May13completemagazine

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“ Pullout”

May and June 2013 Volume 45 Number 3 Price £4.50

P RO M OT I N G A N E W S Y N T H E S I S O F FA I T H A N D R E A S O N

Motives for Hope Editorial

Liturgical Renewal and Church Music James MacMillan

Catherine Doherty: Lover, Martyr and Prophet Cheryl Ann smith

The Via Pulchritudinis: Beauty and the New Evangelisation Dr Dudley Plunkett

Taking the New Evangelisation to the Streets Lucy Mackain-Bremner

Balthasar and the Rediscovery of the Marian Profile of the Church Fr Ross Campbell

David Mills on the “collapse” of Catholic liberalism in Europe Gregory Farrelly on ethically dubious fertility treatments William Oddie on the media’s response to the election of Pope Francis Plus book reviews on Cardinal Newman, Christian suffering, apologetics and the New Evangelisation

www.faith.org.uk

A special series of pamphlets from Faith Movement

REASONS FOR BELIEVING Straightforward, up to date and well argued pamphlets on basic issues of Catholic belief, this new series will build into a single, coherent apologetic vision of the Christian Mystery. They bring out the inner coherence of Christian doctrine and show how God’s revelation makes sense of our own nature and of our world.

Five excellent pamphlets in the series are now in print.

Can we be sure God exists?

What makes Man unique?

The Disaster of Sin Jesus Christ Our Saviour Jesus Christ Our Redeemer The Church: Christ’s Voice to the World

To order please write to Sr Roseann Reddy, Faith-Keyway Trust Publications Office, 104 Albert Road, Glasgow G42 8DR or go to www.faith.org.uk

faith summer conference

Catholicism a New Synthesis

by Edward Holloway

Monday 29th JulyFriday 2nd August 2013 A 5 day conference for young Catholics aged 16-35.

The format of the five days provides an excellent balance of social, spiritual and catechetical activities.

Venue: Woldingham School, Surrey Full cost: £155 Concession cost: £130 Closing date: Monday 15th July 2013 Contact: Ann McCallion Tel: 0141 945 0393 Email: mccallionfaith@aol.com Full details: www.faith.org.uk

Pope John Paul II gave the blueprint for catechetical renewal with the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Catholicism: A New Synthesis seeks to show why such teaching makes perfect sense in a world which has come of age in scientific understanding. It offers a way out of the current intellectual crisis, a way which is both modern and orthodox.

£14.00

503pp

Sr Roseann Reddy, Faith-Keyway Trust Publications Office, 104 Albert Road, Glasgow G42 8DR

Contents 02 Motives for Hope Editorial

06 Liturgical Renewal and Church Music James MacMillan

08 Catherine Doherty: Lover, Martyr and Prophet Cheryl Ann smith

12 The Via Pulchritudinis: Beauty and the New Evangelisation Dr Dudley Plunkett

14 Taking the New Evangelisation to the Streets Lucy Mackain-Bremner

17 Balthasar and the Rediscovery of the Marian Profile of the Church Fr Ross Campbell

Regular Columns

20 Notes From Across the Atlantic David Mills on Catholic liberalism and Pope Benedict’s resignation 21 Cutting Edge Gregory Farrelly on genetics and some alarming new forms of IVF 22 Comment on the Comments Pope Francis and the media 24 Letters Responses to the March/April edition 26 Book Reviews Fr Richard Whinder recommends an anthology of essays on Blessed John Henry Newman; Pia Matthews reviews a meditation on Christian suffering; Fr James Tolhurst is underwhelmed by a new novel dealing with the Catholic Church; Joanna Bogle recommends a recent work on apologetics; Mgr Keith Baltrop is impressed by a study of the New Evangelisation

Editor Kevin Douglas, St Mary’s and St David’s, 15 Buccleuch Street, Hawick TD9 0HH, editor@faith.org.uk Editorial Board David Barrett, Stephen Brown, Timothy Finigan, Andrea Fraile, Roger Nesbitt, Christina Read, Dominic Rolls, Luiz Ruscillo.

Book Reviews Andrew Nash, Faith Book Reviews, PO Box 617, Abingdon, OX14 9HA, andrew.j.nash@gmail.com Advertising Manager Scott Deeley, c/o Holy Cross, 11 Bangholm Loan, Edinburgh EH5 3AH, advertising@faith.org.uk Subscriptions and Faith-Keyway Trust Publications Office Sr Roseann Reddy, 104 Albert Road, Glasgow G42 8DR, subscriptions@faith.org.uk UK £25/year, Europe (inc Eire) £29/E37/year.

Surface Mail overseas £28/$56/E36/year.

Air Mail overseas £33/$66/E42/year.

Student rate £17/$34/E22/year.

Single copies £5 inc. p&p. Bulk orders £3.50 plus p&p.

Published by the Faith-Keyway Trust, registered charity No. 278314.

Printed by Tudor Printing 01772 633098, ISSN 1356-126X.

faith May and June 2013 Volume 45 Number 3

Motives for Hope Editorial “ The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones” Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (Act III, Scene ii) Introduction These past few weeks have been momentous in the life of the Church. First we were all taken by surprise at the resignation of a wise and holy pope whom we loved and respected. There followed a period of uncertainty, which in the UK – and especially in Scotland – descended into real spiritual turmoil when the indiscretions of Cardinal O’Brien came to public attention. To use Jesuitical terms this period of desolation has now given way to a period of consolation. We have a new Pope, and that is a source of deep spiritual joy. We hear Peter’s voice anew and he is among us again to “strengthen his brethren”. Coupled with this deep spiritual joy is a more superficial (and no doubt more transitory) source of consolation. For the time being at least Pope Francis seems to be playing quite well in the secular media. People have warmed to him and they like the little anecdotes about him paying his own hotel bill and getting the bus with his brother cardinals. There is a mood of buoyancy and optimism abroad. However, while we may enjoy this period of optimism for as long as it lasts it should not blind us. The Cardinal O’Brien affair may for a time have passed from the front pages of the newspapers but it has done deep and lasting damage to the Church’s credibility and public standing. And it has tarnished the image of the priesthood. Moreover, this wound to the Church’s credibility has been self-inflicted within the context of a society that is in the grip of despair and desperately needs to hear anew the message of hope that the Church has to offer.

A Society Gripped by Despair Surely the frenetic busyness and dynamism of our modern culture is diametrically opposed to the sullen inertia that usually characterises depression and despair.

How then can we claim that our society is in the grip of despair? Paradoxically this frenzied activity is precisely its manifestation. So much of this activity is a fruit of an interior restlessness. Think how we are bombarded by music and noise and how often now we are distracted by the new social media, and seldom to any good purpose. It has a sort of narcotic effect that for a moment distracts us from or takes the edge off the interior restlessness of our hearts.

Moreover, our society is marked by an excessive curiosity.

One thinks of the cult of celebrity. It is no longer sufficient for an actor, entertainer or athlete to do their job well. The tabloids feed us with every juicy detail of their private lives and relationships. Are the drunken antics of some B-list pop star in a night club really newsworthy? But the very fact they are printed and read speaks of a distorted and twisted curiosity that is rampant in our culture.

The controversy generated around the Leveson Inquiry bears witness to a curiosity into the lives of others that is too invasive. Perhaps a more obvious example is the 02 Faith I Motives for Hope

prevalence of pornography. With pornography, images of what we intuitively recognise to be a private and intimate act are exposed to the gaze of curious voyeurs. Yet our culture is saturated with pornography. Finally, our culture is characterised by an instability of purpose in its members. We are forever travelling here or there to find ourselves. We pass from one fleeting experience to the next, always chasing something yet more vivid. We see the tragic absence of any kind of stable purpose played out in the lives of so many families where spouses have either never made a commitment to each other or have not held firm to it. These three characteristics of our culture – interior restlessness, excessive curiosity and instability of purpose – are described in classical moral theology as the offspring of acedia.

Acedia is sometimes translated as sloth. But it doesn’t mean laziness so much as a sort of spiritual apathy. This spiritual apathy is the fruit of a sadness with oneself and with the world. It is an unwillingness to aspire to greatness.

Once one has settled upon one’s own mediocrity and despaired of doing or being anything great, one sets one’s heart on nothing more than distraction.

Intellectual Roots of Acedia The roots of this spiritual sadness that has now thoroughly invaded the soul of modern man are to be found in a misunderstanding of what science has revealed to us about the modern world. The spectacular advances of modern science have unfortunately been appropriated by many of our culture’s leading intellectuals to impose an ideology of materialism within our culture. Materialism is not the necessary conclusion derived from the scientific method.

It has, however, been presented as such. The popular perception is that science has rendered the existence of God at best superfluous and has destroyed any illusion about mankind being in any way special. God is not in his heaven; the earth is no longer at the centre of the universe; and man is nothing more than an overdeveloped primate.

This now prevailing world view has of course crushed the better spiritual aspirations of many in our culture and thereby given rise to a real sadness of soul in many of our contemporaries. The frenetic activity and noise that characterise western culture are a distraction because if we were really to accept the philosophical presuppositions of our culture then we could not help but conclude with Betrand Russell’s description of our plight. “There is darkness without and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendour, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment then nothing.” It would not do to dwell on dark thoughts like these, so we distract ourselves.

Unfortunately, we Catholics are not entirely blameless in this regard. The presentation of theology, that is the way in

“ Scandals in the Church have become so frequent that they seem to point beyond the moral failings of isolated individuals” which the Church’s teachings have been integrated with secular sciences, has not kept up with the discoveries of modern science. The bringing together of what God has told us in Revelation about Himself, and about who we human beings are, with the knowledge derived from the scientific investigation of the material world is what we would term a synthesis of knowledge. The Church has tended to and even now still does rely upon a synthesis that was worked out in the Middle Ages principally by the great saint and scholar St Thomas Aquinas. Hence we would talk of the Thomistic synthesis. More than half a millennium has passed since this synthesis was elaborated. During this period our knowledge of the natural sciences has progressed and there are now significant tensions between the Thomistic synthesis and what the scientific method has revealed about our world. To cite just one example, it is difficult to see how this synthesis, relying as it does upon a basically Aristotelian concept of nature or form as a static unchanging reality, can accommodate the discoveries of modern science.

For St Thomas, and for Aristotle before him, that which makes an individual a particular type of thing is its form, which it shares with every other individual in the same class of thing. Thus, in St Thomas’ system we are able to recognise this and that individual as both being horses because they both share in the form of “horseness”. Hence there is a constant reality, the form of horseness that relates different individuals. This would seem to function well enough for individuals that are alive at the same time, but what about individuals that live in time periods far apart?

The theory of evolution presupposes that those individuals that we now call horses are part of a continuum of development that changes over time. If the nature of horseness is a static constant, as it seems to be for St Thomas and Aristotle, the question arises: can this philosophy really give an adequate account of the continuum of development in life forms that lies at the heart of the theory of evolution? And if it cannot, how can this philosophy mediate the Catholic faith to a culture now thoroughly imbued with a scientific world view?

In the Faith movement we would argue that the philosophical framework that underpins the Thomistic synthesis must be renewed. The teachings of Christ that have been hung upon this framework and that have found in it a serviceable explanatory tool cannot in themselves change. But we are now at the stage where we need to elaborate a new framework, a new synthesis that will have the explanatory capacity to integrate the findings of modern science with the content of our Catholic faith.

By no means is this to dismiss the seminal contribution of St Thomas Aquinas to Catholic theology. The synthesis that he elaborated has served the Church admirably. Moreover, many of the basic presuppositions of his approach to reality have an enduring validity. But were St Thomas Aquinas alive today he would not be teaching by rote from a textbook first

published in the 13th century. Just as then he sought to integrate the rediscovered philosophy of Aristotle into a new synthesis with the Catholic faith so too today he would be striving to integrate the findings of modern science with the perennial truths of the Catholic faith.

In the absence of a synthesis that is capable of reconciling the findings of modern science with the Catholic faith, our culture has lost sight of the dignity of human life and the greatness of our vocation. In one of the prayers of the Mass the priest says: “May we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” This is the great goal for which we human beings have been called into existence. It is the loss of this vision which is the occasion of the spiritual sadness that infects our culture. It is the loss of this vision that has made us become so shallow and dissipated.

Lack of Vision Within the Church We should not imagine that the loss of this vision of the greatness of the human vocation is confined to those outside the Church. Many inside the Church have lost sight of it too, and it has had a catastrophic effect in our seminaries, our convents, our monasteries, our parishes and our families. It is not our purpose here to comment upon the faults and failings of any individual. That is a matter for their own (and our own!) consciences. However, in recent years the scandals in the Church have become so frequent and so widespread that they seem to point the discerning observer beyond the moral failings of isolated individuals.

The culture of moral laxity that has invaded the Church and that has born its fruits in the lives of particular people is at heart not a moral crisis but an intellectual crisis. When the philosophical synthesis that was used as the vehicle to expound the teachings of the Church gave way it seemed to throw into question many of the certainties of our faith.

It appeared as if we could no longer know our faith with certainty. And from this point the logic is clear. If you can’t know the faith with your head, then you can’t love the faith with your heart. And if you don’t love the faith with your heart you certainly won’t live the faith in your life.

Outside of the Church When acedia reaches maturity its final fruit is despair. Josef Pieper distinguishes this creeping sensation of spiritual sadness from despair proper. Despair is finally an intellectual decision, a fixed purpose, that leads to an obstinate refusal of God and of the destiny he offers to us. Counter-intuitively this obstinacy in despair is actually a manifestation of pride.

Individuals within the Church, often high-ranking, have been and are, and no doubt in the future will be again, at fault. Nonetheless it is this pride that explains something of the vehemence of the secular world’s reaction against the Church. It is one thing for Catholics to be dismayed at Church scandals, but why should the secular world that has never given any credence whatsoever to the Church take such fierce delight in the destruction of the Church’s Motives for Hope I Faith 03

Motives for Hope continued credibility? The mere presence of the Church, which for all the faults of her members remains the abiding presence of Christ in the world, reminds the secular world of something it would rather forget. The presence of the Church reminds us of the greatness of our vocation as human beings.

The great tragedy is that the Church, which should be the bearer of hope to a fallen world, has been assailed by scandals at precisely that moment when our culture needs to be inspired by hope. What then must our response to these scandals be, both for the sake of the Church and for the sake of those outside the Church?

Hope In this context our response must be a deepening and renewal of the virtue of hope in our lives. Hope is the virtue that is proper to the human condition in this life. Everything in this life is passing. We cannot hold on to anything definitively in this life. Hope is that virtue by which we strive after something great, recognising that we cannot yet lay our hands definitively upon the prize. In this life we are called to something great. We are called to overcome the limitations of our sinfulness and selfishness and to share the divine life of Christ. But we cannot yet grasp fully and with unfailing security the reality of the divine life to which we are called – in this life we must recognise that we are still marked by the effects of sins, that we still experience weakness and frailty. Moreover we encounter Christ in a veiled way in this life. Christ comes to us hidden in sacraments and mediated to us at the hands of sometimes unworthy ministers. Only at the end of this earthly pilgrimage do we hope to grasp Christ fully and finally. Until then, hope requires us to be at once daring and humble.

We need to be daring because we must continue to aspire to the greatness to which Christ calls us. We cannot settle for safe mediocrity. St Augustine teaches us in his Confessions that we were made for God, not for mediocrity, and so it is incumbent upon us to be daring and to aspire unto God. The psalmist cries out: “Let us see your face, O Lord.” And it is this for which we must dare to hope.

