Boletin Eclesiastico de Filipinas

Item

Title: Boletin Eclesiastico de Filipinas
Description: Boletin Eclesiastico de Filipinas Official Interdiocesan Organ is published monthly by the University of Santo Tomas and is printed at U.S.T. Press, Manila, Philippines.
Issue Date: January 1967
Publisher: University of Santo Tomas
Language: English; Spanish
Subject: Catholic Church--Philippines--Periodicals.; Philippines -- Religion -- Periodicals.
Rights
Place of publication: Manila
extracted text: The "Bolatin Eclesiastfca The "BOLET1N ECLESIASTICO" finds itsei oi the widespread movement for renewal. The spirit of Vatican Council II and the texts c. stress the pastoral aspect of the Church. This redche doctrine of the faitn and the practice of Christian or social; to the message of Christ to all men, v separated or still in the wraps of unbelief. This "aggiomamento" sha^l be the moving for.1 publication even as of this first fhonth of the year 1S« The conciliar decrees, the pontifical directives, tBL from the Holy See, all will be published here in the jjuages of this country, even as it has been done, i command, with the Holy Mass and other liturgical acts, qnd moral points will be taken up in the light of the Vaticc JI and in keeping with the directives of the Holy See ai "Prelates of the Philippines. They will be formulated in a p. manner, accesible not only to the priests, but -also to the relU sisters in charge of schools and colleges, and even to the sin laymen, who are now called upon to collaborate, in a special me. ner, with the Hierarchy and the priests. Shortly, we hope, this BOLET1N ECLESIASTICO may be a faithful mirror of the life of the Church in this period of post-conciliar implementation and thus contribjrfe to the renovation of the Phil ippines at large. 5 moral implications, have the right and indeed the obligation to speak. It is a question of reality here and now. We know that people are waiting for us to give a decisive pronouncement regarding the thought of the Church on this question. But obviously we cannot make such a pronouncement in this particular instance.” “We will only recall here what we said in our discourse of June 23, 1964 — that is: the thought and norm of the Church are not changed; they are those in force in the traditional teaching of the Church. The ecumenical council recently held brought out certain elements of judgment which are most useful for the integration of Catholic doctrine on this most important subject. But they were not such as to change its substantial elements. Rather they were moves to illustrate and to prove with authoritative arguments the very deep significance the Church attaches to questions concerning love, matrimony, birth and the family. “The new pronouncement awaited from the Church on the problem of the regulation of births is not thereby given, because we ourselves, having promised and having reserved the matter to ourselves, wanted to consider carefully the doctrinal and pastoral applications which have arisen regarding this problem in recent years, studying them in relation to scientific and experimental data which have been presented to us from every quarter, especially from your medical field and from the field of demography, in order to give the problem its true and worthy solution, which can only be one which is integrally human, that is, moral and Christian. We believe we have taken up the study of these applications and elements of judgment objectively. That seemed to be our obligation; and we have sought to fulfill this obligation in the best way possible, appointing a broad, varied and extremely skilled inter national commission. “This commission, through its various sections and after long dis cussions, has completed a great work and has presented its concessions 6 to us. It seems to us nevertheless that these conclusions cannot be considered definitive, because of the fact that they carry grave implica tions together with several other weighty questions both in the sphere of doctrine and in the pastoral and social spheres which cannot be isolated or set aside, but which demand a logical consideration in the context of what precisely is under study. This fact indicates once again the enormous complexities and the tremendous gravity of the subject which concerns the regulations of births, and it imposes on our responsibility a supplementary study. “We are resolutely undertaking this study with great reverence for those who have already given it so much attention and tiring labor, but likewise with a sense of the obligation of our apostolic office. And this is the reason why our response has been delayed and why it must be deferred for some time yet. “Meanwhile, as we have already said in the above-mentioned dis course, the norm until now taught by the Church, integrated by the wise instructions of the council, demands faithful and generous observ ance. It cannot be considered not binding as if the magisterium of the Church were in a state of doubt at the present time, whereas it is rather in a moment of study and reflection concerning matters which have been put before it as worthy of the most attentive consideration. This means, gentlemen, that maybe we should meet again and resume the discourse on a theme of such great importance; but already we express our confidence in your authoritative understanding and your free collaboration concerning a norm which the law of the Church — far more than our authority — and the supreme interest of human life considered in its integral fullness, dignity and destiny — far more than any partial interest — make into the best and most sacred norm for us all.” Notes on Paul VI Allocution to the Gynecologists The 29th of October papal speech makes explicit reference to the speech of June 23, 1964; to the teaching of Vatican II concerning love, matrimony, births, and the family; to the international Commis sion appointed by him to study the problem of Birth Control and Population, and, finally, to the supplementary study on the same matter which was started a few months ago, after the conclusions of that international Commission had been carefully studied. 1. In the speech, we are commenting, the Holy Father states, once more, that the question of the regulation of birth is “a vast ques tion, a very delicate question, and one on which we ourselves, because of its religious and moral implications, have the right and indeed the obligation to speak.” Although he is not yet prepared to give “the decisive pronouncement,” nevertheless the Holy Father affirms with unmistakable clarity the traditional teaching of the Church in regard to contraception. He remarks: “We will only recall here what we said in our discourse of June 23, 1966, that is: the thought and the norm of the Church are not changed. They are those in force in the tradi tional teaching of the Church.” As we can recall, on June 23, 1964, in the aforementioned speech before a group of Cardinals, Pope Paul VI asserted: “We frankly declare that there is not sufficient reason to think that the norms laid down by Pope Pius XII in this regard have been overriden and hence voided of their binding force; such norms, therefore, must be retained as valid at least until we feel in conscience obliged to modify them.” This is the clear teaching then: the norms of Pius XII are still valid; so far there is no sufficient reason to think otherwise. The well-known norms of Pius XII are, in a nut-shell, the following: sterilization, infan ticide, abortion, artificial birth control, are immoral; the moral means of controlling birth — when there are sound reasons — is natural birth control, i.e., the use of the rhythm method and continence. The norms of Pius XII are still valid and binding in practice. Are they completely valid? Yes; but, why then the last sentence: at least until we feel in conscience to modify them. This phrase of the 8 papal speech of June 23rd soon became the centre of a heated con troversy among theologians and the favorite quotation of the propa gandists of contraception. Did the Holy Father mean that the Church was in doubt regarding contraception or, at least, some means of con traception, like the pill? Some theologians answered in the affirmative: that sentence — they argued — opened the door to the mutability of of the Church’s teaching on contraception; and so — they explained — the Church’s teaching is in doubt as to the certitude of those norms of Birth Control. However, most of the theologians answered the question in the negative: “Pope Paul was merely expressing his willingness, despite absence of all discernible doubts on his own part that various experts should put the teaching Pius XII to the test in order to deter mine whether that teaching is universally applicable.” (J. J. Lynch, S.J.: “The Contraceptive Issue, Moral and Pastoral Reflections,” in Theolo gical Studies, Vol. XXVII, June, 1966, page 245.) The Pope in his speech on October 29th confirmed the truth of this latter theological interpretation by saying authoritatively: “The norm until now taught by the Church, integrated by the wise instructions of the Council, demands faithful and generous observance. It cannot be considered not binding as if the magisterium of the Church