Josemaria Escriva as “Ipse Christus,” and Therefore, All of Us.

St. Josemaria Escriva experienced himself to be not only another Christ, but Ipse Christus, Christ Himself. The experience did not consist in having Christ within him, or of imitating Christ, or of following Christ, or being like Christ. He experienced being Christ, and heard the words, “you are my Son; you are Christ.” It seems that we are talking about an ontological identity of really becoming Christ. But this sets of an alarm that we are talking about man becoming God, and if that is the case, how do we not fall into pantheism?

There were two audible experiences (locutions) that he had in 1931: One was during Mass on August 7 when he heard the words: "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself" and "You are my son (Psalm 2, 7), you are Christ." 

            With regard to the first, Escriva commented years later that he understood Christ saying those words "not in the sense in which in which Scripture says them. I say [them] to you in the sense that you are to raise me  up in all human activities, in the sense that all over the world there should be Christians with a personal and most free dedication, that they be other Christs."

            With regard to the second, he recounted later: “the Lord was giving me those blows around the year 31, and I did not understand. And suddenly (de pronto), in the midst of that great bitterness, these words: 'You are my Son (Psalm 2, 7), you are Christ.' And I could only stammer: 'Abba, Pater! Abba, Pater! Abba! Abba! Abba!'  Now I see it with new light, like a new discovery, just as one sees, after years have passed, that hand of God, of divine Wisdom, of the All-Powerful One. You've led me, Lord, to understand that to find the Cross is to find happiness, joy. And I see the reason with greater clarity than ever: to find the Cross is to identify oneself with Christ, to be Christ, and therefore to be a son of God.”

                        These two locutions (charisms) with reference to Christians as "other Christs" and himself as "my Son, you are Christ," gave him the clarity of mind to persistently repeat throughout his life that the vocation of every man as image of God, and not just the Christian via the sacrament of Baptism, is to be "no ya alter Christus, sino ipse Christus, !el mismo Cristo!" (not just another Christ, but Christ Himself) ^[1]

Two authors, Burkhart and Lopez[2], add here that the novelty is not so much that Escriva affirms that being created in the image of God, or being baptized into Christ will bring about an identification with Christ Himself (which is already deep in Christian Tradition), but that this identification with Christ has an ontological character to it, and it is accessible to all in ordinary secular life. It is not new to say that one can have a vocation to be Christ Himself, but it is new to say that all are called to actually become Christ Himself by living out ordinary life.^[3]

            And so let's note that Escriva did not experience or hear within him that he had become like Christ, that he was imitating Christ, that he was following Christ, that he had identified himself with Christ, that he was sharing with Christ, that he belonged to Christ, that he was tending toward the fullness of the humanity of Christ, or even that he was another Christ. Rather, these two authors commented that: “he saw and felt that to be a son of God was “to be Christ' and therefore God the Father treated him as he treated Christ when giving him these physical and moral pains: the cross. It was the evident proof of his filiation, because as the  Father had wanted the passion and death of His incarnate Son for the redemption of men, so those contradictions of his were the way to fulfill the mission which He has given him to  share in the redemptive work of Christ.  God the Father had not only treated him 'as Christ' but when inviting him to embrace the cross, he said to him: 'you are Christ' 'you are my son.'”(?)

            The texts of our Father are unambiguous: “To have the Cross is to be identified with Christ, it is to be Christ, and therefore, to be a son of God.” In the same meditation, our Father said: “There is only one way to live on earth: to die with Christ in order to rise with Him, until we may be able to say with the Apostle: 'It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me' (Gal 2, 20)” Burkhart and Lopez comment: “St. Josemaria understands that Gal. 2, 20 speaks of a presence of the life of Christ in the Christian not only in an intentional sense (as the known is in the one who knows, and the beloved in the one who loves) but ontologically” (my underline). Removing any lingering ambiguity, our Father writes” “Each Christian is not simply alter Christus; another Christ, but ipse Christus: Christ himself!”

            Burkart and Lopez attempt to give a theological account of this ontological identification of the human person with Christ by assuming the theology that had been crafted in the Council of Chalcedon (451) of the one Person, two natures and applying the notion of participation of the human nature in the divine nature.

            It should be noted that the affirmations of St. Josemaria point to a radical ontological identity that the Christian “is” and the presence of the Cross is the patent, existential and experiential confirmation that, indeed, one has become “another Christ, Christ Himself.” The two authors affirm that the identity with Christ is ontological, and that it cannot be reduced to abstract thought or doctrine.[4] They go on to say that we are not dealing here in St. Josemaria with a “confusion between Christ and the Christian,” but rather with an “identification.” And the “identification” does not mean the “disappearance of one’s own identity” but a “compenetration.” And the only adequate analogy for this is the union between the Trinitarian Father and the Son when Jesus says “As the living Father has sent me, and as I live because of the Father, so he who eats me, he also shall live because of me” (Jn. 6, 58), and “I in them and You in me” (Jn. 17, 23). But we must remember what was heard, and what, therefore, was said by St. Josemaria: “you are my Son; you are Christ,” and Escriva could not stop saying Abba, Abba which is the unique language of the Ipse Christus.

