The Hermeneutic of Continuity. Concern For the “Peripheries” in Bergoglio – Aparecida (2007), and the Relationality of “Self-Gift” From Gaudium et Spes #24 through John Paul II, Benedict XVI to Francis.

The Church of Europe and North America frets defensively against what it perceives to be the great  problem of secularization, the Church of Latin America pushes positively forward to the peripheries of the poor. Francis is speaking in the horizon of the person as subject and the consciousness of the person. Those puzzled by the pope are speaking of the individual in conservative or liberal concepts. Ivereigh can be of help here.

Austen Ivereigh  |  Mar. 13, 2015

 One of the untold stories behind the election of Pope Francis in March 2013 was the emergence of Latin America as the new source church for global Catholicism. The cardinals didn't just elect the man but a program, one that had found expression, above all, in the great document produced by the Latin American bishops in Aparecida, Brazil, in May 2007. The document's principal author was the then-cardinal archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Aparecida marked the coming-of-age moment of a theology. Its approach -- missionary, evangelizing, pastoral and poor -- now underlies the Francis program, outlined in his November 2013 apostolic exhortation, Evangelii  Gaudium.

Just as the church in Spain and Italy was the source for the Counter-Reformation, and the church of France and Germany the source for the Second Vatican Council, Latin America is now the wellspring of a new era of church reform. If Francis perplexes Europeans and North Americans long accustomed to thinking in liberal-conservative terms, it is because he uses a lens and a language that come from outside those categories.

For a recent example, consider his remarks in January on birth control that ended being drowned, in the reporting of the interview aboard the papal plane back from Manila, Philippines, by his "rabbits" remark. The remarkable thing was Francis' articulation of Pope Paul VI's opposition to artificial contraception in terms of a bravely prophetic stance on behalf of the poor of the world against the powers of the age, driven by neo-Malthusian and eugenic assumptions that poverty is a consequence of population.

Liberals in the North, who both inside and outside the church have seen this as an issue of personal autonomy rather than an anticolonial defense of the rights of the poor, were taken aback. But so too were conservatives, accustomed to defending Humanae Vitae in doctrinal terms.

Francis' words were wholly of a piece with the 1968 meeting of CELAM, the Latin American bishops' council, in Medellín, Colombia. The meeting had a profound impact on Jorge Mario Bergoglio, then finishing his Jesuit theology studies.

Medellín -- which famously articulated the "option for the poor" -- saw Humanae Vitae in terms of Rome coming to the aid of poor countries besieged by rich-world-funded development strategies and the imposition of an "eroticism of bourgeois civilization." This was the church speaking on behalf of the evangelized poor, defending their culture.

Similarly, more than 40 years later on the papal plane, Francis spoke of "ideological colonization," just as he had earlier told parents in Manila, "Peoples must not lose their freedom. A people has its culture, its history."

This is precisely the language that Bergoglio as provincial used in the 1970s with his fellow Jesuits, divided at the time by rival elite ideologies. He urged them to focus on the needs and values of what he called "God's holy faithful people," a term that mixed the Vatican II idea of the people of God with Medellín's option for the poor, yet was shaped by nationalism and culture, rather than the social sciences.

Although the term santo pueblo fiel de Dios was Bergoglio's, his thinking reflected a specifically Argentine expression of Latin American theology, identified above all with the theologians Lucio Gera and Rafael Tello. In essence, teología del pueblo, the theology of the people, rejected liberal and Marxist categories as imperialist instrumentalizing of the poor, and embraced seeing the people as subjects of history and culture, as both recipients and agents of evangelization.

Bergoglio would often say that the people have a way of seeing, an awareness, a hermeneutic. As he told the Jesuits in 1980: "The first question any pastor seeking to reform structures [of injustice] must ask is: What is my people asking of me? What is it calling on me to do? And then he must dare to listen."

This faith in history and culture, rather than in social sciences and political revolution, was a major dividing line between the Argentine version of liberation theology and the better-known Central American and Andean version. It was also the source of contention between the "nationalist" bergoglianos and the "liberal" anti-bergoglianos within the Argentine Jesuit province.

Yet while Bergoglio was eventually displaced within the Jesuits, it was the teología del pueblo that gradually won out, in Paul VI's 1975 Evangelii Nuntiandi -- a document strongly influenced by Gera and Tello, and foundational for Latin American churchmen of Bergoglio's generation -- and at the CELAM meeting four years later in Puebla, Mexico.

For the people theologians, the liberation project is not one of the seizure of the state by revolution, but the nationalist Catholic one of people-building, in which God is calling forth his people into a new birth of justice, protected and encouraged by a church that looks firstly to the poor and to the margins.

A key figure for Bergoglio's articulation of this people-building idea over many years was his Uruguayan philosopher friend Alberto Methol Ferré. Possibly the greatest Latin American lay Catholic intellectual of the 20th century, Methol Ferré spent most of his life convinced that Latin America had been moving from being a "reflection church" -- one that echoed Europe -- to a "source church" that would in time invigorate the universal church.

He saw the retreat of first Marxism and later neoliberalism in Latin America as opening up a new era for the people finally to take the stage. That process had, however, been retarded, both by the takeover of Latin American theology on the left and by the centralism of the Vatican under Pope John Paul II.

Methol Ferré and Bergoglio in 2005 believed that Latin America's moment had not yet come; both believed Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger should be pope. That was partly why Bergoglio resisted the attempt by a group of cardinals to elect him in that conclave.

But after 2005, it began to be clear that the hour was at hand. "In the next two decades Latin America will play a key role in the great battles which are taking shape in the twenty-first century," Bergoglio wrote in the prologue to a book that came out that year.

In Lima, Peru, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of CELAM, he said it was time for a continent that included half of the world's Catholics "to lend a service to the universal church," to share the gifts the Holy Spirit had showered on its people.

First, however, the Latin American church had to gather again. Methol Ferré was too ill to attend Aparecida, and died two years later. But like Moses on Mount Nebo glimpsing the Promised Land, he lived to see it happen. In his Latin America in the Twenty-First Century, the philosopher had argued that Pope Benedict XVI's election would usher in a new spring of Latin American Catholic thinking, because as Ratzinger he had deeply engaged with its theology in preparing his famous instructions on liberation theology.