were in a state of doubt at the present time, whereas it is rather in a moment of study and reflection concerning matters which have been put before it as worthy of the most attentive consideration.” Therefore, the traditional teaching of the Church demands from all Catholic couples faithful and generous observ ance. 2. Again, people from all quarters hoped that the Pauline hinted change in the means of contraception or the definitive answer on this matter would come at the IVth Session of the- Ecumenical Council. Did the much-awaited change come as expected? The constitution on the Church in the Modern World, promulgated on December 7, 1965, have only this explicit statement on Birth Control: “By virtue of these principles, members of the Church are not permitted in the regulation of pro-creation, to enter upon paths which are disapproved by the Magisterium in its interpretation of the divine law.” To this sentence of the Conciliar Constitution is appended footnote 14 which makes 9 reference to Pius Xi’s Encyclical Casti Connubii of 1930, to Pius XII’s allocution to Obstetrical Nurses in 1951 and Paul Vi’s statement in 1964. Vatican II did not pass final judgment on the matter of Birth Control; neither did it change the traditional stand of the Church on the matter: it merely studied the matters of marriage from a different angle highly stressing conjugal love. Pope Paul VI expressed this in his speech before the Obstetricians and Gynecologists, <thus: “The Ecu menical Council recently held brought out certain elements of judgment which are most useful for the integration of Catholic doctrine on this most important subject. But they were not such as to change its substantial elements. Rather they were moves to illustrate and to prove with authoritative arguments the very deep significance the Church attach es to questions concerning love, matrimony, birth and the family.” 3. Vatican II did not pass final judgment on the problem of Birth Control, because, as footnote 14 of the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World avers: “Certain questions which need further and more careful investigation have been handed over, at the command of the Supreme Pontiff, to a commission for the study of population, family and births, in order that after it fulfills its function, the Supreme Pontiff may pass judgment. With the doctrine of the magisterium in this state, this holy Synod does not intend to propose immediately con crete solutions.” It is already a matter of history that Pope Paul VI appointed an international Commission of experts in the different fields of theology, medicine, and demography to fulfill this obligation to find out a sound solution to the problem, a solution which should be “inte grally human, i.e., moral and Christian.” This universal body of experts handed their conclusions to the Holy Father a few months ago. Were these conclusions of the Commission on Birth Control and Population final and decisive? No. Pope Paul VI says in his speech: “This Commission, through its various sections and after long discussions, has completed a great work and has presented its conclusions to us. It seems to us nevertheless that these conclusions cannot be considered definitive, because of the fact that they carry grave implications together with several other weighty questions both in the sphere of doctrine and in the pastoral and social spheres which cannot be isolated or set aside, 10 but which demand a logical consideration in the context of what pre cisely is under study. This fact indicates once again the enormous complexities and the tremendous gravity of the subject which concerns the regulation of births, and it imposes on our responsibility a supple mentary study.” This “supplementary study” which is being undertaken now will delay the decisive pronouncement of the Church on this grave matter: “We are resolutely undertaking this study,” the Holy Father states, ‘.‘with great reverence for those who have already given it so much attention and tiring labor, but likewise with a sense of the obligation of our apostolic office. And this is the reason why our response has been delayed and why it must be deferred for some time yet.” When will the “decisive pronouncements” come? How long will it take to make that “supplementary study”? We do not know as yet, and in a problem of such gravity, the guessing game is truly dangerous. The problem at hand is, according to he Pope on “exremelyserious problem,” “a vast question, a very delicate question,” which involves “enormous complexities and tremendous gravity”: all these have delayed in the past and will delay in the future any final decision. Meanwhile, Catholics are bound to follow “the one single law, such as the one proposed by the authority of the Church.” “The norm until now taught by the Church . . . demands faithful and generous observance.” F. Gomez, O.P. VATICAN COUNCIL fl Bishop Paul, Servant of the Servants of God, together with the Fathers of the Sacred Council, puts on permanent record The Dogmatic Constitution On Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum * ) ♦AAS., LVIII (1966), pp. 817 ss. Translation by NCWC News Serv ice. Adaptation and subheadings from Tin-: Pope Speaks Magazine, Wash ington, vol. II, n. 1 (1956). 1 Cf. St. Augustine, De eatechizandis rudibus. c. IV, 8: PL 40, 316. J-JEARING THE WORD OF GOD with reverence and proclaiming it with faith, the sacred Synod takes its direction from these words of St. John: “We announce to you the eternal life which dwelt with the Father and was made visible to us. What we have seen and heard we announce to you, so that you may have fellowship with us and our common fellowship be with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ” (1 ]n. 1, 2-3). Therefore, following in the footsteps of the Council of Trent and of the First Vatican Council, this present Council wishes to set forth authentic doctrine on divine revelation and its transmission, so that by hearing the message of salvation the whole world may believe, by believing it may hope, and by hoping it may love.* 1 12 Chapter I REVELATION ITSELF Its Nature and Object 2. In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known the sacrament of His will (cf. Eph. 1, 9) so that through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might have access in the Holy Spirit to the Father and come to share in the divine nature (cf. Eph. 2, 18; 2 Pt. 1, 4). Through this revelation, therefore, and out of the abundance of His love, the invisible God (cf. Col. 1, 15; 1 Tm. 1, 17) speaks to men as friends (cf. Ex. 33, 11; ]n. 15, 15-15) and lives among them (cf. Bar. 3, 38), so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself. This plan of revelation is realized by deeds and words having an inner unity. The deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them. By this revelation the deepest truth about God and the salvation of man shines out for our sake in Christ, who is both the mediator and the fullness of all revelation.2 3. God, who through the Word creates all things (cf. Jn. 1, 3) and keeps them in existence, gives men an enduring witness to Himself in created realities (cf. Rom. 1, 19-20). Planning to make known the way of heavenly salvation, He went further and manifested Himself from the beginning to our first parents. After their fall His promise of redemption aroused in them the hope of being saved (cf. Gen. 3, 15) and from that time on He ceaselessly kept the human race in His care, in order to give eternal life to those who perseveringlv do good in search of salvation (cf. Rom. 2, 6-7). Then, at the appointed rime He called Abraham in order to make of him a great nation (cf. Gen. 2Cf. Mt. 11, 27; ]n. 1, 14 and 17; 1-3; 2 Cor. 3, 16 and 4, 6; Eph. 1, 3-14. 13 12, 2). After the patriarchs through Moses and the prophets He taught this people to acknowledge Him as the one living and true God, provident father and just judge, and to wait for the Savior pro mised by Him. In this manner, He prepared the way for the Gospel down through the centuries. Perfected by Christ 4. After speaking in many and varied ways through the prophets, “now at last in these days God has spoken to us in His Son” (Heb. 1, 1-2). For He sent His Son, the eternal Word who enlightens all men, to dwell among men and tell them of the innermost being of God (cf. Jn. 1, 1-18). Jesus Christ, therefore, the Word made flesh, was sent as “a man to men.”1 He “speaks the words of God” (/n. 3, 34) and completes the work of salvation which His Father gave Him to do (cf. Jn. 5, 36; 17, 4). To see Jesus is to see His Father (cf. Jn. 14, 9). For this reason Jesus perfected revelation by fulfilling it through His whole work of making Himself present and manifesting Himself through His words and deeds, His signs and wonders, but especially through His death and glorious resurrection from the dead, and finally through sending the Spirit of truth. Moreover He confirmed with divine testimony what revelation proclaimed, that God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to life eternal. Therefore, the Christian dispensation as the new and definitive covenant will never pass away, and no further new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Tm. 6, 14 and Ti. 2, 13). Man's commitment through faith 5. “The obedience of faith” (Rom. 16, 26; cf. 1, 5; 2 Cor. 10, 5-6) is to be given to God who reveals, an obedience by which man commits his whole self freely to God, “offering the full submission of intellect ■1 Epistle to Diognclus, c. VII, 4: Funk, Apostolic Fathers, I, p. 403. 