   The question, then, is Christ in Escriva? Or is Escriva Christ?, and what could we possibly mean by that?

            Burkhart and Lopez, once they reach the point of giving a theological, conceptual explanation, slide into a more reasonable Christ is in Escriva. And they do it in the more conventional metaphysical / terms of participation.

They apply the Christology of Chalcedon in its Scholastic metaphysical terms of one Person, two natures. Obviously, they want to avoid falling into an offensive confusion of the uncreated Divinity of Christ with a created human person. They do not want to fall into pantheism. And so they apply Neo-Scholastic Christology and anthropology: the Humanity of Christ – the human nature – is the efficient “instrumental”cause of grace. That is, the Humanity of Christ, in so far as it is assumed by the divine Person of the Logos, possesses the fullness of grace (assuming grace to be the communicator of divine Life). They then assign that the Humanity of Christ is the instrumental (not principal) cause. They then say that Christ is present in the human person in so far as the action of His humanity is made present in him. That is, Christ is not in Escriva. Rather, the grace of Christ’s humanity is in Escriva which acts in him.[5]

My complaint with this is the following: if the human person has the profound ontological likeness to the divine Person because created in His image and likeness, and after Christ, baptized into His power to make the gift of Himself to death, why not apply the anthropology of Gaudium et spes 24 that is the dynamic concretion of Gaudium et spes 22.  Why take an anthropology from below (rational animal) as from Aristotle and Boethius and try to force a relational Christology into it? That is, follow the Magisterium that says that Jesus Christ is the revelation not only who God is, but who man is. That is, Christ is not an exception to man (as taken from below as rational animal) but his Prototype. Therefore the anthropology has to follow the Christology. And the Christology of Chalcedon (451) was complete and dynamized by the Christology of Constantinople III (680-681) that says that the human will of Christ becomes the human will of the divine Person of the Son, and that the human and the divine compenetrate in that both wills (divine and human) are longings of the same Person for the Father. That is, the human will is not damaged but perfected by being the will of a divine Person.

This would mean that the freedom of the human will of Christ consists in obeying the Father[6] to death on the Cross. This is made in the magisterium of Gaudium et spes #24 that says, “man, the only earthly being God has willed for itself, finds itself by the sincere gift of self.” Therefore, if man is capable of making the gift of himself in obedience to the Will of the Father, he is capable of being Christ Himself.

The theology of Jesus Christ reveals that the Person of Christ is nothing in Himself. Since the Trinity is One God, then the Persons must be subsistent Relations. Each Person is not a “substance” or “individual” in self, but a “for” the other. It is the Communio of the one Christian God.

 Hence, the ontological content of the Son is to be nothing in Self. Hear Ratzinger: “The Son as Son, and in so far as he is Son, does not proceed in any way from himself and so is completely one with the Father; since he is nothing beside him, claims no special position of his own, confronts the Father with nothing belonging only to him, retains no room for his own individuality, therefore he is completely equal to the Father. The logic is compelling: if there is nothing in which he is just he, no kind of fenced-off private ground, then he coincides with the Father, is ‘one’ with him. It is precisely this totality of interplay that the word ‘Son’ aims at expressing. To John ‘Son’ means being-from-another; thus with this word he defines the being of this man as being from another and for others, as a being that is completely open on both sides, knows no reserved area of the mere ‘I.’ When it thus becomes clear that the being of Jesus as Christ is a completely open being, a being ‘from’ and ‘towards,’ that nowhere clings to itself and nowhere stands on its own, then it is also clear at the same time that this being is pure relation (not substantiality) and, as pure relation, pure unity. This fundamental statement about Christ becomes, as we have seen, at the same time the explanation of Christian existence. To John, being a Christian means being like the Son, becoming a son; that is, not standing on one’s own and in oneself, but living completely open in the ‘from’ and ‘towards.’ In so far as the Christian is a ‘Christian,’ this is true of him. And certainly such utterances will make him aware to how small an extent he is a Christian”^[7]

And further, the person of the Son and His act cannot be distinguished. Ratzinger again: “For what faith really states is precisely that with Jesus it is not possible to distinguish office and person; with him, this differentiation simply becomes inapplicable. The person is the office, the office is the person. The two are no longer divisible. Here there is no private area reserved for an ‘I’ which remains in the background behind the deeds and actions and thus at some time or other can be4 ‘off duty;’ there is no ‘I’ separate from the work; the ‘I’ is the work and the work is the ‘I.’”[8]

And now to connect what Bl. Alvaro del Portillo, having lived 40 years with St. Josemaria and having observed him in his “first act” as founder of Opus Dei, wrote in the Osservatore Romano in May of 1992: “The identification of his very self with his foundational activity implied that Mons. Escriva perfected himself as a subject – up to the point of living the virtues to a heroic degree – in the measure in which he carried out Opus Dei, feeling the need to second God’s plans daily.” He commented that it was impossible to distinguish his persona from his vocation to found the Work.

