Benedict's "post-Constantinian" Strategy?
David Gibson's piece in the New York Time on Pope's Benedict's efforts to restore Catholic culture ended with these thought-provoking paragraphs:
"In the Christian ideal, God has no grandchildren; faith must be ever new. But then how does the church encourage Catholicism as a culture while keeping the faith fresh and alive? It is an age-old question, the search for a link between the collective sense of a people and the requirement of individual sanctification. Answers have ranged from Kierkegaard's attack on Christendom to H. Richard Niebuhr's seminal work, "Christ and Culture."
For his part, Benedict seems to embrace a kind of "post-Constantinian" strategy that attempts the tricky two-step of, as the pope said, "cultivating a Catholic identity which is based not so much on externals as on a way of thinking and acting grounded in the Gospel and enriched by the Church's living tradition." Benedict's approach is so novel -- as is the ever-changing world that the age-old church now inhabits -- that it's hard to know what to call it. Vatican expert John Allen has tried out labels like "evangelical Catholicism" or "affirmative orthodoxy." Yet neither seems to encompass Benedict's goal of making an Old World religion pulse with the vitality of a New World spirituality.
Comments?
posted by Sherry W @ 8:05 AM
13 Comments
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13 Comments:
Dave:
Gibson was quoting the Pope himself who said :
cultivating a Catholic identity which is based not so much on externals as on a way of thinking and acting grounded in the Gospel and enriched by the Church's living tradition."
Obviously, Benedict values the externals but he does still keep reiterating: they aren't the center of Catholic identity.
The center of Catholic identity is Christ. Can we build a Catholic culture that wells up first and foremost from that center?
Fr. Mike,
Yeah, sure, but that's not the point. There's always individual and communal, but Gibson was making a different point, about "post-Constantinian" strategy, which misses Pope Benedict's revitalization of the Catholic liturgy and devotions and the "externals" (not in the Pope's terms, but in Gibson's interpretation of it) that make up true worship. The "externals" as the Pope used it (in his address to the bishops) refers to a set of external behaviors. But that's a danger in every religion, no matter how minimal it is. And the opposite danger is individualism.
Also the Pope said: "To the extent that religion becomes a purely private affair, it loses its very soul." And the communitarian aspect of Catholicism is the hardest part to teach, since American religion is individualistic in general.
The American version of secularism: "allows for professing belief in God, and respects the public role of religion and the Churches, but at the same time it can subtly reduce religious belief to a lowest common denominator." I think that's the greatest danger because we tend to reduce everything to the LCD just to make things easier.
Dave
Tis my opinion he is cuing from St. Benedict who taught us to internalize our faith so that it may be an ever renewing wellspring for our external behaviors and lives.
By daily reading of Scripture, we become daily renewed in our efforts. By focusing upon the meaning of the Liturgy, we see God's purpose, not petty dealings. By daily prayer we restore ourselves in God's living waters and become more like Jesus, who came for us all.
Mayhap we can call it Rule of St. Benedict 3rd Millenium?
I think the connection with St Benedict and his rule is right on. Furthermore, the Church is the community of the baptized that is set apart by a distinctive mode of life that in itself testifies to the truth of the Gospel. In the post-Constantinian/post-Christian age the distinctiveness of our Christian life is becoming evermore at odds with the wider culture. Beginning with the encounter with the Lord Jesus and the interior life of the Christian, the Pope wishes to care as well for a number of external practices that have become dissonant with the faith we profess and so are in need of renewal and reform. This is to say that the practices of the Christian community are very important, in part, because they bear witness, often by their dissonance with the culture (i.e. care for the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, the unborn, consecrated life, Catholic education, and yes, the worship of God in the sacred liturgy), to the truth of the Gospel. This was the pattern of Benedictine monasticism and it is the reason why the Benedictines were able to convert Europe. Furthermore, we must note that Benedictine life is essentially a communal life, somewhat like the whole Christian and ecclesial life in miniature (we can thus learn a great deal from it) and it was the witness of particular communities of monks that converted so many.
I discovered this passage of Cardinal Gasquet the other day quoted in Dom Cuthbert Butler’s Benedictine Monachism:
“The monk is pre-eminently the apostle. But his apostolate is not exercised to its full extent as an individual. A single man, though he be a saint, is but one. He comes and he goes; he lives his little space and is gone. Even a Francis Xavier could not convert a nation or build up a Church in India or Japan. The Christian life is not merely the life of an individual, it is the life of a society, and as such it cannot be illustrated in its relation and practical workings by the example of any one person. To establish a Christian nation it is necessary to present for the imitation of the people who are to compose it, not the bare laws and regulations of the Church, but an actual pattern of a Christian life”
Thus, we see that Catholic identity is not an end unto itself, but a means of proclamation. Pope Benedict’s desire to strengthen that identity is born of his desire to renew the Church in her essential mission to evangelize.
Sherry,
Sigh. (as you would say).
Gibson (if he knows his history) was referring to state or political matters.
Liturgical matters and devotions aren't externals; otherwise, the Pope wouldn't be so focused on them. The liturgy is Catholic identity because it's there that you find and encounter Christ. That's the Catholic tradition.
I heard the Pope said what Gibson quoted. But Gibson is inferring what Benedict meant. But you can't also say that liturgy is external to Christ or Catholic identity. And the Pope seems to think that proper liturgy is foundational to a proper. authentic friendship with Christ.
