The universal scope of the family

This is the title given to the Vatican Information Services report of Pope Francis' General Audience address yesterday.

".... A new alliance of man and woman would seem not only necessary, but also strategic for the emancipation of peoples from their colonisation by money”, he continued. “This alliance must once again guide politics, the economy and civil coexistence. It decides the habitability of the earth, the transmission of the sentiment of life, and the bonds of memory and hope”.

“Of this alliance, the matrimonial-familiar community of man and woman is its generative grammar, its 'golden bond', so to speak. Faith draws upon knowledge of God's creation: He entrusted to the family not only the care of intimacy for its own sake, but also the project of making the entire world domestic. It is precisely the family that is at the origin and the base of this worldwide culture that saves us: it saves us from many attacks, many forms of destruction, and many forms of colonisation, for instance by money and ideologies, that so threaten the world. The family is a base from which we defend ourselves”.

I expect that a full English text of the address will appear here in due course.

Refugees are welcome

The title Our Lady of the Wayside is rendered in Italian as Nostra Signora delle strada - Our Lady of the road, or perhaps, Our Lady of the Streets. There is a chapel with that dedication in the Church of the Gesu in Rome, the home Church of the Jesuits in the city. I expect Pope Francis has that chapel in mind today.

The title commemorates the journeys undertaken by the Virgin Mary to visit her cousin Elizabeth, and into exile in Egypt.

It seems a fitting dedication for these days in Europe.

My own statue:

The Family: what is the real question for the Synod?

In a recent Victoria Derbyshire programme, a survivor of abuse in orphanages run by religious in Ireland talks of the impact of that abuse on her later life, including the impact on her own experience of being a mother. Her daughter also takes part in the interview.

Whilst the reason for "Irene" being placed in orphanages was that she was experiencing abuse in the family home, watching the clip from the programme prompted a thought that occurred to me at the time of the release of the film Philomena. At the time I didn't explore the thought and, not having a great familiarity with Catholic life in Ireland, I am still not in a position to do so fully.

The public comment about the experience of unmarried mothers placed in mother and baby homes in Ireland focusses around their treatment in those homes. It is right that abuse is the subject of vigorous challenge and appropriate redress, particularly when that abuse was perpetrated by religious. The responsibility for abuse is rightly assigned to those who carried out the abuse.

Why, however, did unmarried mothers experience such rejection from their family homes and local communities that there was the need for a network of mother and baby homes? I do not gain the impression that the homes purpose was just to provide clinical and social care that the family could not provide - if that were the case, the permanence of placement and separation from family that was the experience of women such as Philomena would not have occurred. What was the social, cultural - and, in the situation of Irish society at the time, religious - matrix that gave rise to this rejection, a rejection which appears to have had at least to some extent a systemic character? Whilst the responsibility for abuse rests rightly with those who actually carried out the abuse, is there not also a responsibility to be explored for the societal matrix which gave rise to an apparently systemic need for mother and baby homes?

I do not believe the question is purely academic, or purely a question of history. We can equally ask, in the context of the forthcoming World Meeting of Families (whose theme is Love is our Mission: the Family fully alive) and Synod of Bishops (dedicated to The Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and in the Contemporary World): what are the situations in Catholic families today that might lead to the extent of rejection from family and ecclesial life that, in a former time in Ireland, contributed to the circumstances of the mother and baby homes, and the shame that that has subsequently brought on the Church?

What do family members make of a son or daughter who marries outside the Church, or who do not marry at all and simply cohabit? How does a parish react to a co-habiting couple who seek marriage in the Catholic Church? What do Catholics in a parish make of a daughter who is pregnant outside of marriage, perhaps even while still at school? What do Catholics in a parish make of a parishioner who has an abortion? The two situations that have given rise to a vehemence of debate in the run up to the Synod are in reality only two questions among others: what should Catholic families and parishes make of validly married couples who have civilly divorced and entered into new unions; and what should families and parishes make of members who enter into same-sex relationships be they instances of cohabitation or civilly recognised unions?

The question is much less one about reception of Holy Communion than it is one about a mission of hospitality (see below), and I think it is unfortunate that the question has been framed in terms of admission to Holy Communion or change in the Church's teaching on same-sex relationships. Those decrying "confusion about Catholic teaching" in these matters have, in my view, contributed as much to the discussion of the wrong question as have those who in the first instance are attempting to promote change in teaching and sacramental practice. Providing an answer to the questions above certainly will not be served by a derogation from Catholic teaching; but neither will it be served by reaffirming that teaching and offering nothing more than that reaffirmation (cf, for example, Pope Benedict XVI response to the last question during the evening of witness of the World Meeting of Families in Milan in June 2012).