Hence, if the Person of Christ is His action, and His Person is His teaching, then if the human person, image and baptized, is capable of this totality of self gift over a life-time, then, with this Christological anthropology, we are able to give a metaphysical account of the human person approximating his Prototype.

---

[1]Josemaria Escriva “Christ is Passing By,” #104

[2] Ernst Burkhart - Javier Lopez, “Vida Cotidiana y Santidad En La Ensenagnza de San Josemaria,” Rialp, (2011) Vol. II, 85.

[3] Ernst Burkhart - Javier Lopez, “Vida Cotidiana y Santidad En La Ensenagnza de San Josemaria,” Rialp, (2011) Vol. II, 85.

[4] “La filiacion divine percibida por san Josemaria en 1931 no se agota en la doctrina – profunda, pero quiza algo abstracta – de ser ‘hijjos en el Hijo,’ sino que es una filiacion divine ‘en Cristo,’ una filiacion divina ‘encarnada’ y redentora.’

[5] “Que la cause instrumental sea causa por participacion comporta que es causa no por su ser (como la causa principal, la Divinidad) sino por su accion o ‘virtud,’ que la Humanidad de Cristo tiene de modo indefectible. Esto implica que la presencia de Cristo encuanto hombre en el Cristiano que recibe al gracia, no es como la pesencia de la causa principal, la Divinidad, que inabita en el alma in gracia, sino que es una presencia de su accion o ‘virtud.’ En este sentido se la puede llamar ‘presencia virtual,’ entendiendo este ultimo termino como presence de la accion de Cristo o de su virtus: su ‘poder’ o ‘fuerza.’ La presencia virtual de Cristo en cuanto Hombre in el Cristiano es una presencia verdadera y real, pero no sustancial; es presencia del poder o del influjo de la Humanidad de Cristo, no de su sustancia. Se trata de una presencia dinamica. Gracias a ella puede decirse que las acciones de un hijo de Dios, surgidas de su naturaleza elevada por la gracia de Cristo, son tambien acciones d Cristo a traves del Cristiano como miembro suyo: vida d Cristo en el Cristiano. Y es, ademas, una presencia permanente, que existe mientras permanence la gracia. Burkart y Lopez …. P. 99.

[6] See Veritatis Splendor#85.

[7] J. Ratzinger, “Introduction to Christianity,” Ignatius (1990) 134.

[8] Ibid. 149.

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE FROM MANILA: Big Topic: Ideological Colonialism ["Gender Theory"] and Children No Contraception, But Responsible Self-Gift.

Read the Pope Carefully!

Colonialism: in the light of what I put today about the ideological absolutism of 1750's Spain and Portugal vis a vis the Missions (Reductions) in Paraguay;

   Contraception: No. Rather, the free se;f-gift of "responsible partenthood."

Pope Francis has obliquely but sharply criticized how financially stable nations lend aid to developing countries, saying they sometimes require concessions that strike echoes of 20th century dictatorships.

The pontiff has also made what appears to be an unprecedented statement that Catholics may have a moral responsibility to limit the number of their children, while reaffirming Pope Paul VI’s ban on artificial means of birth control.

Francis’ statement about development aid was a clarification of an earlier warning against what he called an "ideological colonization" of family life, made during a meeting with families in the Philippines last week. Speaking to media Monday, Francis recounted a story of a public education minister he knew who was offered money to construct new schools for the poor.

To receive the money, said Francis, the minister had to agree to use a course book with students that taught what the pontiff called "gender theory."

"This is the ideological colonization," said the pope. "It colonizes the people with an idea that changes, or wants to change, a mentality or a structure."

"It is not new, this," he continued. "The same was done by the dictators of the last century. They came with their own doctrine -- think of the Balilla [youth groups of Fascist Italy], think of the Hitler Youth."

"They colonized the people," he continued. "How much suffering -- peoples must not lose liberty."

"Every people has its own culture," said Francis. "But when imposed conditions come from the imperial colonizers, they seek to make [peoples] lose their own identity and make an homogeny."

Francis was speaking Monday in a nearly hour-long press conference aboard the papal plane traveling back to Rome from the Philippines. He was answering a question about remarks he made last Friday, in which he warned against such colonization in an apparent reference to efforts to legalize same-sex marriage and to use of contraception.

