Jubilee of the World of Education

The Jubilee of the world of education will take place in the days 27th October - 1st November, with the declaration of St John Henry Newman as a doctor of the Church to take place during the concluding Mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV. A wide range of events are organised for the days of this Jubilee, as can be seen by following the link above. Perhaps of particular note is an International Congress that marks the 60th anniversary of the Declaration on Christian Education Gravissimum Educationis.

The then Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education issued a document Catholic Schools in March 1977.  That document suggests a two fold integration as the intention of the work of a Catholic school, an integration of faith and culture and an integration of faith and life:

n.49 (cf n.38-39, 44). The specific mission of the school, then, is a critical systematic transmission of culture in the light of faith and the bringing forth of the power of Christian virtue by the integration of culture with faith and faith with living.

In his Apostolic Constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope St John Paul II described the identity of the Catholic university, as both university and as Catholic:

12. Every Catholic University, as a university, is an academic community which, in a rigorous and critical fashion, assists in the protection and advancement of human dignity and of a cultural heritage through research, teaching and various services offered to the local, national and international communities. It possesses that institutional autonomy necessary to perform its functions effectively and guarantees its members academic freedom, so long as the rights of the individual person and of the community are preserved within the confines of the truth and the common good.

13. Since the objective of a Catholic University is to assure in an institutional manner a Christian presence in the university world confronting the great problems of society and culture, every Catholic University, as Catholic, must have the following essential characteristics:

"1. a Christian inspiration not only of individuals but of the university community as such;

2. a continuing reflection in the light of the Catholic faith upon the growing treasury of human knowledge, to which it seeks to contribute by its own research;

3. fidelity to the Christian message as it comes to us through the Church;

4. an institutional commitment to the service of the people of God and of the human family in their pilgrimage to the transcendent goal which gives meaning to life".

Together, schools and universities are perhaps the main, though not exclusive, ways in which the Church is present in the world of education.

St John Henry Newman, to be declared a Doctor of the Church on the closing day of this Jubilee, perhaps summarised all of this for his own times in a sermon entitled "Intellect, the Instrument of Religious Training":

Here, then, I conceive, is the object of the Holy See and the Catholic Church in setting up universities; it is to re-unite things which were in the beginning joined together by God, and have been put asunder by man. ... I wish the intellect to range with the utmost freedom, and religion to enjoy an equal freedom; but what I am stipulating for is that they should be found in one and the same place, and exemplified in the same persons. ... It will not satisfy me if religion is here, and science there, and young men converse with science all day, and lodge with religion in the evening.  ...I want the same roof to contain both the intellectual and moral discipline. 

New Movements and New Media: Discuss

[This post is a response to Fr Tim's New movements John Paul II, new media Benedict XVI: discuss.]

Pope John Paul II's encouragement of the new movements in the Catholic Church has its highlight the meeting between those movements and the Pope on the eve of Pentecost in 1998. And the highlight of the highlight was John Paul II's assertion of the "co-essentiality" of the institutional and charismatic elements in the constitution of the Church, as foreshadowed in the teaching of Lumen Gentium n.12:

The institutional and charismatic aspects are co-essential as it were to the Church's constitution. They contribute, although differently, to the life, renewal and sanctification of God's People. It is from this providential rediscovery of the Church's charismatic dimension that, before and after the Council, a remarkable pattern of growth has been established for ecclesial movements and new communities.

A charism is a specifically given gift of the Holy Spirit arousing in the person or persons receiving it a call to fulfil a particular ecclesial mission. Each of the major ecclesial movements has its own unique charism, but it is interesting to identify common themes.

 

1. As Fr Tim pointed out, a Catholic with an intelligent and well formed commitment to the practice of their faith will, almost without exception, have received a formation from one or other of the new movements. Parish life has not been providing that formation in recent times (personally I am not sure how far it was providing such formation in more distant times either). At first sight this suggests a point of tension between ordinary parish/diocesan life and the life of the movements. However, it is worth recognising that the engagement of a person with the life of a movement should be seen as a specific way of experiencing baptismal consecration in commitment to Christian life. Seen in that way, there should be a continuity between parish life and the life of a movement. [The Marian consecration typical of the Legion of Mary at its Acies ceremony and of the last day of the "Fundamental Retreat" of the Foyers of Charity is explicitly articulated as a specification of baptismal consecration; "baptism in the Spirit", typical of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, is also understood in this way.]

 

2. The 1983 Code of Canon Law, in c.321 ff, allows a status as "private association of Christ's faithful". In summary, this status allows a movement, subject to the approval of its constitutions by appropriate ecclesial authority (the Bishop or the Holy See, the latter in the case of universal associations), to govern itself rather than being under the governance of an ecclesiastical assistant. This is a canonical expression of the idea of "co-essentiality"; I do not know whether or not there was an equivalent status under the provisions of the 1917 Code, though I suspect not.  [However, this self-governance does not exempt an association from visitation by those in ecclesiastical authority, which should provide safeguard against abuse of power in those associations.]

 

3. If we look at the specific charisms of some of the movements, a number of common themes appear that are worthy of further examination. These common themes run through the more unique aspects of the charisms proper to each movement.  They are: (1) a strong Marian character which is not a "devotion added on" but a natural part of the ecclesial life - the Legion of Mary, Focolare (official title "The Work of Mary") are not the only examples; (2) a natural ecclesial sense, expressed in a faithfulness to the Holy See and the official teaching of the Church that lacks any dogmatic or ultramontane spirit; (3) an interaction of a male and female figure in the founding charism - Pere Finet and Marthe Robin in the case of the Foyers of Charity, or indeed, the relation of the inspiration of Agnes Holloway to the mission of Fr Edward Holloway described in the introduction to the booklet "God's Master Key"; (4) an affirmation of the value of the vows of the evangelical counsels as appropriate not just for priests and religious but also for the lay faithful, often emerging as a group sought to live the charism of the movement in a more radical way - the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, the life of members of the Foyers of Charity are examples.

4. As suggested at 1 above, there is a question about how the life of the ecclesial movements, perhaps particularly those that are universal rather than diocesan in nature, relate to the life of parishes and dioceses. And indeed about how the life experienced in one ecclesial movements relates to the life of other such movements. This has been part of the process of "ecclesial maturing" to which Fr Tim referred, a process that has involved the explicit articulation of a founding event, often in the preparation of constitutions, and the discernment undertaken by ecclesiastical authority in approving such constitutions. It is at this point that the question of examining and ensuring the authenticity of a founder/founding charism, and questions of behaviours of founding figures, should come to the fore. The task of promoting unity among the movements was a particular task undertaken by Focolare (with its charism of unity) after the meeting at Pentecost 1998. Increasingly the word "communion" has been used to express the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council, and the theology of communion perhaps offers a way of understanding the "co-essentiality" of charisms and institutions in the Church and of how they should relate to each other in living the Christian mystery.