At the same time we must remain humble. We must recognise who we are and we must take responsibility for that. We must remember that we are sinners in need of God’s mercy. This is not some sort of masochistic exercise in self-hatred. It is rather a sober estimation of our true predicament. Even when we seem to be making great strides in holiness if we slip into presumptuous pride it is possible for us to fall from grace. It is by no means a foregone conclusion that we will get to heaven. And we need to implore God’s mercy again, remembering the words of the psalmist: “A humbled contrite heart you will not spurn, O Lord.”

True hope avoids the extremes of despair and presumption, both of which actually are forms of pride. But for it to do so, 04 Faith I Motives for Hope

the poles between which hope oscillates in this life are humility and daring. And we must cultivate both of them.

Motives for Hope Ultimately, true Christian hope is not in the things of this world. True Christian hope is to hope in Christ. We do not hope that the circumstances of our lives will turn out favourably for our comfort; rather we hope that through the trials and tribulations of this life God’s salvific will for us will be worked out. Yet God knows all too well our frailty and is too generous to leave us entirely without consolation, to leave us entirely without motives for hope.

We have noted the intellectual roots of the crisis that at present afflicts the Church. In all humility we believe that this is the right diagnosis of the problem. That in itself provides grounds for hope because if we understand the root causes of the problem we can get to the heart of the matter rather than dissipating our energies in addressing only the symptoms. The past half century or more has been a period of both confusion and daring innovation in the world of academic theology, with various great thinkers trying to work out new theological systems. Some of these innovations have proved fruitful. Others in the long-term, though perhaps sincerely meant, have proved destructive of the faith. However, this state of affairs bears witness to an undeniable fact. Those in the Church who are really thinking and trying to grapple with what it means to be a Catholic in the 21st century are increasingly beginning to see the need for a new synthesis.

“ We are just now beginning to see the tantalising beginnings of such a renewed vision of the Catholic faith” In the Faith movement we are trying to contribute to this project. We humbly believe that we are just now beginning to see the tantalising beginnings of such a renewed vision of the Catholic faith. This vision is fully orthodox. It vindicates both the spiritual and material nature of man. It does not collapse the distinction between grace and nature. And it places Christ at the very centre of the universe: Christ is the master-key to the meaning of the universe. But it also integrates the Catholic faith with modern science. It shows how modern physics points us towards a creator. It provides a framework that enables us to give an account of both the Big Bang and evolution as integral parts of God’s one providential plan for his creation.

Those of us lucky enough to be involved with Faith youth conferences and Faith Forums have first-hand experience of how this vision can inspire and reach out even to young people immersed in our secular culture. It has the capacity to inspire us with great hope because it gives us a renewed vision of the greatness of our vocation. The whole of the universe is made for the Incarnation when God steps into

“ Our response must be a deepening and renewal of the virtue of hope in our lives” his own creation. We human beings, as spiritual, find our fulfilment in God but, as material beings, we desire to encounter him materially. We are patterned upon and made for the Incarnation. Hence we have good reason to be very daring.

This approach to the Catholic faith can provide the intellectual basis of a renewal of Catholic theology and catechesis. And the more people know their faith the more they will see the beauty of their faith and therefore love their faith. The more people know their faith the more they will realise that this Catholic faith is a firm foundation upon which they can build their lives. This renewed vision of Catholicism is unashamedly intellectual, but it is not an exercise in navel-gazing academia. It has the capacity to inspire a renewal in the life of the Church. And in so far as this vision renews the Church it will make the Church an ever more credible witness to Christ. This vision is then a motive for hope, not just for the Church but for the whole of our society.

These are daring claims and they need to be balanced with humility. This project of a renewed vision of Catholicism that integrates the faith with modern science is only in its infancy. It is not yet a fully developed theological system.

If we were to characterise it as it stands now it would be a

useful catechetical tool. Much painstaking work remains to be done to elaborate this system. Doubtless this will take time, and errors may well be made along the way. And even once this system is fully elaborated it will need then to be communicated. This itself will be an intellectual endeavour requiring a new set of skills from those involved. We must be humble and recognise that much remains to be done.

Nonetheless even now, in the infancy of this project, we should be inspired with great hope.

Our Lady Hope must be our response. And we have good grounds for this hope. However, we must recognise that this project of elaborating a theological vision, if it is to be truly Catholic, must be nurtured and discerned in prayer. In this month of May we should look to Our Lady as the model of Christian hope. We see that Mary’s life is marked by her humility and her daring. In her Magnificat she says God has looked on “his servant in her lowliness”. And by these words we see Mary’s great humility. Yet in the very next line of this great outpouring of Mary’s soul we see that Mary is also daring and conscious of the greatness of her vocation: “Henceforth all ages will call me blessed.” In that most beautiful of marian prayers, the Salve Regina, we call Mary Spes nostra, Our Hope. We should entrust the infancy of this project, a time of great hope, to the prayers of Mary our mother.

Year of Faith 2012/13

Day of Faith

Tuesday 18 June 2013 St Patrick’s Church, Soho Square, London W1D 4NR

Rt Rev Philip Egan Bishop of Portsmouth

Canon Luiz Ruscillo Director of Education (Diocese of Lancaster)

George Weigel Author

Tickets:

Full day: £20.00 Day Session: £10.00 11:00-16:30: Canon Ruscillo, Mass, Buffet lunch, Adoration and Bishop Egan Evening Session: £10.00 18:30-20:30: Buffet supper, Drinks and George Weigel To book your place, send a cheque payable to FAITH KEYWAY TRUST to: Day of Faith, St Peter’s Church, Bishop’s Rise, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9HN Please give your name, postal address and email and enclose a stamped addressed envelope.

For more information: Like us on Facebook: “Day of Faith” and follow us on Twitter: @DayofFaithSoho

Motives for Hope I Faith 05

Liturgical Renewal and Church Music

By James MacMillan CBE The renowned composer James MacMillan discusses the current state of Church music and the renewal taking place within it.

In recent months much has been written on the subject of music in Christian worship. For example, there was a heated discussion on the subject on the Letters pages of my local (secular) newspaper, The Herald, in Glasgow. Such discussion reflects a healthy and deep-seated concern for sacred music among members of almost all Christian denominations.

In the context of Catholic liturgy, music adopts a particular significance and missionary purpose. The Church would stop being the Church without its liturgy. The liturgy is the pinnacle and summit of our entire Christian life. It has to be of our highest and best, whatever the circumstances. Hence our liturgical music has to be more than mere utility music. Before he was Pope, Joseph Ratzinger said: “A Church which only makes use of ‘utility’ music has fallen for what is, in fact, useless… For her mission is a far higher one. As the Old Testament speaks of the Temple, the Church is to be the place of ‘glory’, and as such, too, the place where mankind’s cry of distress is brought to the ear of God. The Church must not settle down with what is merely comfortable and serviceable at the parish level; she must arouse the voice of the cosmos and, by glorifying the Creator, elicit the glory of the cosmos itself, making it also glorious, beautiful, habitable, and beloved.”

He went on to say: “The other arts – architecture, painting, vestments, and the arts of movement – each contribute to and support the beauty of the liturgy, but still the art of music is greater even than that of any other art, because it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy, because it is so intimately bound to the sacred action, defining and differentiating the various parts in character, motion and importance.”

It is therefore regrettable that discussion on the subject of Church music can often become polarised, with some debaters appearing entrenched in their positions. This need not be so, and is mostly occasioned by a lack of understanding.

Unfounded fears need to be allayed. Nobody is proposing a reversion to a rose-tinted status quo ante in our Eucharistic celebrations. Reference to tradition does not in any sense represent the thin end of an extremist, ultramontane or Lefebvrist wedge, nor does it posit a stale and arid musical uniformity. Least of all do frank appraisals and suggestions for improvement seek to denigrate the sincere efforts of parish musicians over the past few decades. On the contrary, every effort should and must be made to support liturgical formation in ordinary parishes.

Thus our discussions must be characterised by Christian charity; emphatically not by a false charity which seeks simply to appease or mitigate doctrinal error – but rather by a true and informed witness, a caritas in veritate. In contrast to members of other Christian denominations, as Catholics we owe fidelity to the Church’s Magisterium. For that reason, discussion 06 Faith I Liturgical Renewal and Church Music

should at all times be guided and nourished by Church teaching, allowing for a freedom of enquiry framed by a distinctly Catholic ethos. In this regard, a meaningful discussion can proceed only upon acceptance of the Second Vatican Council and two clearly defined premises.

Gregorian Chant The first of these premises is that Gregorian chant is the official music of the Roman Church – a rich gift from history and the foundation of all Western music. This has been the case since the early Church, when it was collated by Pope Gregory the Great. The chant developed symbiotically with the liturgy itself.

Chant began as part of the Jewish tradition, in which Christ and his apostles were raised. Thus chant is not really a musical style as such, but an expression and audible embodiment of the liturgy itself. It is not one option among many, but the actual musical medium of the Roman Rite. Sacrosanctum Concilium states that “all other factors being equal, chant should be given pride of place in liturgical celebrations”.

Music for a sacred ritual needs to project sacredness. In the liturgy “sacred” means “the glorification of God and the sanctification of the faithful”. Gregorian chant gives an elevated tone of voice to the texts of our sacred praises, conveying the special character of the words and the holy nature of what is being enacted and undertaken. The chanting of the holy texts raises them up from the mundane and presents them “as on a platter of gold”, in the words of Fr Josef Jungmann. Gregorian chant is unlike anything from the everyday world and conveys the clear impression that there is something uniquely holy in the actions of the liturgy. Gregorian chant is holy.

It is also universal as it is supra-national and thus accessible to those of any and every culture equally. It rises above those forms of music which are associated only with localised cultural experience, and it operates separately from styles which are associated with high, artistic, classical derivation and aspiration. Therefore it is essentially anti-elitist and simultaneously pure. Gregorian chant is for all.

The beauty of music is a crucial element in the “edification and sanctification of the faithful”. Beauty is the glue which binds together truth and goodness. To paraphrase Hans Urs von Balthasar: without beauty, truth does not persuade and goodness does not compel. The general function of music in the liturgy is to draw together a diverse succession of actions into a coherent whole. That is what makes Gregorian chant beautiful.

The Gregorian sound, and the practice of chanting, whether by specialists or by non-specialists, gives the most perfect context for the hearing of the words of the sacred scripture. It provides an elevated tone of voice that takes the texts out of the everyday and confirms them as sacred. It provides a goodness

“ The internet allows parish musicians to take ownership of their development, unfettered by redundant and exclusive structures” of form, which is in itself beautiful. And this, in turn, adds a sense of delight to prayer. It takes our divine praises into the realm of the transcendent and the eternal, and it is the music’s sacred character which enables this. There is a melodic and rhythmic freedom in chant which is hard to find in any other music. Chant not only enhances the text, it also breaks free from the restraints of metre. It is the antithesis of “rock” and pop with their incessant and insistently mind-numbing beat. It embodies the ethereal and spiritual aspects of the liturgy. It is the free-est form of music.

Latin: The Normative Language of the Liturgy The second premise for a fruitful discussion of Church music is that Latin is the primary and universal language of our Church.

Its primacy was in no sense revoked, or even questioned, by the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. Latin also remains the primary language of our Divine Liturgy. The Novus Ordo Mass (often referred to as the Ordinary Form), promulgated

by Pope Paul VI, remains in essence a Latin Mass. Vatican II mandated the use of vernacular translations for pastoral reasons, but always envisaged that Latin would remain the primary language of the Mass. Pope Benedict gave particular prominence to this in his own ministry, as reflected in his public celebrations of Mass. This is not to say that the use of the vernacular in liturgy and liturgical music is a mistake. On the contrary, it is to be positively encouraged.

Deviation from these two objective realities based on either ignorance or well-meaning idealism puts Catholics at odds with the strong currents of Church guidance.

New Initiatives in Church Music My own activities in the field of liturgy have centred on my involvement with Glasgow’s Dominican community. Since 2005, I have served as choirmaster at St Columba’s in Maryhill.

Our little choir comprises volunteers from within the parish, many of whom cannot read music. When we started, the congregation was accustomed to singing four vaguely apposite hymns slotted into the liturgy; in short, they were singing at Mass, rather than singing the Mass. Over the past seven years this approach has been altered to give chant (mostly in the vernacular) “pride of place”, as instructed by Vatican II. Moreover, instead of replacing the Mass Propers with hymns, the assembly have starting singing these important prescribed texts, using a range of accessible resources. Of course the ideal source to which we aspire is the Graduale Romanum itself, the single most important book for any Catholic choir and the definitive source of Gregorian chant. Much of this chant is, however, beyond our choir at this stage in its development, which is why we have sought out a range of other chant resources – staging posts, as it were, on our path of liturgical betterment, and with the congregation’s involvement foremost in mind.

There’s the Graduale Simplex, published by the Church for smaller churches just like ours, with a range of Mass Propers for each liturgical season. There are also many exciting chant

adaptations in English, clearly devised for congregations, which are well within the capabilities of ordinary parishes. The Graduale Parvum, now being completed by the Blessed John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in Birmingham, offers simple and extremely usable chant Propers in both English and Latin, drawn from a range of authentic Gregorian sources. Our congregation is gradually assimilating some of these. Then there’s the Simple English Propers by Adam Bartlett: easy, freely composed chant Propers for every Mass of the year. We use at least one of these almost every Sunday. Our choir is becoming more fluent in this idiom all the time.

Recently, we have been able to introduce Communion antiphons from the Graduale Romanum. A richly rewarding American publication is By Flowing Waters by Paul F Ford; it’s a large and full collection of chant-based liturgical song. Those who find their prayer heightened by the modality and supple rhythms of chant will find great riches in these collections.

Whether in Latin or the vernacular, chant is an integral and important part of our Christian heritage and living tradition.

A step in its direction is a step towards a deeper look at the meaning of liturgical renewal and its musical implementation.

This music is for those parishes and communities who are serious about the liturgy, and singing the liturgy.

You might be wondering how parishes with limited financial resources could possibly acquire all this material. The good news is that everything I’ve mentioned, and much more, is available free on our website – www.thechoirofstcolumbas.com – where it can be downloaded, reproduced and used with no copyright restrictions. In this Year of Faith, Pope Benedict invited all of us to read and study the documents of Vatican II, so that we might become ever more convinced and convincing witnesses to the unchanging truth of the Gospel message. He reminds us that the council “formulated nothing new in matters of faith, nor did it seek to replace that which is ancient”.

We are now also providing sound clips, articles and links to dozens of sources of expert information. We also host a forum for parish musicians to share experiences and advice on best practice, to which everyone is welcome to contribute. Future practical events, including a conference, are being planned.

Since launching at the end of December 2012, the site has attracted more than 5,000 views from readers in more than 25 countries. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

While our increasingly global readership gives us great encouragement, we are especially keen that our efforts become known here in the UK, where we believe there is a real need for such practical support. Please visit our homepage, send us a message, connect with us on Facebook or Twitter, and tell any interested friends. We are here to help.

The internet allows parish musicians to take ownership of their development, unfettered by redundant and exclusive structures, which hark back to a more restricting and controlling age, long before the arrival of instant communication and clear accountability.

Liturgical Renewal and Church Music I Faith 07

Catherine Doherty: Lover, Martyr and Prophet By Cheryl Ann Smith Cheryl Ann Smith, the director of Madonna House Robin hood’s Bay and a member of the Madonna house community for 32 years, gives an insight into the life and spirituality of Catherine Doherty, founder of the Madonna house movement.

Servant of God Catherine de Hueck Doherty was a lover of Christ. Refugee, spurned wife, oft-maligned champion of the poor, holocaust of divine love, Catherine Doherty was a white martyr of the Gospel. Pioneer of the Catholic Lay Movement, forerunner of the new ecclesial communities, founder of the Madonna House Apostolate, Catherine Doherty was a prophet and poet of the Holy Spirit.