Indeed, among Ratzinger's first moves was to give permission for the CELAM meeting at Aparecida, which the outgoing secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, had long blocked. On the flight from São Paulo, Brazil, to the Aparecida shrine, Benedict said: "I am convinced that from here will be decided -- at least in part, but a fundamental part -- the future of the Catholic church."

In his homily at a huge Mass in the shrine after Benedict's departure, Bergoglio used a striking metaphor when he spoke for the first time (at least in a major public arena) of las periferias existenciales, the existential margins. The phrase struck many chords. It suggested not just the slums, but a world of vulnerability and fragility, a place of suffering and longing and poverty, yet also -- because of Christ's proximity -- of joy and hope.

Bergoglio was elected by his fellow bishops to take charge of the redaction of the concluding document, which is shot through with teología del pueblo concepts.

In its vision and vigor, its fierce advocacy of the poor and its missionary spirituality, its bold proclamation of the birth of a new springtime of faith, Aparecida was now the program, the key to a major new effort of evangelization in Latin America linked, inextricably, to the liberation of a people. Nowhere else in the world was there anything to compare with it. It was the expression of a new maturity, of a local church come of age.

That is why it is so poignant that Benedict, unsteady on his feet in Mexico and thinking ahead to Brazil, decided while in Latin America in March 2012 to stand down a year later. It is hard not to see an exhausted European church standing back to allow the vigorous church of Latin America to take its place.

That a transition was taking place was obvious at the synod on the new evangelization of October that year. The churches of Europe and the U.S. were anxious, turned in on themselves, focused on what they lacked. Why was it that an Asian or Middle Eastern bishop whose flock was being killed and bombed could be so hopeful and joyful, yet bishops in a church where nobody suffered that real kind of persecution spoke as if Christian civilization faced annihilation?

"At the synod, the wind blew from the south," an Argentine theologian sent by Bergoglio told Vatican Radio.

Bergoglio saw it too. The rich-world church was blaming the culture for its decline. Yet the first obstacle was not the culture, but a church that had grown worldly and self-referential, that no longer evangelized and allowed the living water to go stale. The problem, Bergoglio told a group of Caritas workers on retreat, was that "we have Jesus tied up in the sacristy."

Only three months later, he told the cardinals that it sometimes seemed as if Jesus was not so much knocking at the door to come in, but was on the inside, asking to be let out. He offered them a choice between a church geared to mission and mercy, or a paralyzed church that had grown distant and stale.

Two years ago in the Sistine Chapel, the cardinals chose not just the man, but the program. Whether or not they were aware of it, in electing Francis they were allowing the fire lit at Aparecida to be brought to Rome, to shake up the Vatican and to light up the universal church.

Our eyes are still adjusting.

Concerning Paris Last Friday

The burden of the wars against the “innocent” in the West as in 9/11 and now in Paris perpetrated by terrorists with a religious fanaticism falls on us. It occurs to me: “with what measure you measure, it will be measured to you” (Mt. 7, 2). We are observing an apparently mindless violence against apparently innocent human persons. But have we been innocent, or have we as a people in the West been violent? Is the persistent seeking of self – enlightened self-interest, an economic structure that has become culture built on the pursuit of profit, the dumbing down of the person into the isolated individual (“Alone Together”), half or more marriages ending in divorce -  is this not violence against the person built for relationship (“Stop Googling, Start Talking”)

Now, consider the millions of abortions and immeasurable contraception and abortions that have been done since, say, 1973 and before in the West. In the light of the meaning of the person, and the violence that is culturally, hygienically, familiarly and stealthily perpetrated against the human person made in the image and likeness of a relational God, it does not surprise me that there is a reprisal from a deviant faith-fanaticism.

Cardinal Ratzinger wrote: “Terrorism was at first a religious enthusiasm that had been redirected into the earthly realm, a messianic expectation transposed into political fanaticism. Faith in life after death had broken down, or at least had become irrelevant, but the criterion of heavenly expectation was not abandoned: rather, it was not applied to the present world. God was no longer seen as one who genuinely acts, but the fulfillment of his promises was demanded just as it had always been, and, indeed, with a new vigor. ‘God has not other arms but ours’ – thus now meant that the fulfillment of these promises can and must be carried out by ourselves.  Disgust at the intellectual and spiritual emptiness of our society, yearning for what is completely different, the claim to unconditional salvation without restrictions and without limits – this is, so to speak, the religious component  in the phenomenon of  terrorism, which gives it the impetus of a passion focused on a totality, its uncompromising character and the claim to be idealistic.”[1]

             

   From Mother Teresa’s Prayer Breakfast  in Washington, 1994:

“On the last day, Jesus will say to those on His right hand, "Come, enter the Kingdom.  For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was sick and you visited me."  Then Jesus will turn to those on His left hand and say, "Depart from me because I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me to drink, I was sick and you did not visit me."  These will ask Him, "When did we see You hungry, or thirsty or sick and did not come to Your help?"  And Jesus will
answer them, "Whatever you neglected to do unto one of these least of these, you neglected to do unto Me!"

* * * * * * * * *
… I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.  And if we accept that a other can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?  How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion?  As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts.  Jesus gave even His life to love us.  So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her  child.  The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.

        “By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems.  And, by abortion, that father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world.  The father is likely to put other women into the same trouble.  So abortion just leads to more abortion.  Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its  people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.  This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”

   What are we to do? Build the family!! Have mercy.The wars stop.


[1] J. Ratzinger, “Turning Point For Europe?” Ignatius (1994) 21-22.

Francis on Guardini and the liberation from the Self

This morning, the Pope received in audience members of the Romano Guardini Foundation attending a Congress promoted by the Pontifical Gregorian University to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Italian-born German priest, theologian and writer.

During the audience, the president of the foundation, Professor Ludwig von Pufendorf, announced the imminent publication of a previously unpublished text by Guardini who, as the Holy Father affirmed, “has much to say to the people of our time, and not only Christians."

Francis recalled that Guardini, in his book “The Religious World of Dostoevsky”, cites the episode in “The Brothers Karamazov” in which a peasant confesses to the starec (the spiritual guide of Orthodox monasteries) that she had killed her sick husband who had mistreated her throughout his life. The starec notes that the woman, desperately aware of her guilt, is entirely closed in on herself and that any reflection, comfort or counsel would meet this wall. The woman is convinced she is condemned; however, the priest shows her the way out. Her life has meaning, because God will receive her at the moment of repentance. He urges her not to be afraid since there is not, and there cannot be, a sin on earth that God cannot forgive to those who repent sincerely, nor can there be a sin so great that it exhausts God's infinite love. In confession the woman is transformed and receives new hope.

