Those of us who frown on the transferring of feast days for convenience' sake know today is the actual anniversary of the fateful landing in San Salvador in 1492. We count it as a Catholic holiday because it was introduced at the behest of the Knights of Columbus (don't tell the secularists). And you can go here for an update on Queen Isabella's cause for canonization. There's a whole magazine dedicated to her, can you imagine?Speaking of conquest, there's a steep hill of papal catch-up to climb. Off we go:
Popery:
When last we met, Benedict XVI had just returned from Austria. We pick up his trail in Velletri, on one of his "inside Italy" pilgrimages, September 23. Here's the homily given at Mass in the Cathedral, in which he addresses one of the oddest passages of the Gospel -- Christ's praise of the "unjust steward." The Pope notes that the passages is followed immediately by several sayings about the right use of money, concluding with "you cannot serve both God and mammon."
Basically, it is a matter of choosing between selfishness and love, between justice and dishonesty and ultimately, between God and Satan. If loving Christ and one's brethren is not to be considered as something incidental and superficial but, rather, the true and ultimate purpose of our whole existence, it will be necessary to know how to make basic choices, to be prepared to make radical renunciations, if necessary even to the point of martyrdom. Today, as yesterday, Christian life demands the courage to go against the tide, to love like Jesus, who even went so far as to sacrifice himself on the Cross.We could then say, paraphrasing one of St Augustine's thoughts, that through earthly riches we must procure for ourselves those true and eternal riches: indeed, if people exist who are prepared to resort to every type of dishonesty to assure themselves an always unpredictable material well-being, how much more concerned we Christians must be to provide for our eternal happiness with the goods of this earth (cf. Discourses, 359, 10). Now, the only way of bringing our personal talents and abilities and the riches we possess to fruition for eternity is to share them with our brethren, thereby showing that we are good stewards of what God entrusts to us. Jesus said: "He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much" (Lk 16: 10).
So what's admirable in this unjust man is that he figures out how to get himself saved --and so must we. He's even clearer about this in the Angelus address the same day:
Christ teaches his disciples the best way to use money and material riches; share them with the poor and in this way earn their friendship, in view of the Kingdom of heaven.The connection of this parable to the poor was new to me. The Pope goes on in the Angelus to teach that profit and the equitable distribution of goods are not mutually exclusive, and cites a passage from Centesimus Annus. So all you natives getting restless about what might be coming in a B-16 social encyclical can becalm yourselves.
Here are the audiences we've missed. One worthy of close attention is part two of his discussion of St. John Chrysostom. The pope speaks of him as a bishop who knows how to bishop, to paraphrase that farmer in Iowa, and there's a lot there: his respect for women, his attention to laity and marriage & family, his suffering and exile. What really drew my attention, however, especially considering rumors about the contents of B16's next encyclical, is the last half of the address, in which he talks about St. John's politics, for want of a better term.
in his commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, proposes the model of the early Church (Acts 4:32-37) as a model for society, developing a social "utopia" (an "ideal city").Chrysostom was also something of a precursor to Adam Smith in his ideas about economics and morality, too.
He proposed, in fact, to give a soul and Christian face to the city. In other words, Chrysostom understood that it is not enough to give alms, helping the poor now and then. Rather, it is necessary to establish a new structure, a new model of society, a model based on the New Testament perspective. It is this new society that is revealed in the nascent Church.
Therefore, John Chrysostom truly becomes one of the great Fathers of the Church's social doctrine: The old idea of the Greek "polis" is replaced with a new idea of a city inspired by the Christian faith. Chrysostom affirmed with Paul (cf. 1 Corinthians 8:11) the primacy of the individual Christian, of the person as a person, including the slave and the poor man. His project corrected the traditional Greek view of the "polis," of the city, in which large portions of the population were excluded from the rights of citizenship. In the Christian city, all are brothers and sisters with equal rights.