Reading Chapter VIII of the catechesis of the World Meeting of Families 2015  is, I think, instructive in offering a response to the questions asked above. It opens by referring to the "hard teachings" of Jesus, that challenge the disciples, and even cause some of them to leave:

...it should surprise no one that some Church teachings are also perceived as “hard sayings,” out of step with current culture, especially on marriage, sexual expression, and the family.

Starting from Pope Francis' image of the Church as a "field hospital", the chapter goes on to develop an account of the pastoral nature of the Church's teaching with regard to marriage.

Pope Francis helps us to see the Church’s “hard sayings” as words for our healing. But we need to engage in a kind of triage, treating the wounds according to their severity.

It sees the starting point as the call of every Christian has to a personal encounter with the person of Christ, and that the action of the Church and of her members is aimed at bringing about this encounter. In a strictly correct sense, the chapter indicates a need for accompaniment in a journey of spiritual growth that applies to all Christians, including those whose marital situations present difficulties. It also skillfully indicates that Pope Francis is in complete continuity with his predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, in this regard. What particularly strikes me in this chapter is its call on families and parishes to engage in a mission of hospitality:

Many of Christ’s moral teachings, and thus Catholic ethics, are demanding. But they presume in Christians a spirit of discipleship, a life of prayer, and a commitment to social and economic Christian community -   i.e., a family of other men and women who have encountered Jesus, who together confess that he is Lord, wanting his grace to shape their lives, and helping each other respond to him....

The key is to create within the family, the parish, and the wider Christian community an environment of mutual support where moral growth and change can occur...

 ... if ordinary parishioners understood the rationale behind celibacy as a community practice, and if more domestic churches took the apostolate of hospitality more seriously, then the ancient Catholic teaching on chastity lived in continence outside of marriage might look more plausible to modern eyes. In other words, if our parishes really were places where "single" did not meant "lonely", where extended networks of friends and families really did share one another's joys and sorrows, then perhaps at least some of the world's objections to Catholic teaching might be disarmed. Catholics can embrace apostolates of hospitality no matter how hostile or indifferent the surrounding culture might be. Nobody is limiting lay or ordained Catholics in the friendship we can offer those who struggle.

The barriers to achieving this will differ from place to place. But nothing is served by presenting this call to an apostolate of hospitality as if it is a denial of Catholic teaching.

Havel's "Politics of Conscience" and Pope Francis' "Laudato si": surprising parallels

In the last week of the (not) long (enough) summer holiday that is a perk of the teaching profession, I have been reading Michael Zantovsky's Havel: A Life. It is a substantial biography of Vaclav Havel, playwright, dissident (in the very specific meaning of that term during the 1970's and 1980's), advocate of human rights and, eventually, president of then Czechoslovakia after its "velvet revolution" of 1989. My progress has been slow as, when works by Havel that I already have on my bookshelves are referred to by Zantovsky, I have been abandoning the biography to read them. One of these works was Havel's essay "Politics and Conscience".

Havel's essay "Politics and Conscience" (link to English translation from here; I have a print copy in a book entitled Vaclav Havel: Living in Truth) was written in February 1984 as a speech to be delivered on receiving an honorary doctorate at the University of Toulouse-Le Mirail. Havel himself was prevented from travelling to Toulouse for the occasion as the Czech authorities had confiscated his passport; the text was first circulated in a samizdat publication(underground publishing) in Czechoslovakia. There are striking similarities between Havel's text and chapters three and four of Pope Francis' encyclical letter Laudato si. Compare, for example, the opening paragraph of Havel's essay (written, like the remainder of the essay, from an existentialist background):

As a boy, I lived for some time in the country and I clearly remember an experience from those days: I used to walk to school in a nearby village along a cart track through the fields and, on the way, see on the horizon a huge smokestack of some hurriedly built factory, in all likelihood in the service of war. It spewed dense brown smoke and scattered it across the sky. Each time I saw it, I had an intense sense of something profoundly wrong, of humans soiling the heavens. I have no idea whether there was something like a science of ecology in those days; if there was, I certainly knew nothing of it. Still that "soiling of the heavens" offended me spontaneously. It seemed to me that, in it, humans are guilty of something, that they destroy something important, arbitrarily disrupting the natural order of things, and that such things cannot go unpunished. To be sure, my revulsion was largely aesthetic; I knew nothing then of the noxious emissions which would one day devastate our forests, exterminate game, and endanger the health of people.

and n.115 of Pope Francis' encyclical (the quotations are respectively from Romano Guardini and Pope John Paul II):

Modern anthropocentrism has paradoxically ended up prizing technical thought over reality, since “the technological mind sees nature as an insensate order, as a cold body of facts, as a mere ‘given’, as an object of utility, as raw material to be hammered into useful shape; it views the cosmos similarly as a mere ‘space’ into which objects can be thrown with complete indifference”. The intrinsic dignity of the world is thus compromised. When human beings fail to find their true place in this world, they misunderstand themselves and end up acting against themselves: “Not only has God given the earth to man, who must use it with respect for the original good purpose for which it was given, but, man too is God’s gift to man. He must therefore respect the natural and moral structure with which he has been endowed”.

