God is also organized systematically. However, no theological system can subsist if it is not permeated by the love of its divine "Object," which in theology must necessarily be "Subject," who speaks to us and with whom we are in a relationship of love. Thus theology must always be nourished by dialogue with the divine Logos, Creator and Redeemer. Moreover, no theology is such if it is not integrated in the life and reflection of the Church through time and space. Yes, it is true that, to be scientific, theology must argue in a rational way, but it must also be faithful to the nature of the ecclesial faith; centered on God, rooted in prayer, in communion with the other disciples of the Lord guaranteed by communion with the Successor of Peter and the whole episcopal college.

This reception and transmission of the Logos also has as a consequence that the rationality itself of theology helps to purify human reason, freeing it from certain prejudices and ideas that can exercise a strong influence on the thought of every age. Moreover, it must be highlighted that theology always lives in continuity and in dialogue with believers and theologians who came before us; because ecclesial communion is diachronic, and so is theology. The theologian never begins from zero, but considers as teacher the fathers and theologians of the whole Christian tradition. Rooted in sacred Scripture, read with the fathers and doctors, theology can be school of sanctity, as attested by Blessed John Henry Newman. To discover the permanent value of the richness transmitted from the past is no small contribution of theology to the concert of the sciences.

Christ died for all, though not all know it and accept it. Having received the love of God, how can we not love those for whom Christ gave his live? "He laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren" (1 John 3:16). All this leads us to service of others in the name of Christ; in other words, the social commitment of Christians stems necessarily from the manifestation of divine love. Contemplation of the revealed God and charity for our neighbor cannot be separated, even if they are lived according to different charisms. In a world that often appreciates many gifts of Christianity -- as, for example, the idea of democratic equality -- without understanding the roots of its ideals, it is particularly important to show that the fruits die if the roots of the tree are severed. Indeed there is no justice without truth, and justice does not develop fully if its horizon is limited to the material world. For us Christians social solidarity always has a perspective of eternity.

Dear theologian friends, our meeting today manifests in a beautiful and singular way the indispensable unity that must reign between theologians and pastors. One cannot be a theologian in solitude: Theologians have need of the ministry of the pastors of the Church, as the magisterium has need of theologians who thoroughly fulfill their service, with all the ascesis which that implies. Through your commission I wish therefore to thank all theologians and encourage them to have faith in the great value of their commitment. In expressing my best wishes for your work, I impart affectionately my blessing.

From Synderesis to Anamnesis

“Pure Objectivity is An Absurd Abstraction”[1]

The facts: In the Seewald interview, “Light of the World,[2] to the remark that “Critics, including critics from the Church’s own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms,” Benedict XVI commented on the sensation of being provoked in a previous interview on the plane to Cameroon on March 17, 2009 by the complaint that the Catholic Church “is often considered unrealistic and ineffective” in the struggle to stop the contagion of AIDS.[3] Benedict commented to Seewald: “In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done.”

In the Cameroon interview, he spoke of two elements that had to be done: “bringing out the human dimension of sexuality, that is to say a spiritual and human renewal that would bring with it a new way of behaving towards others, and secondly, true friendship…”[4] Here, with Seewald he says that “the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.”[5]

These are important words in that he is referring to the “banalization of sexuality” as a reduction of sexual activity to procreation and pleasure, rather than as involving the whole structure of the person. He is alluding to an anthropology of relation that he perceives deep within the condom issue. And he discloses it in the next paragraph: “There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.”

Seewald then smells blood: “Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?” Benedict responds: “She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.”

This last statement is most risky in that it could be taken – was in fact taken - by the press to trumpet a change in the teaching of the Catholic Church with regard to contraception and homosexual activity. It has been commented to me: you would think that the pope, intellectual lightning rod that he is, would have anticipated that his rather down-scale remarks on condom use would generate a huge reaction from the media in the direction of a change in the apparently settled position of the Church on contraception and gay activity. Because of the sensitivity of this issue of the condom, one would have expected that more would have been forthcoming by way of clarification.