14 and will to God who reveals,”* and freely assenting to the truth revealed by Him. The grace of God and the interior help of the Holy Spirit must precede and assist this act of faith, moving the heart and turning it to God, opening the eyes of the mind and giving “joy and ease to everyone in assenting to the truth and believing it.”4 5 6 In order to bring about an ever deeper understanding of revelation the same Holy Spirit constantly brings faith to completion by His gifts. 4 First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chap. 3, “On Faith”: Denzinger 1789 (3008). 5 Second Council of Orange, Canon 7: Denzinger 180 (377); First Vatican Concil, loc. cit.: Denzinger 1791 (3010). 6 First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Fa' Chap. 2, “On Revelation”: Denzinger 1786 (3005). ■ Ibid: Denzinger 1785 and 1786 (3004 and 3005). 6. Through divine revelation, God chose to reveal and communicate Himself and the eternal decisions of His will regarding the salvation of men. That is to say, “He chose to share with them those divine treas ures which totally transcend the understanding of the human mind.”0 A sacred synod has affirmed that “God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty from created reality by the natural light of human reason” (cf. Rom. 1, 20); but it teaches that it is through His revelation “that those religious truths which are by their nature accessible to human reason can be known by all men with ease, with solid certitude and with no trace of error, even in the present state of the human race.”7 Chapter II THE TRANSMISSION OF DIVINE REVELATION 7. In His gracious goodness, God has seen to it that what He had revealed for the salvation of all nations would abide perpetually in its full integrity and be handed on to all generations. Therefore Christ the Lord, in whom the full revelation of the supreme God is 15 brought to completion (cf. 2 Cor. 1, 30; 3, 16-4, 6), commissioned the Apostles to preach to all men that Gospel which is the source of all saving truth and moral teaching,8 9 and to impart to them heavenly gifts. This Gospel had been promised earlier through the prophets, and Christ Himself had fulfilled it and promulgated it with His own lips. The Apostles .faithfully fulfilled this commission. By their oral preaching, by example, and by observances they handed on what they had received from the lips of Christ, from living with Him, and from His actions, or what they had learned through the prompting of the Holy Spirit. The commission was also fulfilled by those Apostles and apostolic men who committed the message cf salvation to writing,'' under the inspira tion of the same Holy Spirit. 8 Cf. Mt. 28, 19-20, and Mb- 16, 15; Council of Trent, session IV, Decree on the Canonical Scriptures: Denzinger 783 (1501). 9 Cf. Council of Trent, loc. cit.; First Vatican Council, session III, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chap. 2, “On Revelation”: Denzinger 1787 (3006). 10 St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies III, 3, 1: PG 7, 848; Harvey, 2, p. 9. Teaching Authority of the Bishops But in order to keep the Gospel forever whole and alive within the Church, the Apostles left bishops as their successors, “handing over” to them “the authority to teach in their own place.”10 Therefore this Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture of both Old and New Testa ments are like a mirror in which the pilgrim Church on earth looks at God, from whom it has received everything, until it is brought finally to see Him as He is, face to face (cf. 7 Jn. 3, 2). Sacred Tradition 8. The apostolic preaching, expressed in a special way in the in spired books, was to be preserved by an unending succession of preachers until the end of time. Therefore the Apo6tles, transmitting what they themselves had received, warn the faithful to hold fast to the traditions which they have learned either bv word of mouth or by letter (cf. 2 Thes. 2, 15), and to fight in defense of the faith handed on once and 16 for all (cf. Jude 3).11 Now what was handed on by the Apostles in cludes everything contributing to the holiness of life and the increase in faith of the people of God; and so the Church, in its teaching, life, and worship, perpetuates and passes on to all generations all that it is, ail that it believes. 11 Cf. Second Council of Nicaea: Denzinger 303 (602). Fourth Council of Constance, se sion X, canon I: Denzinger 336 (650-652). 12 Cf. First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chap. 4, “On Faith and Reason”: Denzinger 1800 (3020). This Tradition which comes from the Apostles develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit.11 12 There is a growth in the understanding of the realities and words which have been handed down. This comes about through the contemplation and study made by believ ers, who treasure these things in their hearts (cf. Lk.. 2, 19, 51); through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience; and through the preaching of those who have received the charism of truth through episcopal succession. As the centuries succeed cne another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the time when the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in the Church. The words of the holy Fathers witness to the life-giving presence of this Tradition, whose wealth is poured into the practice and life of the believing and praying Church. Through the same Tradition the Church’s full canon of the sacred books is known, and the sacred writ ings themselves are more profoundly understood and unceasingly activ ated in the Church. Thus God, who spoke in ages past, continually converses with the Spouse of His beloved Son; and the Holy Spirit — through whom the living voice of the Gospel resounds in the Church and, through the Church, in the world — leads believers to all truth and causes the word of Christ to dwell abundantly in them (cf. Col. 3, 16). Tradition and Scripture 9. Hence there exists a close connection and communication between Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. Both of them, flowing from 17 the same divine wellspring, unite in a certain manner and tend toward the same end. Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it was written under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while Sacred Tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and transmits it to their successors in is full purity. Thus, led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming this word of God preserve it faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws its certainty about everything which has been revealed. Both Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of devotion and reverence.” 10. Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church. Holding fast to this deposit all the holy people united with their bishops remain always stead fast in the teaching of the Apostles, in the common life, in the breaking of the bread and in prayers (cf. Acts 8, 42, Greek text). Thus there is a single common effort by the bishops and the faithful to hold onto the heritage of faith and to practice and profess it.14 1: Cf. Council of Trent, session IV, loc. cit.: Denzinger 783 (1501). HCf. Pius XII, Apost. constitution Munijicentissimus Deus, Nov. 1, 1950: AAS 42 (1950), p. 756; together with the words of St. Cyprian, Ep. 66, 8: Hartel. Ill, B, p. 733: “The Church is the people united with their Priest and the flock clinging to their Shepherd.” Cf. First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chap. 3, “On Faith”: Denzinger 1792 (3011). ,nCf. Pius XII, Encyc. letter Humani Generis, Aug. 12, 1950: AAS 42 (1950), pp. 568-69: Denzinger 2314 (3886). Their Relation to the Magisterium The task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed down,10 * has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church,11' whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the word of God; but, teaching only what has been handed on, it serves the word of God by listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously, and explain 18 ing it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit. It draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed. It is clear, therefore, that Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others. All together and each in its own way, under the action of the one Holy Spirit, contribute effectively to the salvation of souls. Chapter III THE DIVINE INSPIRATION AND THE INTERPRETATION OF SACRED SCRIPTURE 11. The divinely revealed realities contained and presented in Sacred Scripture were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Holy Mother Church, relying on the belief of the Apostles, holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because, having been writ ten under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration (cf. Jn. 20, 31; 2 Tm. 3, 16; 2 Pt. 1, 19-21; 3, 15-16), they have God as their author, and they have been handed on as such to the Church itself.1' God chose men to compose the sacred books, and while employed by Him” they used their powers and abilities in such a manner that, with Him acting in 17 Cf. First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chap. 2, “On Revelation”: Denzinger 1787 (3006). Biblical Commis sion, Decree of June 18, 1915: Denzinger 2180 (3629); EB 420; Holy Office, Epistle of Dec. 22, 1923; EB 499. 