During the press conference the pope also confirmed details of his upcoming trip to the U.S. in September. For the second time in a week, Francis too reaffirmed Catholic teaching prohibiting the use of birth control.

Reaffirms prohibition on birth control

Francis said Pope Paul VI, whose 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae outlined the contraceptive ban, was warning against a "Neo-Malthusianism, " a reference to a theories that suggested in the 1960s and ’70s that exponential global population growth would lead to an irreversible world food crisis.

Citing the low rates of birth specifically in Italy and Spain, Francis said such Neo-Malthusianism "seeks to control humanity."

At the same time, however, Francis made a statement that seems without precedent for a pope, suggesting that parents may have a responsibility to limit the number of their children, saying: "This does not signify that the Christian must make children in series."

Telling the story of a woman he met in a parish in Rome several months ago who had given birth to seven children via Cesarean section and was pregnant with an eighth, Francis asked: "Does she want to leave the seven orphans?"

"This is to tempt God," he said, adding later: "That is an irresponsibility." Catholics, the pope said, should speak of "responsible parenthood."

"How do we do this?" Francis asked. "With dialogue. Each person with his pastor seeks how to do that responsible parenthood."

"God gives you methods to be responsible," he continued. "Some think that -- excuse the word -- that in order to be good Catholics we have to be like rabbits. No."

"This is clear and that is why in the church there are marriage groups, there are experts in this matter, there are pastors," Francis said. Using the term for a practice that follows church law, he continued: "I know so many, many licit ways that have helped this."

Francis was speaking about birth control in response to a question from a Filipino journalist. Use of contraception in the Philippines is a contentious issue, as the Philippine government only recently approved contraceptive access against forceful opposition from Catholic bishops.

The pope's responses regarding birth control and ideological colonization were part of a wide-ranging conference that touched on a number of other subjects, including: Corruption in church structures, the place of women in church leadership, and global mistreatment of the poor that the pontiff said could be likened to a new form of "state-sponsored terrorism."

‘Ideological colonization’

Continuing to clarify his concept of "ideological colonization," Francis said he heard concerns about the matter from African bishops during last fall's Synod, who told him they often face difficult choices when presented with conditions of acceptance on much needed financial aid.

"I say to many that I have seen this," said the pope.

Francis compared such colonization to criticisms he has frequently made about the process of globalization -- saying that the homogenizing of peoples is "the globalization of the sphere -- [where] all the points are equidistant from the center."

"It is important to globalize but not like the sphere -- like the polyhedron," he continued. "Namely, that every people, every part, conserves its own identity without being ideologically colonized."

Francis on Monday also revealed more concrete plans for his trip to the U.S. in September, confirming reports that he is planning to visit Philadelphia, New York, and Washington but saying it is unlikely he will able to travel to the West Coast or to the U.S./Mexico border.

Mentioning his earlier announcement that he will canonize Franciscan Fr. Junipero Serra on the trip, an 18th century missionary in the Western U.S. and Mexico, Francis said: "I would like to go to California for the canonization ... but I think there is the problem of time. It requires two more days [to the trip]."

It is more likely, the pope said, that he will formalize the canonization during a liturgy at Washington's Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Francis said he might also host some sort of event to mark the occasion at the U.S. Capitol building, which contains a statue of the future saint.

Francis has been invited to address a joint session of Congress during his visit, which he is primarily making to attend the Sept. 22-27 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia. The pontiff is also likely to address the United Nations in New York.

Francis also said on Monday he would have preferred to make a visit to the southern border of the U.S., but joked that he could not do so without visiting the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

No visit to border on U.S. trip

"To enter the United States from the border of Mexico would be a beautiful thing, as a sign of brotherhood and of help to the immigrants," he said. "But you know that going to Mexico without going to visit the Madonna is a drama. A war could break out!"

"I think there will only be those three cities," he continued. "Later, there will be time to go to Mexico."

Speaking briefly of the role of women in the church, Francis said Monday that women bring new perspectives to church communities.

"When I say it is important that women be held in higher consideration in the church, it’s not just to give them a function as the secretary of a dicastery," he said, referring to the general name for second-in-command positions of the different Vatican offices before adding: "But this can be OK."

"No, it’s so that they may tell us how they feel and view reality," he continued. "Because women view things from a different richness, a larger one."

Addressing a question about corruption in the church, Francis recalled a time as a auxiliary bishop in Argentina when he was offered about $400,000 for use towards ministry for the poor -- under the condition that he accept the money under the table and allow the benefactors to keep half the sum.

With rather colorful language, the pontiff said: "In that moment I thought about what I would do: Either I insult them and give them a kick where the sun doesn’t shine or I play the fool."

Emphasizing that he thinks of the church as a community of sinners, the pope continued: "Let’s remember this: Sinners, yes; the corrupt, no; the corrupt, never."

