The Best Thing About Being a Bishop ... Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez, OFM

In an interview with Michael Sean Winters at NCR, Archbishop Gonzalez of San Juan, Puerto Rico, shares what is the best thing for him about being a bishop:  the "new evangelization".  It can't be easy to be a bishop, especially this year, so this bishop's affirmation is a real sign that all is well. 

I am noticing a new enthusiasm in the Church for what are often small communities of people sharing an intense Christian life.  In my parish, our pastor recently went out of his way to meet with and invite our little CL group to start having School of Community at the parish again and to welcome the parishioners to join us.  Instead of being just accommodated, there seems to be a new push to seek out the life of the Church and bring it forward where it can be seen.  The archbishop's emphasis below on the word "organism" as life, as opposed to a program, underlines this phenomenon.  This excitement is something that pushes me to want to live the charism more fully, because someone else sees something new that I don't want to take for granted.

The best thing about being a bishop in 2010 is to see the call for a “new evangelization” begin to come to fruition....

One of the areas where we see this new evangelization at work is in the new ecclesial movements such as Communion & Liberation, the Neo-Catechumenal Way, and Focolare. These groups are finding new ways to invite believers to deepen their relationship with the Lord, new ways to express their experience of faith, new ways to proclaim the Gospel to our modern culture which often seems awash in a sea of relativism and despair.

In announcing the new pontifical Council for the New Evangelization in June, Pope Benedict XVI used an interesting word. He said, “I have decided to create a new organism, in the form of a pontifical council, with the principal task of promoting a renewed evangelization in the countries where the first proclamation of faith has already resounded and where there are churches of ancient foundation present, but which are living through a progressive secularization of society and a kind of ‘eclipse of the sense of God,’” The word “organism” indicates to me that the bishops of our day, with their clergy and lay faithful, must see this new evangelization not in programmatic or bureaucratic terms, but as a way of life, rooted in the event of Jesus Christ, growing in new and creative ways. It is exciting to be a bishop at a time when our apostolic calling to spread the Good News once again is the focus of new and exciting ways, spreading the Gospel to a culture that is as hungry for God as was the Mediterranean culture to which Sts. Peter and Paul preached.

Q & A: Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez, OFM

A Catholic University?

I have been following the events at Notre Dame with great curiosity, and when I read what Sharon blogged (she has links to everyone else, so just read what she wrote and follow her links) on the subject, I sensed an invitation in her post. So, here I am!

Every time I began to think about the president's invitation to speak at (and to receive an honorary degree from) Notre Dame, a conversation I once overheard would run through my mind. A Catholic philosopher who was teaching at the University of Chicago was speaking to the dean of one of the colleges that is considered more orthodox and serious about its Catholic identity. The philosopher observed that he could always tell which of his students were either Catholic or Jewish from the rest of the students. The dean asked him how he could tell, and the philosopher replied, "The Catholic and Jewish students all have a sense that there are other countries in the world, that people speak other languages, that in the past there were people, people who came from cultures very different from our own, who thought great things and whose works are worthy of examination." The dean seemed bemused and then said, "Well, we know our students are Catholic because daily Mass on campus is packed with students, because they often gather together to pray the rosary, and because a majority of them major in theology, and because they engage in a multitude of pro-life activities." And that was the end of the conversation.

I think that Stephen (not my husband, but a good friend) is right that the people who now decry Notre Dame's invitation to President Obame are (more or less) the same people who have been suspicious of Notre Dame's claim to being a truly Catholic institution. It seems that this controversy provides them with a litmus test -- to judge just how "Catholic" Notre Dame is. Will Notre Dame waver under the barage of email, phone messages and letters of protest, or will she remain "Catholic in name only"?

The question about what makes a University Catholic and what makes its students Catholic seems to be the unspoken heart of the whole brouhaha. There is enormous pressure on the students to "prove" their Catholicism by protesting or even boycotting their graduation ceremony.

What troubles me is that this drive to reject a man (who is after all, our president) seems neither human nor Christian. Many of the children in my atrium pray for President Obama that he may be a good president and make good decisions. A few pray that he will stop killing babies. Both prayers indicate a commitment toward his person, toward his humanity, I think. These prayers imply a relationsionship with the man. If we want these things for him, for his ultimate good, then we must spend time with the man. Jesus spent more time with Pharisees than he did even with the poor and the lame -- at least, his conversations with the Pharisees use much more ink in the Bible. Why? Why did he spend time with them? Why did he pray with them, witness to them? Why did he forgive them from the Cross?

As Catholics, we should think hard about how we approach those who come from other worlds, who speak another language. God has placed this president in our lives for a reason. He exists and leads us for our good, to lead us to Christian maturity (as Sharon so beautifully points out). We should spend some time thinking about what is best for him, how we might help him "to be a good president and make good decisions."

Cross posted at Come to See.

Collapse and Culture

A strange voice sounded through the trauma of the unfolding financial crisis of the past few weeks, picked up by the newswires. After all the experts had been quoted about the worsening conditions of the credit markets, the right and wrong ways to resolve these, and the apportionment of blame, an entirely different message was heard.