And in his meeting with the bishops, Benedict also said that one problem with the American revolution was that its vision of religion was the "lowest common denominator." So the New World values Gibson talks about probably are not on the mark. "Vitality" is open to interpretation, like the dreadful Mass in Nationals Stadium.
Dave
The Pope points to Christ as Logos. I guess he trusts that becoming immersed in the Faith is a good way (perhaps the only way?) to ensure that Catholic identity is cultivated and preserved from generation to generation, because the extremes of abandoning all culture and tradition and of mistaking culture and tradition for a living faith in Christ are both unreasonable.
I've come to think of it as "being Catholic on purpose," or, with a nod to you folks, as "Intentional Catholicism".
Er Dave:
I don't know how the liturgy became the topic of conversation because I wasn't talking about that - REALLY!!!!!! - nor do I think the Holy Father was referring just to that at all.
And perhaps I need to point out, since you are relatively new to commenting here, that we don't discuss two subjects here 1) ecclesial gossip - who's about to become Bishop of Southern North Dakota or bumped up to the curia) and 2) liturgy - we don't pretend to any expertise in that area and have nothing useful to add to conversation. Really.
There are loads of other blogs devoted to the liturgy about and no shortages of places to comment about it. This isn't one of them.
So trust me on this - I didn't read the Pope's comment as referring to the liturgy. Nor was I making a veiled reference to the liturgy.
I was thinking of the whole complex "set of behaviors" as you put it - private and public, liturgical, communal, etc. that *can* substitute and sometimes do substitute for a living faith. That's what I'm talking about, what Fr. Mike is talking about, and what I think the Pope is talking about.
No one here is saying you choose the interior and trash the exterior signs. And NO ONE is proposing "get rid of the church, get rid of the sacraments". Preposterous exaggerations are not a response to an issue proposed by the Holy Father himself.
If you are going to comment, I must ask that you do not project onto others things they have never said (or thought or dreamed of in their wildest nightmares in this case). Our ground rules here include assuming good will and honesty on the part of other posters. Respond to what they actually say. Ask questions if you are unsure what they mean by what they said. Then respond to that.
This was the Holy Father's comment. It was he who kept emphasizing over and over yesterday the necessity of a deep interior life with Christ. Without that the external expressions of the faith begin to wither and crumble.
And he said it in response to question about the Scandal. Then we start to the sort of scandals we are now living through.
It was Benedict who raised the issue. The same man who grew up in Catholic Bavaria and is rightly very grateful for his cultural background. He doesn't seem to think there is a conflict between the two and that the question he asked is still pressing.
Please respond to the issue the Pope raised.
From the Tucson airport:
The tension the Holy Father addresses is nothing new, but the constant struggle of any communal-based worship of God. The ancient prophets of Israel and Judah often railed against worship and sacrifice that paid "lip service" to God, but was undermined and even negated by behaviors and attitudes that clearly contradicted God's law, like the oppression of widows, orphans and aliens.
The tension we have to recognize and live is the dynamic between the communal and the individual. My personal response to God's grace in living a Christian life is essential. God initiates, and we respond.
Part of our response is not only holy lives imbued with personal prayer and virtuous, generous living, but communal worship in the liturgy, which we believe was mandated by Jesus ("do this in memory of me.") The two are mutually dependent, and one without the other ends up significantly and eventually fatally compromised.
Sherry:
When we parse the term "Catholicism" in order to understand it, we sometimes resort to a type of reductionism which equates it to a culture, or a social order, or even on par with other denominations. We do this in America because of the effect of Protestantism's fragmented and reductionistic thinking; we tend to separate the Church and Christ so as to make distinctions and understand differences. We as Catholics do this when making distinctions between the "human" and the "Divine" in the Church. How else can we understand the clergy abuse and explain it to others who fail to make this distinction? Christ is NOT the minister of sin, as St. Paul says in Galatians.
On the other hand, the danger is to go too far and unwittingly maintain this separation between Church and Christ in our minds. This failure to see the "organic whole" causes us to be superficial and make allowances for our weakness and feeble commitment. We need to be continuously reminded that to be Catholic is to be Christ; our life as a Catholic is a PARTICIPATION with Christ in HIS life, passion, death and resurrection, both individually and corporately. Thus, the Eucharist and the Liturgy become central to our lives again. Did not our fourth Pope, St. Clement say that where Christ is, there is His Church?
Sherry,
Anything can be viewed as an external. Get rid of churches, get rid of the sacraments, worship God in your heart - everything else is external.
But remember that as far as "post-Constantinian" is concerned, PRotstant churches were state churches in this century, after the Catholic Church was not.
And remember that Pope Benedict remembers his upbringing as a Catholic in Bavaria gratefully and that is his idea of Catholic culture. And none of that is external.
Dave
He's sure brought in a lot of externals, like vestments and devotions and the old liturgy, then, if he doesn't want a Catholicism based on externals. I don't think he means a "post-Constantinian" Catholicism as Gibson is thinking of it. I think he referring to Catholic culture, not state sanction. And that existed in Catholic ghettoes, too. Remember, they helped pass on the faith together, as you're always saying, Sherry.
Dave.
I like it! Plain Catholic!
One little caveat to what I'm sure what just a slip of the keyboard:
"we" don't restore ourselves - through these spiritual disciplines, we place ourselves before and open ourselves to God so that He can restore us and make us more like Jesus.
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