"We must ask pardon for those Catholics, those Christians who scandalize with their corruption," said Francis. "It’s a wound in the church, but there are so many saints, so many saints -- and sinner saints, but not corrupt [ones]."

On the Dalai Lama

Later in the press conference, Francis also rebutted news reports that he had refused to meet with the Dalai Lama while the Buddhist leader was in Rome late last year because the pope did not wish to harm relations between the Vatican and China.

While formal ties between the Holy See and the Asian country have been severed since 1951, Francis has said several times he would like to repair the relationship and would be willing to travel to China.

"I saw that some newspapers said I didn’t receive him out of fear of China," said the pope. "That’s not true."

The refusal to meet, said Francis, was due to a protocol of the Vatican's Secretariat of State that the pope does not meet "people at that level" when they are in Rome for conferences.

"The motive was not a refusal of a person, or fear of China," he said, mentioning that he also had not met with officials of the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization when they met in Rome last year.

More foreign trips planned

Francis also tentatively confirmed Monday that he is planning to visit three Latin American countries later this year -- Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay -- and two African countries: The Central African Republic and Uganda.

Saying he was speaking "hypothetically," the pope said he and organizers have to determine when would be best to go to Africa because of hot weather in the region during the summer and the continuing Ebola epidemic.

Francis also added that in 2016 he would like to travel to Chile, Argentina and Uruguay but said as yet no firm plans have been made for those visits. He added that he also wanted to visit Peru, but said he and organizers "don't know where to put it" in his schedule.

Announcement of all the trips led Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, who was moderating the press conference, to interject with "everything is provisional" before joking: "We already have quite a precise and ample program of the travels of the next years."

Francis was visiting the Philippines Thursday-Sunday as the second trip in a two-part Asian voyage that saw him first visit Sri Lanka.

Speaking of his time in the Philippines, Francis said Monday that he was profoundly moved by an outdoor Mass he celebrated in Tacloban, an area of the country that was severely devastated by 2013's Typhoon Haiyan.

Francis celebrated the Mass amidst a tropical storm in the area, which was pouring rain on a crowd of some 300,000 and buffeting the area with 60 mile-an-hour winds.

To see the people there despite in those conditions, said the pontiff, "I felt as though I was annihilated. I almost couldn’t speak."

Francis also said he was struck by how many in the crowds -- which grew to an estimated record-breaking 6 million for an outdoor Mass with the pope in Manila on Sunday -- were holding up children above their heads to receive a papal blessing.

It was a gesture, said the pope, that "this is my treasure, this is my future, this is my love, for this one it’s worth working, for this one it’s worth suffering."

"It’s the way they did this that struck me," he said. "The gesture of motherhood, of fatherhood, of enthusiasm, of joy."

On The Day of Martin Luther King: 2015

1)      Martin Luther King

2)      Jan 17-25: Unity Octave of the Church   

3)      Marian Year in Opus Dei for the Synod of 2015 on the Family

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.

B)      The Depth of the Unity Octave of the Catholic Church:

The goal is not unity. It is unum. Unum is the Person of Jesus Christ as in: “Ut omnes unum sint…” (Jn. 17, 23), or “There is neither  Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor freeman, there is neither male nor female; you are all one (not united) in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3, 28).

A person becomes “another Christ, Christ Himself” by a lived act of faith which is the gift of the self whereby one receives the Person of Christ, the Revelation of the Father, into oneself. It is a second Incarnation, and forms a culture: a Christian culture.

                Ideology against Culture:

It is analogous to what took place in the Guarani Indians in Paraguay as a result of the evangelizing efforts of the Jesuits in 1700. You have seen “The Mission.” This is it.

“The Guarani had been melded into a nation; they were a people, a culture, with dignity and autonomy that the Crown should by rights protect and defend. But the new political ideology of absolutism had no time for such medieval niceties. The Reductions would be crushed by the stroke of distant royal pens on a 1750 treaty drawing new Spanish and Portuguese boundaries in South America.

                “In exchange for the port of Sacramento, Spain handed over to the Portuguese seven of the Redactions east of the new frontier, together with their inhabitants. It took eighteen years for the Spanish and Portuguese royal forces to dismember the Guarani missions. The natives fought hard to protect their villages. More than ten thousand were killed in appalling massacres; thousands of others were captured as salves or fled back to the forests. The Jesuit general in Rome ordered the missionaries to abide by the treaty and leave, but some refused and even took up arms in their defense – stances dramatized by Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) and Rodrigo (Robert De Niro) in The Mission’s tragic finale.

“The next step was not long in coming.  The Crowns of Portugal, France, and Spain expelled the Jesuits from their territories and seized their assets… The departure of the Jesuits from the Spanish colonies weas traumataic.”[1]  So was the shooting of Martin Luther King.