5. If one can see Pope John Paul II as a particular promoter of the new movements in the Church, one can also see Hans Urs von Balthasar as being a particular theologian of the new movements. The  evangelical counsels as an option for the life of the lay faithful can be seen in his writings on the states of life in the Church and on the secular institutes. His book Engagement with God is prefaced by a dedication to Luigi Giusani and Communion and Liberation. He recognised in the Focolare exactly the living out of the "Marian profile" that features in his understanding of the Church and shared with them a strong sense of "Jesus forsaken" on the Cross.

Can we see Catholic blogging as a form of new movement akin to those being discussed above? I would suggest rather that, generally speaking, it partakes of an aspect of ecclesial life that has a certain analogy to the idea of the different ecclesial movements, but is not so readily capable of a positive evaluation. Unless I have misunderstood some recent reading, John Henry Newman referred to the Oxford Movement in a significantly different way when an Anglican than when a Catholic. As an Anglican, he would not have seen it as a "party" engaged in a (political) struggle for supremacy in the Church, but as a call to live Christian faith in its fullness; as a Catholic, he asked those who continued in the Church of England to recognise that they could not continue as a "party" (among other parties) following the general rejection by the Church of England's bishops of the Catholic principles of the movement. Colonised largely as it is by those of a traditionalist inclination, I would suggest that the Catholic blogosphere is closer to representing a "party" in this Newman-esque sense than an ecclesial movement in the sense considered above. It's campaigning behaviours, and sense that the Extraordinary Form of the liturgy as the only show in town and the subject to which every Catholic is devoted, seem to me characteristic of a "party".

Just as a final comment, and at  risk of arguing ad hominem but hopefully not without charity. The challenge that a traditionalist Catholic faces in considering the new movements derives from a strong sense of the institutional aspect of the Church. In consequence, the traditionalist might well have a reluctance to recognise the legitimacy of the charismatic and be put off by those who fail to live the charisms of their movements as well as they should; and they might also let their attachment to the Extraordinary Form trump all else as far as liturgy goes. But the witness of the movements, and of the support given to them by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, is precisely a witness to "co-essentiallity" between the institutional and the charismatic.

UPDATE: See also Fr Tim's observations on this post, which particularly respond to my suggestion that the Catholic blogosphere has the nature of a "party".

Pope John Paul II: "Some definite service"

One of the Cardinal’s best-loved meditations includes the words, “God has created me to do him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another” (Meditations on Christian Doctrine). Here we see Newman’s fine Christian realism, the point at which faith and life inevitably intersect. Faith is meant to bear fruit in the transformation of our world through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in the lives and activity of believers. No one who looks realistically at our world today could think that Christians can afford to go on with business as usual, ignoring the profound crisis of faith which has overtaken our society, or simply trusting that the patrimony of values handed down by the Christian centuries will continue to inspire and shape the future of our society.

The above words are taken from Pope Benedict XVI's address in Hyde Park on the eve of the beatification of Cardinal Newman. "God has created me to do him some definite service". If we apply these words, and Pope Benedict's commentary on them, to the life of Pope John Paul II I think we have to question the suggestion being made in some places that Pope John Paul II is being beatified because of his sanctity, and not because of the efficacy of his actions as the Successor of Peter. I do not think that it is right to say that we can separate the holiness of an individual from the the living out of the "definite service" entrusted to that individual. In the case of Pope John Paul II, that means that the way in which he lived out the Petrine ministry has to be seen as part of the charism that is offered to the Church through his beatification. [True, the criteria of judgement might not be that of perfection in the fulfilment of the office and instead that of faithfulness to the demands of the office - but then the former is to judge in "human" terms whilst the latter is to judge in the realm of "grace" which is, of course, the realm of judgement appropriate to the Church's processes of beatification and canonisation.]

I would like to suggest that Pope John Paul II lived in a very vivid way the office of Universal Shepherd to the Church, and that this forms part of his "definite service" and therefore of the gift to the Church represented by his beatification. One witness to the nature of this universal mission is represented in this piece by William Oddie which describes how Pope John Paul II's pontificate gave to Malcom Muggeridge and to William Oddie himself the confidence to enter the Catholic Church. Another is represented by Fr Tim's post with regard to Pope John Paul II's Holy Thursday letters to priests. Another witness can be found at Bridges and Tangents. One can also see the many visits to different countries in the same way. Oh, and here too.

In ecclesiological terms, it is the Bishop of the local Church who is the pastor of souls in the particular place in which that local Church exists. But the Pope also has a pastoral office in a direct relation to the individual faithful, an office that does not undermine that of the local Bishop but instead reinforces it within the (theological) notion of the communion of individual, diocese and universal Church. Though it has a juridical aspect, this universal office is not in essence juridical but instead pastoral, and Pope John Paul II's manner of living it showed this. This is his office of universal pastor, and I think the exercise of this universal office forms a key part of understanding the holiness of Pope John Paul II.

In this context, I believe that it is worth mentioning the following initiatives of Pope John Paul II, and this because they show how the exercise of his universal office can be seen as essentially pastoral/charismatic rather than juridical (and perhaps those who would like to see Pope John Paul's holiness as separate from his exercise of the Papal office would have preferred it to be more juridical). What is striking about these initiatives is the way in which they enabled activity at the level of the individual parish, group or movement in the Church.

Here is a list, in no particular order, and with no claim to completeness: World Youth Day; the programme of three preparatory years dedicated in turn to the three persons of the Trinity and the celebration of the Jubilee of the Year 2000; within the celebration of the Jubilee of the Year 2000, the celebrations dedicated to different areas of the life of the Church; the Year of the Eucharist; the Year of the Rosary, with the introduction of the Mysteries of Light (now very much my favourite mysteries); the Pentecost meeting with members of the new ecclesial movements during which he recognised the charismatic dimension of the Church as being "co-essential" with the hierarchical dimension; World Day for the Sick.

Similarities and differences

Over the weekend, in a completely unrelated context, I had a conversation about "similarities" and "differences".

The placing of the Personal Ordinariate in England and Wales under the patronage of John Henry Newman (though the title of Our Lady of Walsingham given to the Ordinariate seems to mean that there is de facto a double patronage) then prompted the following thought.

What are the similarities  - and the differences - between John Henry Newman's founding of the Congregation of the Oratory in England and the establishing of the Ordinariate?

