Robert Imbelli S.J. on Barron's "Exploring Catholic Theology"

Exploring Catholic Theology: Essays on God, Liturgy, and Evangelization. By Robert Barron. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015. Pp. xv + 250. $24.99.

            Robert Barron, newly appointed auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, is probably best known for his acclaimed series of DVDs, Catholicism, with its accompanying book. The series has been successfully used in RCIA programs, in parish continuing education programs, and in undergraduate classes devoted to Catholic theology. I, along with many others, can attest both to the aesthetic attractiveness of the series and its pedagogical effectiveness.

            It soon becomes apparent that the accessibility of B.’s work does not come at the expense of theological substance. A coherent and compelling theological and philosophical vision animates the Catholicism series, as well as his other multi-media offerings. B. is not only a first-rate evangelist and communicator, he is a most impressive systematic theologian.

            That comprehensive vision has been articulated in such fine works as And Now I See: A Theology of Transformation (1998), The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path (2002), and most fully in The Priority of Christ: Toward a Postliberal Catholicism (2007). Each of these displays B.’s ability to join seamlessly theology and spirituality, the intellectual and affective, as he draws richly from the classics of Christianity’s theological, literary, and artistic traditions. These qualities are abundantly present in this new collection: Exploring Catholic Theology: Essays on God, Liturgy, and Evangelization.

            The range and depth of B.’s theological ancestry, revealed in these essays, is noteworthy. Irenaeus and Augustine, Aquinas and Newman, Balthasar and Ratzinger, Lonergan and Dulles do not receive only passing mention. They are vital conversation partners from whom B. continues to learn and cogently incorporate into his own theological synthesis. For him, as for them, ressourcement and aggiornamento are inseparable and perennial dimensions of the theological task at the service of the Church’s liturgy and life.

            The present essays develop a number of the key insights and sensibilities that structure B.’s previous writings. The book’s four sections display his primary concerns and commitments: the Doctrine of God, Theology and Philosophy, Liturgy and Eucharist, A New Evangelization.

            B. draws upon Thomas Aquinas in his insistence that “Deus non est in genere:” God is not a member of a class, albeit the highest. God is “ipsum esse subsistens,” the personal Power that brings into existence and undergirds all finite reality. In addressing the “new atheists,” B. assumes a mystagogic stance, seeking to lead beyond a truncated concept of God, towards the Mystery in whom creation lives and moves and has its being.

            But the uniqueness and originality of the Christian revelation is that this God of Infinite Mystery interacts intimately and personally with our human world. In Jesus Christ God has drawn near and assumed our human nature, not to overwhelm, much less annihilate, but to consecrate and transform.

            B., however, goes beyond merely affirming that the Incarnation is the distinctive “Idea” (in Newman’s sense) of Christianity. He probes that claim to maintain “the epistemic primacy” of Jesus. Such an affirmation bears both methodological and missionary implications. Jesus is not the supreme instance of a generic type: one of a class of savior figures. The salvation he brings in his Person is not constricted, but catholic.

            B. contends that the liberal tradition in theology, beginning in nineteenth century Protestantism and embraced by many Catholic theologians in the aftermath of Vatican II, promotes a reductive understanding of the Christian tradition.  Revelation tends to be absorbed by human experience, Christology by anthropology, the mystical by the moral. Thus B. advocates a “postliberal” or “postcritical” approach to the craft of theology, one in which Jesus Christ is the measure and not that which is to be measured. For this reason B. is wary of appeals to a “method of correlation” in pursuing the theological task. He recommends, instead, what he calls (following Newman) a “method of assimilation,” wherein the Catholic theologian appropriates “whatever is true, honorable, just, pure” (Phil 4:8) in a given culture. But such critical discernment always transpires in the light of the Gospel and is normed by Jesus Christ who alone is Lumen gentium.

            Moreover, without a firm sense of the absolute novum of the paschal mystery of Christ and of the surpassing joy of his Gospel, missionary activity becomes anemic. As Pope Francis insisted, in the very first homily after his election as Bishop of Rome: “without Christ and his cross at the center, the Church becomes only a charitable NGO!” B. concurs completely. Only the conviction that Christ is, in truth, lumen gentium can spur and sustain a mission ad gentes.

            Tutored by Aquinas, Newman, and Lonergan (as well as by Robert Sokolowski to whom the book is dedicated), B. opts for both theology and philosophy, both the biblical narrative and speculative metaphysics. In this regard I would single out his essay, “The Metaphysics of Coinherence: A Meditation on the Essence of the Christian Message.”  In typical fashion, B. introduces his subject by evoking a work of art: here the intertwined and inter-connected patterns of the Book of Kells. The “coinherence,” the multi-faceted unity and participatory sensitivity so graphically displayed in the manuscript, finds its ultimate ground in the union of God and man in the Incarnation and the extension of that saving communion to all creation through the Eucharist.