The primacy of the person is also a consequence of the fact that the city is constructed on the foundation of the person. In the Greek "polis," on the other hand, the country was more important than the individual, who was totally subordinated to the city as a whole. In this way, with Chrysostom, the vision of a society built by the Christian conscience begins. And he tells us that our "polis" is another, "our homeland is in heaven" (Philippians 3:20) and this homeland of ours, even on this earth, renders us all equals, brothers and sisters, and obligates us to solidarity.
In the following audience, B16 took up Cyril of Alexandria, whose nickname, "custodian of accuracy," could apply to B16 in our time:
these ancient expressions manifest something that is, in fact, characteristic of Cyril, that is, the constant references the bishop of Alexandria makes to preceding ecclesiastical authorities -- including, above all, Athanasius -- with the goal of showing the continuity of his own theology with tradition."Hermeneutic of continuity," anyone? B16 goes on to talk about how Cyril saved us from Nestorius. There's a queer little detail in his exegesis --namely, that Cyril participated in the synod that deposed St. John Chrysostom (how or if Cyril voted he doesn't say), and later helped heal the rift between the Sees of Alexandria & Constantinople caused by that act. These little disputes...they all work out in the end, and you find saints on both sides of prudential matters. (Mr. W. was telling me recently about a holy pope who'd once been an anti-pope. But then he saw the error of his ways, went to confession, all fixed. But I digress.)
Cyril took care to ensure that his theology was firmly situated within the tradition of the Church, by which he sees the guarantee of continuity with the Apostles and with Christ himself."
This week's audience was about another great --and exiled therefore-- 4th c. bishop, St. Hilary of Poitiers. Here again we find B16 describing a quality he also seems to embody:
Always firm in his opposition to radical Arians, St. Hilary showed a conciliatory spirit with those who accepted that the Son was similar to the Father in essence, naturally trying to lead them toward the fullness of faith, which says that there is not only a similarity, but a true equality of the Father and the Son in their divinity.Here's a citation from Hilary the pope says he finds particularly beautiful:
This also seems characteristic: His conciliatory spirit tries to understand those who still have not yet arrived to the fullness of the truth and helps them, with great theological intelligence, to reach the fullness of faith in the true divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God only knows how to be love, only knows how to be Father. And he who loves is not envious, and whoever is Father, is so totally. This name does not allow for compromise, as if to say that God is father only in certain aspects and not in others” (ibid. 9:61).I wish I could cite the whole text.
For this reason, the Son is fully God without lacking anything or having any lessening: "He who comes from the perfect is perfect, because he who has everything, has given him everything" (ibid. 2:8).
The Angelus from Sept. 30 discusses Lazarus. A tangent caught my eye:
we cannot forget many other situations of humanitarian emergency in various regions of the planet, in which battles for political power lead to the worsening of environmental problems already weighing on the people.That suggests the Pope isn't thinking esp. of global warming when he repeatedly invokes the environment. Interesting. He expresses his closeness to the Burmese & Korean peoples here too.
From Sunday: on Our Lady of the Rosary and the month dedicated to missions.
And a pointed set of remarks to the new SoKo ambassador. The part about weapons made the headlines; the part about biotechnology seems to me more weighty.
Potpourri:
- China: worst crack-down on dissidents, Christians, in five years.
- Connecticut, etc.: trying to think the best, but it looks like the CT bishops flat-out caved on "Plan B." Round-up here. Here's a respectful response from one of the flock. NC Register editorializes, rightly, it's not just the bishops. (There's, um, a situation in San Fran, too, about which I'd rather not say much.) Bold bishops: McManus of Worcester, regarding Holy Cross. Murphy of Rockville Centre.
- Gaza: Protestant missionary tortured and killed.
- Islam: 138 Muslim scholars write to Pope, other Christian leaders, to work for peace. John Allen reports some folks are using the occasion to charge the Vatican doesn't think dialogue with Islam is possible. (Maybe. I read it more as folks huffy they didn't get their audience with the Pope.) Samir Khalil Samir, SJ uses the trial of a Christian convert in Egypt to reflect on conversion in Islam. Part 1, Part 2.
- London: too dangerous to wear a Roman collar? Fr. Neuhaus discusses.
- Portugal: a massive new Church in Fatima; B16 will address the faithful electronically on Sunday.