What did the Archbishop really say?

Following the indications of these two posts - one and two - I listened to some sections of this morning's Today Programme on the i-Player and not just to the "Thought for the Day" by Pope Benedict.

Catherine Pepinster was put up against Keith Porteous Wood, of the National Secular Society, and, from the part that I listened to, seemed to be scoring some good points off him. The Today presenter caught out Mr Porteous Wood's claim of unfair coverage for religion by pointing out that he was on the programme and so allowed to present his point of view.

At 8.10, Archbishop Longley was interviewed by John Humphries, and it is this interview that caused the two bloggers linked to above to be somewhat unhappy. Having listened to this interview in full, I agree with those commenters at Fr Ray's post who feel that Archbishop Longley did a good job in a challenging media slot. There were some clear traps there in John Humphries questioning (though I do not believe John Humphries displayed any malice in his conduct of the interview), and, in avoiding them, Archbishop Longley did well in resisting the direction in which John Humphries was trying to lead him. It would, for example, have been a PR disaster if Archbishop Longley had said that Church was never going to change its teaching (ie is and is going to stay out of touch with society and progress as a whole, in the media translation that would have taken place following the provision of such a sound bite) or that the Church was going to change its teaching (which would have been picked up by the media without need of any translation had that sound bite been provided).

So exactly what did Archbishop Longley say by referring to Cardinal Newman's notion of development of doctrine, and by his references to "adaptation" earlier in the interview?

As far as "adaptation" goes, I think a careful listen to the interview shows that Archbishop Longley was referring to adaptation in the way in which Catholic teaching is presented. This is, understood properly rather than just by taking the word "adaptation" and ignoring the word "presented", quite unproblematical (in my view, anyway). Indeed, in the context of the events of the day, the question of how Catholic teaching is presented to the world of today was quite to the point. It has a certain parallel in Pope Benedict's book Light of the World (pages 146-7), where the Holy Father says after affirming the validity of the teaching of Humanae Vitae:

The basic lines of Humanae Vitae are still correct. Finding ways to enable people to live the teaching, on the other hand, is a further question.

An answer along these lines might have been useful for Archbishop Longley when he was challenged by John Humphries about the numbers of Catholics who do not accept the Church's teaching against contraception, abortion, women priests.

By referring to Cardinal Newman's theory of development in Christian doctrine, Archbishop Longley avoided providing the two alternative and unhelpful sound bites mentioned above. If we recall that three of the marks of true development that Cardinal Newman identifies in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine are preservation of its type, continuity of its principles and conservative action upon its past, the substance of Archbishop Longley's citing of the theory was that the Church's teaching would not be changing. But he was saying this in a way that recognised that the keeping of that teaching was a question of a living encounter rather than just a traditionalist adherence to the past. The following quotes are from Newman:

An idea then does not always bear about it the same external image; this circumstance, however, has no force to weaken the argument for its substantial identity, as drawn from its external sameness, when such sameness remains....

... the continuity or the alteration of the principles on which an idea has developed is a second mark of discrimination between a true development and a corruption....

As developments which are preceded by definite indications have a fair presumption in their favour, so those which do but contradict and reverse the course of doctrine which has been developed before them, and out of which they spring, are certainly corrupt; for a corruption is a development in that very stage in which it ceases to illustrate, and begins to disturb, the acquisitions gained in its previous history.

Being aware of this implication of Archbishop Longley's reference to Newman is really quite important to understanding his remarks properly.

I did not listen to the "hand bags at dawn"/"catfight" between Polly Toynbee and Christina Odone.

The Political Thought of John Henry Newman

This is the title of a book written by Terence Kenny in 1957, and now out of print. A search on Amazon.co.uk has just revealed two copies, second hand, available at the rather exorbitant prices of £50 and £52! The search did not reveal any other similar, more recent study of Cardinal Newman's political thought.

I have been reading this for the last month or so. The pages I have just read this evening suggested particularly strongly something that I had begun to reflect on just before Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the UK. If Terence Kenny's presentation of Cardinal Newman's thought is correct, then there is a striking parallel between Newman and Pope Benedict's view of the part to be played by religious belief in the life of a nation and in the political life of the state. Pope Benedict's address at Westminster Hall, for example, could be referenced at some of its key points to the thought of John Henry Newman: the need for an ethical foundation to political discourse, religion seen as a vital contributor to the national conversation, a "purifying role" for religion with regard to the secular exercise of reason and of political activity, a rightful secularity according to which religious faith does not seek to impose solutions of a political nature beyond its competence. John Henry Newman would express all of this in a radically different language and, in some ways, a language appropriate to a different historical context. But it is interesting to read a book about this aspect of Cardinal Newman's thought and to be able to recognise in it some of Benedict XVI's key themes.

P+3: Cofton Park - or not

There were some difficulties (very diplomatic word) with the coach arrangements for getting the group I was with from East London to Birmingham. Two coaches were needed, not one, and we had to wait for the promised second coach, which in the end didn't appear. So despite getting up at 2 am, getting myself organised to look after the fellow pilgrims in the group I was travelling with, and waiting some three hours beyond the advised pick up time, I didn't get there.

Letters have been written!

I put in writing to my fellow pilgrims (a little prematurely, as it turned out!) the following reflection on what had happened to us:

I am writing to let you know how much I share your deep disappointment that we are not able this morning to be with the Holy Father in Cofton Park. I am very conscious of, and appreciated very much, being able to see in the early hours of this morning your commitment to being at that momentous occasion. I am very aware that, for two of you, this was to be your only “live” participation in the events of the Papal Visit; and that, for one of you, the choice to go to Cofton Park was the fruit of a long standing family devotion to John Henry Newman. I reiterate again how deeply I share your disappointment, which only deepens as I follow the Mass of Beatification on a live webcast.


At a time when following the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI is made the object of ridicule and fierce criticism, the opportunity that I had this morning to meet a group of ordinary people of differing ages willing to go to great lengths to be with the Holy Father has made a great impression on me. This was particularly brought home to me by the enthusiasm of the younger members of our group with their banners and flags; by the thought that a number of us had attended the vigil in Hyde Park or been on the Mall during Saturday evening; and by the member of the group who said to me after we had returned home, “I just wanted to see the Pope!”