            The essays in this collection were composed prior to the appearance of Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato si’. Yet reading the two works concurrently reveals a striking complementarity. A key theme of the encyclical, of course, is that “everything is interconnected,” “interrelated” (#138); that there is an urgent need for “a spirituality of that global solidarity which flows from the mystery of the Trinity” (#240); and that “the Eucharist embraces and penetrates all creation” (#236). At the same time the Pope realizes that these insights require fuller theoretical grounding. Hence his repeated call for “a new synthesis” (#s 112 and 121).

            I suggest that B.’s work offers rich resources for such a synthesis.

           

                                                                                                            Robert Imbelli

Boston College

Robert Barron on Martin Luther King - A Masterpiece

If I have this right, it is the link to Bshp Robert Barron's youtube on Martin Luther King. It is amasterpiece in itself. Barron is to be studied and read as is MLK. If you haven't, go to King's Letter From a Birmingham Jail and you will see a great mind in action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueg9FN4K6hE …

Thoughts On Francis in the Light of MLK

A)     Letter From a Birmingham Jail:

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

By analogy to Pope Francis. As MLK is not concerned so much about the theoretical equality of black and white but about action of integration, so also Pope Francis is not so much concerned about making points of doctrine, as about solving the status quo of people ensconced in a state of sin that they cannot practically get out of [divorced-remarried]. The doctrinal points are clear: i.e. for those validly married and baptized, they have made the gift of themselves to each other and, by such, establish an unbreakable bond. Having attempted to enter into another marriage is a violation of the very meaning of matrimony and, by living in that state, disqualify themselves - by not being in grace - from receiving the Eucharist. The Lord was most clear on this point: "And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, 'Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?' He answered, 'Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.' They said to him, 'Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?' He said to them, 'For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce you wives, but from the beginning it was not so'" (Mt. 19, 3ff., also Mk 10, 2ff.)." 

   And so it is clear what man should do and not do, and why. But then there is the other question: what can God forgive? What will God forgive? The pope writes in the Bull: "When faced with the gravity of sin, God responds with the fullness of mercy. Mercy will always be greater than any sin, and no one can place limits on the love of God who is ever ready to forgive." And as with the woman caught in adultery, He forgives her sin and tells her to sin no more: "Now the Scribes and Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and setting her in the midst, said to him, 'Master, this woman has jut now been caught in adultery. And in the Law Moses commanded us to stond such persons. What, therefore, does thou say/?' Now they were saying this to test him, in order that they might be able to accuse him. But Jesus, stooping down, began to write with his finger on the ground.
   "But when they continued asking him, he raised himself and said to them, 'Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.' And again, stooping down, he began to write on the ground. But hearing this, they went away, one by one, begining with the eldest. And Jesus remained alone, with the woman standing in the midst.
   "And Jesus, raising himself, said to her, 'Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned thee?' She said, 'No one, Lord,' Then Jesus said, Neither will I condemn thee, Go thy way, and from now on sin no more' (Jn. 8. 3-11)."

     So, mercy trumps justice in an act of Love without doing away with the metaphysics of justice. And this seems to be the tension: the order of being established by the Being of the Creator, and the order of mercy which is the very Being of the Redeemer. The same God is Creator and Redeemer. Made in the image and likeness of God, we have to learn from revelation what the Being of God is like, and therefore, what is the being of man. It is not sufficient to take the meaning of being and reality from Greek speculation and add the supernatural to it. The very meaning of being is different within Christian revelation. 
   We saw above in a blog this month that Robert Moynihan ["Inside the Vatican" - "Letters"], had "one concern" about the Church dispensing forgiveness as broad and universal as Christ:

"This is a concern because cultural forces inimical to the faith greatly desire to gain a victory in this particular battle, a battle which is only part of a very broad-based metaphysical war against the concepts of substantial being, personhood, the soul, personal fault, sin, guilt, repentance, and holiness of life -- the concepts which underlie the entire Catholic sacramental system... the concepts which underlie the entire Catholic faith."

   My response is that the Person of  Christ is the meaining of reality

   In short, the Person of Christ, is the meaning of reality.