Childhood and Early Years Who was this woman? Catherine was born in 1896 in another age, another world, the Orthodox world of pre-revolution Russia. She was born into a deeply Christian family in a society whose warp and woof was the Church. She described her childhood as idyllic, but as soon as she stepped into adulthood, innocence was shattered. Marrying her first cousin at the all-too-early age of 16 years, unhappiness broke into her heart. Only a year later, she and her husband were called into the front lines of the First World War, and she plunged into the horrors of war. But she did so with spirit and courage, and was decorated for bravery.

meaning to live a Russian-style life of a poustinik (see note at end of article): praying, begging for her own needs and those of the poor, and serving her neighbours however she could.

God had other plans, however, and soon a little community gathered around her, and the group, which she called Friendship House, spread to other Canadian cities.

This was during a period of the Communist scare. Catherine had a heavy Russian accent, lived among the poor and preached to anyone, including the Church, about the sin of not caring for these little ones of God. She did not mince words; she threatened many who belonged to “the establishment” and was eventually driven out of Canada.

It was then that she met Dorothy Day, who became a life-long friend, and Fr Paul Wattson of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, who paved the way for her to open a Friendship House for African Americans in the enclave of the Harlem slums in New York City. Through him, she became a Third Order Franciscan.

Both Catherine and her husband, Boris de Hueck, were born into aristocracy, and when the Russian Revolution exploded many of their family were killed. The couple fled to Finland.

Catherine described hiding in the mire of pigs to escape the Red Army, only to be captured and condemned to death by slow starvation. Hovering between life and death she promised God: “If you save me from this, in some way I will offer my life to you.” The White Army rescued them, and in the spirit of divine forgiveness they refused to hand over their tormentors.

This was in 1938. Again a community gathered around her and again Friendship House was invited to other cities, where Catherine’s voice tirelessly cried out for social and interracial justice. In those days, when the attitudes of slavery still cast their ugly shadow, she risked martyrdom. In one public talk she expanded Christ’s challenge: “I was black in the United States of America and you did not feed, clothe, educate Me.” She was nearly lynched. A quick-thinking janitor hid her in a rubbish bin and wheeled her out to safety.

The Move to Canada and then New York

Combermere and Madonna House

Catherine and Boris made their way to England, where Catherine joined the Catholic Church, and then they sought asylum in Toronto, Canada, where their son George was born.

Ground down by the poverty they experienced as refugees, Boris’s inability to work and the cruelty of his infidelities, Catherine chose to move to New York City to earn a living for her little family. She described living in Ma Murphy’s boarding house, where six women rented a room with two beds. Life was bleak, and she was tempted to despair.

But the more painful rejection came from within her own community. Catherine had a particular vision of this movement of Friendship House that was inspired by God and emerged from her Russian background. This vision was not shared by the American members who had been formed by democracy.

In addition, Catherine had received an annulment from her first marriage and had secretly married Eddie Doherty, the top-paid reporter in the United States who had fallen madly in love with her, with God and with the Catholic Church. Understandably, this was a shock to the Friendship House staff, and the rift widened. In 1947 they rejected Catherine and her ways.

Catherine and Eddie then retired to a house in the backwoods of Ontario, Canada, outside a tiny village called Combermere.

Eventually she found work as a lecturer with the Chautauqua Circuit, and she shed her rags for riches again. However, one night she heard Christ gently laugh: “Catherine, do you think you can escape from me that way?” Thus began a period of voluntary poverty during which she received strange words from God, words from the Gospel that spelled a way of life.

Friendship House With the Bishop of Toronto’s blessing, she provided for her son and then entered the slums during the Great Depression, 08 Faith I Catherine Doherty: Lover, Martyr and Prophet

From that place of humiliation and failure, Madonna House was born. Once again, people found their way to Catherine, as they do when Christ is alive and calling. In fairly short order, a community of laymen, lay women and priests dedicated to Our Lady were given permission by the Church to live together in poverty, chastity and obedience. Catherine and Eddie took the

“ If you save me from this, in some way I will offer my life to you”. same promises. Within a few years, Bishops were asking for Madonna House staff to open houses in their dioceses, to live the Gospel of Love through soup kitchens, prayer houses, houses of hospitality and friendship. We now number about 200 members, and have 19 houses in Europe, Russia, North America and the Caribbean. In addition, more than 100 associate deacons, priests and bishops find their home in our spirit, and live it out wherever they are posted.

Madonna House is a microcosm of the Church: we are a blend of the East and West; we are men and women, clergy and lay, young and old, intensely active and deeply contemplative.

Catherine’s Spirituality With this background now painted, we ask the question: What is the spirituality of Catherine Doherty? Thousands of holy men and women have been lovers of Christ, white martyrs of the Gospel and prophets of the Holy Spirit. What makes Catherine Doherty unique? Let us allow the Holy Spirit to answer through phrases He whispered to her through formative years – phrases that she eventually pieced together and called her Little Mandate from God. This is the mandate that serves as the guiding light of her spiritual family, Madonna House.

Arise – go! Sell all you possess. Give it directly, personally to the poor. Take up My cross (their cross) and follow Me, going to the poor, being poor, being one with them, one with Me. Little – be always little! Be simple, poor, childlike.

Preach the Gospel with your life – without compromise!

Listen to the Spirit. He will lead you.

Do little things exceedingly well for love of Me.

poor. Then she was to follow and serve Him there. This way of identifying with Christ in the poor was ingrained in her Russian background. Catherine recalled her parents hosting a dinner party for dignitaries when the butler announced: “Christ is at the door, sir.” Her parents left the table, seated a tramp at the kitchen table, and personally served him a fine meal on china plates. For them, this tramp was Christ.

This first paragraph of the Little Mandate offers the heart of Catherine’s motivation: her beloved Christ called her to take up His cross, to share in His suffering, to love unto death as He did, for the sake of His poor. This was to be a full offering, a full renunciation, a full identification. This was the only possible way she could withstand the martyrdom that was to come.

As we in Madonna House follow the Divine Pauper in our promise of poverty, we rely on our Heavenly Father for all our needs; hence we live by begging. We may keep money we have brought to the apostolate, but we may not spend it without permission. We live as simply as possible, to identify with the poor and to give of our surplus each year to those in greater need. However, as Catherine taught us, physical poverty is the kindergarten level of this promise. True poverty demands a complete stripping of self, a total reliance on God at every level of our being.

Little – be always little! Be simple, poor, childlike. Although she was an intellectual, a cultured, educated woman of the world, Catherine followed the example of the One who emptied Himself to assume the condition of a slave (Phil 2:7). As she wrote: “My devotion to the Child of Bethlehem helped me. He had surrendered his intellect, his God-like intellect. He had become a child.” And, catching glimpses of the immensity of the Blessed Trinity as she led a hidden mystical life where Christ showed her the agonies of hell and the glories of heaven, Catherine knew her littleness beside His majesty. Like St Thérèse of Lisieux in the years just before Catherine, she was called to spiritual childhood.

Love… love… love, never counting the cost.

Go into the marketplace and stay with Me. Pray, fast. Pray always, fast.

Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbour’s feet.

Go without fears into the depth of men’s hearts.

I shall be with you.

Pray always. I will be your rest.

When Catherine first began to sense Christ calling her to a deeper life in Him, she turned to Scripture. It seemed that every time she opened a Bible, whether at a friend’s house or in the public library, it was to the words of Christ to the rich young man: Arise, go, sell what you possess, give it to the poor and follow Me (Mk 10:21). It became clear that she was to leave everything and follow Christ, but it was to be in the Russian way of giving her wealth directly and personally to the

Preach the Gospel with your life – without compromise!

Catherine knew the value and power of words. She was a mesmerising speaker and a prolific writer. But she was convinced that our life and heart are the greatest witnesses to the Gospel. And only when we are ready to lay down our life for Christ and His poor, only when we are ready to live the Gospel of Christ without compromise, will we be true evangelisers. As she wrote: “Words are not enough! Words die before the Word. I can only prove my love for him by loving my neighbour, for my neighbour is He Himself.”

Listen to the Spirit. He will lead you. It was the Holy Spirit who gave Catherine the words to challenge the modern pharisees, and to withstand the resulting threats. It was the Holy Spirit who gave her the grace to embrace celibacy while still so in love with her husband Eddie. It was the Holy Spirit who gave her the courage to tend the wounded in wars, to enter the slums without a penny, to live as the only white woman in a Catherine Doherty: Lover, Martyr and Prophet I Faith 09

Catherine Doherty: Lover, Martyr and Prophet continued black enclave, to endure the failure of two apostolates and to begin again, to push herself beyond her limits to preach the Gospel of Love.

listening to the perfect harmony of his heartbeats while we go about his business in the midst of the most discordant music the world has ever known.”

Do little things exceedingly well for love of Me. This inspired line offers a way of holiness. When Catherine began her apostolic life in the 1920s, most lay people were not yet aware of their call to union with God. They believed that to be the domain of Religious. This was not in Catherine’s Russian heritage, and she set about to teach and give witness to the call of every child of God to be one with Him. Every action can be a holy act, if offered out of love for God. This was why Catherine laboured for the Catholic Lay Movement, why she insisted we live in the marketplace and don’t wear habits. We are ordinary people living the nitty-gritty of everyday life in union with Christ. This is a universal call and it can sanctify the world.

“ Madonna house is now a microcosm of the Church”

Love… love… love, never counting the cost. In Madonna House hangs a sign that proclaims I am Third. I am called to love and serve God first, then my neighbour, and lastly myself.

God is a jealous lover, a consuming fire who wants nothing less than our whole heart. From this wellspring of love we are mandated to love, to forgive, to lay down our lives for others.

And only from this place of union can we see and love ourselves as God wishes.

This demanding call is at the heart of our life. When Catherine wrote the Constitution for our Apostolate, she placed at the beginning the law of love, for “the primary work of the Apostolate is that we love one another… This is the greatest work of the Apostolate. We must love God. We must love ourselves according to the will of God. We must love one another. This deep love of humanity requires an enlargement of heart that is so great that man could not aspire to it unless God showed him the way. We must pray for that enlargement of heart because we must become an inn for all those besieged by robbers, and where is the man or woman today who isn’t?”

Go into the marketplace and stay with Me. Pray, fast. Pray always, fast. Catherine eloquently spoke of our call to be contemplatives in the marketplace in a letter written in 1957. “I have mentioned the need for contemplation. While on a human level our Apostolate is one of the most active imaginable, I think it has also been destined by God to be deeply contemplative. Unless we become contemplatives, how will we ever be able to face a lifetime of doubts, temptations and fears? Unless we enter the great silence of God and his peace, how will we be able to face the daily pain that grinds us like sand? Resting on his breast, listening only to the sound of his heartbeats, we will hear, in proportion to our inner stillness, the depth of his love for us.

“We are a new breed of contemplatives. Our monasteries are the busy streets of new pagan cities… We are a new breed of contemplatives, and our bells are the poor, knocking ceaselessly at our blue doors. We are a new breed of contemplatives, and we must learn to rest on the heart of God, 10 Faith I Catherine Doherty: Lover, Martyr and Prophet

Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbour’s feet. Catherine wrote: “I would be hidden as Christ was hidden in Nazareth. I considered Nazareth to be the centre of my vocation. Only by being hidden would I be a light to my neighbour’s feet in the slums.” Catherine Doherty was a great woman, a holy woman.

And yet she remains largely hidden in the Church. Her spiritual child, Madonna House, is also hidden in the shadow of the great orders and international movements in the universal Church. We are hidden in God. And somehow, by our life of atonement, prayer, uncompromising love, we become an unseen light. We can go without fears into the depth of men’s hearts for I am with you. It is Christ who lives and moves in us, when we allow Him access. We can bring Him, then, into the places of greatest darkness, poverty, need. We can bring His light.

Pray always. I will be your rest. Catherine always dreamt of living a poustinik vocation, but God called her to love and serve as Jesus did, and to take her vigils at night, as He did. In her cabin was a cushion with the Russian words “I sleep but my heart watches”. Catherine’s heart rested always on the breast of her Beloved, giving her the grace and strength to love, love, love, never counting the cost.

Our Lady, the Trinity and the Church In this short introduction to Catherine Doherty’s spirituality, three other elements must be presented: Our Lady, the Trinity and the Church. At the end of a talk about Madonna House given in 1956, Catherine was asked why she hadn’t spoken of Our Lady. After all, the Apostolate is dedicated to Her. Her response? “All the things I have spoken to you will happen to you if you go to Jesus through Mary. She possesses the secret of prayer, the secret of wisdom, for she is the Mother of God. Who else can teach you to burn with the fire of love except the Mother of fair love? Who else can teach you to pray except the woman of prayer? Who else can teach you to go through the silence of deserts and nights, the silence of pain and sorrow, the solitude of joy and gladness, except the woman wrapped in silence?

“Sometimes it is difficult to speak of the self-evident… Our Lady of the Trinity and Our Lady of Madonna House are one and the same… Perhaps my silence about Mary was a tribute to the woman wrapped in silence. But I conclude by saying that all that we do in this Apostolate we do through Mary. All of us are consecrated to her as her slaves (a form of consecration given by St Louis de Montfort). That’s why we are free. And that is why we can dedicate ourselves so utterly to her Son, because it is she who shows us the Way.”

“ Catherine followed the example of the One who emptied Himself to assume the condition of a slave” Towards the beginning of her Constitution, Catherine wrote that the essence of her spirituality, which was formed in Russia, is the Trinity. She described a mystical glimpse she was given of the Trinity as fire, flame and movement and herself as both enveloped by, and enveloping, the Trinity.

Because she had been given this glimpse, she wanted her life (and ours) to reflect that vision. And thus we are three branches in Madonna House: lay men, lay women and priests, living one life. In this we model ourselves after the Blessed Trinity and after the Holy Family in Nazareth.

When writing elsewhere about living in community she said: “The Community of the Trinity is simply the Community of Love: God the Father loving God the Son, and this love bringing forth the Holy Spirit. In order to form a community, we must make contact with the Trinity first. Then and only then can we make a community with others… The secret of becoming a community is a total involvement in the other, and a total emptying of oneself so that each can say, I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me. Then the Christian community has come into existence. Then, like the Holy Spirit who truly formed it, a community becomes a fire burning in our midst and, from this fire, sparks kindle the earth.”

Catherine was deeply loyal to the Church, for she understood it to be the Body of Christ. From the age of 11 years, she consciously offered her life for priests, even if their humanity was at times scandalous. When she was a child, she found the local priest one day drunk in the gutter. Deeply shaken, she ran to her mother who calmly asked Catherine to help her bring the priest to their home. After she had washed him and put him on the bed, she called Catherine to put a lily in her brother’s chamber pot. It was a lesson Catherine never forgot: the humanity of the priest might be in the gutter, but Christ remained the pure lily in his priesthood.

Catherine was always obedient to the Church and willingly suffered for the Church. After Vatican II, when the Church seemed to be torn apart she wrote: “The Church is in agony.

The remedy: greater love, greater understanding, greater compassion, greater empathy for all who are confused,

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio on Development in Theology In 2007, the future Pope made the following revealing remarks on the need for theological development in an interview with the international Catholic monthly 30 Days.

Staying, remaining faithful implies an outgoing. Precisely if one remains in the Lord one goes out of oneself.