“The simplest people understand what this is about”, said the Pope. “They perceive the greatness that shines in the starec's wisdom and the strength of his love. They understand what holiness means, that is, an existence lived in faith, being able to see that God is close to man, that He holds their life in His hands. In this respect, Guardini says, that by accepting with simplicity existence in the hand of God, personal will transforms into divine will and in this way, without the creature ceasing to be only a creature and God truly God, their living unity is brought about."

For Guardini, this “living unity” with God consists of the concrete relationship of people with the world and with others around them. “The individual feels a part of the fabric of the population, that is, in an original union of men that by type, country and historical evolution in life and destinies are a single entity”. The author of “The Meaning of the Church” considered the concept of “population” as the “compendium of what in man is genuine, profound and substantial. We are able to recognise in the population, as in a mirror, “field of the force of divine action”.

“Perhaps we can apply Guardini's reflections to our own time, seeking to uncover the hand of God in current events”, observed the Holy Father. “In this way we will perhaps be able to recognise that God, in His wisdom, sent us, in rich Europe, the hungry to be fed, the thirsty to slake their thirst, the stranger to be welcomed and the naked to be clothed. History then shows this: if we are a population, we will certainly welcome these as our brothers; if we are merely a group of individuals, we will be tempted only to save our own skins, but we will have no continuity”.

The Pope greeted the members of the Foundation, expressing his hope that Guardini's work will help them increasingly to understand the meaning and value of the Christian foundations of culture and society.

Health Care, History and Pope Francis

+  Paul Kariuki

Bishop of Embu

Pope Francis comes to African soil as the greatest health care worker in the world. He has an army of professional health care workers behind him, working in every major city and in the last outposts of humanity. The Catholic Church has changed the history of health care. It is a legacy that goes back centuries. No other organisation shares that history. Today the Catholic Church is responsible for 30% of the hospitals in Kenya.

As part of her social teaching which promotes the dignity of every human being, be they babies in the womb or the elderly, the Church has always been interested in the health of the human body. She has fostered the highest standards of love and care and given witness to the fact that faith and science go together. The body and soul function as one. We cannot attend only to the soul and forget about the body.

Healing must be faith filled. Faith needs to be a major component in the health service. It is a guide and we need that guide. Man is served by faith but not in an abstract way. The goal for everyone with this visit is to deepen our faith. We need a greater faith practice, allowing our faith to percolate into our life, affect our personal choices, so that we make the right professional decisions.

We should let our faith engage more in social choices. Our faith should direct society’s choices according to what builds. Chesterton once said:  “to  admire mere choice, is to refuse to choose”

We should lose our fears of taking a Catholic stand. This approach concerns everyone in society from the bodaboda (public transport) operators to the legislators and is particularly relevant at present in health care.

We have a wealth of criteria coming from the Church in her documents. We need to know these criteria and know the why of the criteria, deepening in the theological underpinnings. Every Catholic Health Worker should be conversant with Humanae Vitae, Donum Vitae, and other great Church statements.

At the weakest moments of a person’s life a healthcare worker is there. These are moments to ask the deeper questions about life and its meaning. It is a God given moment to open the door of faith. We need to restore the creator’s space in the working of healthcare technology. We need to restore a true direction and faith is a true compass.

We need to confront the new global ethic agenda which is a result of moral relativism and which is targeting Africa at present.

There tends to be no mention of sex with responsibility. The UN proposes every form of abortion as a means to lower maternal mortality. What happens to women’s rights and doctors rights?

In Africa we need a paradigm shift not just for Catholics but for all health care workers. We need to change the culture of death programs and change them for culture of life alternatives.

Maternal mortality is rising in Sub Saharan Africa. We need to promote the scientific truth from the obstetrical community that this can only be solved by dealing with one mother at a time.

Governments and aid agencies have focused their attention on HIV Aids, they have forgotten women and mothers, this is reflected in their budgets. Only 7.9% of the UN budget is allocated to maternal and child health, which is where the people are dying.

Contraception and abortion are counter cultural to African values and have been proven to be ineffective in lowering maternal mortality.

Marriage, fertility and motherhood in Africa is a status symbol. It is a family based culture. Motherhood is celebrated. Infertility is an abomination. To put in place strategies that will make you infertile is not African.

The approach of some is to eliminate motherhood, not to eliminate maternal mortality.

The Hippocratic Oath has been edited so much it is now meaningless. There is a lot of violence done against women and children, often through a lack of communication of truth in relation to the side effects of contraceptives and abortion. One of the first rights of women is the right to know the truth.

We need a Marshall plan to help mothers and so do something about the most neglected of the millennium goals. It will take 275 years to reach the millennium goal of a reduction in maternal mortality if we keep going at the present rate, because mothers don’t matter to governments and international aid organisations.

Women’s groups talk of women, women, women, but say nothing of mothers, mothers, mothers. We need to restore the dignity of mothers.

Much has been achieved but much remains to be done. Every woman in the furthest village should have access to quality health and obstetric care, not the safe murder of her baby. In the latter system someone always dies which neither safe nor healthy.

When the missionaries came they brought with them education and health care. Hospitals spang up, many with a maternity wing. Christanity communicates a sacred character to maternity. We need to have a preferential option for mothers. With the maternity wings came neonatal units. The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.

All mothers share a special dignity because God has asked them to carry a child in their womb. To ignore human dignity is to ignore human rights. Mothers have the key to the first human right : life.

Obstetricians have a special role because they look after the co-creators of human life.

330,000 mothers die each year mainly in sub Saharan Africa. The big difference between the developed and under developed world is in obstetrical risk.

We need more respect for conscientious objection by doctors, nurses and medical and nursing students. No one should be forced to do anything against their conscience.

Ghandi once encouraged people “to be the change you desire to see”. We need to get our hospitals and health centres to work better.  It is not enough to break even. They have to make money in order to ensure their financial stability. This does not imply making exorbitant charges.  It means getting honest and competent professionals to run our institutions. It means installing state of the art systems to curb profligacy. It means taking care of the welfare of our health workers.