As I called in to deliver my letter after evening Mass on Sunday, I met six of our group, including the two teenagers - who by a totally accidental chain of events had spotted the coach that was meant to have picked us up, flagged down the driver, and, by stint of even more phone calls to National Express, ended up being provided with taxis to take them up to Cofton Park. Even that was fraught, as they had to rendezvous with National Express staff at a service station on the way up to get hold of passes to gain access to the coach park. They made it just 10 minutes before Mass started. Getting back was also fraught. They enjoyed a lovely experience of inter-religious dialogue, as their taxi drivers were Muslims and talked about how they had just celebrated the Eid festival at the end of Ramadan - as they drove Catholics to a Papal Mass!

I spent about half an hour with them, enjoying a very enthusiastic exchange of experiences of Catholic life and, I hope, prompting a young lady to start hunting for a way to get herself to Madrid next year!

Two heresies

Heresy number 1.

I like the sanctuary that has been designed for the Mass of Beatification of John Henry Newman in Cofton Park, Birmingham.

Heresy number 2.

I like "Shine Jesus shine", and, given the words, think it is very appropriate that it be sung at a vigil with Pope Benedict during a visit whose theme is "Heart speaks unto heart". So far as I can tell, it will be sung before the time of Eucharistic Adoration begins - but look at the words of the second verse and imagine them being sung before the Blessed Sacrament.

Lord, the light of Your love is shining
in the midst of the darkness, shining;
Jesus, Light of the World, shine upon us,
set us free by the truth You now bring us,
shine on me, shine on me.

Shine, Jesus, shine,
fill this land with the Father's glory;
blaze, Spirit, blaze,
set our hearts on fire
Flow, river, flow
flood the nations with grace and mercy
send forth Your word, Lord,
and let there be light.

Lord, I come to Your awesome presence
from the shadows into Your radiance;
by the blood I may enter Your brightness,
search me, try me, consume all my darkness.
Shine on me, shine on me.
 
As we gaze on Your kingly brightness
so our faces display Your likeness
Ever changing from glory to glory
mirrored here may our lives tell Your story.
Shine on me, shine on me.

Anathema sum?

The state of the nation

Fr Ray has drawn attention to the address that John Henry Newman gave as he received notice of his being raised to the honour of the Cardinalate: Liberalism and England. The full text can be found here, but Fr Ray has added emphasis to some of the more striking parts in his post.

As Fr Ray points out, it could be Pope Benedict. It all paints a picture of our country that is very familiar to us today.

Another beatification?

One of the difficulties accompanying both John Henry Newman and Oscar Romero, seen as candidates for canonisation, is the way in which their life in the Church is "politicised" by ecclesial commentators. Liberal and conservative Catholics fight for "ownership" of Newman, and Romero is championed by liberal Catholics and ignored by conservatives. This is somewhat of a caricature, I know, but it does reflect a reality. What is really required is an attitude of openness and receptivity, which sees the lives and personalities of both as gifts of God, given for the spiritual good of the Church. We need to let the two speak for themselves.

In this context, Thinking Faith's article Another beatification? suggests an interesting point. This is that the concerns which characterise Newman's life are the same as those that characterise Romero's:

Among them are: his way of thinking, his search for objective truth, his faith in infallible authority, his concern for the role of the laity and church unity, and finally his trusting surrender to God’s providence. Each of these issues also figured prominently in the life of Archbishop Romero and gave depth to the religious faith he shared with others.

I do not know enough about Cardinal Newman and Archbishop Romero to verify these individual points; but all my reading of Archbishop Romero's original words suggests that he was completely loyal to the teaching of the Church. The suggestion of parallels between him and Newman is one that is worth pursuing.

 
One wonders whether the author of this article is airing what he senses as a grievance at the beatification of John Henry Newman occuring when, as yet, there appears to be no sign of Oscar Romero being beatified. Tucked away in the article is a classic of the "spirit of Vatican II", perhaps a product of editing or of hasty writing, perhaps not:

The great contribution of the Second Vatican Council was to offer a new vision of the Church, which saw it not as a hierarchical structure, but rather a communion of equals.

Er, chapter 3 of the Constitution Lumen Gentium on the Church is entitled in the Latin original: "De constitutione Hierarchica Ecclesiae et in specie de Episcopatu", translated in the version on the Vatican website as "On the hierarchical structure of the Church, and in particular on the Episcopate". There is, of course, an element of truth in this "spirit of Vatican II -ism" in that all the faithful are equal before God in terms of their being called to holiness, to growth in the spiritual life. But, as far as offices held in the Church are concerned, Lumen Gentium provides an explicit teaching on the difference of offices in the church. This slip is a shame, as I think the underlying idea that a commonality of concerns, and so a common worthiness as candidates for beatification and canonisation, can be found in the lives and missions of John Henry Newman and Oscar Romero in the Church is one that is worth exploring.

Prominent Catholics: WWND?

"Prominent Catholics" appear regularly in the media.

On BBC Radio 2 a little while ago, as part of a series of interviews with the candidates for the leadership of the Labour Party,  Jeremy Vine described Andy Burnham, Labour MP for Leigh, as "one of the most prominent Catholics in the country". In an interview in the Tablet recently, Andy Burnham indicated that his Catholic faith "made me who I am"; but the interview also pointed out that he was at odds with the Catholic Church over equalities legislation and that he would like to see gay marriage in the UK.

Lord Patten, another prominent Catholic, is leading for Her Majesty's Government in the planning of Pope Benedict's forthcoming visit to the UK. He is quoted describing himself as a "tortured liberal Catholic" in a recent Tablet interview.

More recently, Tina Beattie, another prominent Catholic has made an appeal to Pope Benedict. This appeal has attracted some strong comment from the Catholic blogosphere; but I think the most interesting thing is the range of the comments that have been made at Tina's own blog post of her appeal. I think the points made in those posts represent a dialogue that is much needed, and is reflected in Tina's willingness to post all comments received (bar one) - see her concluding comment of 18th July.  I posted on the theme of unity in the Church here - I think Tina's post and its comments represent an intersection of "tradosphere" and "trendosphere" as I suggest in this earlier post. But, this having been said, Tina Beattie does propose ideas that are not in accord with Catholic teaching.

So what are we to make of prominent Catholics who are well known for holding and arguing for positions that are at odds with Catholic teaching? [and, in asking the question in this way, I am putting in Husserlian brackets the different question of being a well known Catholic and living a life at odds with Catholic teaching -that is a different question which needs a different answer, one that recognises we all go there whenever we commit sin, though for most of us our sinfulness does not emerge into the public sphere].

1. Should we say to these prominent Catholics that, if they are not comfortable with Catholic teaching, they should simply leave the Catholic Church? I think not, since to make that call is not at the service of the unity of the Church.

2. Should we view the positions being advocated by these prominent Catholics as being acceptable in the Catholic Church? Well, no. In some respects these positions are directly at odds with what the Church teaches, and we should recognise that that is the case.