But, no. And perhaps for the following reason. This condom brouhaha has created the opportunity to give a concrete example of the development[6] that has taken place in the Church during the Second Vatican Council and after. That development was the meaning of the Council as “pastoral” in that the concern of the fathers integrating it was not to hammer out the meaning of this or that objective truth in the deposit of faith under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but rather to fix on the reality of Revelation itself as the Person of Christ and the act of faith as the reception of that Person such that the believer, like the Virgin, takes the Word into self and incarnates Him.[7] In a word, this tiny observation of Benedict that perhaps the condom could be a “first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality”[8] demands an interpretation that the so called liberal press misunderstands as a loosening of the moral absolute, and the so called conservative and orthodox will consign to subjective intentionality[9] without grasping that he is talking about a gesture to retrieve a personalist relational anthropology that will change a whole style of thought to a “new trajectory of thinking”[10] and a “broadening of reason.” Benedict has been trying to get across forever that the person of today has to enter “a new trajectory of reason” which is “a broadening” of same so as to escape from a world of abstraction and ideology and enter into the fully real world of the Word of God and His creation. In a way, we are like C.S. Lewis’s Prince Rilian and companions in the underworld under the spell of the Wicked Witch. There in the underworld, they still remembered Narnia (“Overworld”) but could not come to their right minds until one of the company, Puddleglum, put his foot into the fire burning the intoxicating incense, the pain of which returned him to his right mind, and the stench of the burning foot the same for the others.[11]

Benedict has been trying to do the same thing with regard to the Church and is using this surprising and scandalizing assertion about condoms to get our attention. What is he saying? And what is he not saying? He is saying – I submit - that the human person is not adequately described by a Greek metaphysic, nor is morality adequately established on the metaphysical anthropology of substance,[12] nor is its rational dynamic adequately accounted for by the intellectualist interplay of reason and will within the horizon of that anthropology. Such an anthropology, and the epistemological horizon it works in, says that contraceptive as well as homosexual activity is contra-naturam, and this because both kinds of acts violate right reason which feeds on the reality known as “nature.” And the nature of sexual activity demands a one-flesh union of male and female with openness to procreation. As difficult as it is to give a persuasive account of this, these have been the metaphysical and anthropological terms that a Christian scholastic tradition has bequeathed to the third millennium.

However, Benedict does not ground his thought on a metaphysic of substance nor an epistemology reducible to only concepts, nor a rational psychology of faculties of intellect and will. He works with a metaphysic of person as relation and knowledge as consciousness of self. He reads “knowledge” as legere ab intus = to know from within.[13] Since the Person to be known in Christ is pure relation to the Father and when incarnate, prayer, then the proportionate medium to know Christ is prayer. He calls this “theological epistemology.”[14] In like manner, since like is known by like, “only God knows God,”[15] as revealed in Mt. 11, 27: “no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and him to whom the son chooses to reveal him.” One must become “another Christ” in order to know Christ, and therefore, the Father. He works on two levels of experience – sense and self transcending self.

He works appreciatively with Greek reason but most literally transformed by Christian faith as the experience of the self–in-transcendence, such that the supreme reality – Being – that reason perceives is the human person as image and likeness of the divine Persons of the Trinity.[16] Hence, knowledge of reality does not take place primarily in discrete concepts corresponding to “natures,” – not even human nature – perceived in the material world, but rather the Word of God[17] as present in the material world, but not of it. And the mode of perception is the consciousness of self as imaging the revealing divine Person. The meaning of reality, then, is to be relational as in “being for” another. This is true for the Trinitarian Persons, and it is true for persons made in the image and likeness of God.

What does this have to do with condoms? When Benedict speaks positively of the use of the condom, he is not speaking about the moral use of the condom in terms of nature. He is not speaking about the moral use of condoms at all. Rather, he is addressing the human person, turned back on himself and trapped in that turn, and hence unable to see reality and the evil of his actions. I take this to be the case the pope suggests of the male prostitute using the condom with an apparently irretrievable erroneous conscience. The media who/which work only with a pre-established agendum, when reading the conjunction of “condom” and “male prostitute” (presumably homosexual) smell blood and move in to translate reality into propaganda. The orthodox Catholic in the pew, who may have some education in the scholastic metaphysic and ethic of nature, first principles and practical syllogisms, will tend to trivialize the brouhaha around the condom remark and attribute it to media “condomania” and “Salvation by Latex” as Weigel suggests,[18] and therefore not to pay attention to it.