Paradoxically, precisely because one remains, precisely if one is faithful, one changes. One does not remain faithful,

suffering, leaving the Church, tearing the seamless robe of Christ in the process. The world has become a Coliseum once again. Those who understand that true renewal begins with themselves … will be ground into the invisible wheat of the bread of Christ. Having eaten of the God of love, they must now be ready to be consumed themselves as holocausts and as martyrs. This invisible shedding of blood may be the seeds of both a new faith and the finding of a lost one.”

Catherine de Hueck Doherty died on 14 December 1985, the feast day of St John of the Cross. The similarities between these two followers of God are striking, especially their adherence to the path of Love in the midst of darkness and rejection. Was it on that day that the title Catherine of the Cross was first heard? It is indeed apt.

Lover of God, white martyr of the Gospel, prophet and poet – this is Catherine of the Cross.

Madonna House has a field house in Robin Hood’s Bay, North Yorkshire, England, where currently five members offer a house of hospitality and prayer. There are two prayer rooms available for retreatants, and the Chapel is available for an encounter with God. People are welcome to phone, write or come for prayer or counsel.

Madonna House Thorpe Lane Robin Hood’s Bay YO22 4TQ 01947 880 169 rhb@madonna1.plus.com

* Poustinia is a Russian word for desert and it refers to a way of prayer that is more Eastern: silence, solitude, fasting and prayer with only the Scriptures as spiritual food. The poustinik is not a hermit, however, and expects to serve his neighbours according to their need. Catherine first brought this word and concept to the West in 1975, as she published her book entitled Poustinia.

It is now a fairly common word, having been integrated into the Western contemplative world. Catherine went on to publish a series of books introducing other Russian concepts, calling us to breathe with both lungs. She is thus a sturdy bridge between the East and West.

like the traditionalists or the fundamentalists, to the letter.

Fidelity is always a change, a blossoming, a growth. The Lord brings about a change in those who are faithful to Him. That is Catholic doctrine. Saint Vincent of Lérins makes the comparison between the biological development of the person, between the person who grows, and the Tradition which, in handing on the depositum fidei from one age to another, grows and consolidates with the passage of time: “Ut annis scilicet consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate” [so as to be surely consolidated by years, enlarged by time, refined by age]. (For the full text go to www.30giorni. it and look for issue 11 in the archives for 2007.)

Catherine Doherty: Lover, Martyr and Prophet I Faith 11

The Via Pulchritudinis: Beauty and the New Evangelisation By Dudley Plunkett Dudley Plunkett, senior academic tutor at the Maryvale Institute in Birmingham, offers a reflection on beauty as a path to God in the light of the New Evangelisation.

While the Church must always continue to develop its exposition of the Faith through theology and apologetics, it should by no means neglect the power of beauty to affect human thinking, feeling and judgement. Indeed, beauty can have its own power to bring people to faith from rational argument. As the Catechism puts it: “Truth can also find other complementary forms of human expression, above all when it is a matter of evoking what is beyond words: the depths of the human heart, the exaltations of the soul, the mystery of God.” (CCC, 2500) While intellectual conclusions can change convictions, something more is needed to bring about a personal relationship with the Lord. There is therefore a link to be made between beauty, seen ultimately as an attribute of God, and the pursuit of the Church’s evangelising mission. This insight, though commonly cited, including in the Instrumentum Laboris for the 2012 Synod on the new evangelisation, remains however somewhat nebulous. Can believers take hold of it during the Year of Faith in a way that empowers them “to radiate the word of truth that the Lord Jesus has left us” (Benedict XVI, Porta Fidei, 6)?

How Beauty Impinges on our Rational Consciousness and Feelings Not everyone is consistently aware of beauty, and yet it is always there for those whose minds and hearts are open to it.

In the end it is for a person to perceive that they need beauty, that it pleases, satisfies and inspires them. They are made in the image of God and have a soul that is only completely content when it contemplates the beauty which is absolute, in eternity, and which is the reflection, in time, of the God who unites goodness, beauty and truth, most visibly in our earthly existence through Jesus Christ. Ultimately, therefore, our sense of beauty stems from the incarnational faith that God has given us in Christ; now God has a face… and it must be absolutely good, beautiful and true.

“ Our sense of beauty stems from the incarnational faith that God has given us in Christ” From such contemplation we sense a magnetism that characterises beauty. So, whether we are walking through natural scenery, visiting an art gallery, encountering a special personality, participating in a liturgical ceremony, uncovering secrets of the scientific or mathematical world, in all these ways we scarcely realise what has happened until it is there before us and suddenly evident to us with its compelling quality of perfection. We are drawn to it with our intellectual faculties and our emotions. Natural awareness of beauty can vary with our state of preparedness, but we can all recognise peak experiences of beauty that awaken or startle us and remain long in our memories. At first they may be taken merely as aesthetic moments, such as communing with nature, 12 Faith I The Via Pulchritudinis: Beauty and the New Evangelisation

savouring memories and images, meeting mysteries, the heightened sensing of musical sounds, odours, colours, the thrill of acute poetic expression, or moving encounters with other human beings; but on further reflection people often cite such experiences as having a spiritual quality and as hints of the divine.

Beauty, a Way to God Although the Church has preserved a tradition as a patron of the arts for more than a millennium, and the great mediaeval cathedrals in particular have portrayed Christianity through their paintings, sculptures, and perhaps especially their windows, Catholic teachers are now refocusing on literary, cultural and artistic beauty as a conscious resource for the transmission of the faith. In his remarkable personal appeal to artists, Pope John Paul II suggested how beauty in the work of artists can be a bridge to the transcendent: “Even beyond its typically religious expressions, true art has a close affinity with the world of faith, so that, even in situations where culture and the Church are far apart, art remains a kind of bridge to religious experience” (John Paul II, Letter to Artists, 1999, 10).

More recently, the Pontifical Council for Culture has linked evangelisation and beauty by proposing that “the via pulchritudinis can open the pathway for the search for God” (PCC, The Via Pulchritudinis, Pathway for Evangelisation and Dialogue, 2006). Beauty can evangelise because it has the potential to convince, not by rational argument but through an intuitive or spiritual engagement. Beauty invites to contemplation, and to prayer, as it leads us back to its source.

God has created a world which sacramentally reflects and expresses his love, his beauty and the truth about himself.

The Catechism makes clear the interpenetration of these divine attributes: “The practice of goodness is accompanied by spontaneous spiritual joy and moral beauty. Likewise, truth carries with it the joy and splendour of spiritual beauty.

Truth is beautiful in itself” (CCC, 2500). In discovering beauty, therefore, we come closer to God in all his attributes, for we are able “to see through perceptible beauty to eternal beauty” (VP, II.1).

Evangelisation in Need of Renewal John Paul II introduced the expression the “new evangelisation” early in his pontificate, and returned continually to the theme.

It was then taken up by Pope Benedict and the whole Church.

By way of a summary of what the term has come to imply after 30 years of use, we can say first that evangelisation has always been the mission of the Church empowered by the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit (John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, 45). Pope Benedict then took the initiative of creating the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation, and made this topic the theme of the 2012 Synod of Bishops as well as an important aspect of the Year of Faith. Because of the “profound crisis of faith” in

“ Beauty can have its own power to bring people to faith from rational argument” the world today (PF, 2), the Church is proposing not merely a continuation of the mission ad extra and ad intra but a renewal of the whole concept of evangelisation so that it is addressed through an energetic dialogue with secular cultures.

One project stemming from this idea is the PCC’s Courtyard of the Gentiles, inspired by the Temple in Jerusalem but also redolent of Paul’s Acropolis experience in Acts 17. It involves planned encounters between believers and non-believers of cultural distinction held in various cities, the first at the Unesco building in Paris and subsequent ones in Stockholm and Assisi. However innovative such experiments are, it is clear that, in John Paul II’s words, the “fervour, methods and expression” of evangelisation must continue to be renewed.

Until the recent past the main emphasis has been on apologetics, catechesis and other reasoned approaches, but there are complementary steps to be taken towards the expressive and inspirational by featuring less rational and doctrinal means, such as sacred art, that can in their distinct manner explore the way of beauty.1

Evangelising Culture and the Way of Beauty A strongly emerging feature of the new evangelisation that has been consistently emphasised by Popes John Paul and Benedict has been the evangelising of culture through the patrimony of the Church, the talents of artists and the efforts of believers to show the relevance of the Gospel to the world at large. The “evangelising” of culture denotes the general impact of the gospel on human values and ways of being, though it involves many of the same approaches as when individuals are the focus, such as personal witness, proclaiming the Word, apologetics and dialogue, as well as the appeal to emotional and spiritual sensitivities.

The practical challenge faced by those who wish to evangelise contemporary culture through the way of beauty is to envision

faith P RO M OT I N G A N E W S Y N T H E S I S O F FA I T H A N D R E A S O N

how it might effectively challenge and transform secular values and ways of understanding. One could turn to many artists for a precedent for a newly evangelised culture comprising imaginative activities that are open to the transcendent, a culture that integrates human creativity in art, literature and science with the call to holiness, to a life that acknowledges truth, goodness and beauty as having their source in the divine. God is the author of beauty that is beyond words, beyond the rational, as the Catechism affirms: “Even before revealing himself to man in words of truth, God reveals himself to him through the universal language of creation, the work of his Word, of his wisdom; the order and harmony of the cosmos – which both the child and the scientist discover…” (CCC, 2500). We are being encouraged to lift our gaze beyond those aspects of beauty that enchant us in nature, art, science, and also the human person made in the image of God, to perceive the link to the truths of faith and to God. The Christian believer is being prompted even more directly by the practice of prayer, the experience of worship, the contemplation of the Word of God in Scripture and by so many other epiphanies of God’s glory, to discover the divine source of goodness, truth and beauty. Such insights promise benefits even for our earthly existence. Is it not certain that the spiritual qualities and reflections of the divine to be found in cultures by no means negate human riches of intellect, aesthetics or sensitivity? In fact, are not human cultures enhanced and renewed by their openness to the Spirit, so that just as a spiritually refreshed culture can encourage belief, so those who have found God through such renewal can become open to new aesthetic, scientific and philanthropic inspirations?

Notes 1 For several years the Maryvale Institute has run a successful Art, Beauty and Inspiration course that explores the use of art in understanding the Faith. A similar approach has been employed in recent catechetical courses, such as Anchor and Evangelium, in which religious ideas and understandings are approached initially through paintings rather than verbal explanations.

Inviting Authors Faith magazine invites readers to submit articles with a view to publication.

• They should normally be 1,800 words, but can be longer if they are an extended essay.

• Articles may be of a speculative nature or of pastoral interest but they must be faithful to the Church’s magisterium. Ideas for articles can be emailed to the editor, who is happy to discuss their suitability.

Articles should be emailed to: editor@faith.org.uk

www.faith.org.uk

The Via Pulchritudinis: Beauty and the New Evangelisation I Faith 13

Taking the New Evangelisation to the Streets By Lucy Mackain-Bremner Lucy Mackain-Bremner, chaplaincy co-ordinator to Leweston School in Dorset and a graduate of the Emmanuel School of Mission in Rome, gives an insight into the reality of modern street evangelisation. “Always be prepared to give an account of the Hope that is in you” 1Pt 3:15 I was walking down a busy street and a young man stopped me and asked me: “What’s the joke? Why are you smiling?”

Somewhat taken by surprise, unthinkingly I replied as honestly as I could: “Because I love Jesus.”

My voice must not have been as bold as my heart, though, because he didn’t hear what I said, so I had to repeat it more loudly, with an even bigger smile: “Because I love Jesus!”

And he said, “Oh, me too. I’m Muslim.” He was on his way to run a community youth club but he stopped and we spoke for a while. I ended with giving him a Miraculous Medal (of Our Lady) and he took it saying: “Thank you! We really honour Mary too, you know, because she’s the mother of Jesus.” He said I was his sister and then we parted.

Through this little encounter the Lord showed me how He can and will use you in the most beautiful and personal ways. If you really desire to make His name known, He expects nothing from you other than to be yourself, to be how He created you and calls you to be. We are created to know and love God and are forever looking to do this better and more deeply, but to truly fulfil our human dignity we must evangelise.

To make God known and loved by others – this is the loving work of evangelisation, a commission we all received through our Baptism. But how do we make this a reality?

Catholic Street Evangelisation in 2013 There is a growing generation of people who have never even sought to cross the threshold of a church, who hold their own ideas of truth and accountability and whose opinion of Catholic priests stretches no further than media scandal. The question is how to reach them. The answer is simple: street evangelisation.

I’m not talking about preaching repentance from a soap box or holding up placards saying THE END IS NIGH. In 2006 someone was given an Asbo for doing just that on Oxford Street. I’m talking about Catholic street evangelisation, something I came across three years ago on a postgraduate gap year and which I’ve been doing ever since.

“It’s important not to go with an agenda. Just listen and love.”

That was the central teaching I heard before going out on to the streets for the first time, and it’s something I’ve tried to remember deep in my heart. I held onto this and tried to understand how to do it as we set up. Half of us were singing in a choir with drums and guitar and the other half split into pairs intent upon chatting with anyone who would stop to listen.

We were a group of 20 students at a mission school in Rome and by taking to the streets each week to speak and pray with the people we met, we put into practice what we learnt from 14 Faith I Taking the New Evangelisation to the Streets

the great Catechism of the Catholic Church and various encyclicals on mission and love: to listen and to love.

We went for one hour only and in that time people would have the most amazing conversations. You can meet the world on the streets of Rome and, given the chance, people just need someone to listen to them. We prayed individually for every single person we met, sometimes with them! In a particular moment of action, I remember approaching two middle-aged British tourists who appeared to be sisters. One seemed sort of interested in what we were doing; the other was a bit embarrassed and wanted to leave. So as they were wandering on I asked if there was anything they would like me to pray for and one immediately burst into tears, setting her sister off, who explained: “Yes, this is what we came here looking for.”

I never fully understood their situation, but I knew the Holy Spirit had used me in that moment to touch their lives in a certain way. I left with a full heart, and a large smile.

I understand “not going with an agenda” principally to mean not setting out to preach in peoples’ faces, but I think it has a spiritual resonance that goes deeper. It means freeing yourself from being restricted by what you want to say or think you should say to anyone you meet, because you are not going to meet just anyone: you are going to meet someone, and their story is unique. You are going out to communicate God, and because we are all unique individuals God relates to each one of us uniquely. Different aspects of who God is speak to people in different ways. My favourite is “God is Love”, which means that by loving this person wholeheartedly in that moment you are giving them a taste of God. If you want to tell people how amazing God is, show them by loving them – and by having Jesus so present in you that all they see is Him. This is from a prayer of Blessed John Henry Newman: “ Jesus, flood my soul with your spirit and life.

Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that my life may only be a radiance of yours.

Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come into contact with may feel your presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!”

Nightfever Out on the streets of London every second month is a group called Nightfever, based in St Patrick’s church off Soho Square.

Fifty or more young Catholic volunteers, working in and around London, come along each time to evangelise for the evening, which begins with Mass at 6pm. This is followed by a candlelit vigil of Eucharistic Adoration until late. There is a rota of live music ministries throughout the night, so just as people are arriving in Soho dressed up to go out to bars and clubs, they

“ We can do nothing without Him and so must first abandon ourselves entirely to His Will” come across beautifully serene music floating out of the church porch over speakers.

Nightfever, originating in Germany, has spread through Europe and beyond, reaching as far as Brazil and China.

Some volunteers then take to the surrounding streets to speak with the people they meet, going out in pairs with large lanterns – a great way to draw attention and spark curiosity. Others are stationed at the church doors to welcome people who find their way there. People are then invited to come in and light a candle in the church, to take a few minutes out of the hustle of the city for peace and to say a prayer.