Or, to put these two together, we might say that, though they are prominent Catholics, they are not good advocates of the Catholic position to their fellow Catholics or to the wider world, and should not therefore be seen as Catholic spokesmen and spokeswomen. This isn't the same as saying they should be "silenced", but does suggest that their prominence and their Catholicity need to be clearly distinguished.

3. Who then is a good advocate of the Catholic position? Those who would criticise these prominent Catholics do not usually themselves have an explicit mandate to speak for the Church. The practical touchstone against which all their contributions can be measured, I would suggest, is the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The person with a mandate to represent the Church in a particular locality is the Bishop, and that mandate should be experienced as a serious responsibility.

4. I think there is useful reflection to be had about the office of the Bishop in regard to prominent Catholics who are not good advocates of the Catholic position. The priority of the Bishop should be to act in the interests of the unity of the Church, which needs clarity and firmness of teaching but not necessarily condemnation of the individual.

WWND?

From the chapter on "Christianity and Scientific Investigation" in Idea of a University:

This is how I should account for a circumstance, which has sometimes caused surprise, that so many great Catholic thinkers have in some points or other incurred the criticism or animadversion of theologians or of ecclesiastical authority. It must be so in the nature of things; there is indeed an animadversion which implies a condemnation of the author; but there is another which means not much more than the "piè legendum" written against passages in the Fathers. The author may not be to blame; yet the ecclesiastical authority would be to blame, if it did not give notice of his imperfections....

I am supposing all along good faith, honest intentions, a loyal Catholic spirit, and a deep sense of responsibility. I am supposing, in the scientific inquirer, a due fear of giving scandal, of seeming to countenance views which he does not really countenance, and of siding with parties from whom he heartily differs. I am supposing that he is fully alive to the existence and the power of the infidelity of the age; that he keeps in mind the moral weakness and the intellectual confusion of the majority of men; and that he has no wish at all that any one soul should get harm from certain speculations today, though he may have the satisfaction of being sure that those speculations will, as far as they are erroneous or misunderstood, be corrected in the course of the next half-century.

"Cor ad cor loquitur": reflecting on Newman's choice of motto

The site of the International Centre of Newman Friends has a page devoted to the coat of arms and motto chosen by Newman when he became a Cardinal. As this page points out, Cardinal Newman does not appear to have ever explained his choice of arms or of motto. The extensive explanation offered by the Centre of Newman Friends page is legitimate, but I wonder how much it relates to Newman's own sense of the arms and motto.

Ian Ker, in his biography, describes how Newman wrote to Birmingham after arriving in Rome, on his visit to receive the red hat:

On arriving in Rome a week or so later he wrote to Birmingham to ask one of the community to check if the words 'cor ad cor loquitur' ('heart speaks to heart') were to be found in the Vulgate version of the Bible or in Thomas a Kempis. He had forgotten that he had already quoted the saying from St Francis de Sales in the Idea of a University. It was, of course, to be the motto on his cardinal's coat of arms.

This suggests that Newman's choice of motto was, if not completely "last minute", in all likelihood more intuitive than thought out.

In the years leading up to his being made a Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII, Newman had what might be described as a lively time. He was drawn into a number of controversies and projects, in which he engaged with all due vigour. His relations to ecclesiastical authority - Wiseman and Manning - weren't smooth, either on a personal level or a theological level, and generally caused him more anxiety than peace. The choice of motto seems rather unrelated to this rough and tumble experience of ecclesial life.

So, where was Newman coming from as he chose his motto, "heart speaks to heart"? If we assume that Newman was in some intuitive way reaching back to his previous encounter with this phrase, the context of his first citation of it in the Idea of a University might offer some insight into his choice.

Newman's citation of St Francis de Sales comes in a chapter of the Idea entitled "University Preaching", in which Newman considers what would make a good sermon preached in a university. Now, at the beginning of the second paragraph of this chapter, Newman writes:

So far is clear at once, that the preacher's object is the spiritual good of his hearers. "Finis praedicanti sit", says St Francis de Sales; "ut vitam (justitiae) habeant homines, et abundantius habeant".

The purpose of preaching is, says St Francis de Sales, that men might have life, and have it in abundance. Newman goes on to insist that, more important than any of the natural skills that help to make a good preacher, is an intense awareness of this purpose:

Talent, logic, learning, words, manner, voice, action, all are required for the perfection of a preacher; but "one thing is necessary,"—an intense perception and appreciation of the end for which he preaches, and that is, to be the minister of some definite spiritual good to those who hear him.

It is in the context of this earnestness for the spiritual good of his hearers that Newman places the longer quotation from St Francis de Sales that includes the phrase that, altered, will become the motto "heart speaks to heart" (my emphasis added):

It is this earnestness, in the supernatural order, which is the eloquence of saints ...St. Francis de Sales is full and clear upon this point. It is necessary, he says, "ut ipsemet penitus hauseris, ut persuasissimam tibi habeas, doctrinam quam aliis persuasam cupis. Artificium summum erit, nullum habere artificium. Inflammata sint verba, non clamoribus gesticulationibusve immodicis, sed interiore affectione. De corde plus quàm de ore proficiscantur. Quantumvis ore dixerimus, sanè cor cordi loquitur, lingua non nisi aures pulsat."

Having pointed out that the spiritual good of the hearers is the purpose of preaching, Newman goes on to argue that a definite spiritual good is that purpose. In other words, the preacher should speak about something specific and well defined and not just address insubstantial piety to his hearers (my emphasis added):

As a distinct image before the mind makes the preacher earnest, so it will give him something which it is worth while to communicate to others. Mere sympathy, it is true, is able, as I have said, to transfer an emotion or sentiment from mind to mind, but it is not able to fix it there. He must aim at imprinting on the heart what will never leave it, and this he cannot do unless he employ himself on some definite subject, which he has to handle and weigh, and then, as it were, to hand over from himself to others.

What is implicit in all of this is an anxiety to communicate the Catholic faith to others. Newman is expressing, in the context here of a discussion of the purpose of preaching, something that is perhaps implicit in his whole Catholic life, namely a sense of mission. Today, we might term this an evangelistic sense. Newman clearly recognises the part played by the intellect, by ideas in this - and so his more academic studies, and his engagement in the controversies and projects of his time, fit in with his overall sense of mission. 


Perhaps in choosing his motto Newman was trying to make some sense of the diversity of projects and controversies in which he had engaged, bringing them back intuitively to what he understood to be the nature of preaching as an activity of the priest in the pulpit which is also the nature of communicating faith in Christ and his Church in all the circumstances of life.