18 Cf. Pius XII, Encyc. letter Divino Afflante Spiritu, Sept. 30, 1943: /MS 35 (1943), p. 314; EB 556. 19 them and through them,10 they, as true authors, wrote all the things and only those things which He wanted written.* 20 21 22 ''In and through man: cf. Heb. 1, 1 and 4, 7 (in): 2 Sm 23, 2; Mt. 1, 22 and various places (through); First Vatican Council, Schema on Catholic Doctrine, note 9: Coll. Lac. VII, 522. 20 Leo XIII, Encyc. letter Providentissimus Deus, Nov. 18, 1893: Denzinger 1952 (3293); EB 125. 21 Cf. St. Augustine, Literal Inter pt elation of Genesis 2, 9, 20: PL 34, 270271; Epistle 82, 3: PL 33, 277: CSEL 34, 2, p. 354. St. Thomas, On Truth, q. 12, a. 2, C. Council of Trent, session IV, On the Canonical Scriptures: Denzinger 783 (1501). Leo XIII, Encyc. letter Providentissimus Deus: EB 121, 124, 126-127. Pius XII, Encyc. letter Divino Afflante Spiritu: EB 539. 22 St. Augustine, City of God, XVII, 6, 2; PL 41, 537: CSEL XL, 2, 228. Therefore since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be regarded as asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faith fully and without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings-1 for the sake of our salvation. Accordingly “all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of everv kind” (2 Tm. 3, 16-17, Greek text). Norms for Exegesis 12. However, since in Sacred Scripture God speaks through men in human fashion. ’ the interpreter of Sacred Scripture should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended and God wanted manifested through their words, in order to see clearly what He wanted to communicate to us. In determining the intention of the sacred writers, “literary forms” should be considered along with other things. Truth is set forth and expressed in different ways, depending on whether the texts are histo rical, prophetic, poetic, or in some other form. The interpreter must inquire into the meaning which the sacred writer, by virtue of his own time and culture, intended to express and actually did express in 20 particular circumstances in his use of contemporary literary forms.2’ To understand correctly what the sacred author wanted to assert in writing, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed in his time, and to the patterns men normally employed then in their everyday dealings with one another.21 23 St. Augurtine On Christian Doctrine, III, 18, 26; PL 34, 75-76. -'Pius XJI, loc. cit.: Denzinger 2294 (3829-3830); EB 557-562. 25 Cf. Benedict XV, Encyc. letter Spiritus Paraclitus, Sept. 15, 1920: EB 469. St. Jerome On Galatians 5, 19-21: PL 26, 417 A. 20 Cf. First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chap. 2, “On Revelation”: Denzinger 1788 (3007). 27 St. John Chrysostom, On Genesis, 3, 8 (Homily 17, 1): PG 53, 134. “Attemperatio” in Greek synkatabasis. But, since Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the same Spirit in whom it was written,no less serious attention must be given to the content and unity of the whole of Scripture if the meaning of the sacred texts is to be correctly worked out. The living Tradition of the whole Church must be taken into account along with the analogy of faith. It is the task of exegetes to work according to these rules toward a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of Sacred Scripture, so that through preparatory study the judgment of the Church may mature. All that has been said about the way of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgment of the Church, which has the divine commission and ministry of guarding and interpreting the word cf God.2n God’s “Condescension” Toward Man 13. In Sacred Scripture, therefore, while the truth and holiness of God always remain intact, the marvelous “condescension” of eternal wisdom is clearly shown, “that we may learn the gentle kindness of God, which words cannot express, and how far He has gone in adapting His language with thoughtful concern for our weak human nature.”2. For the words of God, expressed in human language, have been made like human discourse, just as long ago the Word of the Eternal Father took to Himself the flesh of human weakness and was made like men. 23 * 25 * 27 21 Chapter IV THE OLD TESTAMENT 14. In carefully planning and preparing the salvation of the whole human race the God of infinite love, by a special dispensation, chose for Himself a people to whom He would entrust His promises. First He entered into a covenant with Abraham (cf. Gen. 15, 18) and, through Moses, with the people of Ismael (cf. Ex. 24, 8). Through words and deeds, He so manifested Himself to this chosen people as the one true and living God that Israel came to know the ways of God with men from experience. And when God Himself spoke to the people through the Prophets, they daily gained a deeper and clearer understanding of His ways, and they made them more widely known among the nations (cf. Ps. 21, 28-29; 95, 1-3; Is. 2, 1-4; Jer. 3, 17). The plan of salva tion foretold, recounted and explained bv the sacred authors is found as the true word of God in the books of the Old Testament ;and so these divinely-inspired books remain permanently valuable. “For all that was written was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” (Rom. 15, 4). Important to Christians 15. The principal purpose of the Old Covenant’s plan was to pre pare for the coming of Christ, the Redeemer of all and of the messianic kingdom, to announce this coming by prdphecy (cf. Lk.. 24, 44; Jn. 5, 39; ] Pt. 1, 10), and to indicate its meaning through various types (cf. / Cor. 10, 11). The books of the Old Testament, in accordance with mankind’s state before the time of salvation established by Christ, reveal to everyone the knowledge of God and man as well as the ways in which the just and merciful God deals with men. Although these books also contain some things which are incomplete and temporary, they nevertheless show us true divine pedagogy.2’ They reveal a lively sense -s Pius XI, Encyc. letter Mil Brenncnder Sorge, March 14, 1937: AAS 29 (1937), p. 151. of God, and they contain a store of sublime teachings about Him, sound wisdom about human life, and a wonderful treasury of prayers. In these books the mystery of our salvation is present in a hidden way. Christians should receive them with reverence. Unity of both Testaments 16. God, the inspirer and author of the books of both-Testaments, wisely arranged that the New Testament be hidden in the Old and the Old made manifest in the New.20 For, though Christ established the new covenant in His blood (cf. Lk.. 22, 20; 1 Cor. 11, 25), still the bocks of the Old Testament with all their parts, taken up into the proclamation of the Gospel,* 30 acquire and show forth their full meaning in the New Testament (cf. Mt. 5, 17; Lk- 24, 27; Ram. 16, 25-26; 2 Cor. 3, 14-16). And in turn they shed light on it and explain it. St. Augustine, Questions on the Heptateuch 2, 73: PL 34, 623. 30 St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies III, 21, 3: PG 7, 950; (Same as 25, 1: Harvey 2, p. 115). St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catccheses 4, 35: PG 33, 497. Theodore of Mopsuestia, On Sophcmia 1, 4-6: PG 66, 452D-453A. Chaptiu V THE NEW TESTAMENT 17. The word of God, which is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe (cf. Rom. 1, 16), is set forth and shows its power in a most excellent way in the writings of the New Testament. When the fullness of time arrived (cf. Gal. 4, 4), the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us in His fullness of grace and truth (cf. Jn. 1, 14). Christ established the kingdom of God on earth, manifesting His Father and Himself by deeds and words. He completed His work by His death, resurrection and glorious ascension and by the sending of the Holy Spirit. Having been lifted up from the earth, He draws all men to Himself (cf. Jn. 12, 32, Greek text), He who alone has the words 23 of eternal life (cf. Jn. 6, 68). This mystery had not been manifested to other generations as it was now revealed to His holy Apostles and Prophets in the Holy Spirit (cf. Eph. 3, 4-6, Greek text), so that they might preach the Gospel, stir up faith in Jesus, Christ and Lord, and gather the Church together. The New Testament writings stand as a perpetual and divine witness to these realities. The Preeminence of the Gospels 18. It is common knowledge that the Gospels have a special pre eminence, and rightly so, among all the Scriptures, even those of the New Testament. They are the principal witness to the life and teaching of the Incarnate Word, our Savior. The Church has always and everywhere held and continues to hold that the four Gospels are of apostolic origin. What the Apostles preached in fulfillment of Christ’s commission was afterwards conveyed to us in writing by them and by apostolic men, under the inspiration of the divine Spirit — the foundation of faith, namely, the fourfold Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.11 31 Cf. St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies III, 11, 8: PG 7, 885; cd. Sagnard, p. 194. 