The presence of Pope Francis can function as a modern areopagus and help us deliberate on truth that is rationally sustainable. The probability of churning out error is greater than that of churning out truth. He will remind us of the importance of standards to guide legislators in respecting the dignity of the human person.

(Bishop Paul Kariuki is the Chairman of the Catholic Health Commission of Kenya (CHCK)

Pope at Audience: For Strong Families, Put Away Cell Phone, Shut Off TV

Francis Says Togetherness Can Serve as 'Thermometer' to Keep Families Healthy

Vatican City, November 11, 2015 (

Spending time interacting within the family is important, and therefore, togetherness shouldn't be replaced by having phones out and televisions blasting.

Pope Francis stressed this during his weekly General Audience in St. Peter's Square today, as he continued his catechesis on the family. Last week, he looked at the importance of the family as the place where we learn the value of forgiveness, and this week, he considered the importance of togetherness. 

Togetherness, he pointed out, involves sharing together the good things of life with your loved ones and being happy to do so, and also sharing the difficult times, such as loss of a loved one.

The Holy Father began his catechesis pointing out that sitting at the table for the family dinner, and sharing our meal and the experiences of our day, is a fundamental image of togetherness and solidarity.  He also said togetherness is a reliable "thermometer" to measure the "health" of the relationship.

He noted how if a relative has a struggle, speaking about it together at the table helps to find a solution.

"A family that almost never eats together, or is not at the table, but watching the TV or on their smartphones, is hardly a family," he said, lamenting when "the children at the table are attached to the computer, to the phone and do not listen to each other."

Mass

Since Jesus gave us the Eucharist as a meal, Pope Francis pointed out to those gathered, there is a close relationship between families and the Mass. 

He went on to say that this togetherness we experience in our families is meant, in the family of the Church, to extend to all as a sign of God’s universal love.  In this way, he observed, the Eucharist becomes a "school of inclusion," where one learns to be attentive to the needs of everyone. 

The Holy Father lamented that the family meal is disappearing in some societies, and that food itself, which represents our sharing with others, is often wasted, while brothers and sisters throughout the world go hungry. 

Pope Francis concluded, praying that our families, and the entire Church be signs of togetherness and solidarity for the good of the whole human family, especially during the upcoming Jubilee Year of Mercy, Dec. 8 - Nov. 20, 201

Whittaker Chambers/Pope Francis - Touched by Mercy:One in Confession; The Other, In Reading Les Miserables

Consider Pope Francis touched by mercy at 16 or 17 in the person of a priest hearing confession: Miserando atque eligendo: having received mercy, chosen - like Christ and Matthew


Francis: "In that confession, something strange happened to me, I don't know what it was, but it changed my life; I would say that I was 'caught off guard.' (...) It was a surprise, the wonder of an encounter; I realized that I was being awaited.... From that  moment on for me, God is the one who 'came first.'"

 Chambers: At the age of eight or nine, Whittaker Chambers lifted a book from a barrel of books of his grandfather; it was “a big book whose pages were dog-eared, evidently from much turning by my grandfather. It was an old-fashioned book. The text was set in parallel columns, two columns to a page. There were more than a thousand pages. The type was small. I took the book to the little diamond-shaped attic window to read the small type in the light. I opened to the first page and read the brief foreword:

                ‘So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social damnation, which, in the face of civilization, creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny which is divine with human fatality –

                ‘So long as there the three problems of the age – the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of woman by hunger, and the stunting of childhood by physical and spiritual night – are not solved, -

                ‘So long as, in certain areas, social asphyxias shall be possible –

                ‘So long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.’

        "I did not understand half the words. How should I know what ‘human fatality’ meant, or ‘social asphyxia’? But when I read those lines, there moved through my mind a solemn music that is the overtone of justice and compassion. A spirit moved upon the page and through my ignorance I sensed that spirit.

      The book, of course, was Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables – The Wretched of the Earth. In its pages can be found the play of forces that carried me into the Communist Party, and in the same pages can be found the play of forces that carried me out of the Communist Party. The roots of both influences are in the same book, which I read devotedly for almost a decade before I ever opened a Bible, and which was in many respects, the Bible of my boyhood. I think I can hear a derisive question: ‘How can anyone take seriously a man who says flatly that his life has been influenced by Victor Hug’s Les Miserables?’ I understand. I can only answer that, behind its colossal failings, its melodrama, its windy philosophizing, its clots of useless knowledge, its overblown rhetoric and repellent posturing, which offend me, like everybody else, on almost every page, Les Miserables is a great act of the human spirit. And it is a fact that books which fall short of greatness sometimes have power to move us greatly, especially in childhood when we are least critical and most forgiving, for their very failures confess their humanity. As a boy, I did not know that Les Miserables is a Summa of the revolt of the mind and soul of modern man against the materialism that was closing over them with the close of the Middle Ages and the rise of industrial civilization – or, as Karl Marx would later teach me to call it: capitalism.

       I read and reread Les Miserables many times in its entirety. It taught me two seemingly irreconcilable things – Christianity and revolution. It taught me first of all that the basic virtue of life is humility, that before humility, ambition, arrogance, pride and power are seen for what they are, the stigmata of littleness, the betrayal by the mind of the soul, a betrayal which continually fails against a humility that is authentic and consistent. It taught me justice and compassion, not a justice of the law, or, as we say, human justice, but a justice that transcends human justice whenever humanity transcends itself to reach that summit where justice and compassion are one. It taught me that, in a world of force, the least act of humility and compassion requires the utmost exertion of all the powers of mind and soul, that nothing is so difficult, that there can be no true humility and no true compassion where there is no courage. That was the gist of its Christian teaching. It taught me revolution, not as others were to teach me – as a political or historical fact – but as a reflex of human suffering and desperation, a perpetual insurgence of that instinct for justice and truth that lay within the human soul, from which a new vision of truth and justice was continually issuing to meet the new needs of the soul in new ages of the world.

     I scarcely knew that Les Miserables was teaching me Christianity, and never thought of it that way, for it showed it to me, not as a doctrine of the mind, but in action in the world [my underline], in prisons, in slums, among the poor, the sick, the dying, thieves, murderers, harlots and outcast, lonely children, in the sewers of Paris and on the barricades of revolution. Its operation did not correspond to anything I knew as Christian in the world about me. But it corresponded exactly to a need I felt within myself.