But, as my interlocutor suggested this morning, this pope is not so foolish as to think that he can say what he said about condoms having a positive role in the rehabilitation of, say, a gay prostitute, without some follow-up clarification. Also, to say “condom” in the orthodox Catholic world is to speak approvingly of contraception and homosexuality, which is the equivalent of brandishing a red flag. And so, a clarification should be forthcoming from some official quarter.

Before going on, it will be important to note that the context in which Benedict XVI speaks of the use of the condom is the person whose conscience is dead to the true-to-reality good. He is speaking of the dehumanized person for whom sexuality is totally trivial as an exercise of humanity and is reduced to the level of “a drug that people administer to themselves.” Sexuality in such a person is a pleasure seeking activity extrinsic to the person as person. It is not a fully human act and is cause or effect of their not fully exercising themselves as persons.

To plumb the depths of the pope’s mind on the relation of action and thought, it may be helpful to pass review of an address by Benedict in 1991 entitled “Conscience and Truth.”[19] Here Benedict confronts the issue of the so-called “invincible erroneous conscience” whereby a person, in the case of the article, Hitler/Stalin, does evil but is allegedly unable to overcome the moral ignorance of it. This, for the young Benedict beginning his studies of theology, raised the issue of the source of morality and conscience.

After offering his own theologically derived thought that there are two levels of conscience, (1) the moral agent as ontological tendency (relation) towards the divine (as image and likeness thereof) which he calls anamnesis (remembering = not forgetting), and 2) a second which is the act of the intellect and will that go through a process of deductive, practical reasoning from a first practical principle – synderesis (Good must be done, and evil avoided). Benedict comments that “the word synderesis (synteresis [Greek]) came into medieval tradition of conscience from the stoic doctrine of the microcosm. It remained unclear in its exact meaning, and for this reason became a hindrance to a careful development of this essential aspect of the whole question of conscience.”[20]

The first level is “ontological tendency,” a dynamic of the human person as imaging the relational self-giving of the Trinitarian Persons. The dynamism of the tendency is toward the divine, and as ontological, it is an experience of the reality of the self with the consciousness of the self that accrues to it. This anamnesis is a sense, i.e. “the spark of the divine that has been hidden in us” that is not conceptual as “a conceptually articulated knowing, a store of retrievable contents” but “an inner sense, a capacity to recall, so that the one whom it addresses, if he is not turned in on himself, hears it is echo from within. He sees: That’s it! That is what my nature points to and seeks.”[21] We have here the kernel of the explanation of the condom as medium of rehabilitation of the male prostitute. Turned in on himself, he is what has been considered invincibly ignorant because he cannot hear the language of his own being. The concern that another is not infected with AIDS from him could be the first ontological act of his persona in the service of another, and therefore the enlightening of his consciousness (conscience) as to human good and evil.

The second account of conscience that has come down almost universally in its Greek-scholastic form is an intellectualist-deductive-syllogistic act of intellect and will working in tandem to give us a practical judgement as conclusion that we can never violate even if it be objectively erroneous. Benedict comments: “On this level, the level of judgment (conscientia in the narrower sense), it can be said that even the erroneous conscience binds. This statement is completely intelligible from the rational tradition of Scholasticism. No one may act against his convictions, as St. Paul had already said (Romans 14, 23). But this fact – that the conviction a person has come to certainly binds in the moment of acting – does not signify a canonization of subjectivity. It is never wrong to follow the convictions one has arrived at – in fact, one must do so. But it can very well be wrong to have come to such askew convictions in the first palace, by having stifled the protest of the anamnesis of being.”[22]

And there we have the deeper point. Benedict is not canonizing male prostitution, nor condomizing contraception, nor the use of condoms for “safe sex” in a homosexual interaction. Rather, he is trying to move the Church to move on to think on a new trajectory of reason. That “new trajectory” is the human person as constitutively relational. Only as actually and existentially relational can the person become conscious of God and himself.

In his most recent encyclical “Caritas in Veritate,” he wrote: “Pope Paul VI noted that “the world is in trouble because of the lack of thinking” He was making… a wish: a new trajectory of thinking is needed in order to arrive at a better understanding of the implications of our being one family; interaction among the peoples of the world calls us to embark upon this new trajectory, so that integration can signify solidarity rather than marginalization. Thinking of this kind requires a deeper critical evaluation of the category of relation….