It came from Pope Benedict XVI. It was startling in its starkness. There was no cajoling or handwringing. It was a statement so straightforward as to seem suddenly obvious, nakedly true:

We see it now in the fall of the great banks. This money disappears; it is nothing -- and in the same way, all these things, which lack a true reality to depend on, and are elements of a second order. The word of God is the basis of everything, it is the true reality. And to be realists, we should count on this reality.

In the Pope's Meeting with the Representatives of Culture, he describes how the Christian culture was born in a specifically Christian institution, the monastery. The context was the "collapse of the old order and its certainties." The Christian Church rebuilt the fractured West based on: "quaerere Deum – setting out in search of God. We could describe this as the truly philosophical attitude: looking beyond the penultimate, and setting out in search of the ultimate and the true."

Within the monastery the culture of the word was cultivated based on Scripture. Secondly, work was honored as a participation in God's work in the world. "God himself is the Creator of the world, and creation is not yet finished. God works, ergázetai!"

From this Christian institution, which survived the old assumptions, came a new communication, a cultural outreach.

In fact, Christians of the nascent Church did not regard their missionary proclamation as propaganda, designed to enlarge their particular group, but as an inner necessity, consequent upon the nature of their faith: the God in whom they believed was the God of all people, the one, true God, who had revealed himself in the history of Israel and ultimately in his Son, thereby supplying the answer which was of concern to everyone and for which all people, in their innermost hearts, are waiting. The universality of God, and of reason open towards him, is what gave them the motivation—indeed, the obligation—to proclaim the message. They saw their faith as belonging, not to cultural custom that differs from one people to another, but to the domain of truth, which concerns all people equally.

To build, we have to start with the right materials. The bricks the monks recovered from the rubble were the culture of the word and the dignity of work. In many ways, the Christian cultural messages have become obscured because they're still chained to the wrong certainties: the free market system, the prosperity Gospel, American exceptionalism.

The movement to defend the child in the womb has been so shackled to other "certainties" as to be largely obscured as an urgent message of human dignity. While a hierarchy of human concerns is necessary, the reductive packaging has muddled the announcement, and in particular the cause has been cut-off from a larger culture of life based on a vision of man as loved by God. This is not so much the fault of opponents as of ourselves. The lived witness, the unity which testifies to the truth, has been lacking. As the Pope wrote in the same address to cultural leaders:

To put it yet another way: there are dimensions of meaning in the word and in words which only come to light within the living community of this history-generating word. Through the growing realization of the different layers of meaning, the word is not devalued, but in fact appears in its full grandeur and dignity. Therefore the Catechism of the Catholic Church can rightly say that Christianity does not simply represent a religion of the book in the classical sense (cf. par. 108). It perceives in the words the Word, the Logos itself, which spreads its mystery through this multiplicity and the reality of a human history.

A truly educational response

Missing premise or not, Prof. Lee's response is too narrow, too abstract, and too prone to misinterpretation to be truly educational- I know a thing or two about being too abstract- and is not likely to persuade anyone who does not already agree with him... (from Deacon Scott Dodge's post, Inherent complexity defies reduction)

While it might be argued that Prof Lee's letter to the editor, which appeared in a local newspaper, The Herald Star, only aimed to refute the claim that he and other Catholics are "single-issue" voters, I think that Deacon Scott's point is valid, because at this critical juncture in our history, all that we say or do publicly on the subject of abortion must also attempt to persuade others to the truth.

Our call, as Catholics, is not simply to communicate the truth. We must be concerned with the question of method: How we communicate the truth is much more important than most pro-life activists and apologists realize. Moreover, it is not enough to craft arguments that please and impress those who agree with us. Christ gives us a clear directive when he says, "Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation..." (Mark 16:15).

Let's pay attention! What we are called to communicate is good news! Before we open our mouths, pick up a pen, or sit down to our keyboards, it had better be very clear to us that our first job is to proclaim something new, something tremendously good. If we're not up to this task, we would do better to remain silent.

Our method, then, is to find the good news, wherever it may be located (buried or overlooked), and lift it up. This is the heart of fraternal correction and Christian witness.

I myself am guilty of expressing discouragement and waxing polemical when it comes to political questions. This conversation is a good reminder to me that the very first premise, the one that informs all the others, is that I have been preferred, chosen by God to bear his good news -- and not as a result of any good deed I've done or special talent I possess -- God's preference for me is purely gratuitous. From this recognition flows the awareness of another fact: other persons have also been preferred, chosen by God, as well. This dynamic was beautifully described in a witness, given during a CL Summer vacation, a little over a year ago; it is also summed up by Christ's assertion that all the hairs of our heads are counted; and it was articulated in the film, Greater: Defeating AIDS, by Emmanuel Exitu, when Vicky recounts that Rose asked her, "Vicky don't you know that the value in you is greater than the value of this disease?"