  This bond has ontological reality and cannot be revoked by an act of the will since, and - to my mind – hopes to raise the consciousness of the Church to the mind of Christ by a practical living out of the Year of Mercy. That is, as the Church could move from a state of self-referentiality to mercy for those on the periphery, there could be a motion from not-seeing to seeing; that is a growth in the possibility of having been forgiven in the state of sin in which they find themselves with repentance, and the possibility of receiving the Eucharist. This would not annul the metaphysical reality that there cannot be divorce (as it was “from the beginning”) or breaking of the bond of self-gift of the original marriage. But it would affirm the power of Christ to forgive sin – all sin, any sin. And this without damage to the integrity of the metaphysic of conjugal union. Thoughts in analogy with the mind of MLK

The Meaning of “Communication” For Francis

“Msgr. Vigano said the Pope gives ‘no strategic importance” to communication, but sees it as important in the sense of creating communion with others through ‘being attentive to the person.’

                The Italian priest recalled how, when getting ready to give a video message, the Pope greets every person involved in the production. ‘This is a way of being close to the people, of being in communion with the person. These are performative acts of communication,’ he said.

                The Pope, he added, ‘continually returns to the essentials, not baroquisms,’ and ‘from this point of view, one is also able to listen.’ By stressing he is a sinner like everyone else, people can identify with him, sense his solidarity with them and be bearers of hope and charity like him, Msgr. Vigano said.

                Also important are the Pope’s gestures, he continued, adding that this body ‘speaks much; it’s a body that writes history; it’s a body like Jeremiah in the Bible.’ The Pope gave ‘many important speeches’ in Kenya, Uganda and Central African Republic, ‘but the important thing was his presence, ‘ he said, especially in war torn Central African Republic.

                ‘A religious sister from Bangui wrote to me saying: ‘It’s an extraordinary thing: For the first time, you see Muslims entering places they hadn’t entered before, without weapons: Muslims who give lifts to Christians in motorcycle taxis; Christians who give lifts to Muslims, and it is an extraordinary thing! There is a contagion of the fact that there is a possibility of hope and peace, which until then had gone.’

 – From NCR(egister)

Francis - We Are All Called To Be Holy

“To be holy, it is not necessary to be bishops, priests or religious. … We are all called to be holy! … It is by living with life and offering one’s own Christian witness in our everyday occupations that we are called to become holy; and each person in the condition and in the state of life in which he finds himself. … Every state of life leads to sanctity, if lived in communion with the Lord and in the service of one’s brethren.”

Pointers For Confessors - Pope Francis

Pope Francis goes to Confession during a penitential celebration at St. Peter's Basilica, March 28, 2014. Credit: Ansa/L'Osservatore Romano.

By Ann Schneible

Vatican City, Jan 13, 2016 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- God's love is offered to everyone who goes to the sacrament of confession, Pope Francis said in his new book on mercy – even those who are not able to receive absolution from their sins.

“I feel compelled to say to confessors: talk, listen with patience, and above all tell people that God loves them,” the Pope said in The Name of God is Mercy, a book-length interview of Pope Francis by Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli published Jan. 12.

“If the confessor cannot absolve a person, he needs to explain why, he needs to give them a blessing, even without the holy sacrament. The love of God exists even for those who are not disposed to receive it."

Pope Francis here referred to cases in which a person is not disposed to be absolved of their sins, giving the example of his own niece, who had civilly married a man who had not yet had his first marriage found null.

He recounted how the man, despite having remarried without an annulment, nonetheless went to confession every Sunday before Mass, telling the priest, "I know you can't absolve me but I have sinned … please give me a blessing."

"This is a religiously mature man," the Pope said.

Pope Francis stressed the importance of tenderness towards those who come to confession.

"If we don’t show them the love and mercy of God, we push them away and perhaps they will never come back,” he said. “So embrace them and be compassionate, even if you can’t absolve them. Give them a blessing anyway.”

In The Name of God is Mercy, the Pope touches on a wide range of topics on the theme of mercy, with significant attention given to the subject of confession.

Pope Francis was asked about the importance of going to confession to a priest – specifically, why it is not enough to ask God's forgiveness “on one's own.”

The Pope responded saying priests and bishops “become instruments of the mercy of God” and act in the person of Christ. They are the successors of the Apostles, to whom Christ said, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them.”

The act of going to confession to a priest is significant because man is a social being, and forgiveness has a social dimension: “We are social beings, and forgiveness has a social implication; my sin wounds mankind, my brothers and sisters, and society as a whole.”

“Confessing to a priest is a way of putting my life into the hands and heart of someone else, someone who in that moment acts in the name of Jesus,” he said. “It’s a way to be real and authentic: we face the facts by looking at another person and not in the mirror.”

“If you are not capable of talking to your brother about your mistakes, you can be sure that you can’t talk about them with God, either, and therefore you end up confessing into the mirror, to yourself.”

“It is important that I go to confession, that I sit in front of a priest who embodies Jesus, that I kneel before Mother Church, called to dispense the mercy of Christ,” he said. “There is objectivity in this gesture of genuflection before the priest; it becomes the vehicle through which grace reaches and heals me.”