     Les Miserables gave me my first full-length picture of the modern world – a vast, complex, scarcely human structure, built over a social abyss of which the sewers of Paris was the symbol, and resting with crushing weight upon the wretched of the earth. Dickens’ novels showed me much the same thing, in a series of glimpses rather than in one appalling view of the human pit. But Dickens’ novels, when they did not merely bore me, left me completely unmoved. His tear-jerking scenes jerked no tears from me though I sometimes resented their efforts to. I knew that the unfortunate hero would always come into a legacy, or an eccentric would intervene to snatch the good outcast or the lost child from the engulfing evil which was, after all, rather quaint. And though I did not know that there was such thing as a problem of evil. I recognized that Dickens’ way was too easy a way out, and no more an answer to the problem that he had raised than life insurance is an answer to the problem of death. Moreover, Dickens was entirely secular. Again, while I did not know the difference between secular and spiritual, I felt it [me again]. I brushed Dickens aside and plunged into Hugo.

      It was above all the character of the Bishop of Digne and the stories about him that I cherished in Les Miserables. As a boy I read them somewhat as other people read the legends of the saints. Perhaps it is necessary to have read them as a child to be able to feel the full force of those stories, which are in many ways childish, and appeal instantly to the child mind, just as today they appeal to what is most childlike in me as a man.

     That first day, when I sat in our living room and read how the Bishop came to Digne, I knew that I had found a book that had been written for me. I read how t he Bishop moved into his palace with vast salons and noticed next door a tiny hospital with its sick crowded into a few small rooms. The Bishop called in the director of the hospital and questioned him: How many rooms are there in the hospital; how many sick; how many beds in each room? ‘Look,’ he said at last, ‘there is evidently some mistake here. You have my house and I have yours. Give me back my house and move into yours.’ The next day the Bishop was in the hospital and the patients were in the palace. ‘He is showing off,’ said the solid citizens.

          The Bishop’s views on human fallibility fixed mine and made it impossible for me ever to be a puritan. ‘To be a saint,’ he sometimes preached to the ‘ferociously virtuous,’ ‘is the exception, to be upright is to rule. Err, falter, sin, but be upright. To commit the least possible sin is the law for man… Sin is a gravitation.’

                He first raised in my mind the question of relative human guilt. Everybody was praising the cleverness of a public prosecutor. A man and woman had been arrested for some mischief. There was no evidence against the man. By a trick, the prosecutor convinced the woman falsely that the man had been unlawful to her. She testified against him. ‘Where are the man and woman to be tried” asked the Bishop. ‘At the assizes.’ ‘And where,’ asked the Bishop, ‘ is the prosecutor to be tried?’

       The Bishop lodged in my mind a permanent suspicion of worldly success and pride of place that never changed in all the changes of my life. He was not one of the ‘rich mitres.’ In Paris he did not ‘catch on.’ He was not considered ‘to have any future.’ For, said Hugo, ‘We live in a sad society. Succeed  –  t hat is the advice that falls, drop by drop, from the overhanging corruption.’

* * * * *

                Even as a Communist, I never quite escaped the Bishop. I put him out of my mind, but I could not put him out of my life.[1]

        One passage of Les Miserables I knew almost by heart.
Jean Valjean, whom the Bishop had reclaimed, had told the police that he, the prosperous factory owner and philanthropist, was in fact the convict they were looking for. They had jailed him. He had escaped. Nevertheless, he risked returning to the city hospital to tell a dying streetwalker that he would take care of her child. The police, with Inspector Javert at their head, closed in. Jean Valjean retreated to a little room, where he stood motionless in a corner, out of sight of the door. In the room with him was a nun. Sister Simplice, who loved him for his goodness and pitied him for his suffering.

                One fact distinguished Sister Simplice from the rest of the human race. In all her life, she had never told a lie. Sister Simplice heard Javert coming and fell upon her knees. The police inspector opened the door, but seeing her in prayer, stopped abashed. ‘This was Sister Simplice, who had never lied in her life. Javert k new this and venerated her especially because of it.’

                ‘Sister,’ he said, ‘are you alone in this room?’

                Sister Simplice looked up and answered: ‘Yes.’

                Javert continued: ‘Excuse me, if I persist. It is my duty- you have not seen this evening a person, a man – he has escaped and we are searching for him – Jean Valjean – you have not seen him?

                Sister Simplice answered: ‘No.’

                ‘She lied. Two lies in succession, one upon another, without hesitation, quickly, as if she were an adept in it.’

                ‘Your pardon,’ said Javert and withdrew.

                Then followed the words that became a part of my mind: ‘Oh, holy maiden… may this falsehood be remembered to thee in Paradise.’"

---

[1] Whittaker Chamber, “Witness” Regnery Gateway (1952, 1980) 133-137

Francis to the Italian National Ecclesial Congress: the traits of Christian humanism – on the Feast of St. Leo the Great, Architect of the Counsel of Chalcedon (451): Jesus Christ, one Person, two natures.

NCR- Nov. 10, 2015. In a 49-minute speech to a decennial national conference of the Italian church -- which is bringing together some 2,200 people from 220 dioceses to this historic renaissance city for five days -- Francis said Catholics must realize: "We are not living an era of change but a change of era."

"Before the problems of the church it is not useful to search for solutions in conservatism or fundamentalism, in the restoration of obsolete conduct and forms that no longer have the capacity of being significant culturally," the pontiff said at one point during his remarks.

"Christian doctrine is not a closed system incapable of generating questions, doubts, interrogatives -- but is alive, knows being unsettled, enlivened," said the pope. "It has a face that is not rigid, it has a body that moves and grows, it has a soft flesh: it is called Jesus Christ."

"The reform of the church then and the church is semper reformanda  ... does not end in the umpteenth plan to change structures," he continued. "It means instead grafting yourself to and rooting yourself in Christ, leaving yourself to be guided by the Spirit -- so that all will be possible with genius and creativity."