3 Steps to Street Evangelisation For this type of organised street evangelisation the practical rules are few but important. You must always go out in pairs (like the apostles), so one can pray while the other speaks.

Don’t go with an agenda of conversion, and make time during the evening for your own personal prayer – keep topped up!

Here are three guiding steps for street evangelisation:

Inside, the church pews are quietly filled with people praying; light comes only from the sanctuary where, lit by candles, the Blessed Sacrament is exposed. Prayerful singing from the different choirs helps engender a breathtakingly beautiful ambience. The aim is to create an atmosphere conducive to prayer to help those who haven’t prayed in years or perhaps have never prayed before. Priests are dotted around to receive the steady queues of people moved to want sacramental forgiveness or just to talk things over.

As I sat in Adoration one evening, I witnessed a constant stream of people from the street coming in, kneeling at the front for a moment or several, writing a prayer or moving back to sit quietly in a pew. People who come in promising to stay for a couple of minutes stay much longer, soaking up the atmosphere.

A group of scantily dressed women, in their heels, tottered up the aisle to the front, each being guided to light a candle in front of Jesus in the exposed Blessed Sacrament. Little did they expect that moments later they’d be sitting in a pew sobbing into each other’s arms.

This type of street evangelisation doesn’t set itself up to know all the answers. It doesn’t judge, or condemn; it simply and powerfully offers an encounter with Christ.

So, with pockets stuffed with tea lights and solemn yet excited prayers made with my evangelisation partner, I set out into the neon glow of Soho Square, to invite people in.

No sooner had we left the church porch than we caught the eye of a young man walking quickly, by himself, hesitating at the sight of us. We simply said: “Would you like to come in?” He replied with an equally simple “Yes”, so we guided him to the front where he lit a candle and retreated thoughtfully into a pew.

Next, we approached three young men heading out to a restaurant who, initially slightly suspicious, followed us into Adoration where they knelt at the front and each solemnly wrote a prayer. As we left, one turned to me with a glowing face and said: “Thank you so much!”

The stories are endless, and we share them with each other over tomato soup in the crypt at the end of the night, everyone touched by seeing how the Lord worked that evening.

1. Pray “Holiness makes mission possible.”

The principal rule of Catholic evangelisation is a personal and sacramental relationship with God. We can do nothing without Him and so must first abandon ourselves entirely to His Will.

Through a faithful prayer life and regular Mass, Confession and Eucharistic Adoration we are filled with the Holy Spirit and the graces of God (even if we don’t feel that we are). “ Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” – Proverbs 4:23 Before we even approach the streets, during all times of evangelisation and after every conversation we must be saturated in prayer. During times on the street it has been useful to stop and to pray a simple (yet powerful) Hail Mary between encounters.

2. Listen “ We can do no great things, only small things with great love.” – Blessed Theresa of Calcutta Focus on the person in front of you with your whole being, be conscious of your body language and listen to them not just with your ears but with your heart and intellect also. Love them with the burning love of Jesus in that moment and feel the compassion He has for them. Meet them where they are.

3. Respond “ For out of the abundance of the Heart the mouth speaks.”

– Mt 12:34 (also Lk 6:45) Only then, when we are fit to burst with the love of God through prayer, and are filled with personal compassion through listening, are we able to respond. “ Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.” – Prov 13:3 This may seem at first to mean “don’t open your mouth”, but think what a guard does: he stands vigilant and lets pass only what is permitted. If you guard your mouth, you keep watch over what you say, letting only what is right and good – the abundance of the treasure of your heart – pass your lips.

Taking the New Evangelisation to the Streets I Faith 15

Taking the New Evangelisation to the Streets continued Things to Remember The first thing to keep in mind is the strength of personal testimony: people cannot argue with your personal experience of faith, and you are not setting out to argue people into the Church. There is a time and place for apologetics and catechesis but this first encounter is about bringing people to feel the loving touch of Christ. Catechesis can follow. When someone hears how the Lord has worked in your life, they are receiving a powerful witness. And that helps lead the conversation away from convoluted and often unconstructive debates about Church teaching.

Never lose hope if nothing “miraculous” seems to happen. We are part of a bigger picture and the Lord asks us to play our part: “One sows and another reaps” (Jn 4:37).

Be yourself. We are given all the tools we need to evangelise in our Baptism. When responding to the questions of other people, you don’t need to tie yourself up in knots thinking of elaborate answers when truth is the pearl of great price that people are drawn to search for.

“Perfect love casts our fear” (1 Jn 4:18). If you are afraid, anxious or embarrassed, go to the source of perfect love, the Eucharist, to ask for help. Then, once you have received this love, cast out the fear, awkwardness and anxiety in the people you meet by loving them with the same love you have received.

Evangelisation is the first step; catechesis, commitment and deeper formation follow. Don’t expect someone you’ve just met to accept everything at once. And remember that it’s not your responsibility at that moment to explain everything!

Use appropriate vocabulary. To use words that people don’t understand, like transubstantiation, consecration, sinfulness and repentance, is creating barriers not breaking them down.

Likewise, bear in mind that simpler words have been warped through a lack of understanding in the media. For example, the word “Church” can mean many different things to different people. Depending on who they are, it can be a trigger word for all sorts of emotional reactions.

Sometimes the best way of defining something is by relating it to your personal experience. For example, you might explain what it means to you to be a member of the Church, why you choose to be part of the Church, why you love the Church. By doing that, rather than attempting a theological definition that some may not be ready for, you can communicate a far clearer picture of what the Church is. That is what I mean by meeting someone where they are.

The Fruits are His We evangelise not to see the difference but to make the difference. We have no idea what seeds are being planted at those times when we think everything is going wrong.

Evangelisation is not a numbers game; if you arrange an event and four people come – praise the Lord! He has handpicked 16 Faith I Taking the New Evangelisation to the Streets

these four souls and sent them to you. We give to God, and His are the fruits. Wonderfully, He quite often shares them for our own good. “ Give, and it will be given to you; a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.” – Lk 6:38 Evangelising what I spend my weekends and holidays doing, because I love it! I never thought anything could be as great as receiving the love of God, but giving it to other people and seeing them fall in love with God too is the most incredible thing to be part of.

A fellow missionary said to me once: “You always get more than you give, don’t you?”

Emmanuel School of Mission “Become who you are and you will set the world on fire” Based in Rome, a 10-minute walk from St Peter’s, lies the Emmanuel School of Mission, a school dedicated to the formation of young Catholics and offering a transformative nine-month course. Each year the school accepts the applications of 20 young adults from across the world, aged between 18 and 35, and immerses them in a world of Scripture, Eucharistic Adoration, theological study, international mission and works of compassion.

In my year there was a German chef, a French music teacher, a Coptic Catholic Egyptian, a Lithuanian gospel singer, a Brazilian teenager studying languages, a Scottish gamekeeper and an English nurse from Bournemouth, to name but a few. Despite our extraordinary differences, we found very quickly a commonality rooted in Faith. Through the sacraments we were spiritually connected, and knowing this enriched our relationships in a unique way and deeply united us as brothers and sisters within a matter of months.

I lived most of the time outside my comfort zone and in return received an enormous heart for mission, a profound understanding of the Holy Spirit acting in my life, and an insatiable appetite to let the Lord and Our Lady use me in whatever way they see fit. I cannot recommend this year enough for any young Catholic who feels a niggling curiosity, a searching desire or an outright calling to deepen and understand the Faith that has been given to them. If you’d like to find out more about the Emmanuel School of Mission, there’s lots of useful information at www.esm-rome.com.

The Emmanuel Community is a Catholic community of priests, together with consecrated and lay faithful, across the world dedicated to a life of Eucharistic Adoration, works of compassion, and Evangelisation in their daily life and relationships. If you would like any more information please don’t hesitate to contact Lucy Mackain-Bremner by emailing info@emmanueluk.org.uk

Balthasar and the Rediscovery of the Marian Profile of the Church By Fr Ross Campbell In the second part of his article Fr Ross Campbell, assistant priest in Kirkintilloch, offers an insight into the challenging Mariology of one of the major figures of 20th-century theology.

A great son of the Church who deserves a special place of honour in contemporary ecclesiastical life. (Blessed John Paul II on Hans Urs von Balthasar) Balthasar is above all a Marian person… By being made a Cardinal on the eve of his death the Church acknowledges that he is right in what he teaches of the faith. (Funeral Homily of Hans Urs von Balthasar preached by Cardinal Ratzinger) In the first half of this article (published in the March/April edition of Faith magazine) we offered a thumbnail sketch of some of the 20th-century debates in Mariology and the consequences of those debates. We noted the confusion that arose from them in the life of the Church regarding the role of Mary. There is no doubt that in recent years we have witnessed a resurgence of the role of Mary in the devotional lives of many Catholics. In itself this is a good thing. However, this growth in Marian devotion cannot be reduced to piety based upon nostalgia or sentimentality. We saw, especially during the pontificate of Blessed John Paul II, how Mary has been reintegrated into the life of the Church. The theological underpinnings of Mary’s relationship with the Church have been recovered and brought to the fore. This article looks at the contribution of the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar in this rediscovery of the Marian profile of the Church.

Scholars argue whether or not Balthasar was a systematic thinker.

He certainly never dedicated a systematic treatise to Mary and the Church. Nonetheless a number of foundational ideas recur throughout his theology and give it shape and form.

Balthasar’s Theological Foundations Balthasar’s fundamental theological presupposition is that human history comes from and is directed towards Christ. For this reason one can expect human history (and indeed the cosmos) to show forth something of the glory of God. Nowhere is this glory more evident than in the concrete living person of Mary, who has been overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. The form of God’s glory, and therefore the form of revelation, is Jesus Christ. Balthasar doesn’t necessarily mean form in a strictly scholastic sense here; rather he means that reality which we, with our human minds, are able to grasp. Christ is the intelligible embodiment of God’s glory. The goal of all theological speculation, and of the believer, is to have experience of this form. This is Balthasar’s “theological aesthetic”.

The Christian is called to rediscover the beauty of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.

Consequently the foundation stone of the edifice of Balthasar’s ecclesiology is Christological: the Incarnation of God.1 According to Antonio Sicari, Balthasar sees Christ as: this “someone”, “in whom the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col 2:9), [and who] demands, above all, a personal and immediate relation with all human beings, beyond the limits of relations due to those who are only “someone”2

By referring to this divine “someone” Balthasar emphasises the particularity of the person of Jesus Christ. Christ is not some sort of nebulous platonic ideal; he is a person, a particular “someone”. But Christ is also the second person of the Trinity.

He is God. And in the Incarnation he has entered time and space, met other human beings and established relations with them. This “someone” who claims to be the very being of God has placed himself within the grasp of the whole of humanity by entering our history. He is, therefore, potentially in relation to all human beings.

For Balthasar, the fact that God, in Christ, sought to establish relations with other human beings means that the Church, that is those people who are drawn into a relationship with Christ, is a constitutive element of the Incarnation. For Balthasar, the Church is not an afterthought tacked on to the event of God’s enfleshment. The Church is an integral part of the Incarnation.

The Church was in the mind and plan of God from the beginning.

From this realisation flows the insight that if we desire to enter into relationship with God we need to look at what this particular “someone”, Christ, actually did. In what way did he choose to relate to human beings? Balthasar maintained that the first human relations that Christ established must have had a twofold character: they must have been both paradigmatic and efficacious.3 By paradigmatic Balthasar meant that this real and particular relationship between Christ and an individual was the first instance of this relationship, but it also sets up a pattern of this type of relationship that will be repeated throughout history and diffused across the whole of humanity.

These relationships, which take place during Christ’s 33 years of visible presence among humanity, are the initial realisations of all future relations. By efficacious, Balthasar means that because Christ is not just anyone but the divine “someone” his relationships transcend the normal conditions of purely human relationships. Christ’s relationships transcend the limitations of space and time. And so for Balthasar the Church flows from the seriousness of the Incarnation and Christ’s life as a human being.4 The Church, therefore, is a constitutive part of the divine initiative and not a consequence of it.

Mary and the Church In Balthasar’s approach to theology Mary gives the Church her centre and apex. He observes that throughout the history of the Triune God’s dealings with humanity a female principle is present.

The history of our salvation is marked by a feminine presence that responds actively and fruitfully to God’s initiatives: first Israel, which is presented throughout the Scriptures in feminine terms (as the daughter of Sion or, in those times when the prophets urge her to repentance, as a faithless wife); then Mary; and now the Church (the bride of Christ). And it is in this context, then, that the experience of the early Church and in particular the experience of Mary becomes pivotal for all believers.

Balthasar and the Rediscovery of the Marian Profile of the Church I Faith 17

Balthasar and the Rediscovery of the Marian Profile of the Church continued Who is the Church? Not, what is the Church?

According to Balthasar (perhaps in direct response to the ecclesiology of Rahner) this is the question we should be asking.

The Church should not be thought of purely as an organisation or as an institution. The Church is not a “something”, neither is the Church an “it”. The Church is a person. She is a somebody. A person knows and wills in a way that an inanimate object does not. For instance, a car does not know or will anything. The Church, however, unlike an inanimate object, is a subject: she knows and she wills. However, the Church is a particular type of subject. She is a collective subject but at the same time she has one single centre of consciousness. These terms are slightly technical and require a word of explanation. A collective subject is a body capable of knowing and willing that is made up of individuals who are individually capable of knowing a willing. An example of this might be a family. We might commonly say “the family has decided…”. And by this we mean the family made up of individuals as a collective unit has come to a joint decision. In the same way the Church is made up of different individuals (Mary, the saints, us).

But within these collective subjects, normally the individual members remain isolated in their individuality; that is, they do not possess a single centre of consciousness. The Church is different because her centre of consciousness is Christ. Christ pours himself out through his grace into his members – that is, the members of the Church – so that the content of what the Church knows and wills is Christ. For a Catholic, to think “with the mind of the Church” is not simply to parrot the teachings of Christ: it is to be touched by Christ’s grace in such a way that one’s mind participates in the mind of Christ and thinks Christ’s thoughts. Moreover, the will is that which leads us to act. And when the Church performs her acts as Church it is Christ who acts. When the Church baptises it is Christ who acts; when the church absolves from sin, it is Christ who acts. And, of course, the source and summit of the Church’s life, the Eucharist, is Christ’s body, blood, soul and divinity.

The Church is the living ecclesial chain that guarantees humanity’s and creation’s contact with the Incarnate God and she will therefore remain throughout history. Principally, this remaining endures and is made tangible in the glorified humanity of Mary, Peter and the other apostles. The Church is characterised by a concrete and enduring collectivity of subjects that surrounded Christ and with whom Christ established relations (that were paradigmatic and efficacious), so that humanity might continue to have access to Christ. Therefore, the purpose of the Church is to enable the believer, through grace, to experience and participate in her normative subject, her consciousness – Christ.

For us to participate in this life of God we must be in Christ, which is to be in the sphere of the Church.5 To the degree that this sphere is Christ’s own, he is the consciousness of the Church. It is in this sense that we speak of the Church as being Christ’s 18 Faith I Balthasar and the Rediscovery of the Marian Profile of the Church

body, and Christ as the Head. However, to the extent that we as the collective subject respond as Church, we respond as members of the Bride of Christ. This receptive response of ours finds its normative subjectivity in the fiat of Mary. Thus the Church receives her fundamental and constitutive feminine dimension.

The feminine Church is not something abstract, but a real subject with concrete individuals, beginning with Mary, who through Christ have been given a share in the divine Trinitarian life.