Pope Francis said he is moved by the tradition in Eastern Churches, in which the priest the places his stole on the penitent's head, and puts his arm around his shoulder, describing it as “the physical representation of acceptance and mercy.”

He explained how the faithful do not go to confession to be judged, but to encounter mercy.

“It’s true that there is always a certain amount of judgment in confession, but there is something greater than judgment that comes into play,” he said.

“It is being face-to-face with someone who acts in persona Christi to welcome and forgive you. It is an encounter with mercy.”

Pope Francis was also asked about references he made to mercy early on in his pontificate, like the anecdote of the elderly woman who said that without God's mercy, “the world would not exist.”

“It was an example of the faith of simple people who are imbued with knowledge even if they have never studied theology,” he said.

“I was struck by that woman’s words: without mercy, without God’s forgiveness, the world would not exist; it couldn’t exist.”

“As a confessor, even when I have found myself before a locked door, I have always tried to find a crack, just a tiny opening so that I can pry open that door and grant forgiveness and mercy.”

Tornielli also asked Pope Francis the significance of saying confession should not be like going to the “dry cleaner,” a comparison which he has used more than once.

“It was an example, an image to explain the hypocrisy of those who believe that sin is a stain, only a stain, something that you can have dry-cleaned so that everything goes back to normal,” he said.

“But sin is more than a stain. Sin is a wound; it needs to be treated, healed.”

In reference to another saying of his – that confessionals should not be torture chambers – Pope Francis said he is speaking directly to priests and confessors.  

The Pope cited instances of priests in the confessional interrogating the penitent, or exhibiting excessive curiosity to the point of impropriety.

One the one hand, “Anyone who confesses does well to feel shame for his sins: shame is a grace we ask for; it is good, positive, because it makes us humble. But he added that “in a dialogue with a confessor we need to be listened to, not interrogated. Then the confessor says whatever he needs to and offers advice delicately.”

Asked whether he himself was a “strict or indulgent confessor,” Pope Francis answered saying he “always tried to take time with confessions,” adding that he wished he could “walk into a church and sit down in a confessional again.”

“So to answer the question: when I heard confessions, I always thought about myself, about my own sins, and about my need for mercy, and so I tried to forgive a great deal.”

In a section of the book entitled “A sinner like Simon Peter,” Pope Francis was asked what advice he would give to a penitent in order to give a good confession, and to a priest to be a good confessor.

To the penitent, he stressed the importance of avoiding arrogance and acknowledging himself as a sinner.

“He ought to reflect on the truth of his life, of what he feels and what he thinks before God. He ought to be able to look earnestly at himself and his sin,” he said.

“He ought to feel like a sinner, so that he can be amazed by God. In order to be filled with his gift of infinite mercy, we need to recognize our need, our emptiness, our wretchedness.”

The Pope then turned his attention to the confessor, saying he should emulate God's mercy.

“A priest needs to think of his own sins, to listen with tenderness, to pray to the Lord for a heart as merciful as his, and not to cast the first stone because he, too, is a sinner who needs to be forgiven,” he said. “He needs to try to resemble God in all his mercy.”

The Roman Pontiff cited the parable of the prodigal son, in which the Father embraces the younger of two brothers who has returned home after squandering his inheritance.

“This is the love of God,” the Pope said. “This is his overabundant mercy.”

"The Revenant" and Conversion to Mercy

Source: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, Marius Iordache 

"Mercy"

Alejandro Iñárritu's new film is one of the most talked about movies, and for good reason

 Bishop Robert Barron |  Jan 12 |

Alejandro Iñárritu's new film The Revenant is one of the most talked about movies, and for good reason. The opening 20 minutes, which feature a frighteningly realistic Indian attack and a horrifically vivid mauling by a grizzly bear, are absolutely compelling viewing. And the remainder of the film is so involving that this viewer at least felt physically sick as he followed the sufferings of the main character. 

The story revolves around a fur trapper from the early 19th century named Hugh Glass (very convincingly played by Leonardo DiCaprio). After being nearly killed by a bear protecting its cubs (in the mauling referenced above), Glass is bandaged up and then carried on a crudely constructed litter through miles and miles of rugged country in the middle of winter. So sick is he and such an encumbrance to his colleagues that many in the party wonder whether it might be better simply to kill him. But Glass's son, a half-white, half-Indian teenager named Hawk, vigorously defends his father. Eventually, however, Fitzgerald, one of the strongest advocates for eliminating Glass, makes his move, murdering Hawk in cold blood and placing Glass in a shallow grave, convinced that the profoundly injured man would never manage to extricate himself.