Before we speak or write a single word about abortion, or any other evil we encounter, let's remember the infinite and irreducible value of each person. Those who desire the "freedom" to choose abortion are forgetting their own irreducible value. Before they can begin to appreciate the dignity and value of the lives of the unborn, they will need to discover a much deeper affection for themselves and a much broader understanding about where their own value comes from. They will never discover these things if we shun them, insult them, or even deliver fine logical arguments in their general direction.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-2).

Blogs and Free Time

Fred, Sister Edith and I visited this last weekend at the Exercises as fellow bloggers. We very briefly talked about this common blog. I liked what Fred had to say about it, that we have to make the effort to stay together. He also had the great idea that one of us post a challenge to kick off a discussion, rather than just dropping in various pieces.

How about a postmodern question to give this blog a kick? Blogging is something of a disreputable activity. It is time stolen from Responsibilities. It's for people with Egos. It's at best an Outlet.

Last night I received this email at my Flickr account.

Hello,

I love many of the pictures that you share on Filckr and find inspiration though them, and also a simple tranquility that soothes me and brings comfort on those 'crazy zanny' days. :)

I have a question though, what is Communion and Liberation?

Thanks,
Hope

Normally, we endure and perhaps buy into a disdain for a medium which supposedly supplants human contact. Of course, the print medium has been used from the time the Gospels were committed to writing and continues to be a major evangelization tool of the Church. And learning was very limited before the printing press. Is it that blogs are so democratic and wide-ranging in value from the illiterate to the erudite? And we have to acknowledge an alarming tendency to escape on the internet to avoid the real thing. On the other hand, the nature of blogs and similar sites offers far more give-and-take between author/creator and reader/viewer than in traditional media.

I was stopped by this message. I have the usual confusion about this strange occupation which is work. Either I think of writing and photography as a way to assert my talents with the other tasks of life endured as necessary tedium, or contradictorily I think of (or use) it as an escape.

Fr. Giussani says we know what a person is like by how they spend their free time. So what's with this blogging and such that takes up so much free time?

Communicating Oneself

Suzanne, thanks for posting so many notes from the diaconia. It was great meeting and you and Scott, and others I'd never met; along with all the old friends that I don't see as often as I'd like.

The meeting with educators was particularly helpful for me. Two weeks ago I wouldn't have thought to go, but for the past few weeks my new parish (the one in my neighborhood) has been begging for catechists. I began to get the distinct feeling that they were talking to me... so I sent the parish an email offering to help out. The director of religious education sent me back an email saying "Jim, I came to the CL Beginning Day at your house in October!" So I had an immediate verification that I was doing what I needed to do.

But as I sat in the meeting with educators at the diaconia, I really began to feel a profound sense of gratitude... gratitude for having met the Movement, and gratitude for having been shown where I was needed the most in my own circumstances. I didn't have to push the Movement, or worry about how many people were coming to School of Community. I just have to follow for myself and my own needs, then let Christ show me where he needs me to be.

Don't get me wrong... I'm really nervous about my first class with the 5th graders at my parish. But I know that I'm not there to give them the answers, or to be The Perfect Catholic. I'm there to witness to what has happened to me, to the fact that I've met Christ.

The Newest Missionary Venture

Don't miss this week's article by John Allen on a fledgling missionary operation in Mongolia. It's a fascinating subject: a brand new territory for Christian evangelization, Mongolia, just started in 1992 by a Filipino priest, now bishop. To date there are about 400 Christians.

The attraction for the new Christians has come simply from the liturgy (in the vernacular) and from the social relief programs.

Padilla said that when he conducts interviews with Mongolian converts to understand what attracted them and made them decide to join the church, most will say they first came into contact with Catholicism through one of its social programs – a school, soup kitchen, or relief center. What “hooked” them, however, was the liturgy.

“They say it’s the singing, the liturgy,” Padilla told an audience at the Oratory of St. Francis Xavier del Caravita in Rome. “They say it’s more worthwhile than what they experience in the Buddhist temple. They’re active in the prayers and in the singing, It’s not just the monks doing all the singing.”

Padilla said that even though the four parishes in Mongolia (and four parochial sub-stations) use largely Western liturgical music, it’s translated into the vernacular, and most of the liturgy now is also said using the Mongol language. That, too, he said, is a major point of entry for new converts, most of whom are young and from the middle class or below.

“We cater mostly to the young and to the very poor,” Padilla said.

Bishop Padilla also found a strategy to soften up the local officials to get church building permits.

[A] Belgian missionary who had served in Inner Mongolia explained to him how to get things done.

“He told me that when you’re in difficulty, the thing to do is to invite these officials to dinner and get them drinking, especially vodka,” he said.

“It worked, but it was rough. At one point, I was drunk at least once or twice a week. One time I had to leave my car behind because I was too drunk to drive … but God will forgive, and anyway I wasn’t a bishop yet!”

Actually, Jesus attended a lot of parties from all accounts.

Building the Kingdom may not be so complicated as we tend to think.

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