                This is analogous to what took (and is still taking) place in the United States with regard to racism, but even deeper, with regard to the entire culture of the family vis a vis the ideology of money and the free market.

The Ideology That Dominates Us: Us Unawares:

                Speak Pope Francis: 54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.

No to the new idolatry of money

55. One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.

56. While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules. Debt and the accumulation of interest also make it difficult for countries to realize the potential of their own economies and keep citizens from enjoying their real purchasing power. To all this we can add widespread corruption and self-serving tax evasion, which have taken on worldwide dimensions. The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.

No to a financial system which rules rather than serves

57. Behind this attitude lurks a rejection of ethics and a rejection of God. Ethics has come to be viewed with a certain scornful derision. It is seen as counterproductive, too human, because it makes money and power relative. It is felt to be a threat, since it condemns the manipulation and debasement of the person. In effect, ethics leads to a God who calls for a committed response which is outside the categories of the marketplace. When these latter are absolutized, God can only be seen as uncontrollable, unmanageable, even dangerous, since he calls human beings to their full realization and to freedom from all forms of enslavement. Ethics – a non-ideological ethics – would make it possible to bring about balance and a more humane social order. With this in mind, I encourage financial experts and political leaders to ponder the words of one of the sages of antiquity: “Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs”.[55]

The First and Last Step

As the Jesuits did with the Guarini’s, so also must it be done today. We need to initiate a Marian Year of faith. How? Pope Francis as Cardinal Bergoglio in Argentina.

1)      Faith – lived -  must become culture, or it is not really faith. Faith cannot be reduced to propositions. It must be lived out in ordinary daily action. Fr. Mariano Fazio writes that “Bergoglio never forgets that the inculturation of the gospel reflects the logic of the Incarnation of the Word and is a work of the Holy Spirit. There is an initial model of inculturation in the scene of Pentecost when everyone heard the good news announced in his own language.”[2]

2)      Therefore, “Popular Piety:”

·         The Shrine: “the place of the Word, a privileged place of forgiveness, reconciliation, and thanksgiving

·         The Pilgrimage:

·         The Feast:

·         Marian Devotion:

·         The Gaze of Our Lady: between herself and her crucified Son. And you.

The Fulcrum of the New Culture: The Working Person.

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[1] Austen Ivereigh, “The Great Reformer” Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope, Henry Holt (2014)62.

[2] “Pope Francis – Keys to His Thought” Scepter (2014) 40.

Francis: To care for the poor is not communism, It is the Gospel

 

POPE FRANCIS

Interview with the Holy Father: "The Gospel’s message is for everyone, the Gospel does not condemn the wealthy, but the idolatry of wealth, the idolatry that makes people indifferent to the call of the poor"

ANDREA TORNIELLI - GIACOMO GALEAZZIVATICAN CITY

The director of La Stampa’s Vatican Insider, Andrea Tornielli, has teamed with the Italian daily’s Vatican beat reporter, Giacomo Galeazzi, to write a book profiling the social teaching of the Church under the direction of Pope Francis. The Italian language volume, titled Papa Francesco. Questa economia uccide – “Pope Francis: this economy kills” – closes with an interview with the Holy Father, which the authors conducted in October of 2014, ample excerpts of which appeared in the Sunday edition of La Stampa  just ahead of the book’s scheduled January 13th release date.

‘Marxist’, ‘Communist’, ‘Pauperist’. Francis’ words on poverty and social justice, as well as his frequent calls for concern for the needy, have drawn criticism and accusations, sometimes expressed with harshness and sarcasm. How does Pope Francis feel about this? Why is the theme of poverty so prevalent in his teachings?

Your Holiness, is the capitalism of the last decades, in your opinion, an irreversible system?

‘I would not know how to answer this question. I recognise that globalisation has helped many people rise out of poverty, but it has also damned many others to starve to death. It is true that global wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities have also grown and new poverty arisen. What I have noticed is that this system sustains itself through a culture of waste, which I have already discussed various times. There is the politics, the sociology and even the attitude of waste. When money, instead of man, is at the centre of the system, when money becomes an idol, men and women are reduced to simple instruments of a social and economic system, which is characterised, better yet dominated, by profound inequalities. So we discard whatever is not useful to this logic; it is this attitude that discards children and older people, and is now affecting the young. I was shocked to learn that, in developed countries, there are many millions of young people under 25 who are jobless. I have dubbed them the ‘neither-nor’ youth, because they neither study nor work. They do not study because they do not have the opportunity to do so, they do not work because there are no jobs. But I would also like to highlight an aspect of the culture of waste; that which leads people to discard babies through abortion. I am shocked by the low birth rates here in Italy; this is how we lose our link to the future. The culture of waste also leads to a hidden euthanasia of older people, who are abandoned. Instead of being considered as our memory, our link to our own past and a source of wisdom for the present. Sometimes I ask myself what the next waste will be. We need to stop before it is too late. Let us stop, please! Therefore, in an attempt to answer your question, I would say that we should not consider this state of things as irreversible. Let us not resign ourselves to it. Let us try and build a society and an economy where man and his welfare are at the centre, instead of money'

Can more ethics in economics bring about change, in the form of an increased consideration for social justice, or is it also right to speculate about structural changes to the system?