Miscellany - or WWND?

Recent events at the General Synod of the Church of England have provoked a range of responses, directly or indirectly, and this miscellany is made up from them.

From Stella Maris post The Church of England. How long will it last?

As long as the Anglican Church insists on women bishops there is no chance of unity with the Roman Catholic Church or with the Orthodox. The inevitable responses to this from pro-women priest Catholics is just fantasy-speak....This is compromise, pure and simple, but the cosy "Christianity-lite" of liberal Anglicanism will not survive either. What a waste of blood, sweat and tears, bricks and mortar.

The reference to pro-women priest Catholics leads me to Tigerish Waters post Ooh you've got an 'ology:

We sometimes forget that we are already one (a very broken one) through our baptism with our separated brethren. A crisis in an ecclesial community knocks at the heart of our faith and will cause ripples throughout the Christian world. There are just too many Catholics who are itching to see women in the priesthood and anyone who contradicts this hasn't been near most provincial Catholic churches with congregations with an average age over 50.

It is all reflected in the comment at Stella Maris post - ordaining women as priests and bishops is the answer to the wrong question. It answers a question about women's rights and equality. But the question for the Christian, be they Catholic or otherwise is a different question. It is what does Christ want for his Church? 


Now the rumour is that the Holy See will issue during the coming months a document which explicitly identifies the attempted ordination of women as one of the most grave offences. The spin is that doing this will liken such attempted ordinations of women to child abuse by priests and religious - which is not the case, since in the two cases the gravity of the offence arises from quite different considerations. But it will make clear just how serious an offence against the unity of the Church - and this is why it is considered such a grave offence - attempts to ordain women are. Incidentally, the illicit ordinations in the Society of St Pius X attracted the penalty of excommunication, again expressing just how seriously an offence against the unity of the Church is to be understood.


Those Catholics who, in Tigerish Waters phrase, are "itching to see women in the priesthood" are living in a world of "fantasy-speak", but they live in such a world and are considered credible as proponents of a Catholic position.  A good few Catholics could do with a much greater understanding of the implications of questions 11-17 of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church , which would give them the clarity of mind to resist the temptation of the feminist projection of the wrong question onto the core of Catholic belief. The fact that, as Tigerish Waters says, there are so many Catholics who appear to lack any real sense of ecclesial judgement about questions like this is worrying.


Now, William Oddie's comment on the Catholic Herald website, which seems to see in the General Synod vote a kind of starting gun for the establishing of an Anglican Ordinariate, is a bit off the real pace on this question. That the Church of England does not appear to want its traditional/Anglo-Catholic members, and so those members might move to an Ordinariate in the Roman Catholic Church ... such a sociological (so very Anglican) notion of an Ordinariate is indeed to completely misunderstand what an Ordinariate might be. Indeed, I think the Bishop of Richborough recognised quite early on that an Ordinariate could not simply be a destination for those unhappy with the ordination of women bishops in the Church of England; it has to represent something much more than this. The Bishop of Ebbsfleet offers a better, and more cautious, analysis in his August pastoral letter, and one can usefully re-read his February pastoral letter.


But, in the year of his beatification, I end by asking: WWND? What would Newman do? I expect he would still take the road of individual conversion. Would the establishment of a new religious order, made up of former members of the Anglican Societas Sanctae Crucis, be a contemporary equivalent to Newman's founding of the Oratory in England?


And WWND about all those Catholics who think women priests and bishops are a good idea? If his chapter on "Christianity and Scientific Investigation" in The Idea of a University is anything to go by, he might well just let error have enough rope to hang itself. But the same chapter also expresses a great anxiety that the weak in faith should not be scandalised. So whilst he might, in the realm of ideas, leave the notion of women priests and bishops to fall by the wayside of ecclesial life of its own accord, I think he would speak out against those campaigning in the media and in parishes in favour of such "innovation".

Desk and altar ....

I am sure there is a theological and/or pastoral reflection to be had on the relationship of one's desk to the altar .... on the relationship between and one's daily work and the Eucharist.... but it is perhaps quite rare for the connection to be as direct as in the case of Cardinal Newman's desk at Littlemore: The secret of success at work.

Papal Visit website

The website for the papal visit is: http://www.thepapalvisit.org.uk/.

From the home page you can follow a link to a section of the site about Cardinal Newman. The biography is a worthwhile read, the last two sections, on liberalism and faith, I think being of particular interest (though I suspect some readers will be a bit critical of the paragraph on liberalism). The section offering his key teachings on the office of the Papacy is made up of two two quotations that will be very helpful in answering those who pick up, totally out of context, Cardinal Newman's toast in favour of conscience over the Pope. It would, however, IMHO, have been helped by some additional explanation.

The page of the site on the Catholic faith appears to me a bit condescending. It is clearly written for someone who has no knowledge of the Catholic faith, or indeed, much knowledge of anything about Christianity. It is not in my view by any means the most brilliant piece of "primary proclamation", particularly in its account of the Eucharist. I suspect that Christians of denominations other than the Catholic Church will not find it helpful, though those without any faith at all will find it more help.

It may be the case that the most useful pages of the site are those linking to an account of the three encyclicals of Pope Benedict XVI - though I have not had time to read through these as I post.

Newman and "conscientious dissent"? ...Er, no ..

A few days ago, I posted By way of a preliminary .. This is the post to which that one was the preliminary. I ended that post by writing:

Acceptance of the teaching contained in the Catechism is, so far as I can see, a necessity for a any realistic dialogue towards unity in the Church.

The question of authority and conscience is one that is raised in a section of the site Vatican II - Voice of the Church. What I would like to do in this post is engage with one of the contributions to that section, an article written by Avery Dulles and published first in 1986. The title of the article is Authority and Conscience.

One of the problems with this article is its use of terms like "infallible teaching", "non-infallible teaching" and "official teaching". The real question to be answered is not so much which of these three descriptions one wishes to apply to the Church's moral teaching in general, or to a particular invidividual teaching amongst the whole. The question is more one of whether or not the teaching is part of the content of the Church's moral doctrine, and proposed as being part of that doctrine; the hazard of the three terms is that they avoid answering this key question in a particular case, and so leave open the possibility of a vagueness about what the Church does or does not teach. This was the significance of my By way of a preliminary ... post, the essential conclusion of which is that it is the Catechism of the Catholic Church that can be considered as the reference point for deciding what is or is not Catholic teaching (the post presents this within a fuller account of the relation of the Catechism to Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium).