33 Jn. 2, 22; 12, 16; cf. 14, 26; 16, 12-13; 7, 39. 31 Cf. Jn. 14, 26; 16, 13. 19. Holy Mother Church has firmlv and with absolute constancy held and continues to hold that these four Gospels, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully convey what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day He was taken up (cf. Acts 1, 1). Indeed, after the Lord’s ascension the Apostles imparted to their hearers what He had said and done. They did this with that clearer understanding which they enjoyed12 after experiencing tthe glorious events of Christ’s life and being taught by the light of the Spirit of truth.31 * 33 The sacred authors wrote the four Gospels, selecting some things from the many which had been handed on by word of mouth or in writing, reducing some to a synthesis or explicating them in view of the situation of their churches, and preserving the form of proclamation, but always in such 24 fashion that they told us the honest truth about Jesus.34 Their intention in writing was that from their own memory and recollections, or from the witness of those who “themselves from the beginning were eyewit nesses and ministers of the word,” we might know “the truth” concerning those matters about which we have been instructed (cf. Lk.. 1, 2-4). 31 Cf. Instruction Sancta Mater Ecclesia edited by Pontifical Biblical Com mission: /4/1S (1964) p. 715 [cf. TPS X, p. 88]. Other New Testament Writings 20. In addition to the four Gospels, the canon of the New Testa ment also contains the epistles of St. Paul and other apostolic writings, composed under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. By these writings, according to the wise plan of God, those matters concerning Christ the Lord are confirmed; His true teaching is more and more fully stated; the saving power of His divine work is preached; the story is recounted of the beginnings of the Church and its marvelous growth, and its glorious fulfillment foretold. For the Lord Jesus was with His Apostles as He had promised (cf. Mt. 28, 20) and He sent them the advocate Spirit to lead them into the fullness of truth (cf. Jn. 16, 13). Chapter VI SACRED SCRIPTURE IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH 21. The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as it venerates the body of the Lord, since from the table of both God’s word and Christ’s body it unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life, especially in the sacred liturgy.. It has always held and continues to hold that together with Sacred Tradition they are the supreme rule of faith. Inspired by God and committed once and for all to writing, they impart the word of God Himself without change, and make the Holy Spirit’s voice resound in the words of the Prophets and 31 * 25 Apostles. Therefore, like the Christian religion itself, all the preaching of the Church must be nourished and regulated by Sacred Scripture. In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes to His children with great love and speaks with them. The force and power in God’s word is so great that it stands as the support and energy of the Church, the strength of faith for sons of the Church, the food of the soul, the pure and everlasting source of spiritual life. Consequently these words are perfectly applicable to Sacred Scripture: “For the word of God is living and active” (Heb. 4, 12) and “it has power to build you up and give you your heritage among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20, 32; cf. 7 Tbes. 2, 13). Translation of the Scriptures 22. Sacred Scripture should be made easily accessible to all the Christian faithful. For this reason the Church accepted as its own from the very beginning that very ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament which is called the Septuagint, and it has always given a place of honor to the other Eastern translations and to the Latin ones, especially that known as the Vulgate. But since the word of God should be available at all times, the Church, by its authority and with maternal concern, sees to it that suitable and correct translations are made into different languages, especially from the original texts of the sacred books. If the opportunity arises for these translations to be produced in coopera tion with the separated brethren as well, and the Church authorities approve, then all Christians will be able to use them. 23. The Spouse of the Incarnate Word, the Church, taught by the Holy Spirit, desires to move toward a deeper understanding of the Sacred Scriptures in order to nourish its sons continually with the divine words. Therefore, it also encourages the study of the holy Fathers of both East and West and of the sacred liturgies. Catholic exegetes and other students of Sacred Theology, working diligently together and using appropriate means, should devote their energies to an exploration and exposition of the divine writings, under the watchful care of the sacred teaching office of the Church. This should be done in such a way that as many ministers of the divine word as possible will be able effectively to provide the nourishment of the Scriptures for the people 26 of God, to enlighten their minds, strengthen their wills, and inflame their hearts with the love of God.33 * * 36 The sacred Synod encourages the sons of the Church who are biblical scholars to continue energetically the work they have so well begun, with a constant renewal of vigor30 and in accord with the mind of the Church. 'J Cf. Pius XII, Encyc. letter Divino Afflante Spirilu: EB 551, 553, 567. Pontifical Biblical Commission, Instruction on Proper Teaching of Sacred Scrip hire in Seminaries and Religious Colleges, May 13, 1950: /1/15 42 (1950), p. 495-505. 36 Cf. Pius XII, ibid: EB 569. 31 Cf. Leo XIII, Encyc. letter Providentissimus Deus: EB 114; Benedict XV, Encyc. letter Spiritus Paraclitus: EB 483. 13 St. Augustine, Sermons, 179, 1: PL 38, 966. Their Importance to Sacred Theology 24. Sacred Theology rests on the written word of God together with Sacred Tradition, as on a perpetual foundation. It is most power fully strengthened and constantly rejuvenated by that word while scru tinizing in the light of faith all truth stored up in the mystery of Christ. The Sacred Scriptures contain the word of God and, being inspired, really are the word of God; and so the study of the sacred page can be considered the soul of Sacred Theology.37 The ministry of the word — pastoral preaching, catechetics, and all Christian instruction, in which the liturgical homily must hold the foremost place — also takes wholesome nourishment from that same word of Scripture and flourishes in a holy way. 25. Therefore, all the clergy — especially the priests of Christ and others, such as deacons and catechists, who are legitimately active in the ministry of the word — must hold fast to the Scriptures through diligent sacred reading and careful study, so that none of them will become “an empty preacher cf the word cf God outwardly, who is not a listener to it inwardly.”3’ They must share with the faithful committed to them the abundant wealth of the divine word, especially in the sacred liturgy. The sacred Synod also earnestly and particularly urges all the Christian faithful, especiallv Religious, to learn the “excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3, 8) by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. 27 “For ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.”39 They should gladly familiarize themselves with the sacred text itself, whether it be through the liturgy, which is rich in the divine word, through devotional reading, or through suitable instructions and other aids which in our rime are commendably available everywhere, with the approval and active • support of the bishops. Let them remember that prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that God and man may talk together, for “we speak to Him when we pray; we hear Him when we read the divine sayings.”10 St. Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah, Prol.: PL 24, 17. Cf. Benedict XV, Encyc. letter Spiritus Paraclitus: EB 475-480; Pius XII, Encyc. letter Divino Afflante Spiritu: EB 544. *" St. Ambrose, On the Duties of Ministers I, 20, 88: PL 16, 50. 