Both Havel and Pope Francis address the place of technology, and the dominance of what Pope Francis terms a "technological paradigm", not only in its impact on the natural world but also in its impact on how persons live in society, on economic and political life. Both argue against a "depersonalised" (Havel's word) exercise of political power, driven by technology, ideology, consumerism etc, and in favour of a resumption on the part of the individual person of their own responsibility towards the world around them and towards their neighbours. Both warn that solutions that are merely technological in nature will not suffice, and that solutions need to be sought that will reform the way in which people live. What Havel terms "anti-political politics" (cf the last paragraph of section IV, but you need to read the two preceding paragraphs to fully grasp this idea) has an affinity to what Pope Francis terms "the common good" (Laudato sinn.156-158).

Interestingly, in his essay Havel can refer to "science as displacing God and taking over his throne", though one should not thereby infer a religious belief on his part. Rather, if the essay is seen in its whole, Havel is recognising that there is something transcendent, and deserving of respect, in the world in which we live; and something in the human person that seeks to recognise and live in harmony with that transcendence. Pope Francis, of course, can situate this within an explicit teaching on the world as created by God.

Pope Francis, in Laudato si, sought to approach the question from the point of view of offering a teaching about mankind's relationship to the natural world in which we live.  Havel, though he opens his essay by considering the ecological question, primarily seeks to offer a warning to Western European nations about the depersonalized and dehumanizing exercise of power to which he was subject under a Communist regime but which he saw in their nations under the guise of technology, consumerism and a politics of system and bureaucracy. From different directions, they approach the same question, the question that, since the publication of Laudato si, might be termed the question of an "integral ecology"; though the different directions of approach and their different immediate contexts also explain the treatment of different specific questions, particularly in Laudato si
To fully appreciate the proximity of the thought expressed in Havel's essay to that in chapters three and four of Laudato si, I think you have to read the full texts themselves .....

Assisted Dying - or living at the end of life? UPDATE

This link received in a comment to my earlier post on this subject. It is well worth reading the posts in this blog in the context of attempts to legalise assisted suicide/euthanasia. It provides both a personal testimony and a professionally qualified contribution.

End of life .... still a life worth living

Louis Bouyer on mutual enrichment?

I would suggest that the advocates of traditional Catholicism, in its post Summorum Pontificum version, are not really interested in the mutual enrichment between the Extraordinary and Ordinary Forms sought by Pope Benedict XVI.

It's perhaps not a surprise that they should make much of the chapter in Louis Bouyer's Memoirs in which he gives a trenchant and critical account of his experience in working as a member of the post-Conciliar Consilium revising the Liturgy. There is perhaps a particular glee in noting Fr Bouyer's scathing observations about the modus operandi of the then Mgr Annibale Bugnini. The account of the writing, at least in part, of Eucharistic Prayer II in a Trastevere restaurant to meet a deadline the following morning also raises a chuckle.

But Fr Bouyer also notes the enrichment arising from the re-introduction to the Missal of " a good number of splendid prefaces taken over from ancient sacramentaries and thanks to the wider biblical readings (although, on this latter point, there was too much haste to produce anything satisfactory)". [English translation p.223]. He particularly praises the new Common Preface I; and has already referred to "three Eucharistic Prayers which, despite rather wordy intercessions, reclaimed pieces of great antiquity and unequalled theological and euchological richness" [p.220]. Can we perhaps see here something of the origins of Pope Benedict's suggestion that some of these new prefaces be introduced into the Missal of the Extraordinary Form, a proposal on which those attached to the Extraordinary Form show no sign of moving forward?

I would suggest that Fr Bouyer's summary of his account [English translation p.224] clearly recognises things of value in the Ordinary Form (my emphasis added):

After all of this, it's not much surprise if, because of its unbelievable weaknesses, the pathetic creature we produced was to provoke laughter or indignation - so much so that it makes one forget any number of excellent elements it nevertheless contains, and that it would be a shame not to salvage as so many scattered pearls in the revision that will inevitably be called for.

If Fr Bouyer's account is read as a whole, and not in a selective way, there appears to me an undeniable impetus in the direction of mutual enrichment.