Did Vatican II teach the legitimacy of dissent from noninfallible teaching? It did so implicitly by its action, we may say, but not explicitly by its words. The theological commission responsible for paragraph 25 of the Constitution of the Church refused to make any statement, one way or the other, about dissent.

A step beyond the council was taken by the German bishops in a pastoral letter of September 22, 1967, which has been quoted on several occasions by Karl Rahner. This letter recognized that in its effort to apply the gospel to the changing situations of life, the church is obliged to give instructions that have a certain provisionality about them. These instructions, though binding to a certain degree, are subject to error. According to the bishops, dissent may be legitimate provided that three conditions are observed. (1) One must have striven seriously to attach positive value to the teaching in question and to appropriate it personally. (2) One must seriously ponder whether one has the theological expertise to disagree responsibly with ecclesiastical authority. (3) One must examine one's conscience for possible conceit, presumptuousness, or selfishness. Similar principles for conscientious dissent had already been laid down by John Henry Newman in the splendid chapter on Conscience in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk (1874).

Avery Dulles argument in the first paragraph of this section is questionable to say the least. It is difficult to read in the text of n.25 of Lumen Gentium any justification whatsoever for a legitimacy of dissent, even if one does understand it as tacitly speaking in terms of the "infallible", "non-infallible" and "official" distinctions; the text speaks only in terms of assent.

What I would like to give more attention to is the last sentence of the second paragraph (my emphasis added), in which Avery Dulles suggests that Cardinal Newman laid down principles for conscientious dissent. Where Avery Dulles' paragraph contains a fudge is in its move from consideration of "instructions" to consideration of "teachings" - where Cardinal Newman keeps a very clear distinction between matters of teaching and matters of legislation or policy. I think the moral of the story is that, if you really want to understand what Cardinal Newman says about the collision between conscience and Papal authority (and I think we can fairly extend his principle to apply to ecclesial authority as a whole), you need to read the whole of Chapter 5 of the Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, and not just the last part of it.

1. First, I am using the word "conscience" in the high sense in which I have already explained it,—not as a fancy or an opinion, but as a dutiful obedience to what claims to be a divine voice, speaking within us; and that this is the view properly to be taken of it, I shall not attempt to prove here, but shall assume it as a first principle.

2. Secondly, I observe that conscience is not a judgment upon any speculative truth, any abstract doctrine, but bears immediately on conduct, on something to be done or not done. "Conscience," says St. Thomas, "is the practical judgment or dictate of reason, by which we judge what hic et nunc is to be done as being good, or to be avoided as evil." Hence conscience cannot come into direct collision with the Church's or the Pope's infallibility; which is engaged in general propositions, and in the condemnation of particular and given errors.
[A complete treatment of how we manifest our conscience addresses three "moments" - the knowing of what is morally right and wrong which, for a Catholic, arises from knowledge of the teaching of the Church, cf my By way of a preliminary ... post; the mediation of that knowledge to the particular situation now being encountered; and then the "impulse" to act in one way or another. Cardinal Newman here narrows his use of the word conscience to only the second two of these phases.]


3. Next, I observe that, conscience being a practical dictate, a collision is possible between it and the Pope's authority only when the Pope legislates, or gives particular orders, and the like. But a Pope is not infallible in his laws, nor in his commands, nor in his acts of state, nor in his administration, nor in his public policy. [Here Cardinal Newman only admits the possibility of collision between conscience and Papal authority over matters of legislation or policy; the possibility of collision over questions of doctrinal or moral teaching are absolutely ruled out.]

So, when in the extracts quoted on the Vatican II - Voice of the Church website, Cardinal Newman refers to "non-infallible Authority" of the Pope he is not referring to some "non-infallible teaching"; he is referring only to matters of legislation or policy as the cited examples amply demonstrate. You should not read these extracts as a justification for dissent on matters of doctrinal or moral teaching.

 In summary, it is quite incorrect for those who dissent from points of Catholic doctrinal or moral teaching, and campaign for them to be changed, to claim that Cardinal Newman's teaching about conscience justifies such dissent.  And, when Cardinal Newman asserts the priority of conscience, he does not at all mean that we should be deciding for ourselves what is right and wrong, perhaps "taking some note" of the teaching of the magisterium, rather than accepting it as true. He does not extend the freedom of conscience to that first moment of its activity, namely the knowing what is right and wrong, which for the Catholic comes about by knowledge of the teaching of the Church'a magisterium.
 
In the year in which Cardinal Newman will be beatified, I think it is particularly important to recognise what his real position is on the freedom of conscience. In an era before the "sound-bite" was even thought of, the dear Cardinal seems to have gone in for the "word-bite" in some style and in a way that lends himself to being mis-represented. The last sentence of the chapter on conscience in the Letter to the Duke of Norfolk is a case in point, with it only being possible to understand it properly if you have read ALL of the preceding chapter:

I add one remark. Certainly, if I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts, (which indeed does not seem quite the thing) I shall drink—to the Pope, if you please,—still, to Conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.

John Henry Newman: phenomenologist or transcendental Thomist?

"Burning the midnight oil" often refers to the student desperately trying to finish an essay or assignment that is due in the next day, which might not have been started, and which simply has to be done before retiring to bed (or not retiring at all, if one is really taking the experience seriously!). For those of us for whom student days are a distant memory, it usually means that we haven't been sufficiently organised to get to bed and have instead just stayed up reading.

It is the characteristic of our minds to be ever engaged in passing judgement on the things that come before us. No sooner do we apprehend than we judge: we allow nothing to stand by itself: we compare, contrast, abstract, generalize, connect, adjust, classify: and we view all our knowledge in the associations with which these processes have invested it.

Of the judgements thus made, ... some are mere opinions which come and go.... Others are firmly fixed in our minds.... Many of them attach to one and the same object, which is variously viewed ..... some are only not inconsistent with each other, in that they have a common origin: some, as being actually incompatible with each other, are, one or other, falsely associated in our minds with their object, and in any case they may be nothing more than ideas, which we mistake for things.

I will definitely show my age - or at least the era of my philosophical education - when I say that the two immediate thougths that came into my mind on reading this first section of Chapter I of Newman's An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine were the following:

Was Newman, without realising it, following the same sort of school of thought as would later be taken by Husserl and the phenomenological school? "Idea", the concern for "things", the delineation of the content of an idea apprehended? And, indeed, the very style of analytical writing?

Or was he a transcendental Thomist before such a thing was even thought of? Doesn't the first paragraph put one in mind of Lonergan? "Apprehend", "abstract" "judgement"?

You do not have to read very far into the Essay on Development to come across the much abused quotation:

In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.