41 St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV, 32, 1; PG 7, 1071; (Same as 49, 2) Harvey, 2, p. 255. Responsibility of Bishops It devolves on bishops, “who have the apostolic teaching,”11 to give the faithful entrusted to them suitable instruction in the right use of the divine books, especially the New Testament and above all the Gospels. This can be done through translations of the sacred texts, which should be provided with the fully adequate explanations necessary if the sons of the Church are safely and profitably to grow familiar with the Sacred Scriptures and be penetrated with their spirit. Furthermore, editions of the Sacred Scriptures provided with suit able notes should be prepared also for the use of non-Christians and adapted to their situation. Bishops and Christians generally should see to the wise distribution of these in every possible way. 26. In this way, then, through the reading and study of the sacred books, “the word of God may spread rapidly and be glorified” (2 Thes. 3, 1) and the treasure of revelation entrusted to the Church may in creasingly fill the hearts of men. Just as the life of the Church is strengthened through steady participation in the Eucharistic mystery, similarly we may hope for a new surge of spiritual life from an increased 28 reverence for God’s word, which “lasts forever” (Is 40, 8; cf. 1 Pt. 1, 23-25). Each and every thing said in this Constitution has met with the approval of the Fathers of the Sacred Council. And We, by the Apostolic power handed on to Us by Christ, together with the Venerable Fathers, approve them, declare them, and establish them in the Holy Spirit; and We command that what has thus been decreed by the Coun cil be promulgated for the glory of God. Rome, at St. Peter’s, November 18, 1965. I, Paul, Bishop of the Catholic Church (The signatures of the Fathers follow.) 29 Notes On this Dogmatic Constitution “Dei Vervum” 1. The Constitution This Dogmatic Constitution of Vatican II was promulgated during the public session of November 18, 1965. The Fathers gave their formal approval to the text by a vote of 2,344 to 6, and heard Pope Paul VI read the formula of promulgation. The first draft, entitled “The Sources of Revelation”, was elaborated by the Theological Commission and came up for discussion by the 19th General Congregation on November 14, 1962. A number of the Fa thers believed that the document had been drafted in too classical a fashion as was not to make fit to promote ecumenical dialogue. The discussion led to a deadlock. Pope John XXIII assigned the draft to be re-written by members of both the Theological Commission and the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. Several subsequent amend ments of the draft brought about the present Constitution, which was voted by the Fathers chapter-by-chapter. Approval of the final text came at the general congregation of October 29, 1965, by a vote of 2, 081 to 27. After the last amendments were introduced, the text finally obtained that remarkable endorsement close to unanimity we have noted when the Constitution was promulgated on November 18, 1965. 30 2. The Contents A. careful reading of this weighty document shows God’s salvific design for humanity and how he had turned into a Master. The tenets of the Church on this divine teaching, from the apostolic preaching—the first kerigma—down through the centuries, is presented in a way most fitting to the needs of our times. From the Apostles, who accepted the Old Testament and who originated the New, every pertinent construction from the Fathers and the previous councils or Papal Encyclicae is pre sented here. The dogmatic pronouncements of the Tridentine and Va tican I form the core of this document. In regard to the Church Ma gisterium, three encyclicals in particular served to elaborate on the doc trine, namely: (1) Providentissimus Deus by Leo XIII, (2) Spiritus Paraclitus of Benedict XV. and (3) Divino Afflante Spiritu of Pius XII. In this connection, attention may be called to the following points: a. -Biblical inspiration is aptly defined. By the direct action of God on the sacred authors, the sacred books are entirely divine, while they remain wholly human. The Sacred Scriptures, because divinely inspired, are the word of God possessing divine truth and infallibility to the least detail. Particular attention is called by Vatican II to the historicity of the Gospels. Yet, the Sacred Books, being the work of men, possess the qualities of any work written by men, to wit, personal style, sources of research, languages, literary genders—prose, poetry, parables, pure history, theological elaborations and so one —. b. - NON sola Scriptura. This sort of marathon through the centuries following Luther had been defined by the Tridentine Fathers in their decree on the Holy Scriptures and the Apostolic Traditions (Denz. 783 et passim) and by Vatican I (Denz. 1787). But the question was recently reopened by Geiselmann, Congar, etc. Vatican II abstained from any discussion and with a single stroke adhered to Trent and Vatican I: “Consequently it is NOT from Sacred Sriptures alone that the Church draws its certainty about everything which has been revealed” (Chap. 11,9) c. -?4 Sacred Troika. The mutual dependence and the intimate relation between Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and Church Magisterium are 31 marvellously expressed by the Council. Not any of the three can work at all without the other two: “It is clear, therefore, that Sacted Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others. All together and each in its own way, under the action of the One Holy Spirit, contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.” With these most apt words the individual interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures is rejected and a call is made to all toward the salvific purpose of God, the Teacher of all men. 3. Qualificatio Theologicd. A number of Fathers proposed a question concerning the theological value of the contents in the Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbuni before they would pass their judgment at the actual voting of the Schema. To this question the Commission on the Doctrine of Faith and Morals answered bv this Declaration, on March 6, 1964: “Ratione habita moris conciliaris ac praesentis Concilii finis pastoralis, haec S. Synodus ea tantum de rebus fidei vel morum ab Ecclesia tenenda definit quae ut talia aperte ipsa declaraverit. “Cetera autem, quae S. Synodus proponit, utpote Supremi Ecclesiae Magisterii doctrinam, omnes et singuli christifideles excipere at amplecti debent iuxta ipsuis S. Synodi mentem, quae sive ex subiecta ma teria sive ex dicendi ratione innotescit, secundum normas theologicae interpretationis”. This Declaration was read to the Fathers by the Secretary General of the Council Mgr, Pericles Felici in a special Notificatio that was been officially appended to the Dogmatic Constitution in A.A.S., 5 Nov., 1966, p. 836. Quint!n M. Garcia, O.P. ROMAN CURIA The establishment of Personal Parishes and Missions "CUM CURA ANIMARUM”. Lately the Sacred Consistorial Congregation has issued a “Declaratio” practically abrogating the old standing provision of c. 216, §4 requiring an apostolic indult previous to the establishment of personal, national or language parishes in a giv.en territory or city. In keeping with the objectives of Vatican II, the said Congregation has lifted the former prohibition giving the diocesan Bishops power and freedom to establish family or personal parishes (parishes established without reference to territorial boundaries, constituted merely of persons belonging to a definite family, class or rank....) as well as Missions “cum cura animarum’' to be entrusted to the care of mi sionaries of the same language or nationality of the faithful constituting the Mission. The text of the “Declaratio” follows in full: Vi Decreti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II “Christus Dominus” (n. 32) et attentis Litteris Apostolicis “Eccleside Sanctae” Motu Propio datis die 6 mensis Augusti 1966 (I, n. 9 et n. 21, 3) Episcopus dioecesanus propia auctoritate in sua dioecesi erigere potest non solum Paroeciam personalem sed etiarrr Missionem cum cura animarum pro christifidelibus diversi sermonis, seu nationis, ea tamen ratione ut fines eiusdem semionis seu nationis peculiari Sacrae huius Congregationis mandato praeditis, ad normam art. 5, 34-40, titulo altero, Constitutionis postolicae “Exsul Familia”, committatur. Datum Romae, ex Aedibus Sacrae Congregationis Consistorialis, die 21 mensis novembris 1966. DOCTRINAL SECTION Post-Conciliar Movements: Ideas In The Making Juan Labrador, O.P. This is the epoch of phrase making. Hundreds and even thousands of eye catching phrases, symbolizing new ideas, are sprouting like mush rooms. This post-conciliar era seems to be a happy hunting ground for new labels. The Second Vatican Council confronted the modern world and passed judgment over many of its problems and palpitant issues with clarity and down to earth objectiveness as never before. Now the world is turning its face back to the Church and is attempting to size her up and judge her realities and possibilities in the light of the present-day theses and hypotheses. Since the world contains all kinds of human beings, just as the Ark of Noah was the refuge of all “spe cies” of animals, the Church is confronted with all sorts of moot points, real and unreal, mundane and spatial, And is being placed under a microscopic scrutiny where her doctrines are re-examined, her functions critically reassed. her organization and ministerial rites re-evaluated, in an attempt to have her component elements refurbished, streamlined, made easier, more glamorous, with greater popular appeal. The secular press voices these novelties, whether they be ideological or merely phra seological, and some Catholic writers reverberate them or vice-versa. Although St. Thomas conceives the Church as the mystical body and taken it in an almost biological sense as “a multiplicity organized into unity by the collaboration of different activities and functions”. 