But in the first of a number of resurrection/re-birth scenes, Glass crawls out of his grave and despite his appalling injuries manages to make his way. What follows is like something out of Dante's Inferno or the book of Job. When he tries to take a drink, the water runs out of the wounds in his neck; when he seeks shelter in a cave, Indians find him and he is compelled to escape down a fast-flowing stream while arrows whiz by his head; when we think he is relatively safe, he is attacked again and forced to escape on horseback right over a steep cliff, killing the animal and leaving himself even more grievously injured; exposed to lethal cold, he eviscerates the horse and sleeps in the confines of the carcass, etc., etc. 

What is driving him during this entire ordeal is a burning desire for vengeance against Fitzgerald, the man who killed his son and left Glass himself for dead. He will face down every obstacle and withstand any assault so that he might bring this wicked person to justice. In this, he comes to imitate the bear with whom he had grappled to the death. Throughout the central section of the film, Glass is clad head to toe in furs, shuffles and grunts his way through the wilderness, eats animals and fish raw. He has become the grizzly, roused to fury because of an attack on his offspring.

The pivotal moment of the film occurs when, at the end of his strength, Glass encounters a Pawnee warrior who feeds him and shelters him during a ferocious storm. In conversation afterward, Glass learns that his benefactor had himself lost his entire family at the hands of white settlers. Filled understandably with rage and a desire for vengeance, the Indian concluded, nevertheless, that "vengeance is best left to the Creator." In a dream/fantasy sequence just after this conversation, Glass finds himself in the midst of the ruins of a Christian church, where he spies and embraces Hawk, reaching out, as it were, across the divide to a transcendent world, where the Creator rules. Without giving away too much more of the plot, suffice it to say that Glass tracks down Fitzgerald and engages in mano a mano combat with him until he remembers what the Pawnee had said and allows his wounded counterpart to drift down the river. 

The film carries a crucially important message, especially for our secularist time, namely, that, as Evelyn Waugh put it in Brideshead Revisited, "the supernatural is the real." The Revenant is unremittingly honest in its portrayal of people caught in the awful reality of this fallen world, which is marked through and through by violence, suspicion, hatred, revenge, and the constant struggle to survive in the context of an indifferent nature. For the denizens of this universe, the correct mottos are indeed "kill or be killed" and "love your friends but hate your enemies" and "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." If there is no God, as Fitzgerald suggests to one of his underlings, survival at any cost, the law of the jungle, is the supreme law. But if there is a dimension that transcends nature, if there is a God who provides a moral compass and presides over human affairs, then one can let go of vengeance and seek a higher justice. The film ends just as this consciousness of God dawns on Glass.

How much of human history has been dominated by revenge which produces an endless cycle of violence? And how present is this dynamic in the struggles of today: Muslim factionalism in the Middle East, anti-Christian violence in Africa, terrorism everywhere? Nothing within fallen nature will ever break us free of these cycles. Only an openness to the transcendent God, a higher power to whom we can entrust our thirst for justice, will solve the problem that most bedevils the human heart. The slowly-dawning awareness of this truth is the greatest re-birth undergone by Hugh Glass, and watching it happen is a very good reason to see The Revenant.

Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.

Pope Calls Priest to 'Ask Him the Favor' of Preaching Spiritual Exercises to Curia

Source: PHOTO.VA, OSSERVATORIO ROMANO 

Father Ermes Maria Ronchi, a Theologian of the Order of the Servants of Mary, To Preach Retreat To Curia.

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Father Ermes Maria Ronchi, priest and theologian of the Order of the Servants of Mary, will preach the Spiritual Exercises of Pope Francis and of the Curia, which will be held in Ariccia from Sunday, March 6, after the Angelus, to Saturday, March 12, said Father Ronchi himself to Il Messaggero Veneto.

The priest explained that the Pontiff called to ask him the "favor": “The Pope’s call came to me as a surprise. My first reaction was one of astonishment, of emotion. When he said that he had to ask me for a favor, I didn’t hesitate to answer ‘but of course, tell me, whatever you need ...’ Then when he said that he wanted to invite me to organize some meetings of reflection, I tried to evade the question and answered that I wasn’t sure I was the appropriate person, who would be up to the task he was suggesting.” 

Born in Racchiuso de Attimis on August 16, 1947, Ronchi was ordained a priest in 1973. That same year, together with other Religious, he created an experimental community in the province of Vicenza (transferred later to Casale Monferrato). From 1991 to 1994 he was in the community of the Servants of Mary in Verona. In 1994, after six months of refresher studies in Paris, he went to Milan, where at present he carries out several activities in Saint Charles church, directing the Corsia Cultural Center of the Servants, founded by David Maria Turoldo.