That is why Mary, when we reflect upon her presentation in the Gospels, is always seen as being embedded in the truths concerning Christ and the Trinity.6 Her whole life has a Trinitarian shape to it: she is obedient to the will of the Father, she bears the divine Son in her womb, and at the annunciation she is docile to the work of the Holy Spirit. Here we see Balthasar’s fidelity to the structure of Lumen Gentium: he first considers Mary in relation to Christ and the Trinity and then the Church.

We see then that this extension of Christ in history, through the Church, takes place pre-eminently through the concrete Christological constellation of the theological persons that Christ forms. At the apex of this constellation is the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Balthasar’s Christological Constellation Balthasar, in line with Lumen Gentium, adopts neither a Christocentric nor an Ecclesiocentric Mariology. For him, the more personal and unique Mary’s relationship with Christ is seen to be, the more she will represent the real content of the Church.

It is only as the mother of Christ that she can become mother of the Body and spouse of the Word. Because of her unique role in history (the Immaculate Conception) she is able to become the meeting point of Christianity. For Balthasar Mary is uniquely linked to Christ for the Church – so that she can bear fruit for her.

It is through Mary (and Peter and John) that the form of Christ is imprinted upon the Church and carried through history.

Balthasar Sought to Deepen the Teaching of the Council As we have said, Balthasar saw the Church as a constitutive part of the Incarnation. From the very beginning the Church forms part of the divine plan; and the fundamental nature given to the Church is Marian. For Balthasar, Mary’s relation to the Church is not merely analogical or archetypal but ontological; in Mary the Church is embodied even before being organised in Peter: “ The Church is primarily feminine because her primary, all-encompassing truth is her ontological gratitude, which both receives the gift and passes it on.”7 There is a Marian character which moulds the Church both in terms of her being as such, and also in terms of the life of her members. It is through the Marian fiat in the Chamber of Nazareth that the Church is founded and given its catholicity.

Mary’s yes is perfect and unconditional and thus universal.

Therefore Balthasar warned that we must be careful to avoid reducing the meaning of archetype to a platonic (as a mere copy) or a psychological understanding (a sharing of a similar experience).8

“ Human history comes from and is directed towards Christ” The Mariologist Antonio Sicari believes that, for Balthasar, Mary is not only a prototype or model of the Church but rather, as woman, virgin, bride and mother, she constitutes the Church’s real form.9 Because the Church begins essentially in the chamber of Nazareth,10 Mary is the original and generative image of the Church: she is the place of the Word’s indwelling, both bodily and ontologically.11 For Balthasar the Marian principle constitutes the soul of the Church. Without it, ecclesial life risks being reduced to mere bureaucracy and functionalism – something he was clearly concerned about.

While Balthasar asserts that the Church’s primary identity and personality is found in Mary, this is not the sole aspect of the Church’s nature. He goes on to say that Christ establishes other relations which are also efficacious and paradigmatic. Through these further human relations Christ leaves other principles which will endure in the Church: Petrine (Office and Sacraments), Pauline (missionary character and charisms), Johannine (unity, contemplative love and the evangelical counsels) and Jacobine (continuity of old and new covenant – Tradition, Canon Law).

The Holy Spirit is the bond of unity that unites these various principles in the Church in a bond of mutual love.12 It is when these principles are united that the face of the Church becomes a Marian transparency to Christ. For Balthasar, the risen Lord, who wills to be present in His Church until the end of time, cannot be isolated from this constellation of historical life.13 He gives a lasting character to these figures so that believers may continue to have access to the divine life.

Mary and Peter If Mary constitutes the subjective feminine holiness of the Church then Peter (Office and Sacraments) constitutes the objective/masculine holiness of the Church as it is entrusted to men (although those men who hold office still exist within the comprehensive femininity of the Church).

According to Balthasar there are four principal elements of this objective Petrine holiness. First, the Church as the Bride of Christ receives her being and life from the Incarnate God in the form of vivifying substance (the Eucharist) and the words of pardon (sacramental absolution). Second, the Tradition of the Church enables the Word of God to remain always accessible to the believer (and the world) and to remain linked to its origin. Third, the justification of the believer is set down in an ecclesial order of law and thus the believer can share in this gift of justice only within the Church. This demonstrates how the Jacobine principle must seek the approval of the Petrine. Fourth, the indelible character of baptism (grace), confirmation (mission) and orders (office) means that all Christians remain enabled and available for every new encounter with the Lord: in other words, they are deputed towards Christ.

But it is Mary’s faith that is the determining form, interiorly offered to all being and activity within the Church.14 The PetrineApostolic ministry of word and sacrament is never an end in itself; rather it is always subordinate to, and in the service of, the

Marian principle. The Petrine principle is given to us by Christ to enable the Church to become what she already is in Mary, the spotless bride. All that is given to Peter is given to him to make the Church (and us) more like Mary.

According to Balthasar everything in the Church is a movement between these two principles (Marian and Petrine): the Church as the bride of Christ is the extension and product of the living reality of Christ, which requires an essential structure (sacraments and ministry, which are founded by Christ Himself).

Second, it is the institution which makes possible the conditional nuptial realisation. Christ the Head continues to be present to His Body-Bride, making her fruitful and enabling our continued participation. Third, it is the institution that provides believers with an objective rule that they can live under. This rule fashions us into the Church’s perfect Marian core. Fourth, the institution is also a teaching instrument that forms the anima ecclesiastica within us; this itself is a sharing in Mary’s wisdom according to Balthasar.15 Finally, it is the Petrine dimension that guards the authenticity of the prophetic and charismatic elements of the Church, which if genuine must have a Marian mould.

Although Balthasar speaks of a mutual indwelling of love between the Petrine and Marian principles (perichoresis), he continuously views the Marian principle as more fundamental because all the various principles, charisms and missions find their embracing point in her. The particular role of the Petrine principle (through its objectified holiness and rule), in relation to this mutual love, is to prevent us from proposing our own human spirit as the Holy Spirit.

In fact, Balthasar gives a threefold priority to the Marian principle.

It is temporally prior to the apostolic experience. It is spiritually prior: Mary’s faith moves from interior to exterior, whereas the apostles’ faith is exterior and then interior. Balthasar asserted that Mary’s faith is both qualitative and formative.16 Finally, Mary is theologically prior. The Church without spot or wrinkle exists first and foremost within Mary’s perfect faith. It is because she is immaculate that the Church is infallible in her.

For Balthasar everything that exists in the Church does so in order that the Church herself (and we as believers) may become more like Mary, who perfectly experiences and participates in the life of Christ the divine “someone”.

Notes 1 A. Sicari, “Mary, Peter and John: Figures of the Church,” in Communio 19 (Summer 1992), trans. Michael Waldstein, 191.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid 192 also see The Christian State of Life, (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1983), 290.

4 Ibid, 193.

5 Blair, 166.

6 Ratzinger & Balthasar, 100.

7 Ibid.

Blair, 142-143, (cf: The Glory of the Lord Vol. I, 340).

9 Sicari, 197.

10 The Christian State of Life, 210.

11 Sicari, 198 (cf: Prayer, 27).

12 Spouse, 191, 13 The Office of Peter, 162.

14 The Office of Peter, 171.

15 Theo-Drama IV, 357-358.

16 The Office of Peter, 206.

8

Balthasar and the Rediscovery of the Marian Profile of the Church I Faith 19

Notes From Across the Atlantic

by David Mills, executive editor of First Things

The Death of Catholic Liberalism?

Responding to an article on the Catholic Church in Europe in The Economist, the Acton Institute’s Samuel Gregg argues that we see in Europe the collapse of Catholic liberalism or progressivism, the kind of Catholicism that “(a) demands nothing from its adherents in terms of belief beyond an emphasis on tolerance, diversity, and endless dialogue-for-thesake-of-dialogue; (b) dilutes dogma and doctrine to the point of meaninglessness; (c) becomes yet another means of self-affirmation in a culture full of self-affirmation; (d) embraces post1960s sexual morality; (e) essentially anathematises anyone who doesn’t more-or-less adhere to secular left-liberal political, social, and economic positions.”

We think he’s put this a little strongly, and is describing the hard dissenting but not the mainstream liberal, but if you dial down the descriptions about 25 to 40 per cent you get a good description of broad generic progressivism, Protestant as well as Catholic. And, as he says: “No one needs to be a Christian to hold these views.” Most people who hold them “eventually marginalise their Christianity to the point of irrelevance to their daily lives or simply drift away altogether.” And they’re not likely to raise children who believe even that much.

Theirs is a religion (this is me, not Gregg) for those who can’t let go. As I’ve put it to “progressive” friends: if you weren’t used to this religion from growing up with it, would you get out of bed on Sunday morning for it? Few people would.

You might find a small community of like-minded people, a haven in a heartless world, and you might find a way of ordering your life, at least by setting aside Sunday mornings every week, and you might also find worship that moves you and sermons that help you, even if the 20 Faith I Notes From Across the Atlantic

God you worship is ghostly and the sermons self-helpish. It’s not enough to get me up on Sundays, but it’s something.

Paddypower and the New Pope

From the full version, however, in exchange for your Sunday mornings you get “Your sins are forgiven,” not some version of “Be all you can be.”

The odds of Richard Dawkins becoming the next pope, according to the Irish betting site Paddypower.com, which apparently has some knowledge of the book of the Apocalypse (aka Revelation), were 666 to 1.

Sinners Welcome

Scientists Losing a Sense of Self

“Sinners welcome,” said the banner in front of a Catholic church. Mary Karr – “completely unbaptised, completely without faith”, an “undiluted agnostic”, an alcoholic and someone who wants “to eat all of the chocolate and snort all of the cocaine and kiss all the boys”, the child of a father who drank himself to death and a mother who married seven times – started going.

Our “intuitive sense of self”, says a New Scientist magazine special issue, “is an effortless and fundamental human experience. But it is nothing more than an elaborate illusion.” So begins a 10-page feature explaining, or claiming to explain, that “our deeply felt truths are in fact smoke and mirrors of the highest order”.

You may think you’re you, but you’re not.

“I thought I had a better shot at becoming a pole dancer at 40 than of making it in the Catholic Church,” she says. “I think what struck me really wasn’t the grandeur of the Mass. It was the simple faith of the people. For me this whole journey was a journey into awe. I would just get these moments of quiet where there wasn’t anything. My head would just shut up, and I knew that was a good thing. And also the carnality of the church: There was a body on the cross.”

“I’m somebody who really does feel like I was snatched out of the fire,” she says.

The story of the snatching appears in her book Lit.

Benedict’s Resignation A television reporter announced, solemnfaced, that with Benedict’s resignation, “Catholics don’t yet know who they’ll be praying to this Easter”. To which a Catholic friend replied: “Silly reporter, we will pray to whom we always pray, this Easter and every Easter. To statues. Of Mary.” He was, we hasten to say, being sarcastic.

We’ll leave the formal refutation to the philosophers, but would note that all the evidence the magazine gives only proves that our perception of ourselves and our world is imperfect – that we see through a glass darkly. That the self is an illusion does not actually follow.

In one study, for example, people lying on their backs while a machine stroked their backs watched a video of someone else’s back being stroked, and some felt that they were floating facedown above their own body watching it being stroked.

This effect “provides more evidence that the brain’s ability to integrate various sensory stimuli plays a key role in locating the self in the body” and of the way it “puts together our autobiographical self”.

Which means that the brain figures out you have a body, even though sometimes under specialised circumstances it can be fooled into thinking you’ve gotten separated from your body for a few minutes. We are not worried. You are you, and I am I, and someone’s the walrus, goo goo g’joob (or coo coo ca chu, depending on the translation).

Cutting Edge Science and Religion News

By Dr Gregory Farrelly

DNA This year marks the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick (with help from the X-ray crystallography of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins). This was a real breakthrough in biochemistry and genetics, leading eventually to the mapping of the human genome.

There are, however, new ethical considerations, perhaps first brought to prominence in the popular mind by the cloning of Dolly the sheep. Now, the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) claims broad public support in the UK for allowing a new type of IVF treatment that could prevent mitochondrial diseases, affecting around 6,000 adults in the UK. Defective mitochondrial genes can lead to a range of serious disorders including heart malfunction, kidney and liver disease, stroke, dementia, and blindness, as well as premature death. The procedure would need the approval of both houses of Parliament.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is the DNA located in biological structures called mitochondria. This mtDNA is not contained within the cell nucleus (which has its own DNA). Its purpose is to convert chemical energy into ATP (adenosine triphosphate), a key chemical in the working of cells.

The DNA sequence of mtDNA has been determined from a large number of organisms, allowing the deduction of the evolutionary relationships among species. In humans, mtDNA can be regarded as the smallest chromosome coding, so it was the first significant part of the human genome to be sequenced. In most species, including us. mtDNA is inherited solely from the mother. In fact, it was used in the recent identification of the skeleton of Richard III. There are two possible techniques of mtDNA “treatment”. In MST (maternal

spindle transfer), the genetic spindle (the genetic material in the cell nucleus) is removed from the healthy donor egg and replaced by a spindle taken from the egg of the woman at risk of passing on mitochondrial disease. The combined egg is then fertilised by the father’s sperm. This means that the embryo has three parents: the spindle mother, the egg donor mother, and the father.

In PNT (pronuclear transfer) two embryos are created by IVF, one the embryo of the woman at risk, and the other the healthy embryo of an egg donor. The embryos are then combined using a technique somewhat similar to cloning: at the one-cell stage, the donor embryo’s pronuclei (containing the nuclear genes) are removed, killing that embryo, but the healthy mitochondria from it are inserted to form a new embryo. Harvesting the pronuclei kills that embryo; thus PNT involves creating and destroying two human embryos.

We are very blessed in this country to have the research of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, which has stated that “such an attempt would be the most direct and overt form of germline genetic engineering”.1 The centre goes on to point out that parents who do not want to take the risk of passing on mitochondrial disorders can avoid this risk entirely by avoiding conception or by exploring adoption. The whole approach of the HFEA is worrying. As the Anscombe centre points out, neither MST nor PNT are treatments since they do not treat the (mitochondrial) disease but produce genetically modified children.

protein control, so 98 per cent of our DNA was written off as “junk” DNA. But researchers at Encode (Encode Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) claimed in 2012 to have identified more than 10,000 new genes. They suggested that up to 18 per cent of our DNA was responsible for regulating other genes and claimed that about 80 per cent of DNA had a biochemical function. So the assumption that our cells are controlled by only a few genes was wrong.

Scientists are all too human in their faults, and those who are convinced of the junk DNA hypothesis are no exception. As Professor Dan Graur, of Houston University, Texas, told The Observer: “This is not the work of scientists. This is the work of a group of badly trained technicians.”2 The Faith vision would certainly see a purpose and “direction” in DNA as something that reflects the unity-law of control and direction, part of God’s loving master-plan for the universe and specifically for the human race.

The triumphalist tone of those atheist scientists who want to denigrate any special purposiveness for humans in the universe does them no favours and rather demeans them, in my opinion.

The perversity of a country which makes abortion readily available while promoting ethically dubious fertility treatments never fails to amaze me.

Junk DNA When the human genome was sequenced in 2000, only 2 per cent of the genes appeared to be linked to

Notes 1 ‘http://www.bioethics.org.uk/images/user/ MitochondrialReplacementBriefing.pdf 2 http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/feb/24/ scientists-attacked-over-junk-dna-claim

Cutting Edge I Faith 21

Comment on the Comments

by William Oddie

Pope Francis and the Media “Reacting with unusual swiftness,” The New York Times reported, two days day after the present Holy Father’s election, “the Vatican on Friday rejected any suggestion that Pope Francis … was implicated in his country’s so-called Dirty War during the 1970s.”