And recognising the context, is, of course, the key to understanding what Newman intended in this sentence. First of all, Newman has in the preceding pages given a phenomenological account of the way in which an idea can develop in human society as it encounters different ideas and situations and so shows itself in different aspects. And then the sentence immediately preceding the oft quoted one is:

It [ie the idea] changes with them [ie the surrounding circumstances, the history of its encounter with other ideas, etc] in order to remain the same.

In the preceding pages, Newman has clearly expressed an idea of development in ideas as

... the germination and maturation of some truth or apparent truth on a large mental field. On the other hand this process will not be a development, unless the assemblage of aspects, which constitute its ultimate shape, really belongs to the idea from which they start.

And if the "assemblage of aspects" does not meet this criterion it is not a development but a "corruption" (the word Newman himself uses at points in these same pages).

Newman uses the oft quoted sentence in a philosophical context, and not a directly theological one; this makes its simplistic use to suggest that Catholic teaching should change in order to live rather misleading. In its proper context, the sentence is just as much a statement about continuity as it is about change; and its application to a theological context needs to be made analagously and not literally.

Thoughts on dialogue

This post is prompted by the invitation to discussion (difficult to use the word "dialogue" twice in the same sentence) about dialogue contained in NewmanCause's comment to my earlier post about Newman and the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus. What has prompted me is this paragraph from the post by NewmanCause that I discussed in my post just referred to (my italics added to highlight the aspect which most prompts my thoughts):

It has been axiomatic for Catholic ecumenists that the Church must learn from those with whom she is in ‘dialogue’. What is right in this way of thinking need not be abandoned, once it is recognised, as the Holy Father has recognised, that ‘dialogue’ cannot be an end in itself. Even when ‘dialogue’ is ordered, as it must be, towards conversion to the Catholic Faith, the Church may still stand to learn from those whom she receives into full communion.

Dialogue as encounter with a culture

I would first like to suggest that dialogue has the nature of an encounter with a culture. One might talk of representatives of the Church, or of an individual in the Church, engaging in an encounter with a culture. The culture has its representatives, who might be termed the "partners" with whom dialogue is undertaken.  What I think is a good example of dialogue as encounter with a culture is my post Jessica Hausner's Lourdes. In this I bring to bear my own experience of Lourdes and of Catholic faith to comment on a film which touches on that experience. I also think that Jessica Hausner, without necessarily accepting a supernatural, or even a religious, reality to the phenomenon that is Lourdes, has nevertheless genuinely and honestly engaged with the event that is a pilgrimage to Lourdes. In this sense, she is a genuine partner with whom one can enter into dialogue through commenting on her work.

Inter-religious dialogue, or ecumenical dialogue, can be seen as special cases of this where the partner in the dialogue is a representative of another religion or Christian denomination. To again refer to the sphere of film, the existence of "ecumenical juries" at some film festivals would illustrate this.

In this kind of dialogue, one's own experience gains something from the experience of the dialogue partner. We might see something supportive of our own experience that we had not seen before. In some cases, we might change or adjust our point of view, but not always.

Dialogue as a moment in evangelisation

In its teaching about the nature of evangelisation (Evangelii Nuntiandi, General Directory for Catechesis), the Church speaks about a presence of the Church, or of the individual Christian, in the activity of the world. Sometimes termed "presence in charity", this might not be a presence that is explicitly proclaimed as a Christian presence, but it is a presence prompted and imbued with a Christian spirit. An example of this might be participation in port, hospital or industrial chaplaincy, where many of the encounters one has with seafarers, patients or co-workers might be without explicitly religious content. For most Catholics, it refers to their everyday encounters with neighbours, friends and colleagues.

I think this is also is an aspect of understanding dialogue as encounter with a culture, but brought perhaps to the level of individual human relationships. However - and this is the point at which I would enter into discussion though, I think, not necessarily disagreement with NewmanCause - this will rarely take place with an explicit intention of seeking conversion to the Catholic faith. Indeed, where it to be undertaken with such an explicit intention, there are circumstances in which it would become proselytism of the very worst kind.

What the Catholic Church's teaching allows us to do, though, is to still see this as a moment in the dynamic of evangelisation which imbues the whole of the Church's life. In this sense, it has a reference towards conversion to the Catholic faith, as part of a wider activity of the whole Church. Evangelical Christians have a tendency I think to see evangelism as only occurring when they explicitly proclaim the faith (this is another moment in evangelisation for us Catholics, but not the only one), which does not always lead to positive experiences on the part of their hearers.

Conditions to enable dialogue

"Moving goal posts" are an image that we often use when we are trying to deal with someone, or with an issue, where the ground rules keep changing; it is impossible to know in which direction to kick the ball if the goal posts don't stay still. Dialogue can only occur if the partners to that dialogue have a common concern for the truth of what is known or believed, and a common concern for the moral rightness of what is done. Indifference to truth or indifference to the idea of moral right and wrong make dialogue impossible. Seeing the school or university as a community of learning depends upon this idea of a common searching for what is true and morally good, a searching undertaken together by the faculty and the students. The enterprise of education is, or should be, an enterprise of dialogue.

This consideration prompts me to identify an excruciating irony in our contemporary political situation, and that occurs when the representatives of a political and social culture that is thoroughly secularist (and therefore relativist in both its attitude to the idea of truth and the idea of moral right and wrong) urges on us the need for inter-religious dialogue! It strikes me that what is needed more than anything else is a dialogue between religious belief and non-religious political and social cultures; but the relativism of the latter renders that dialogue all but impossible.

Bridges and Tangents gave an account of exploring fundamentals without being fundamentalist when introducing the current series of Faith Matters lectures. I think he expresses what one might term the basis on which a Catholic is able to enter into dialogue with others:

The title of the series is quite provocative: ‘Fundamentals of Faith’. At first glance, it makes me think of the word ‘fundamentalism’, with all its negative associations – a belief system that is unthinking, unreflective, arrogant, closed to the truths of history and science, of philosophy and psychology. But perhaps that is intentional. The purpose of each lecture is to show that Christians can explore the fundamentals of their faith without being fundamentalist. The root meaning of the word ‘fundamental’, of course, is something that acts as a foundation. Thinking deeply about the fundamentals of faith should actually make you less ‘fundamentalist’ and more reflective, more open, and yes – more faithful.

The significance of Cardinal Newman's beatification

This post at the site for the Cause of Cardinal Newman gives an interesting account of the significance of Cardinal Newman's beatification.

It responds carefully to the editorial in The Tablet which would have us downplay Newman's Catholicism in relation to his beatification; but, in so doing, it offers a positive presentation of the significance of Newman's beatification.

H/T Fr Ray.