“As a spiritual being, the human creature is defined through interpersonal relations. The more authentically he or she lives these relations, the more his or her own personal identity matures. It is not by isolation that man establishes his worth, but by placing himself in relation with others and with God. Hence these relations take on fundamental importance….”[23]

Conclusion

Benedict is trying to set the Church on a distinct epistemological level, that of the person as constitutively, not merely accidentally, relational. The very meaning of the human person, as the revelation of Christ as Son of the Father, is to be “for” the other. Made in the image and likeness of God, and chosen in him “before the foundation of the world… He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ as his sons” (Eph. 1, 4). Sin is the turning back on self, the loss of relationality that has darkened our intellects and weakened our wills.[24] There can be a liberation from that state by an action of generosity and giftedness, no matter how polluted the context. The ignorance is not invincible as long as there is some freedom of self-mastery, self-possession and self-gift. Since knowledge of the self as image of God, and therefore knowledge of God – and therefore, the Absolute – can come from a “first step in the direction” of giftedness, and therefore “moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants.” This is not a canonization of the use of the condom, but it is pointing toward the anthropology of person as gift that is the key to Vatican II, and awaiting its release into consciousness.

---

[1] J. Ratzinger, “Biblical Interpretation in Crisis,” The Essential Pope Benedict XVI, Thornton and Varenne, Harper, San Francisco (2007) 247.

[2] Benedict XVI, “Light of the Word,” A Conversation with Peter Seewald, Ignatius (2010) 118-119.

[3] Ibid 193.

[4] Ibid. 193-194.

[5] Ibid 119.

[6] Karol Wojtyla, “Sources of Renewal,” Harper and Row, (1979) 17: “If we study the Conciliar magisterium as a whole, we find that the Pastors of the Church were not so much concerned to answer questions like ‘What should men believe?, ‘What is the real meaning of this or that truth of faith?’ and so on, but rather to answer the more complex question: ‘What does it mean to be a believer, a Catholic and a member of the Church?’”

Having established this turn to the subject as the meaning of the “enrichment” of faith, Wojtyla then divides the book into two parts: “Formation of Attitudes” and “Formation of Consciousness.” The attitude of faith is the self-transcendence of oneself as gift to the revealing Christ. The consciousness is the awareness of what it means to be “another Christ.” This division of the book after the notion of “enrichment” or development into “attitude” and “consciousness” squares with the Christian anthropology offered in Gaudium et spes #24: “man, the only earthly being God has willed for itself, finds himself by the sincere gift of himself.” Attitude is the “gift of self;” consciousness is “the finding of the self.” Wojtyla subsumes the entire Council, and all its parts, into the above.

[7] Wojtyla comments: “A ‘purely’ doctrinal Council would have concentrated on defining the precise meaning of the truths of faith, whereas a pastoral Council proclaims, recalls or clarifies truths for the primary purpose of giving Christians a life-style, a way of thinking and acting;” Sources of Renewal op. cit. 18. Consider also the immense impact of Benedict XVI on the Council with his habilitation thesis on Revelation and Faith that he sums up thus: “`Revelation’ is always a concept denoting an act. The word refers to the act in which God shows himself, not to the objectified result of this act. And because this is so, the receiving subject is always also a part of the concept of ‘revelation.’ Where there is no one to perceive ‘revelation,’ no re-vel-ation has occurred, because no veil has been removed. By definition, revelation requires a someone who apprehends it;” Milestones – Memoirs 1927-1977” Ignatius (1997) 108. It is this immense intellectual development by the retrieval of the subject both as Revelation and Faith that has proven so elusive in assimilating the Council. Benedict’s reference to the condom is neither contraceptive nor to immunize against AIDS but as a gesture of self-gift from within a thoroughly immoral absolute.

[8] Ibid 119.

[9] Both Janet Smith and George Weigel speak about subjective intention and psychological change that can be brought about by this first step. The pope also uses the word “intention.” But within a complementary and higher epistemological horizon, Benedict has consistently understood “person” from Trinity through Christ to man as constitutive relation. He makes the analogy of this mystical epistemology of the person with Quantum physics and its indeterminacy. He is also firm that the Greek metaphysics of substance is completely inadequate to account for anything in the theology of the Trinity, Christology or anthropology. This means that this strange reference to the use of the condom neither for contraception nor AIDS prevention, and without determinant to the axiological absolute, suggests that he is talking about the rehabilitation of a constitutively relational anthropology by a gesture.