Blogger: Below is a huge address by the pope. He is giving semantic shape to the Third Millennium of Christianity as offered in Vatican II. He is announcing the change of epistemology from thing/nature to person, from object/substance to subject, from abstraction to self-giftedness. The meaning of Being is Christ,and the meaning of all reality derives from Him since He all reality has been created through him and unto Him [Col. 1, 15-19],. The meaning of truth is adequatio of Christ to the Father and the truth of man is Christ. The fullness of freedom is the Person of Christ, and its act is Christ crucified (See Veritatis Splendor #85). Christ has assumed human nature into himself as His, and as such He is the prototype of the meaning of humanity (Gaudium et spes #22).And since the entire material universe is an extension of His assumed humanity, there is no such thing as “natural” that is not Christian.

Pope Francis: “We can speak about humanism only by starting from the centrality of Jesus, discovering in Him the features of the authentic face of man. And the contemplation of the face of the dead and risen Jesus that recomposes our humanity, fragmented as it may be by the hardships of life, or marked by sin. We must not domesticate the power of the face of Christ. The face is the image of His transcendence. … I do not wish here to draw an abstract image of the 'new humanism', a certain idea of man, but to present with simplicity some features of Christian humanism, which is that of the sentiments, the mind of Jesus Christ. These are not abstract temporary sensations but rather represent the warm interior force that makes us able to live and to make decisions”:

“The first sentiment is humility. … The obsession with preserving one's own glory and 'dignity', one's own influence, must not form part of our sentiments. We must seek God's glory, that does not coincide with ours. God's glory that shines in the humility of the stable in Bethlehem or in the dishonour of Christ's cross always surprises us”.

“Another sentiment is selflessness. '… The humanity of the Christian is always outward-looking. … Please, let us avoid 'remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which make us harsh judges, within habits that make us feel safe'. Our duty is to make this world a better place, and to fight. Our faith is revolutionary because of the inspiration that comes from the Holy Spirit”.

“Another of Jesus Christ's sentiments is beatitude. The Christian is blessed. … In the Beatitudes, the Lord shows us the path. By taking it, we human beings can arrive at the most authentically human and divine happiness. … For the great saints, beatitude is about humiliation and poverty. But also in the most humble of our people there is much of this beatitude: it is that of he who knows the richness of solidarity, of sharing also the little he possesses. … The beatitudes we read in the Gospel begin with a blessing and end with a promise of consolation. They introduce us to a path of possible greatness, that of the spirit, and when the spirit is ready all the rest comes by itself”.

“Humility, selflessness, beatitude … they also say something to the Italian Church that today meets to walk together, setting an example of synodality. These features tell us that we must not be obsessed with power, even when this assumes the appearance of a useful or functional power in the social image of the Church. If the Church does not assume Jesus' mind, she is disorientated and loses her way. A Church with these three features – humility, selflessness and beatitude – is a Church that recognises the action of the Lord in the world, in culture, in the daily life of the people. I have said this more than once, and I will repeat it again today to you: 'I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security'”.

“However, we know that there are many temptations we must resist. I will present you at least two of them. The first is that of Pelagianism, which leads the Church not to be humble, selfless and blessed. … Often it leads us even to assuming a style of control, of hardness, normativity. Rules give to the Pelagian the security of feeling superior, of having a precise orientation. In this it finds its strength, not in the soft breath of the Spirit. Faced with the ills or the problems of the Church, it is useless to seek solutions in conservatism or fundamentalism, in the restoration of outdated forms and conduct that have no capacity for meaning, even culturally. Christian doctrine is not a closed system incapable of generating questions, doubts and uncertainties, but it is living, it knows how to disturb and to encourage. Its face is not rigid, it has a body that moves and develops, it has tender flesh; Christian doctrine is called Jesus Christ”.

“A second temptation is the gnosticism that leads us to place our trust in logical and clear reasoning that, however, loses the tenderness of our brother's flesh. … The difference between Christian transcendence and any other form of gnostic spiritualism resides in the mystery of the Incarnation. Not putting into practice, not leading the Word to reality, means building on sand, remaining in the pure idea and degenerating into intimisms that do not bear fruit, that render its dynamism sterile”.

“The Italian Church has great saints whose examples help live faith with humility, generosity and joy, from St. Francis of Assisi to St. Philip Neri. But let us also think of invented characters such as Don Camillo and Peppone. I am struck by how, in the stories of Guareschi, the prayer of a good pastor unites with evident closeness to the people”.

“But then, you will ask, what must we do? What is the Pope asking of us? It is up to you to decide: people and pastor together. And I invite you, again, simply to contemplate the Ecce Homo above us”.

“I ask the bishops to be pastors. Nothing more: pastors. May this be your joy: 'I am a pastor'. It will be the people, your flock, who support you. … May nothing and no-one remove from you the joy of being supported by your people. As pastors, do not be preachers of complex doctrines, but rather announcers of Christ, Who died and rose again for us. Focus on the essential, the kerygma. There is nothing more solid, profound and sure than this announcement. But may it be all the people of God who announce the Gospel, people and pastors”.

“I recommend all the Italian Church what I indicated in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium: the social inclusion of the poor, who occupy a special place in the People of God, and the capacity for encounter and dialogue to promote friendship and in your country, in search of the common good”.

“May God protect the Church in Italy from any kind of surrogate of power, image and money. Evangelical poverty is creative, it welcomes, supports and is rich in hope. The mother Church … recognises all her abandoned, oppressed and weary children. And this has always been one of your virtues, as you are well aware that the Lord shed his blood not for some, for few or for many, but for all”.

“I also recommend, in a special way, the capacity for dialogue and encounter. Dialogue is not negotiation. Negotiating is bargaining to obtain your own piece of the common 'pie'. That is not what I mean. Instead it is seeking the common good for all”.

“May the Church be a leaven for dialogue, encounter, unity. Indeed, our very formulations of faith are the fruit of dialogue and encounter between different cultures, communities and claims. We must not be afraid of dialogue; on the contrary, it is precisely comparison and criticism that helps us to preserve theology from being transformed into ideology. Also remember that the best way to engage in dialogue is not that of speaking and discussing, but rather of doing something together, of constructing something, of making projects: not alone, among Catholics, but along with all people of goodwill”.

“But the Church also knows how to give a clear answer to the threats that emerge within public debate: this is one of the forms of specific contributions that the faithful offer to the construction of common society. Believers are citizens. … I appeal above all to the young: overcome apathy. … Do not look down on life from the balcony, but rather get involved, immerse yourselves in broad social and political dialogue. … Our times require us to live problems as challenges and not as obstacles: the Lord is active and at work in the world. … Wherever you are, never construct walls or frontiers, but instead open squares and field hospitals”.