The same chapter in the Memoirs includes an account of Fr Bouyer's participation in the International Theological Commission, from which he eventually resigned. In Fr Bouyer's account, he would usually be seated at meetings of the Commission between one Fr Joseph Ratzinger (traditionalist cheer?) and a certain Fr Hans Urs von Balthasar (traditionalist boo?). Now doesn't that make one's mouth water at the thought of the coffee break exchanges that might have taken place between these three!

Assisted Dying - or living at the end of life?

When I reach the time where the end of my life is foreseeable, I really do hope that none of those around me will speak or think in terms like "dying". I would much prefer them to think in terms of my living at the end of my life or, indeed, living the end of my life.  I also hope that, if I ever find myself accompanying someone else who is approaching the end of their life, we would speak and live using the same terms. It strikes me as being how the human person manifests and receives in an existential way, at this last stage of their life, the virtue of hope.

Even the term "assisted dying" articulates the denial of hope; and, if the patient is themselves at the origin of that denial, asks of their medical team to affirm them in that denial. (This seems particularly acute if it is a nurse who immediately provides the necessary drugs to the patient rather than the prescribing doctor.) If the medical team are the origin of that denial - which is a foreseeable consequence should proposed legislation before the Houses of Commons and Lords enter into law - the term expresses the projection from the medical team on to the patient of a denial of hope and inevitably provides a pressure in favour of it.

The Assisted Dying (no.2) Bill is due for Second Reading in the House of Commons on 11th September. In preparing my letter to my MP on this subject, I used the following sources:

Britain's law on assisted suicide is not 'broken' and does not need ‘fixing’

Eight Reasons not to legalize Physician Assisted Suicide

Since writing it, I have referred to:

Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: A Guide to the Evidence

According to the first source, the Commons private members bill is "almost identical" to the Bill introduced in the House of Lords, though a full text has yet to be published. One has only to look at the experience of legalized abortion to be able to foresee that legislation that does not in any way establish a right for a patient to be provided with assistance to commit suicide will in the event be interpreted in that way. Over time, doctors will sign off a patient's request precisely "on request", though that is not envisaged by the legislation. In particular - and I didn't include this in my letter - the second "independent doctor" is required by the proposed legislation to satisfy themselves of a range of factors, including the freedom of the patient from coercion. But I cannot see how a doctor can do this in genuine good faith without having a close knowledge of the patient's care, a knowledge that can only be achieved by having a significant presence in the patient's care.... and in that case a serious compromise of independence. Page 8 of the last source above indicates an aspect of this from experience in Oregon, where a small proportion of doctors sign off a majority of cases of assisted suicide.

If you want a summary of the substance of my letter - text below - it is that the experience of the practice of legalized abortion indicates that, if the proposed legislation were to make its way into law, all the safeguards around assisted suicide contained in the legislation will turn out to be utterly illusory.

I do not believe that the provision for medical professionals to provide patients with the means to kill themselves is in accord with the proper duty of care due to those who suffer serious illness. It would be much more in accord with that duty for there to be sufficient provision for end of life care on the model of hospice care. It should be possible today in countries such as England and Wales, for example, to ensure that pain relief, symptom relief and appropriate spiritual care are available to fully support a patient as they come to the end of their lives without making provision for them to commit suicide.

Whilst the Commons Bill has yet to be published, the similar Assisted Dying Bill in the House of Lords gives a close indication of the provisions in the Commons Bill. It is my view that the protections contained in that Bill, and, as I understand it, which will also be present in the Commons Bill are largely illusory. If these provisions were to become law, one can readily foresee that, as a doctor communicates a terminal diagnosis to a patient they will be expected by regulation or code of practice to also communicate the option of assistance from a medical professional to help them kill themselves. As soon as this happens, all the safeguards in the proposed legislation are compromised, most particularly the voluntary nature of the patients request which has inevitably become the subject of external influence.

One can also foresee that, whilst the debate in favour of the proposed legislation might suggest a (single) narrative of a free choice by a terminally ill patient to avoid overbearing suffering, the reality of the practice of such legislation would involve a variety of narratives on the part of patients. The published experiences of women with regard to legalized abortion, including those from writers supportive of legalized abortion, show very clearly that there are a variety of narratives, only a proportion of which can be fully characterized as a free choice on the part of the woman. This experience is instructive, I think, for what would be the experience of implementing legislation allowing medical professionals to assist their patients in killing themselves.

An afterthought that has occurred to me since writing my letter is the possibility that regulations and codes of practice might even expect the clinical staff in hospice settings to offer the option of assisted suicide to their patients - something totally alien to the ethical and clinical principles of hospice care.