‘First of all, we need to remember that we need ethics in the economy, and we also need ethics in politics. More than once, various heads of State and political leaders, whom I have met since my election as bishop of Rome, spoke to me about this. They told me that we, the religious leaders, need to help them and give them ethical indications. Yes, the pastor can make his appeals, but I am convinced that we need, as Benedict XVI recalled in his encyclicals Caritas in Veritate, men and women with their arms raised in prayer to God; conscious that the love and sharing, which engender genuine development, are not a product of our hands, but a gift to ask for. At the same time I am convinced that we need these men and women to commit themselves on every level, in society, politics, institutions and the economy, to work for the common good. We cannot wait any longer to deal with the structural causes of poverty, in order to heal our society from an illness that can only lead to new crises. The markets and financial speculation cannot benefit from absolute autonomy. Without a solution to the problems of the poor, we will not solve the problems of the world. We need projects, mechanisms and processes to implement better distribution of resources, from the creation of new jobs to the integral promotion of those who are excluded.’

Why do Pius XI’s strong and prophetic words, in his encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, against the international imperialism of money, sound, to many – even Catholics – so radical and extreme today?

‘Pius XI only sounds extreme to those who feel struck by his words and hit where it hurts by his prophetical condemnations. But the Pope was not exaggerating, he told the truth after the economic and financial crisis of 1929, and, as a good mountaineer, he saw things as they were, he could look far. I am afraid that those who still feel called to question by Pius XI’s rebukes are the ones who have gone too far…’

Are both the pages of the Populorum Progressio, where it says that private property is not an absolute right but rather subordinate to the common good, and the pages of the Catechism of St. Pius X, who lists, among the sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance, the oppression of the poor and defrauding labourers of their wage, still valid?

‘Not only are they still valid, but the more time goes on, the more I find they have been proved by experience.’

Your words about the poor as the ‘flesh of Christ’ have shocked many people. Are you bothered by the accusation of ‘pauperism’?

‘Before Francis of Assisi came, there were the ‘Pauperists’; there were many Pauperist streams in the Middle Ages. Pauperism is a caricature of the Gospel and of poverty itself. Instead, St. Francis helped us discover the deep connection between poverty and the way of the Gospel. Jesus states that we cannot serve two masters, God and wealth. Is this pauperism? Jesus tells us what the ‘protocol’ is, on which we will be judged. It is the one we read in chapter 25 of Matthew’s Gospel: I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was in prison, I was sick, I was naked and you helped me, clothed me, visited me, took care of me. Whenever we do this to one of our brothers, we do this to Jesus. Caring for our neighbour; for those who are poor, who suffer in body and in soul, for those who are in need. This is the touchstone. Is it pauperism? No, it is the Gospel. Poverty takes us away from idolatry and from feeling self-sufficient. Zacchaeus, after he met Jesus’ merciful gaze, gave half of his fortune away to the poor. The Gospel’s message is for everyone, the Gospel does not condemn the wealthy, but the idolatry of wealth, the idolatry that makes people indifferent to the call of the poor. Jesus said that, before we offer our gift upon the altar, we must reconcile with our brother to be in peace with him. I think that, by analogy, we can extend this request to being in peace with these poor brothers.’

You highlighted the continuity with the tradition of the Church in its concern for the poor. Can you give us some examples of this?

'A month before he opened the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII said ‘The Church shows itself as it wishes to be, everyone’s Church, and particularly the Church of the poor.’ In the following years, this preferential treatment of the poor entered the official teachings. Some may think it a novelty, whilst instead it is a concern that stems from the Gospel and is documented even from the first centuries of Christianity. If I repeated some passages from the homilies of the Church Fathers, in the second or third century, about how we must treat the poor, some would accuse me of giving a Marxist homily. ‘You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his. You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich.’ These were St. Ambrose’s words, which Pope Paul VI used to state, in Populorum Progressio, that private property does not constitute an absolute and unconditional right for anyone, and that no one is allowed to keep for their exclusive use things superfluous to their needs, when others lack basic necessities. St. John Chrysostom stated that ‘not sharing your goods with the poor means robbing them and taking away their life. The goods we own are not ours but theirs’. (…) As we can see, this concern for the poor is in the Gospel, it is within the tradition of the Church, it is not an invention of communism and it must not be turned into an ideology, as has sometimes happened before in the course of history. The Church, when it invites us to overcome what I have called ‘the globalisation of indifference’, is free from any political interest and any ideology. It is moved only by Jesus’ words, and wants to offer its contribution to build a world where we look after one another and care for each other.’