“I would like a restless Italian Church, ever closer to the abandoned, the forgotten, the imperfect. I wish for a joyful Church with the face of a mother, who understands, accompanies and caresses. May you too dream of this Church, believe in her, innovate freely. The Christian humanism that you are called upon to live radically affirms that dignity of every person as Son of God, establishes between all human beings a fundamental fraternity, teaches to understand work, to inhabit creation as our common home, and provides reasons for joy and humour, even in a life that is often very hard”.

Americans Too Fat to Fight - From Mercatornet

The point: "Too Fat" to fight themselves! And this comes from affirmation in the family.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is a controversial figure in Western media because of his hard line on immigration. However, he dares to speak truths that make other politicians run for cover. One of these is the family. Shannon Roberts reports today on Orban's views on the rapid ageing of Europe.

Even though Europe was “the most ageing continent”, families are not sufficiently in the focus of European policies because that subject is “not PC”, Orbán said.  “We want to restore families to the focus of European politics,” Orbán said, warning that “Europe’s civilisation and culture are at stake”. 

This sounds like scaremongering, but the United States is facing a similar problem. It turns out that 75 percent of American youth would be rejected by the US military, for reasons ranging from tattoos to ADHD. But the main reason is obesity: Americans are too fat to fight. And why are they obese? Probably because of an unsettled family life. Is anyone talking about this? No. America also needs to restore families to the focus of its politics. 

Collegiality and The Church

 To get started on this topic using Ivereigh, the index is very helpful. What is at stake is the knowledge of Christ Himself, and therefore salvation. Ratzinger's position: There is no salvation outside of Christ and therefore none outside the Church of Jesus Christ. The Church of Jesus Christ  subsists in the historical Catholic Church. "Subsist" is a verb used to designate existence by persons. Therefore, there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church; yet there are elements of salvation outside the historical Catholic Church (notably sacraments, scripture). If Christ Himself as ontological Person subsists in the Catholic Church, it cannot be reducible to a "federation of churches.

   The notion of "communio" kicks in here. God is revealed to be a communio of Three. The meaning of "Communio" is the ontological union of the parts in that the "Father" is not the Fatjher and then engenders the Son. He is the action of engender the Son. Therefore there  can be no Father without the Son. They are "one" but as irreducibly different Persons. Their relation is not "accidental."

    The Church is "one": "That they be one as you Father are in me, and I in You; that they be one was we are one" (Jn. 17 23). That is, the Church in "one" as God is "one." Yet, St. Paul says, "there is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor freeman;there is neither male nor female, for you are all one heis (one) in Christ Jesus' (Gal 3, 28); "For, as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body as they are, form one body, so also is it with Christ" 1Cor. 12, 12). Paul did not say, "so also is it with the Church." When he says Church, he means Christ.

   So it seems that the Church as Christ is more than the communio of Churches. " It [theChurch] is not the result of the communion of the Churches, but, in its essential mystery, it is a reality ontologically and temporally prior to every individual particular Church" (see this in attached article by Ratzinger. I also attach a piece of Cardinal Dulles comparing two (Ratzinger and Kasper]. This has much to do with the finale of this Synod.

   It is clearly not either or but where is Christ? Fr. Bob

I attach documents referred to by Ivereigh that can promote insight here:

1-      UNIVERSAL CHURCH AND PARTICULAR CHURCHES (From “Some Aspects of the Church Consider ed as Communio”- Joseph Ratzinger (1992)

7. The Church of Christ, which we profess in the Creed to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic, is the universal Church, that is, the worldwide community of the disciples of the Lord(31), which is present and active amid the particular characteristics and the diversity of persons, groups, times and places. Among these manifold particular expressions of the saving presence of the one Church of Christ, there are to be found, from the times of the Apostles on, those entities which are in themselves Churches(32), because, although they are particular, the universal Church becomes present in them with all its essential elements(33). They are therefore constituted "after the model of the universal Church"(34), and each of them is "a portion of the People of God entrusted to a bishop to be guided by him with the assistance of his clergy"(35).

8. The universal Church is therefore the Body of the Churches(36). Hence it is possible to apply the concept of communion in analogous fashion to the union existing among particular Churches, and to see the universal Church as a Communion of Churches. Sometimes, however, the idea of a "communion of particular Churches" is presented in such a way as to weaken the concept of the unity of the Church at the visible and institutional level. Thus it is asserted that every particular Church is a subject complete in itself, and that the universal Church is the result of a reciprocal recognition on the part of the particular Churches. This ecclesiological unilateralism, which impoverishes not only the concept of the universal Church but also that of the particular Church, betrays an insufficient understanding of the concept of communion. As history shows, when a particular Church has sought to become self-sufficient, and has weakened its real communion with the universal Church and with its living and visible centre, its internal unity suffers too, and it finds itself in danger of losing its own freedom in the face of the various forces of slavery and exploitation(37).

9. In order to grasp the true meaning of the analogical application of the term communion to the particular Churches taken as a whole, one must bear in mind above all that the particular Churches, insofar as they are "part of the one Church of Christ"(38), have a special relationship of "mutual interiority"(39) with the whole, that is, with the universal Church, because in every particular Church "the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ is truly present and active"(40). For this reason, "the universal Church cannot be conceived as the sum of the particular Churches, or as a federation of particular Churches"(41). It is not the result of the communion of the Churches, but, in its essential mystery, it is a reality ontologically and temporally prior to every individual particular Church.

Indeed, according to the Fathers, ontologically, the Church-mystery, the Church that is one and unique, precedes creation(42), and gives birth to the particular Churches as her daughters. She expresses herself in them; she is the mother and not the product of the particular Churches. Furthermore, the Church is manifested, temporally, on the day of Pentecost in the community of the one hundred and twenty gathered around Mary and the twelve Apostles, the representatives of the one unique Church and the founders-to-be of the local Churches, who have a mission directed to the world: from the first the Church speaks all languages(43).

From the Church, which in its origins and its first manifestation is universal, have arisen the different local Churches, as particular expressions of the one unique Church of Jesus Christ. Arising within and out of the universal Church, they have their ecclesiality in it and from it. Hence the formula of the Second Vatican Council: The Church in and formed out of the Churches (Ecclesia in et ex Ecclesiis)(44), is inseparable from this other formula: The Churches in and formed out of the Church (Ecclesia in et ex Ecclesiis)(45). Clearly the relationship between the universal Church and the particular Churches is a mystery, and cannot be compared to that which exists between the whole and the parts in a purely human group or society.