He wrote the texts of reflection for the Vigil of 500,000 young people in the National Meeting of Young People in 2007. He is Professor of Theological Aesthetics and Iconography at the “Marianum” Pontifical Theological Faculty of Rome. On September 11, 2012, he was appointed parish priest of Saint Charles church in Milan. He is the author of numerous books on biblical and spiritual subjects. In addition, he collaborates with several media, among which is Avvenire(periodical of the Italian Episcopal Conference). 

He directed the section “The Reasons for Hope” in the television program of Catholic culture. Characteristic of his direction was the association of the commentary of the Gospel with the visit to a community of religious inspiration and the reading of a devotional poem at the end of the program.

In new interview, Francis pushes for a church big on mercy, tough on law

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Joshua J. McElwee  |  Jan. 10, 2016

Mercy Interview

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Pope Francis has offered his most detailed outline yet for the role of the Catholic church in the modern era, saying in a new book-length interview the church needs to follow Jesus' example more closely and seek to "enter the darkness" in which many of today's people live.

The pontiff has also responded sharply to church leaders who have criticized his focus on the boundless nature of God's mercy and who suggest that the focus obscures church teachings.

Francis compares such criticisms to "angry mutterings" that Jesus also heard "from those who are only ever used to having things fit into their preconceived notions and ritual purity instead of letting themselves be surprised by reality, by a greater love or a higher standard."

In the new book, titled The Name of God is Mercy and to be released Tuesday, the pope states: "Jesus goes and heals and integrates the marginalized, the ones who are outside the city, the ones outside the encampment. In so doing, he shows us the way."

Reflecting on Jesus' healing of lepers -- who were forbidden to be visited or touched under Mosaic law for fear of causing contamination to the rest of the community -- the pontiff says the Gospels show there are two types of logic of thought and faith.

Want to explore Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment? Check out Tom Reese's eBook, offering thoughtful questions and in-depth analysis. Get it today!

"On the one hand, there is the fear of losing the just and saved, the sheep that are already safely inside the pen," says Francis. "On the other hand, there is the desire to save the sinners, the lost, those on the other side of the fence."

"The first is the logic of the scholars of the law," says the pope, using a term he frequently references in homilies to speak of those who emphasize strict adherence to church teaching over the practice of mercy.

"The second is the logic of God, who welcomes, embraces, and transfigures evil into good, transforming and redeeming my sin, transmuting condemnation into salvation," he continues.

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Part 2: The pope’s personal encounters with mercy

Part 3: Francis explains 'who am I to judge?'

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"Jesus enters into contact with the leper," says Francis. "He touches him. In so doing, he teaches us what to do, which logic to follow, when faced with people who suffer physically and spiritually."

The new book is the result of an interview between the pope and Andrea Tornielli, an Italian journalist and the coordinator for the Vatican Insider news website. The book is being published in 86 countries and about 20 languages on Tuesday. NCR received an advance copy of the English-language version of the text.

The book contains an extensive conversation Tornielli had with Francis in July 2015, just after the pope's visit that month to Ecuador, Bolivia, and Paraguay and before he presided over the contentious worldwide meeting of Catholic prelates known as a Synod of Bishops in October.

Tornielli states in the forward that he wanted to ask the pope questions on the themes of mercy and forgiveness "to analyze what those words mean to him, as a man and a priest" in the context of the Jubilee year of mercy Francis opened Dec. 8.

Throughout the 99 pages of the interview -- broken into nine interconnected parts in the book -- the pontiff speaks expansively about how he understands mercy and what it means to him personally and to the wider church.

He also responds at several points to those who say he has focused too much on mercy, and offers a clear vision for how the church should act in the future. He frequently bases his thoughts on the parables offered by Jesus, even saying once: "We must go back to the Gospel."

Francis also offers a number of personal anecdotes from his priestly work and notably quotes four times from homilies and writings by Albino Luciani, the man who served as Pope John Paul I for only 33 days before his sudden death on Sept. 28, 1978. 

Outlining what the church should be doing today, Francis states plainly: "We need to enter the darkness, the night in which so many of our brothers live. We need to be able to make contact with them and let them feel our closeness, without letting ourselves be wrapped up in that darkness and influenced by it."

"Caring for outcasts and sinners does not mean letting the wolves attack the flock," says the pontiff. "It means trying to reach everyone by sharing the experience of mercy, which we ourselves have experienced, without ever caving in to the temptation of feeling that we are just or perfect."

Speaking more specifically about the so-called "scholars of the law," the pontiff again speaks plainly.

"I will say that there is often a kind of hypocrisy in them, a formal adherence to the law that hides very deep wounds," states Francis. "Jesus uses tough words; he defines them as 'whited sepulchers' who appear devout from the outside, but inside, on the inside . . . hypocrites."