“On a day”, the paper continued, “when Francis delivered a warm address to his cardinals and continued to project [my italics] humility” (for all the world as though the new Pope were performing some kind of PR operation) “the Vatican seemed intent on quickly putting to rest questions about the Pope’s past, dismissing them as opportunistic defamations from anticlerical leftists. The swift response contrasted with past public relations challenges during the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI, when the Vatican often allowed criticisms to linger without rebuttal.”

“There has never been a credible accusation against him,” said the Rev Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, adding that such charges “must be rejected decisively”. On the contrary, he said, “there have been many declarations of how much he did for many people to protect them from the military dictatorship.”

All undeniably true: but he did continue to talk to the dictator, and there is an embarrassing photo of the two men smiling together: but all that means is that he continued to be a pastor to powerful sinners as well as to the virtuous poor.

But this, clearly, is going to be a most profitable line of attack, just as Pope Benedict’s alleged failure to confront paedophile scandals continued to be the main line of attack during his pontificate.

We’ve been here before, of course, from the “Hitler’s Pope” allegations through Saint Josemaria Escriva’s alleged support for the Franco regime.

What is never speculated about is what might have been said behind closed doors: you never, for instance, hear the 22 Faith I Comment on the Comments

story of Saint Josemaria entering Franco’s office and announcing that he has come to talk to the Generalissimo about he will say to God on the day of judgment. There are perfectly good and valid answers to accusations of complicity in the case of the then Cardinal Bergoglio, and before that of Father Bergoglio during his time as Jesuit provincial. The trouble is that they cannot, in the nature of things, be proved.

And the attacks are only to be expected: he’s not vulnerable over paedophilia, so the media needed some other issue. In the words of the admirable Laura Ingraham, radio talk show host and Fox News contributor (herself a convert): “I would have been stunned if the secular progressives had come out just lauding this man for his career of service and his humility and his charity, [but] that just wasn’t gonna happen, right? It’s just not gonna happen. He’s not here to be loved by the secular progressives.”

I ought to have expected all this, but didn’t. Indeed, as the Cardinals were preparing to be locked in, I somewhat naively wrote an article headlined “Now the conclave is about to begin, we can look forward with relief, not only to having a pope again, but to the secular media’s sudden loss of interest.” Father Lombardi had written on the Vatican Radio website that the conclave was “an event that can be really understood, and lived serenely and peacefully, only from the perspective of faith”. But serenely and peacefully, was not, I noted at the time, “how the secular media want to understand it. They are interested only in superficiality and, if at all possible, prurience.”

“Wary cardinals seek holy man to oust ‘dirty dozen’ ” was the headline over a ludicrous piece in The Sunday Times by someone called John Follain. The “dirty dozen” turned out to be a blacklist of cardinals drawn up by an American victims group which claims they failed to take a stand in child abuse scandals. The “wary cardinals”, however, had almost

certainly not heard of this blacklist. It included Cardinals Ouellet, Scola and Sandri. According to a “senior Vatican official”, many cardinals had misgivings about Cardinal Ouellet. “All the cardinals know him, but the trouble with Ouellet is that his brother was convicted of sexual assault on an underage girl. How can you ignore that?”

A barrage of such stuff, pouncing on any scandal that could be dug up and chipping away at the pontificate of Pope Benedict, not to mention the usual stuff about the need to elect a pope who would change the “policy” of the Church over such matters as abortion, gay marriage and women priests, had been unleashed almost immediately, once Benedict had been congratulated for bringing the papacy into the 21st century by resigning.

The interregnum was a difficult time for most of us. “The challenge”, wrote Father Alexander Lucie-Smith in his Catholic Herald blog shortly after the Holy Father had announced his resignation, “will be in having to watch the airwaves fill with a whole load of people who are very marginal to Church life, and yet who will be invited to pontificate on all matters papal and religious, giving it their own particular slant, which they will advance as a mainstream view.” Hans Küng of course sprang to his mind, and Küng duly pontificated.

I thought of another academic, just as hostile to traditional Catholicism (indeed, unlike Küng, to the Catholic Church itself), who I thought would probably be all over the media spouting stuff supposedly mainstream: Diarmaid MacCulloch, professor of the history of the Church at Oxford University, and a fellow of my own college (if I had still been a fellow of St Cross at the time, I would have voted against his election), who is himself an unbeliever.

Professor MacCulloch was, indeed, soon to be observed putting himself about in

“ There is no evidence that Cardinal Bergoglio was in collusion with the regime” the liberal media; and in an article in The Times he began an unusually spiteful piece by laboriously comparing the Church, in the wake of Pope Benedict’s abdication, to the sandcastles he used to build as a boy at Clacton: “Quite suddenly there came a point where the waters’ onrush became irresistible.

In a few minutes, all my ingeniously constructed defences, my frantic scrambles from turret to reinforcing bulwark, were overwhelmed beyond repair and the builder could only stand helplessly on the eroding heap, contemplating the end of his efforts.”

You get the point. That’s what was happening to the Church as a result of the Pope’s retirement: it was falling apart.

He began by sneering at the Pope himself: “His very title, though perhaps a slight improvement on my immediate suggestion of Pope Father on the analogy of Queen Mother, is fraught with unfortunate implications. One emeritus professor, when asked to explain his title, explained that it was derived from the Latin ‘e’, meaning ‘out’ and ‘meritus’, meaning ‘deserves to be’.

“Now we watch Benedict’s conditions for retirement [my italics] unfold: continued use of his papal name, continued use of the white garments reserved exclusively for the Pope, the continued position of his faithful companion Georg Gänswein (a newly minted archbishop) as adviser not merely to Benedict but to the next incumbent Pope… A common syndrome among the reluctantly retired is wanting to have their cake and eat it.”

If ever there was an undeserved slur, it was surely that: MacCulloch’s sneering suggestion that Pope Benedict is “among the reluctantly retired” is simply nonsense.

As for the contemptible snigger that he wants “to have his cake and eat it”, the late Holy Father’s palpable humility – visible to everyone except McCulloch – makes it unnecessary to waste any time on thinking up some sort of retort.

The point about all these pontifications, I thought at the time, whether over the airwaves or in the print media, either by secular commentators or by the kind of

Catholics the liberal media like to give a platform to because their views on the Catholic tradition are so similar to their own (it seemed by the beginning of the conclave that it had all been going on for ever) was – or so I reflected then in my simple way – that this wonderful free-forall was the only chance for many of them to be heard at all on this subject.

As soon as the excitement following the election of a new pope had died down, comment editors would abruptly decide that they were all poped out, and move on: and we would all return to the secular world’s usual condition of indifference to the Church. “Then at least,” I wrote at the time, “left to ourselves, we will be able, under the guidance of a new Holy Father (who will, I hope and pray, see it as his aim to complete the work of the pontificate which has just come to such an unexpected end), and with God’s help, return in the light of a new Eastertide to the business of building up the Church once more, free of the attentions of the roving media protagonists who so rarely care a jot about what, for a week or so, is currently attracting their fitful attention.”

How wrong can you be? “Argentina ‘Dirty War’ accusations haunt Pope Francis” announced the BBC website (with barely disguised satisfaction) two days after his election as Pope. “I see a lot of joy and celebration for Pope Francis, but I’m living his election with a lot of pain”: thus, the BBC [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ world-europe-2179479] reported the words of Graciela Yorio, the sister of Orlando Yorio – a priest who was kidnapped in May 1976 and tortured for five months during Argentina’s last military government. Ms Yorio accuses Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as he was then, of effectively delivering her brother and a fellow priest, Francisco Jalics, into the hands of the military authorities by declining to endorse publicly their social work in the slums of Buenos Aires, which infuriated the junta at the time.

“Their kidnapping took place”, continued the BBC report, “during a period of massive state repression of left-wing activists, union leaders and social activists which became known as the

‘Dirty War’. Orlando Yorio has since died.

But Fr Jalics said in a statement on Friday that he was “reconciled with the events and, for my part, consider them finished”.

The BBC concedes that “there is no evidence [my italics] that he was in collusion with the regime”, but it adds that “the actions of the Roman Catholic Church during the Dirty War are still being called into question”, whatever that means. Whether online or on air, the BBC makes a great display of impartiality; but it’s how the story is told that counts. Thus, the “pain” of Graciela Orio is emphasised near the top of the BBC piece.

Only near the end (when most readers’ attention has flagged or switched off entirely) are we told of the views of the Argentine Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel. A human rights activist at the time, he was arrested by the military in 1977 and suffered 14 months of clandestine detention during which he was tortured severely. He told the BBC World Service Spanish language service: “There were some bishops who were in collusion with the military, but Bergoglio is not one of them.”

Mr Perez Esquivel strongly supports Pope Francis. “He is being accused of not doing enough to get the two priests out of prison, but I know personally that there were many bishops who asked the military junta for the release of certain prisoners and were also refused. There is no link between [the Pope] and the dictatorship.” But the BBC described him as “a religious person himself”: in other words, he would say that, wouldn’t he?

It will be interesting to follow this story in the months ahead. The secular media now has a new bone between its teeth and is unlikely to let go before it has extracted the maximum journalistic satisfaction from it and inflicted the maximum damage with it. “Cardinal Bergoglio”, concedes the BBC, “was never investigated as there has been no strong evidence that links him in any way [my italics] to one of the darkest chapters of Argentine history”. But does anyone really believe they will leave it at that?

Comment on the Comments I Faith 23

Letters to the Editor

The Editor, St Mary’s and St David’s, 15 Buccleuch Street, Hawick TD9 0HH, editor@faith.org.uk

Mgr Burke on Justice Dear Fr Editor, I found Mgr Burke’s article on justice to be a very relevant and thought-provoking topic of debate and discussion for our society at the moment.

Justice is one of the four words inscribed upon the mace of the Scottish Government. This word is considered sacred and it will often be used in frenzied debates and discussions heard at Holyrood. Scottish schools have re-evaluated their missions and aims to include the word justice across the country. And yet, as Mgr Burke succinctly pointed out justice, is a word which is misunderstood or misapplied in our society, certainly from a Catholic context.

Justice has been equated with rights – the rights of the individual over those of the good of society.

It is time our society had a real debate about this word justice. It is time our society stopped using it as a catchphrase to appease the liberal elite.

It is time we engaged in dialogue and considered the true meaning of justice for all, including the unborn, the unwanted, the marginalised and those close to death.

Yours faithfully, Derek T Lang Glasgow Scotland

New subscribers Dear Fr Editor, I read the most recent issue of Faith magazine and am very happy to 24 Faith I Letters to the Editor

become a new subscriber. I found in it a good mix of catechetical, factual and informative articles which together provide a very enlightening and affirming perspective of our faith.

James Parker’s article was immensely instructive, challenging the mindset of many who wrongly stereotype those who experience same-sex attraction – an encouraging recognition of their very rightful place among the faithful.

Cormac Burke’s article offers a valuable revision lesson on married life and the place of justice within that relationship.

We all need to reflect more on the sacraments – the commitment they demand of us as well as the graces they dispense.

I was greatly moved by your editorial.

You rightly but sympathetically mention the reality of inadequate catechesis.

Today many mothers and fathers struggle to pass on to their children a faith they do not understand themselves.

Alas, we now have a few generations of Catholics, parents and grandparents themselves, who have somehow missed out on or been short-changed by the catechesis they received in their homes, schools or parishes.

With empathy for the poorly catechised, your editorial speaks about the importance of communicating the beauty of Christ and says that to do anything less is a failure of our duty to Christ. This truth undoubtedly resonates loudly among those of us who are involved in catechising youngsters.

The Scottish religious education syllabus, This Is Our Faith, describes the communication of the Faith in the classroom as “an event of grace, realised in the encounter of the Word of God with the experience of the person.”

Thus the teacher (or, at home, the parent) must grasp the importance of the treasure they have been entrusted to pass on. Not only must they love what they are teaching; they must show that they love it. Young people are drawn closer to accepting God’s word when they see others living it and teaching it with love.

In teaching, we commonly say that there is an area of the curriculum that is “caught not taught.” We talk also of “the hidden curriculum” – the values and attitudes which are implicitly conveyed by teachers without being openly taught.

In Catholic teaching and catechesis, passing on a love of one’s Faith does not happen through rigid lesson planning and learning objectives; what is necessary is so much more subtle that it appears to be, and it often is hidden.

In the RE teacher or catechist there must be a keenness of spirit. The tone and mood in which lessons are delivered must be convincing, and the intention behind every lesson must be genuinely good. Moreover, in our Catholic schools, every Catholic teacher, even though their teaching qualification may be in maths, science, geography or PE, must see themselves as an RE teacher too. By word, by deed and by example, all of us share this duty – which is crucial if our youngsters are to “catch the Faith”.

Yours faithfully, Christine Clarke Livingston Scotland

Long-standing subscribers Dear Fr Editor, I was delighted to find in the March/ April 2013 edition of Faith magazine James Parker’s article “Chastity and Same-Sex Attraction”, which highlights the support available for those who endure same-sex attraction. As he says: “Never before has the need been so great for the people of God to provide spiritual and truly fraternal support for persons who experience differing degrees of same-sex attraction or gender uncertainty.” Quite.

Through EnCourage, the Church is putting her money where her mouth is and I rejoice in that. I was reminded of the late Cardinal Winning’s pledge on Mothering Sunday, 1997: “If you need financial assistance, or help with equipment for your baby, and feel

“ Not only must Catholic teachers and parents love what they are teaching; they must show that they love it” financial pressures will force you to have an abortion, we will help you.”

This pledge – another example of the Church putting her money where her mouth is – was of course the founding of what was to become the Cardinal Winning Pro-Life Initiative, which supports women who are struggling in any way with their pregnancies.

As laity we need support in every walk of life, including that seemingly ordinary life that is the domestic church. I agree with you that our society does seem to recognise “deep down… that family life is good, beautiful and true” and it is certainly my experience that “there is something special and uncompromising about the Catholic vision of the family”.

to receive from its hands sound catechesis, formation and support.

The Faith magazine continues to provide me with a bimonthly boost to living my faith in this little corner of Somerset. I am grateful to you and your team for providing that much-needed support. Long may it continue!

Yours faithfully, Jane Critten Pensford Somerset

However, in order to live that vision, day in and day out, year in and year out, we need support. If it is hard to live according to the teachings of the Church in our society, it is harder still to raise children to have the confidence to live their faith in the future.

Dear Fr Editor, Some months ago I wrote to Ireland’s papal nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown, and asked if he would visit Hamilton Park Care Facility. He accepted the invitation and made the pastoral visit on the day I write, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. This facility has a capacity of 126 residents, all suffering from differing degrees of acquired brain injury.

I have known the Faith movement for many years and have been privileged

The Archbishop spoke about Our Lady of Lourdes and St Bernadette. He then

conducted Eucharistic Adoration and led the Rosary with the residents of Hamilton Park, in a most meditative and prayerful manner. Afterwards I had the pleasure of going to lunch with him and I presented him with a copy of Catholicism: A New Synthesis by Fr Edward Holloway. I did this because the Archbishop had done his doctoral studies in sacramental theology, and some time ago Fr David Barrett had written some articles on this subject.

I also mentioned that Fr Hugh MacKenzie, who then edited Faith magazine, had begun doctoral studies in the philosophy of science, with the blessing of the Archbishop of Westminster. I had a copy of the current magazine to offer him, but learned that he already receives it. Archbishop Charles is a great blessing to the Church in Ireland and it is good that he knows about the Faith movement.