10. Every member of the faithful, through faith and Baptism, is inserted into the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. He or she does not belong to the universal Church in a mediate way, through belonging to a particular Church, but in an immediate way, even though entry into and life within the universal Church are necessarily brought about in a particular Church. From the point of view of the Church understood as communion, this means therefore that the universal communion of the faithful and the communion of the Churches are not consequences of one another, but constitute the same reality seen from different viewpoints.

Moreover, one's belonging to a particular Church never conflicts with the reality that in the Church no-one is a stranger(46): each member of the faithful, especially in the celebration of the Eucharist, is in his or her Church, in the Church of Christ, regardless of whether or not he or she belongs, according to canon law, to the diocese, parish or other particular community where the celebration takes place. In this sense, without impinging on the necessary regulations regarding juridical dependence(47), whoever belongs to one particular Church belongs to all the Churches; since belonging to the Communion, like belonging to the Church, is never simply particular, but by its very nature is always universal(48).

II -

CARDINAL DULLES WEIGHS IN ON RATZINGER-KASPER DEBATE

Essay Addresses Question of Universal and Particular Churches VATICAN CITY, 28 MAY 2001 (ZENIT). Which comes first: the universal Church or the diocesan Church? That question lies at the heart of a running debate between the German cardinals Joseph Ratzinger and Walter Kasper. Kasper sharpened the debate with a recent article in the Jesuit magazine America, a piece he penned when he was still bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart and before receiving his red hat. In simplified terms, Cardinal Kasper argues that the diocesan, or particular, Church takes precedence over the universal Church, whereas Cardinal Ratzinger holds that the universal Church is prior to the local Church both historically and ontologically. The debate isn't purely academic, however, since it touches on episcopal authority and how bishops should be enforcing norms handed down by Rome. It's a debate that another cardinal, Avery Dulles, steps into, in an essay in the upcoming issue of Inside the Vatican magazine. "Kasper's grievance against the papacy and the Roman curia," writes Cardinal Dulles, "comes from his practical experience as a pastor. As bishop he found that many of the directives coming from Rome were resented and ignored by the priests and people of his diocese. If the priority of the particular church were respected, he believes, the diocesan bishop could adapt general regulations to the situation of his own flock." Cardinal Dulles recounts the Ratzinger-Kasper debate and cites a document put out by the congregation headed by Cardinal Ratzinger. He writes: "The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in its 1992 letter 'Communionis notio' maintained that the universal Church 'is not the result of a communion of the churches, but in its essential mystery it is a reality ontologically and temporally prior to every individual particular church' (no. 9). Expanding on this sentence, Ratzinger insists that the universal Church is not simply the result of the expansion of an initially local community. For him it is the 'Jerusalem above,' which Paul describes as 'our mother' (Gal 4:26)." "Kasper, for his part, does not deny the pre-existence of the Church," writes Cardinal Dulles. "[...] But pre-existence, he holds, belongs not only to the universal Church but also to the concrete historical churches, which are likewise grounded in God's eternal mystery. He does not show that the new Jerusalem described in the New Testament and in the patristic sources consists of multiple churches." In this debate, Cardinal Dulles sides with Ratzinger's argument. Dulles writes: "The ontological priority of the Church universal appears to me to be almost self-evident, since the very concept of a particular church presupposes a universal Church to which it belongs, whereas the concept of the universal Church does not imply that it is made up of distinct particular churches. "Historically, too, the priority of the universal Church is evident because Christ unquestionably formed the community of the disciples and prepared the apostles for their mission while they were still gathered together. Particular churches emerged only after the Church became dispersed, so that it became necessary to establish local congregations with their own hierarchical leaders." Continuing his critique, Cardinal Dulles states: "Kasper maintains that Ratzinger proceeds by Plato's method, starting from universal concepts rather than, as Kasper prefers, taking the universal concept as a mere abstraction from concrete reality, which is particular. I suspect that Ratzinger has a certain affinity for Christian Platonism, but in the present debate he takes his arguments from Scripture and tradition rather than from Platonic philosophy. He makes it clear that the universal Church animated by the Holy Spirit exists here on earth, within history. In an unsigned article published a year after Communionis notio, commonly attributed to Ratzinger, the author insists that there can be nothing more concrete than the gathering of the 120 at Jerusalem." At another point, Dulles focuses on key phrases in the Second Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on the Church, "Lumen Gentium." "Kasper states correctly," he writes, "that according to Vatican II the bishop receives his office of government (munus regendi) directly from Christ through the sacrament of ordination (Lumen gentium 21), but he fails to note that the bishop cannot govern a particular diocese unless he is duly appointed by canonical mission and remains in hierarchical communion with the college of bishops and its head, the bishop of Rome (Lumen gentium 24). The bishop's powers of teaching and government 'can be exercised only with the consent of the Roman pontiff' (Lumen gentium 22)." Referring to Cardinal Kasper's pastoral concerns, the Dulles article mentions the rules regarding admission to the Eucharist of non-Catholic Christians and of divorced and remarried Catholics. Dulles sees local solutions to such questions as problematic. "Good arguments can be made both for and against allowing Holy Communion to be given in certain problematic cases," Cardinal Dulles writes. "But in the context of Kasper's article the essential question is whether the solutions should be worked out by particular churches on their own authority. Is the situation in the diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart so peculiar that it should be allowed to go its own way on these two questions? "From reading Kasper's text I do not see why the problems in Rottenburg or Stuttgart differ significantly from those in Munich, Johannesburg, or New York. Whatever policy is permitted in Rottenburg-Stuttgart does not concern that diocese alone; it will inevitably have repercussions all over the world." Cardinal Dulles concludes with a strong defense of the Petrine office and writes: "Kasper, who is by no means an extremist, would certainly agree that the Catholic Church must be on guard against degenerating into a loose federation of local or national churches. She has learned much from the experience of Gallicanism and analogous movements in past centuries. In this age of globalization and multiple inculturation, it is more imperative than ever to have a vigorous office that safeguards the unity of all the particular churches in the essentials of faith, morality, and worship." ZE01052820