[10] Benedict XVI “Caritas in Veritate” #53-55.

[11] C. S. Lewis, “The Silver Chair,” Collier Books (1953) Chapter XII.

[12] Consider Benedict’s remarks on the notion of substance as deployable in theology: “one sees what tremendous effort and intellectual transformation lay behind the working out of this concept of person, which was quite foreign in its inner disposition to the Greek and the Latin mind. It is not conceived in substantialist, but… in existential terms… Remaining on the level of the Greek mind, Boethius defined ‘person’ as naturae rationalis individual substantia, as the individual substance of a rational nature. One sees that the concept of person stands entirely on the level of substance. This cannot clarify anything about the Trinity or about Christology; it is an affirmation that remains on the level of the Greek mind which thinks in substantialist terms;” J. Ratzinger, “Concerning the Notion of Person in Theology,” Communio 17 [Fall, 1990] 448.

[13] J. Ratzinger, “Behold the Pierced One,” Ignatius i(1986) 25.

[14] Ibid 26.

[15] Benedict XVI, Brazil, Aparecida Conference, Keynote Address (Celam) May 13, 2007.

[16] In like manner, John Paul II wrote in “Fides et ratio” #83: “In a special way, the person constitutes a privileged locus for the encounter with being [actu essendi], and hence with metaphysical enquiry.” Reason can perceive Being in its fullness only when the “I” of the believer –actus essendi – is self-transcending in faith.

[17] Benedict XVI, Address to the Synod on The Word of God, October 6, 2008: “the Word of God is the foundation of everything, it is the true reality. And to be realistic, we must rely upon this reality. We must change our idea that matter, solid things, things we can touch, are the more solid, the more certain reality. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount the Lord speaks to us about the two possible foundations for building the house of one's life: sand and rock. The one who builds on sand builds only on visible and tangible things, on success, on career, on money. Apparently these are the true realities. But all this one day will pass away. We can see this now with the fall of large banks: this money disappears, it is nothing. And thus all things, which seem to be the true realities we can count on, are only realities of a secondary order. The one who builds his life on these realities, on matter, on success, on appearances, builds upon sand. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality. Therefore, we must change our concept of realism. The realist is the one who recognizes the Word of God, in this apparently weak reality, as the foundation of all things. Realist is the one who builds his life on this foundation, which is permanent;”

[18] George Weigel, “Deflating the NYT Condom Scoop,” National Review, November 22, 2010.

[19] J. Ratzinger “Conscience and Truth,” On Conscience Ignatius (2007)

[20] This is an important observation since Benedict’s whole thrust is to explain the human person and knowing in the existential terms of revelation as created in the image and likeness of the divine Persons, and therefore with a “remembering” of who one is and what one is to do according to who one is

[21] J. Ratzinger, “Conscience and Truth,” On Conscience Ignatius (2007) 32.

[22] J. Ratzinger, “Conscience and Truth” On Conscience op. cit. 38.

[23] Benedict XVI, “Caritas in Veritate,” #53.

[24] Veritatis Splendor, 1.

Christina - Trisomy 21 - Makes Her Extra Chromosome Count

I was accustomed to my daughter being inconspicuous. For the first six years of her life, Christina, who has Down syndrome, had lived in a town where faces like hers were commonplace. We lived on Long Island, New York, in a village with a collection of group homes for the disabled. It was common to see adults with Down syndrome going to work, to the store, attending church, and socializing. No one did a double take upon seeing the typical almond eyes and rounded face of a little girl with an extra chromosome. We realized that were fortunate, this is a highly unusual circumstance in a society where people with Down syndrome are disappearing, a result of the 92 per cent abortion rate recorded for children diagnosed before birth. We were pleased she spent her preschool years as part of that town.

When Christina turned five, we were surprised to hear that she did not qualify to enter our local public kindergarten. Though our town was full of adults being integrated into society, our schools did not yet consider that a priority, and her delays in speech and toileting made her unwelcome in the public schools. We visited the special education school, a former Army barrack. The school had second-rate classrooms and a concrete playground without a blade of grass. Although the staff was dedicated and professional I was so dismayed by the prison-like compound with the windowless cafeteria, I resolved to look elsewhere. So we left the place where I grew up, for the countryside of Connecticut, where, thanks to inclusive education, children of every ability level are integrated into the typical classroom.