Yours faithfully, David Walshe Lay pastoral assistant Hamilton Park Care Facility Balbriggan, Co Dublin

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Letters to the Editor I Faith 25

Book Reviews

Faith Matters – Cardinal Newman: A Man for our Time Edited by Fr Dominic Robinson SJ and Rosa Postance. St Paul’s, 94pp, £6.95 The Beatification of John Henry Newman by Pope Benedict XVI understandably generated a new wave of interest in Newman and his writings and a succession of publications exploring them. This present volume is a short collection of papers delivered by four rather different authors, who naturally differ somewhat in their approach to Newman and in the style of their reflections.

The first essay is by Dr Judith Champ, who sets the theme by offering an outline of the Cardinal’s life and thought.

It is very accessible and would be useful to anyone exploring Newman and his writings as a beginner. The next two papers will probably be enjoyed more by those who already have some experience of Newman and perhaps some knowledge of his theology.

The Rev Dr James Pereiro, a priest of Opus Dei, looks at a topic particularly dear to Pope Benedict: reason and faith.

Indeed Fr Pereiro draws out several connections between the thought of the two men. While limited by its brevity, this essay does indicate the value of Newman’s original contributions in this area, and Fr Pereiro’s conclusion that “a correct understanding of reason is the foundation upon which to base a proper concept of faith” is, one suspects, a sentiment likely to appeal to readers of Faith magazine.

This is followed by a paper given by the Rev Dr John McDade SJ, whose rather 26 Faith I Book Reviews

vast topic is “Newman on Christ and the Church”. Here we touch on themes in the Cardinal’s writings which both in Newman’s own day and since have proved controversial – the relationship between theologians and the Magisterium, for example. Again, Fr McDade is limited by the length of his paper from entering deeply into these questions, but he does offer some thought-provoking reflections.

The last paper, by Fr Daniel Seward of the Oxford Oratory, is entitled “Newman and Friendship”. Fr Seward demonstrates how Newman’s understanding of friendship unfolded alongside his own personal development, as he evolved from the young Calvinist suspicious of all “natural affection” to the Catholic priest steeped in the spirit of St Philip Neri, “who in 16th-century Rome drew the young towards the love of God by the winning force of his own personality”.

There’s an Oratorian maxim that runs “Vita communis mortificatio maxima” – the common life is the greatest mortification – and there can be no doubt that Newman was not always the easiest man to live with. Yet as Fr Seward shows, he remained devoted to the small Oratorian community he had founded, and he accepted his red hat only on condition of remaining and dying among them in Birmingham.

In short, this small volume contains a wide range of material and is very readable. It would find a suitable place in the libraries both of experienced Newman devotees and of those still discovering the great man’s work.

Fr Richard Whinder

The Five Wounds: Sanctuary for the Sick, Balm for the Wounded Spirit

By Ann Farmer. Gracewing, 114pp, £6.99 This inspirational book comes out of Ann Farmer’s experience of chronic health problems. Her reflections, written

from the perspective of the sufferer, demonstrate that the sick and disabled are the “most eloquent defenders of the right to life of the vulnerable”. In response to a world that thinks sufferers require simply a positive attitude to help them in their dire situation, Farmer seeks to offer fresh insights into the mystery of suffering. She aims to help sufferers and their carers by focusing on the spiritual dimension of suffering and the “healing balm” offered by Jesus and the Church.

Farmer begins each chapter with a contemporary take on suffering and the feelings that often accompany illness, such as those of betrayal, loss of identity, humiliation and abandonment.

Then she contemplates the healing ministry of Christ, who also experienced and dealt with such feelings in his encounters with others. Moving on from the gospel she explores what she describes as the “healing balm from the Church”, where the sacraments, prayer and the witness of the saints have a special place.

By moving in this way from normal human experience to the ministry of Jesus and then to his Church, Farmer implicitly endorses an ecclesiology that rightly sees the Church as continuing the healing mission of Christ in a context that is not divorced from real lived experience. This is beautifully conveyed by the front cover picture from Hans Memling’s The Man of Sorrows in the Arms of the Virgin.

In response to those who despair or who think that suffering is useless and so see suicide and euthanasia as quick ways out, Farmer recognises that the temptations to lose faith, to look inwards in anger and resentment, are all too real. At times the book treads a fine line between presenting suffering as “a positive thing” to offering up sufferings as “embraced for the sake of the kingdom”. This is perhaps mitigated as she links the experience of illness to scenes from Christ’s ministry in order to draw out the strength that can come from a prayerful and humble attitude where even today the sick can receive

“ He does not shirk from the horrid facts of a massacre shortly before the First Crusade”

Christ’s healing touch and regain a true sense of self. She reminds her readers of the significance of the sacraments as an extension of that healing mission.

In her introduction Farmer points out that contemplating the Five Wounds of Christ has long held a place in traditional Catholic piety despite attempts by the Reformers to suppress the practice. She explains that the Wounds of Christ are not only contemplative access points to Christ for our peace and rest, but signs to share with the world to encourage others. In this endeavour the Communion of Saints becomes “an abundant harvest of helpers for the helpless”.

Pia Matthews

Out of the Depths

By Keith Jacobsen. Vanguard, 356pp, £9.99 After Chesterton’s Fr Brown (who has recently once more been on our screens), Vincent Cronin gave us Fr Chisholm, and Bruce Marshall Fr Malachy – all painted with gentle humour and a certain hyperbole (which possibly explains why Scottish seminarists of the Sixties tended to cringe at All Glorious Within). Graham Greene created trademark characters full of human weakness, but their dignity nevertheless shines through their failings. Keith Jacobsen, however, makes his hero a failure in a Church full of hypocrites.

Unless we have lived on another planet, we have all been brought face to face with a seemingly unending succession of priestly scandals, which are grist to the media and a cause of great suffering to those who serve the Church. But surely there must be some relief from the gloom? What about the triumph of holiness that is proud to say: “Look not upon our sins, but on the faith of your Church”?

It would now seem that those who were “by origin once a Catholic” have a need

to turn on the Church in voice and in print, as somehow justifying why they are no longer part of her company. But surely we belong to that communion where one disciple betrayed Jesus, one denied him openly and nine abandoned him when he was arrested.

We admit that we are sinners in need of God’s mercy every time we come to Mass. St Philip Neri used to say: “Lord Jesus, I openly declare that I am unable to do anything but evil without your help.” We all need God’s constant grace to resist temptation and to rise again after we have fallen. There have been priests who have abused children, committed adultery, indulged in financial chicanery but who, despite it all, have not revealed the secrets of the confessional. Yet this is at the heart of Keith Jacobsen’s novel. I am not revealing the plot…

Apart from anything else, the main characters are caricatures: either closeted saints or alcoholic blarneytalking Irishmen, plus the inevitable Machiavellian diocesan chancellor and the heart-of-gold housekeeper. Apart from the nice conceit of calling the cat Fido, there is precious little humour present. There would seem to be a connection between the grimness of the story and the rather bleak British landscape in which it is set – where the Catholic population and vocations have declined so dramatically. In large parts of America, by contrast, the Church is still vibrant in the sunlit uplands, despite the scandals.

The author overplays his hand in his effort to portray the Church as somewhat of an empty husk, worthy of contempt. It isn’t. Thank God. Fr James Tolhurst

Why Catholics are Right

By Michael Coren, Gracewing Books, 226 pages, £12.99 A provocative title, and deliberately so, as the author explains with some vigour.

I think he could usefully have chosen something a little less so, but the book is excellent – full of useful material, well documented, and well expressed.

It’s all here: what Catholics really believe about Mary, about the role of the Pope, about salvation, about the Eucharist.

The whole question of sex abuse is tackled, along with topics ranging from the wealth of the Church to the treatment of the incurably sick and the question of euthanasia. In each case Coren explains where the Church stands and examines current facts (and myths).

He is useful tackling issues of history.

He writes about the Crusades, about the Spanish Inquisition and about Galileo, with honesty and with attention to the historical facts, including the unsavoury ones. On the Crusades – “not the proudest moment in Christian history but nor were they the childish caricature of modern Western guilt and certainly not that of contemporary Muslim paranoia” – he goes into some detail to describe not only the background and the geopolitical state of things, but also the realities of human behaviour, both good and bad.

He does not shirk the horrid facts of a massacre shortly before the First Crusade: “…bands of peasants, mostly illiterate and drunk on the idea of a holy war, planned to march to the east to fight Muslims and long before they had left even their own state began to attack the Jews.” People behave abominably, but good people also exist: at Speyer, Mainz, Trier and elsewhere bishops were heroic in protecting Jews and confronting vicious mobs. Is the mob or the saintly bishop the voice of the Church? Coren gives the facts and equips us for a sane discussion.

There is also material for a muchneeded presentation on the truth about the Church and science. Nicholas Copernicus, a Catholic cleric, first proposed the theory that the earth revolves around the sun; Monsignor Georges Henri Lemaître (University of Louvain) first proposed what became Book Reviews I Faith 27

Book Reviews continued known as the Big Bang theory; Fr Roger Boscovich was the founder of modern atomic theory; Louis Pasteur and Alexander Fleming were both devout practising Catholics. Science is in debt to the Catholic Church.

Coren devotes a whole chapter to the Church’s message on human life, explaining that the Church’s defence of life, including that of babies in the womb and frail sick people in hospital, is central: “All rights are important but the most inalienable and the most fundamental is the right to life.” The Church’s vigorous stance on this subject is based on morality, logic, science and human rights. Her response “is also about love, the love that increasingly dare not speak its name, the love for the unborn”.

There is lots more – on contraception, on same-sex unions, on women, on the Second World War, and, going right back to basics, on the historical fact of Christ’s existence. There’s also some useful material on Dan Brown’s daft Da Vinci Code fantasies and on “Pope Joan”.

It’s a useful book for students who need accurate information for the argument/ debate/shouting match at the student bar, for families tackling big issues in passionate kitchen debates, and for quiet perusal before replying to the sneers of office colleagues – or even to the well-intentioned “But surely you can’t believe…?” of muddled friends.

I have deliberately highlighted some of the topics in which Coren has bluntly recognised uncomfortable realities. This is not a book to make you feel smug, but one that seeks to tell the truth and to affirm, with the confidence born of certitude, that the Church is right – and that Catholics are right in affirming her message, in living up to her teachings and in encouraging others to do the same. This is a book for our times. It’s well written and well researched, and it presents a good case extremely well.

Read it, share it, use it.

Joanna Bogle 28 Faith I Book Reviews

The New Evangelisation: Responding to the Challenge of Indifference

By Rino Fisichella. Gracewing, 152 pp, £9.99 It only needed a few hours after Pope Benedict announced his resignation for commentators to raise the customary questions about his legacy: what enduring contribution will he be seen to have made to the Church and the world? There is nothing amiss with such questions, of course. What is foolish is the expectation that they could be answered in any depth so soon.

One of the most significant speeches Benedict made – as Cardinal Ratzinger, in the Jubilee Year 2000 – was one he gave to catechists about the meaning of the phrase “the New Evangelisation”, and its central image applies very much to his own papacy.

When people begin to get the idea of the New Evangelisation, he says, a temptation awaits them: “the temptation of impatience, the temptation of immediately finding the great success, in finding large numbers. But this is not God’s way. For the Kingdom of God as well as for evangelisation, the instrument and vehicle of the Kingdom of God, the parable of the grain of mustard seed [Mk 4:31-32] is always valid.”

Archbishop Rino Fisichella is the president for the Council for Promoting the New Evangelisation, which Benedict XVI established in 2011, and was thus a key participant in the Synod on the same subject in October 2012. It is likely that we will only know after several years, if then, how significant were these two initiatives of the Holy Father.

Will they prove to be mustard seeds that produce a rich harvest, or attempts to institutionalise something that is always going to be at its most fruitful when it is spontaneous, charismatic and somewhat marginal?

Archbishop Fisichella is himself aware of this conundrum. In this book he writes about the danger of the New Evangelisation being an abstract or

empty formula, which by attempting to be all-inclusive, ends up lacking real vigour. It is a danger we have certainly seen fulfilled in our own country at episcopal level. His position allows him to see this and many other aspects of evangelisation, including some that are often overlooked, and enables him to speak authoritatively about them. It also puts a burden on him because he is expected to cover all the bases, theologically and politically.

One surprising omission is a survey of what Fr Raniero Cantalamessa has called the various waves of evangelisation in history, of which the new ecclesial movements are the most recent. There is little mention in the book of these movements and of the person-to-person evangelisation which they are so good at.

Yet this is a book that can be confidently recommended both to experienced practitioners and to those who just want to know what the New Evangelisation is all about. It’s not necessarily a book to be read straight through, as its style may be somewhat discursive for English readers, but it provides a rich source of material for deepening our understanding of this all-important topic.

Particularly thought-provoking is his chapter on “the Way of Beauty” – a vital aspect of evangelisation that has all too often been neglected.

Mgr Keith Barltrop

PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES EDWARD HOLLOWAY

Volume 1: A Critique of an Abstract Scholasticism and Principles Towards Replacement Volume 2: Rethinking the Existential

Volume 3: Noumenon and Phenomenon: Rethinking the Greeks in the Age of Science Price per volume: £5.00 +p&p

Available from: Sr Roseann Reddy, Faith-Keyway Trust Publications Office, 104 Albert Road, Glasgow G42 8DR

Perspectives in Theology Vol. One Christ the Sacrament of Creation Edward Holloway

The first volume of collected writings by Fr Edward Holloway seeks to present his contributions to Faith magazine to a wider readership. A champion of Catholic orthodoxy, Fr Holloway sought to bring about a new reconciliation between science and religion. In this way he anticipated and also participated in Pope John Paul II’s programme of intellectual renewal in the Church. In this volume you will find stimulating writing on the key themes of his synthetic perspective, including the existence of God; the development of Scripture; Christ as Son of Man; Mary Immaculate; the nature of the Church, and much more.

160 pages £8.95 ISBN 1-871217-50-4

Available from: Sr Roseann Reddy 104 Albert Road, Glasgow G42 8DR

ST PHILIP’S BOOKS Rare and secondhand Catholic books bought and sold. Distributor for Newman’s Letters and Diaries.

Proprietor: Christopher Zealley 82 St Aldgates, Oxford OX1 1RA Tel: 01865 202 182 • Fax: 01865 202 184 Quarterly catalogues free on request.

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Shop in central Oxford, near Catholic Chaplaincy.

Over 9,000 books on view, new and secondhand.

Visitors welcome Monday-Saturday 10am-5pm.

15 minutes walk from railway station or 5 minutes from Westgate car park. sales@stphilipsbooks.co.uk www.stphilipsbooks.co.uk

faith

From the Aims and Ideals of

Faith Movement Faith Movement offers a perspective upon the unity of the cosmos by which we can show clearly the transcendent existence of God and the essential distinction between matter and spirit. We offer a vision of God as the true Environment of men in whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), and of his unfolding purpose in the relationship of word and grace through the prophets which is brought to its true head in Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, Lord of Creation, centre of history and fulfilment of our humanity. Our redemption through the death and resurrection of the Lord, following the tragedy of original sin, is also thereby seen in its crucial and central focus. Our life in his Holy Spirit through the Church and the Sacraments and the necessity of an infallible Magisterium likewise flow naturally from this presentation of Christ and his work through the ages.

Our understanding of the role of Mary, the Virgin Mother through whom the Divine Word comes into his own things in the flesh (cf. John 1:10-14), is greatly deepened and enhanced through this perspective. So too the dignity of Man, made male and female as the sacrament of Christ and his Church (cf. Ephesians 5:32), is strikingly reaffirmed, and from this many of the Church’s moral and social teachings can be beautifully explained and underlined.

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