Romero’s martyrdom has been officially recognised

By unanimous vote the Congregation for the Causes of Saints recognised Archbishop Oscar Romero’s martyrdom in odium fidei. He was killed whilst celebrating mass. All so-called doctrinal objections to his beatification have been withdrawn

GIANNI VALENTEROME

Romero is a martyr. He was killed in odium fidei, in hatred of the faith. John Paul II repeated this in a faint voice back in November 2003, while speaking to some Salvadoran bishops who came to Rome for their ad limina visit. The archbishop’s martyrdom was confirmed yesterday in a unanimous vote cast by members of the commission of theologians at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. They recognise the formal and material martyrdom of the archbishop who was shot at the altar whilst celebrating mass on 24 March 1980.  The news was revealed by Stefania Fallasca in an article published by Italian Catholic newspaperAvvenire. She added that “according to canonical practice , all that remains is for commission of bishops and cardinals to give their judgement and for the Pope to then approve the cause, concluding the procedure that will soon lead to [the archbishop’s] beatification.”

Fallasca goes through each part of the beatification process, underlining that the pronouncement on Romero’s martyrdom “is definitely the high point of a very difficult cause”. The process was hindered by objections and attempts to slow down or halt the bishop martyr’s journey toward beatification, often using theological and doctrinal arguments as excuses. Hence the recognition given by the theologians collaborating with the Vatican dicastery for the causes of saints appears crucial and seems to settle the question.

The fact that Romero’s martyrdom has now been recognised definitively confirms that the Salvadoran archbishop was killed in odium fidei. What pushed the butchers to kill Romero, was not simply a craving to wipe out a political enemy, but the hatred unleashed by Romero’s love for justice and focus on the poor which was a direct manifestation of his faith in Christ and his faithfulness to Church teaching. In the bloody chaos that tore El Salvador apart in those terrible years, Romero was the good pastor who was willing to give up his life to care for the poor as the Gospel preaches. The theologians of the Vatican dicastery recognised that it was faith that motivated Romero’s work, the words his pronounced and the gestures he made in the daily reality in which he was called to serve and live as an archbishop.

The decision of the Congregation’s theologians makes a clean sweep of decades of operations that had aimed to make propaganda out of a purely political interpretation of Romero’s killing. The recognition that he was killed in odium fidei confirms that in the days when El Salvador was overcome by death squads and the civil war, the Church was undergoing ferocious persecution at the hands of people who sociologically at least were Christian. The hatred that was unleashed against him, eventually killing him, was cultivated and shared by members of the oligarchy who frequented mass or made offerings and donations to ecclesiastical institutions. Including associations of so-called “Catholic women” who fabricated accusations and malicious comments against him and published them in newspapers.

 
The nihil obstat given by the theologians uncovered the truth behind the stories that had been fabricated against Romero, passing him off as a supporter of the guerrillas, a political agitator who was influenced and subjugated by Marxism. The process for Romero’s beatification cause – of which Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia is postulator – gives authoritative and definitive proof of what the martyr bishop’s friends had been saying all along: Romero – as Professor Morozzo della Rocca wrote – was “a priest and Roman bishop who was obedient to the Church and the Gospel through the Tradition,” called to carry out his pastoral ministry “in that extreme and twisted West that was Latin America in those years.” Where military forces and death squads ferociously oppressed an entire people, serving the oligarchy. Where priests and catechists were killed so that in the rural areas it became dangerous to own a Gospel. Where if all you did was ask for justice you would be labelled as a subversive communist. Where the Church was persecuted because it refused to become the spiritual arm of the oligarchy.

And yet, for years, Romero’s cause remained suspended. The reason given was that all the Salvadoran bishop’s homilies and writings had to be examined by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to verify their orthodoxy. In those years it was mainly Colombian cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo who had a prevalent role in managing Romero’s cause – and ensuring it did not progress any further. He was an influential advisor of the former Holy Office at the time and passed away in 2008.

In this context, the comments the Congregation for the Causes of Saints was receiving, aimed to delay the process further. Some said that elevating Romero to the honour of the altars would be like beatifying Liberation Theology or even popular movements inspired by Marxism and the revolutionary guerrillas of the 1970’s. This was why, according to some, Romero’s cause could not be backed by claiming he died in martyrdom in odium fidei. But this was used as a reason to justify the beatification of Jerzy Popieluszko in 2010. The 37-year-old priest was murdered in 1984 by a commando of the security services of communist Poland.

Now it seems it’s Oscar Arnulfo Romero’s turn. All one can do is wait. But the wait will not be long because canonical approval of a miracle performed through the candidate's intercession is not a prerequisite for a martyr to be beatified.