I knew that life would be different in our new home when I overheard this comment from the children’s section of the town library. “Mommy, we just saw this little Chinese girl, she was speaking a different language and everything.” The mother flushed deeply and corrected her sons, “No, she has Down syndrome, that’s why she looks like that.” I reassured her that I took no offense, the boys were merely being observant. They were not the first to be mystified by the exquisite almond eyes of children like Christina.

Langdon Down, the British psychiatrist for whom they are named, first called people with Down syndrome “Mongoloid” assuming that somehow they had descended from the Mongolian race ( Dr Down was an in-law of Charles Darwin). The negative stereotype which accompanies the name “Mongoloid” persisted until 1958, when French geneticist Jerome Lejeuene discovered that Down syndrome was caused by an extra copy of the 21st chromosome. It is more accurately called Trisomy 21. Stereotypes till persist and, until recently, babies born with Down syndrome were routinely put away into institutions “for their own good”. Mothers felt pressured by pediatricians who offered no other options. Their precious son or daughter would be confined to an institution where they would never learn to read, or hold a job or be part of a family.

Things have changed dramatically for people with Trisomy 21 in recent years. Until the 1980’s heart operations were rarely performed on babies. Their lives did not seem to hold enough promise to merit the effort, until parents began to advocate for their children. Now the 50 per cent of babies with Down syndrome born with heart defects have routine operations, doubling their life expectancy from 25 to 50. The mapping of the human genome prompted expanded research into the condition. Scientists at the Down Syndrome Research and Treatment Foundation assert that a drug improving their learning and memory could be available in ten years. In the seventies, no one dreamed that people with Down syndrome would graduate high school with their typical peers, work at the local supermarket, or even live in the community. Who knows what they will be doing by the time Christina is 27?

Having Down syndrome makes Christina a bit more of a curiosity here in Connecticut than it did back home. However, she has learned to turn that distinction to her advantage. From the hug she gives her morning bus driver, through the chorus of “goodbyes” she receives on the afternoon bus, Christina basks in unusual popularity in her school. It seems that once young children satisfy their curiosity about why she looks and acts a certain way, they are content not only to be her classmates, but also to be her helpers and friends. “Christina was sad today, so we made her laugh,” recounted Henry, the eight-year-old in the seat across from her on the bus. No one asked him to be her big brother, yet he prides himself on his role. While her delays slow her learning and necessitate extra support in school, Christina has unique gifts to offer those who interact with her. Her teacher aide said this in a Christmas card last year: “Working with Christina has been a blessing from God for me.” I asked her if she still felt that way in June, after my curious daughter pulled the fire alarm. She smiled knowingly and said, “That’s our Christina!”

One thing you must never try with Christina is to tell her she cannot do something. She will move heaven and earth to prove you wrong. I issue the same warning to those who would stereotype people with Trisomy 21; they delight in proving you wrong. Ask movie star Chris Burke, music teacher and husband Sujeet Desai, or Lake Tahoe swimmer Karen Gaffney -- all Down syndrome achievers. Christina will have many challenges ahead of her as she learns to read, and speak clearly, but becoming a vital part of her community is a goal she has already mastered.

Leticia Velasquez writes from rural Connecticut.

BXVI - Communion in the Mouth

Pope Benedict XVI explains why he administers communion in the mouth

Pope Benedict XVI, in his latest book (interview by Peter Seewald, "Light of the World. The Pope, The Church and The Signs Of The Times"), says:

"I am not opposed in principle to Communion in the hand; I have both administered and received Communion in this way myself.

"The idea behind my current practice of having people kneel to receive Communion on the tongue was to send a signal and to underscore the Real Presence with an exclamation point. One important reason is that there is a great danger of superficiality precisely in the kinds of Mass events we hold at Saint Peter’s, both in the Basilica and in the Square. I have heard of people who, after receiving Communion, stick the Host in their wallet to take home as a kind of souvenir.

"In this context, where people think that everyone is just automatically supposed to receive Communion — everyone else is going up, so I will, too–I wanted to send a clear signal. I wanted it to be clear: Something quite special is going on here! He is here, the One before whom we fall on our knees! Pay attention!

"This is not just some social ritual in which we can take part if we want to."