"These are men who live attached to the letter of the law but who neglect love; men who only know how to close doors and draw boundaries," says the pope.

"Chapter 23 of the Gospel of Matthew is very clear on this; we need to return there to understand what the Church is and what it should never be," Francis continues.

"He describes the attitudes of those who tie up heavy burdens and lay them on other men’s shoulders, but who are unwilling to move so much as a finger; they are those who love the place of honor and want to be called master," states the pope.

"This conduct comes when a person loses the sense of awe for salvation that has been granted to him," he continues.

"When a person feels a little more secure, he begins to appropriate faculties which are not his own, but which are the Lord’s," he says. "The awe seems to fade, and this is the basis for clericalism or for the conduct of people who feel pure. What then prevails is a formal adherence to rules and to mental schemes."

"At times I have surprised myself by thinking that a few very rigid people would do well to slip a little, so that they could remember that they are sinners and thus meet Jesus," Francis 

Brave New World: The Future Is Now - Present Epistemology the Pope is Challenging

JANUARY 8, 2016

ANTHONY ESOLEN

“Do you take milk or cream in your coffee, Anna? I’m so forgetful these days.”

“Neither, dear. Don’t fret about it.”

Anna gave a little sigh and passed the cup to her friend Liz. Then they sat quietly for a moment at the table, Anna stirring the sugar in her cup and clinking the spoon against the side. The coffee table was in front of a big bay window in the parlor, looking out onto the front yard.

Outside on the grassy hill they could see a small tousle-headed boy running about with a galumphing sheepdog. The boy was about four or five years old, skinny, with a small man-body set upon legs made to go. He had on a yellow shirt with a smiley face on it, blue jeans, and little white sneakers. He was laughing and calling out, “Here, Duke, here Dukey boy,” waving a stick, while Duke obliged him by leaping up and knocking him over.

They rolled down the hill and got up again. Now the shirt had a healthy splotch of mud across the smiley face. “Here, Duke, here Duke,” called the boy, giggling, while Duke went after him again, bounding on his front paws, like a cartoon dog, his tongue hanging out and his tail going in windmills.

Anna sighed again and sipped her coffee. “It hasn’t worked out,” she said.

Liz tilted her head. “But I thought that you had hired the best breeders in the country.”

“That’s what we thought,” said Anna. “They had a rating of almost five stars, you know. Not cheap, not these quick-mart jobs with the missing pedigrees and the dirty slides. But we’ve had problems right from the start. Very disappointed.”

“Those two certainly seem to get along,” said Liz. The boy was now imitating the dog, crouching down with his hands on the ground and his rump in the air, making growly noises, while Duke did the same.

“Yes, they do,” said Anna, her voice quavering. “I’m sorry, please forgive me. It’s a hard thing to go through.”

“I understand, dear,” said Liz, laying her hand on Anna’s and giving it a pat. “We grow so close to the creatures. But what went wrong?”

“Everything went wrong. First, we wanted a female, and the breeders assured us that that would be no problem, that was the easiest part of the order, and so on.”

“Well, you certainly didn’t get that,” said Liz. Duke trotted over to a fence post and lifted his leg to relieve himself, sniffing it afterward to make double sure. Then he went back to playing with the boy.

“You have no idea,” said Anna. “Sometimes I come down here in the morning and it’s a disaster area. The other day he fished out of the garbage a broken toy we’d thrown away, and there were dirty napkins and scraps of food everywhere. I scolded him, but you know how they are. They give you a hang-dog look and then in a minute they’ve forgotten it ever happened, and do exactly the same thing the next time. It’s what I said to Jim right at the start,” said Anna, her voice acquiring a touch of severity and determination. “I said I didn’t want the mess, I didn’t want the aggression, and he agreed with me, and so did the breeders, those liars.”

“Can you get your money back, at least?”

“No,” said Anna. “There’s a law or something.”

“What a shame,” said Liz. “But aside from that …”

“Aside from that,” Anna went on, “he just is not very smart. We wanted one we could enter in the competitions. We wanted one to show off. It was important to us. I said to Jim,” she said, tapping at the table with her index finger, “we are going to keep only one, so we want only the best quality. After all, I have to give up a lot to take care of him, so I deserve some return on my investment.”

“You know,” said Liz, “the Walkers got one the old fashioned way, just taking whatever came, and he ended up just fine.”

“The Walkers also like to play the lottery,” said Anna with a sniff. “In the end, you get what you pay for, and that’s that.”

“I always said so,” said Liz, but she kept looking through the window. Now the boy was climbing the lower branches of a snaggly old apple tree, while Duke raced around it, barking his head off.

“Not to mention the noise,” said Anna.

“Well, they do say that most of them are noisy,” said Liz.

“I can’t take it,” said Anna. “I have a sensitive constitution. The noise gets to me.”

“There’s some that can take it, and some that can’t,” said Liz, blinking. “What does Jim think of it?”

“Oh, him,” said Anna. “Just like a man. He was the one who didn’t really want it. But then when I begged him and nagged him he not only gave in, he threw himself into it. He picked the breeders. He ordered the printout of the genome going back four generations, and he mixed and matched genes for the probabilities. He got one of his friends in the math department to run some calculations. It isn’t an exact science, not yet. He isolated genes for build and shape of the head and color and everything. And intelligence. That was the key thing, of course. Intelligence. More than personality. Intelligence.”

“So it was Jim who settled on the order?”

“Yes, it was Jim. And when we got it, he was so proud of himself, you’d think that he was the sire!” Anna and Liz laughed. It was just like men to think so, even if they had done no more than put in their two cents’ worth.

“What are you going to do about it?” said Liz. Now the boy was perched on a branch, dangling the stick, while Duke was sitting below, begging for it and occasionally batting at it with a paw. “Attaboy, Duke,” said the boy, giggling.

“We’re going to put him down,” said Anna. Liz caught her breath.

“Couldn’t you give him away instead?” said Liz, who lived alone in an apartment in the center of town. She didn’t have anywhere near the income that Anna and Jim had, so she would take what she could get.

“Oh dear me, no, I couldn’t do that,” said Anna, beginning to sob. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t think of him somewhere else. He would miss us terribly. Besides,” she said, “it isn’t painful, you know. They just put a needle in his shoulder, like so, and he falls asleep. They even have arrangements now, where you can put him in a box with—with one of his favorite toys,” said Anna, breaking down under the force of great feeling.
Liz reached across the table and squeezed her shoulder. “What does Jim think of it?” she asked.

“Jim,” said Anna. “He hasn’t spoken to me in three days.” Silence fell upon them.

“That’s not right,” said Liz, looking out the window again.

“I told him so,” said Anna. “Who has to take care of him all the time? Who has to give up the most? Who is more important, me or, or,” she said, reaching for the right term, the scientific term, “a dumb animal, a dumb animal! God in heaven, it’s not as if he’s a person!”

“He’s very cute,” said Liz. The boy had tumbled out of the tree, and Duke was now straddling him and licking his face with a big sloppy tongue.

“Please don’t make it harder for me than it already is.”

“I’m sorry,” said Liz. “Have you thought about getting another?”

“When the time is right,” said Anna, “we probably will. But next time we are going to go for only the best. You get what you pay for.”

“That you do,” said Liz, blinking again.

“They have a kind of factory, they call it, in Denmark, and people have been raving about the results. It costs a lot, but what good is money if all you do is hoard it up?”

“I always said so,” said Liz. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Dear, I knew I could depend on you,” said Anna, genuinely touched. “We have an appointment with the doctor, you know, this Friday afternoon. So if you could do some baby sitting, I’d be eternally grateful.”

“Of course,” said Liz. “I can’t even imagine what you’re going through.”

“Oh, thank you! You won’t have much to do. He’s easy to take care of. We’ll feed him in the morning. In the afternoon he gets a third of a cup of the dry food in the bag over there. You’ll probably have to walk him once, because he likes to go after he eats. Otherwise he’ll just sleep on the floor. He knows you, so you won’t have any problem. We should be back by about four, but if you don’t mind I’d like to make a quick stop at the convenience store for some eggs and milk on the way home. Tommy!” she shouted through the window, making motions with her hands. The boy was now rolling with Duke in a particularly muddy patch of yard.

“Don’t you worry yourself,” said Liz, getting up. “I’ll go fetch him. Will you be saving his clothes for keepsakes? I know a couple with a kid who could use them.”

“Let me think about it,” said Anna.

. . .

No, people will never turn children into articles of manufacture. No, never—and entire nations will not give up their common sense, common decency, and constitutional liberties in exchange for tawdry and animalistic sexual license, corrupting the human person and devastating the most vulnerable among us, children unborn and born, the weak of will, and the poor. Will this happen? Its equivalent has already happened. This is not to foretell but to reveal.

Tagged as Aldous Huxley, bioethics, Cultural Decline, genetic engineering, IVF

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By Anthony Esolen

Professor Esolen teaches Renaissance English Literature and the Development of Western Civilization at Providence College. He is a regular contributor to Crisis Magazine and the author of many books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization (Regnery Press, 2008); Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child (ISI Books, 2010) and Reflections on the Christian Life (Sophia Institute Press, 2013). His most recent books are Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching (Sophia Institute Press, 2014); Defending Marriage (Tan Books, 2014); and Life Under Compulsion (ISI Books, 2015).