34 Some Novel Notions Even among the People of God, some harbor bizarre notions about Church organization, that scandalize the timorous with their brazen in novations, e.g.: 1. Why shouldn’t priests have some say, at times final, in the policies of the diocese and be able to share power with their bishop just as the bishops share Collegial rule with the Pope? (“After all, the priests are closer'to the needs of the parish and know its pulse better than the bishop in his ivory tower.")2. Wherefrom the obligation of the priest or subject to obey his bHhop or superior comes? Are not the prelates, servants of their flocks? Why shouldn’t they obey rather than command? (A Dutch theologian makes the enlightening remark that obe dience comes from the Latin “ob-audire”—to listen and draws the conclusion: therefore the superiors should listen to their in feriors; therefore oGey also? not vice-versa? Why not have the bishops be elected by the faithful as was done at times in primitive Christianity? (“The Church was conceived as a democratic assembly not as a monolithic monar chy.”). 3. Why is the rule of celibacy for priests not modified or abolish ed in the Church? (“The obligation of clerical celibacy has been imposed upon him, not by the contemporary demands of the Gospel or Christian doctrine, but by an arbitrary and artificial fact of law,” says the “suspended” priest of Los Angeles, Dubay.) - 4. Why shouldn’t diocesan priests fonn unions like employees un der episcopal management so that they demand better working conditions and treatment with the right to go into strike? Why can women be not ordained priests, make the Church recognize their equal status with men and help solve the problems of diminution of priestly vocations? (The Swedish Parliament has licensed the Lutheran Church to ordain women as ministers.). 35 5. Why not.hark back to the pre-Constantinian customary rule and the Church, being a communal Church, use its wealth to build community centers or provide for the needs of the poor “rather than . construct lavish tribal cathedrals?” (“Burn down the church,” says one priest, “for a church is something to be rather than some place to go to.”)- The Church should return to the simplicity of the Gospel pruning it from the doctrinal and ri tualistic accretions that are encumbering it now. (Many of the advocates of the return to the primitive of early Christianity if they are clergymen they wear well-pressed, well-cut cassocks of the best material; if they are lay men their clothes are well-fitting, costly suits; if they arc lay women they strive to look rejuvenated with made-up faces and minima! expensive dresses. Why don’t they return to the simpleness, unpretentiousness or rusticity of their great-great grand fathers if not to the piety and mortified lives of the early Christians? Why don’t they sell their cars, T.V. sets, golf clubs, mansions, per fumery and jewelry and help the naked, hungry, homeless people of the slums?) These are some of the many novel ideas advanced in the Canonical and structural field. In the realm of doctrine or dogma, they are no less newfangled, such as: a) The laity are endowed with a priestly character not very dis similar from that of the ordained priest; b) The Mass is hardly anything but a eucharistic rite, merely an act of thanksgiving; and scarscly a sacrificial oblatory immolac) A famous theologian of St. Michel’s College, Toronto argues that since the question of contraceptives is under study, it is a debatable issue and therefore doubtful. Now doubtful laws arc not necessarily binding and parents may in good conscience make use of contraceptive means. How the good Father has commented the recent statements of Pope Paul VI, which are nothing but restatements of former declarations, I do know yet. John Lee in his “News and Views” in the Commonweal (Apr. 15, 1966) transcribed a paragraph from the Tablet of 36 London in which Card. Dopfner of Munich was allegedly made to say that he approved contraceptive marital intercourse by res ponsible parents under conditions. Few days later I read in the Tablet a correction stating that the Cardinal had been misinter preted. If the Commonweal has reproduced the retractation I have failed to see it. May be John Leo has not seen that Tablet issue. I have read so many of his views always in favor of his colleagues or against those of different tendencies (Car dinals, bishops, priests and faithful) that I am asking the Good Lord to forgive me if a temerarious judgment has crossed my mind. (Lately I have seen an issue where he is making an at tempt to give both sides) Dr. John T. Noonan, not the consultant, but one of the many periti to the commission appointed by Paul VI to study and advise on family problems and contraceptives, in his speech de livered at the 20th World Medical Medical Congress held in Manila last month, was reported to have stated that “strong in dications that the Catholic Church would soon lift the ban on artificial birth control” and that “the Vatican was considering changing the stand of the Church on the issue.” Dr. Noonan is not a physician, as many thought, but a Catholic lawyer and director of the Institute of Natural Law of Notre Dame Univ ersity. The newspaper account adds that “although the Church had always been sternly against artificial birth control, Noonan said the Church had seen the need for changing its stand”. (Daily Bulletin Nov. 11, 1966) d) There was never any Adam and Even in the natural state of grace. Regardless of whether “Adam” was in fact one or— “what is more scientifically correct—polygenic,” he is nothing but a symbol that need not be an exact equivalent of the person symbolized, and “literal and mathematical minded modern west erners seek an exact equation—real man ‘Adam’ against the real Jesus Christ:” Paul’s Adam is such a symbol and his “analogies are often forced: he does not scruple to accommodate texts wrenched from the original contexts and at times given mean 37 ing clean contrary to what they had before.” (J.L. Delapine in London’s Tablet, Aug. 6, 1966). Adam’s and Eve’s primitive state of grace from which they fell, is not a thing of the past but of the future when, as a final stage of evolutionism, man will attain the summit of perfection, the Omega point, the real glorification of the new Adam and Eve. The present misery of mankind resulting from the all accumulated past failings of man is the only original sin that has ever been committed. (’’This interpretation of original sin appears in certain exposi tions of the thought of Teilhard de Chardin and has provoked many serious objections.” Maurice Flick, S.J. in The Tablet of London, Sept. 10, 1966). Pope Paul Vi’s interpretation seems to be at variance with this novel doctrine. “The explanations of the original sin given by some modern authors will seem to you irreconcilable with the Catholic doc trine. . . . Starting from the undermonstrated premise of polygenism, they deny, more or less clearly, that sin was first of all the disobedience of Adam, first man...........Consequently, these explanations do not agree wits the teaching of Scripture, of sacred tradition and the Church’s ma gisterium ...” “Even the theory of ‘evolutionism’ favored today by may scientists and not a few theologians owing to its probability will not seem acceptable to you where it is not decidedly in acord with the immediate creation of each and very human soul by God and where the disobedience of Adam, universal proto-parent did not make him lose the holiness and justice in which he was constituted.” (Allocution to the theologians who took part in a symposium on the Original sin, July 15, 1966). These and other not less novel audaciou blue-prints for church reform are exhibited in some Cotholic and clamorously commented by the secular press. New Labels If we pass from the level of new ideas to the plane of new labels - which are generally meant to convey new doctrines - we find that many of them may be only half truths and even one third truths. They may be 38 orthodox if correctly interpreted but they also may be easily misunder stood. Take the following slogans as samples: *The laity is the church. (“The laity is not . an appendage of the church: it is the Church,” Hans Kung, Structures of the Church, p. X.) The phrase wrenched from its context sound as illiberal as the other fragmentary half-truth, “The Church is the hierarchy and clergy.” King uses two lines before a more correct expression than laity, ‘congregation fidelium.’ Neither the laity nor the clergy are mere appendages. The surprising thing is that on page 86 of the same book King transcribes a passage of an address of Pius XII in 1946 wherein in crystal clear words the Pope speaks of the elements that compose the Church: The faithful — more precisely, the laity — stand in the front line in the life of the Church; through them the Church proves herself to be the life-principle of human society. Hence it is they especially who must arrive at an ever-clearer awareness: we not only belong to the Church: but we are the Church, the community of the faithful on earth under the common supreme head, the pope and the bishops united with him. They are the Church, (l.c. p. 86). *Marxism and Christianity are not necessarily incompatible. Ac cording to Marcel Reding, professor of Catholic theology at the Berlin University, “the law of history itself, the core of Marxism, its essence, is not atheistic, “although” in regard to is practical attitude toward re ligion, we have enough information to say that it would be an illusion to entertain any doubt about it.” By a curious contrast, Roger Garaudy, Director of Marxist Studies in Paris, cnfronted his opponent Reding in the Paulusgesellschaft convention at Salzburg with the surprising rejoin der: “atheism is one of the essential implications of dialectical material ism,” although “the Marxist alternative to religion is not a materialistic atheism but a humanism involving man’s total existence.” (Ingo Her mann in Concilium, Vol. 16, May 1966, pp. 160-161). Do these state ments mean that, according td a Catholic scholar, atheism and Chris tianity are of their nature reconcilable and, in the opinion of a Marxist savant, religion necessarily excludes materialistic disbelief? This sounds as paradoxical as the discussion by theologians about God’s death or of 39 so-called Christian philosophers who do not believe in Christianity or those who profess that the Gospel should be disassociated from religion. A prolific thelogian and liturgist, Father George Tavard makes the astounding statement that we must “rid our mind of the fear of communism and admit the right of the people to choose a Communist from of social order if they wish so” (The Sign, Aug. 1966); there fore also atheism which is considered by Marxists themselves an integral part of “their social order”?: therefore we have no right to fear and reject evil? You are so ergotist!, the progressives may argue. A theo logian who does not believe in God’s existence would be as incongruous as an astronaut who is trying to get to the moon convinced that there is no moon at all or a “stupendous stupidity” cracking a Chestertonian witticism. *Evolutionism is the religion of atheism. This phrase has been coined in the campus of evolution. The prophet of this new religion is Julian Hurley who calls it also evolutionary humanism. (Cfr. R.J. Nogar, O.P., in Concilium, May, 1966). Evolution must not stop at the bio logical anthropological sciences; it has attacked the roots of religion by dealing a death blow to the dualism of matter and spirit, the natural and supernatural. All matter is spirit and all spirit is matter, just as the natural and the supernatural coalesce in evolutionary humanism. Huxley and some of his coreligionists have extolled the cultural and hu manistic evolutionism of Teilhard de Chardin as if he (the controverted Jesuit) had been their forerunner. Some of his critics may disagree with him on a number of questions and may fonsider a lot of his points as visionary or objectionable or even unorthodox; but his life and motiva tions reveal him as a deeply believing pious soul. Dogma does not violate the conscience. Hans Kung reasons out this apothegm with a strange kind of sylogism. “A Catholic is convinced that there is no real conflict between the Churcs’s dogma and his own conscience. But it is also true that dogma does violate the conscience, it respects the conscience. This means that a Christian must never accept a dogma of the Church if it is against his conscience”. (The Church and Freedom, p. 131). 40 We declare that we are unable to solve this riddle: How is it that there cannot be a real conflict between dogma and conscience and at the same time a Christian may refuse to accept a dogma if it is against his conscience? How can the general term Christian in the conclusion, be derived from a more particular term Catholic in the major premise? Maybe only a dialectic old fashioned scholastic may detect an illogical illation or Aristotle may have become obsolete and discarded. Kung is, of course, aware of the truth of the two propositions: a. A Catholic who admits the infallibility of the Church cannot in good conscience reject a dogma defined by her and remain a Catholic. b. A non-Catholic cannot “be forced against his will into accept ance of the Catholic faith,” for he himself quotes this Canon 1351. If the ears of English purists would not be scandalized, a better expression would have been: “A Catholic conscience cannot be violated by dogma,” for the moment he denies a dog ma he ceases to be a Catholic. It is just inadvertence or itching for cliches, After his citation of the Canon, he adds: “In the few countries such as Spain, etc., where there is still not full freedom of conscience, reli gion and worship. ...” In about one half of the 25 European countries and a little over one dozen of the other almost one hundred member na tions of the U.N., there is much less freedom of conscience, etc., than in Spain. Of cource, Spain is the classical model or scapegoat when cer tain writers give us a sample of religious intolerance or is there fuller freedom of religion etc., in Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, the Arab, African, or Middle and East States? *The Church is a mystery. The Church is the People of God. The Church is a Sacrament. Tsese are but random samplings of the many new mottos. They are officially accepted and embodied by Vatican II in her terminology, (Constitution on the Church), and explained in what sense and to what extent they may be given an authentic interpre41 tations. (However, the phrase, The Church is a sacrament, is qualified by a modifier: “The Church is, in Christ, like a sacrament........... ” The Council has planted these and other seed-ideas in the expecta tion that they would grow and mature into a fuller Christian life and action. But their growth must follow a homogenous development, not in explosion of confusion as a result of sudden break from most tradi tional beliefs and practices and their substitution by novel interpreta tion of teachings, not intended by the Council. If emphasis on the first two elements of the Church, i.e. as a Mys tery and the People of God, described by the Constitution De Ecclesia is done with a purpose: to de-emphasized the juridical character of the Church under the allegation that up to now the laity was considered only an “appendage” and that the hierarchical structure had been over emphasized, the stress may be well placed; but if it is toned down under the pretext that our conciliar times demand that a liberal Christianity should replace the brick-and-mortar ecclesiasticism and that the juridical element has become a secondary, non-essential component part of the Church, then the phases may become one third truths. As a reaction against some ecclesiologists who placed on undue stress on the hierar chical aspect as though the Church were constituted merely by the clergy (the laity, some are supposed to have said, are merely to obey, to pray, and to pay) or as though every papal utterance were stamped with the seal of infallibility, the new theologians who are trying to present Cath olic doctrine in a silver plate to Protestants or make it more palatable to all dissenters assert that, as a post-tridentine reversion against the Re formation, the Papacy was ascribed too much juridical power, that it as sumed too great an importance and exerted a domineering influence. (As tf in centuries before Luther Popes Gregory VII, Innocent III, Boniface VIII and other medieval Pontiffs had not dominated the ecclesiastical as well as the secular spheres) ’’“Authority in the Church means service and love, not power to com mand. This cliche will help, according to some, to solve the “crisis of authority,” that has become too authoritarian. Others see in it a “crisis of obedience” that is being challenged or denied by clergy and religious. 42 The last attitude is exemplified in an increasing number of cases, (There is no doubt that priests and religious have abused their freedom just as some prelates may not have acted very judiciously.). New directives by Vatican II are cited to show that there must be a new approach to authority. ("Ecclesiastical office is not dominion over the Church but service to the Church as the community of the faithful. Bishops, as members of the episcopal college in union with the Pope, have a duty and function of service in the guidance of the universal Church. The Petrine Office means not absolute power over the Church but, in union with the college of bishops, selfless and loving service,” Hass Kung, Structures in the Church, p. X. Italics by the author). “The base of authority in the New Testament is love, not he power to command or the power to coerce.” John L. McKensie, S.J.). The Constitution “De Ecclesia” devotes the whole Chapter III to enumerate, describe, and emphasize the Pastoral Office as a ministry of service, love, duties, “truth and holiness,” but it also mentions that it does have the power and the-rigdt to govern. (“In virtue of this power, bishops have the sacred right and duty before the Lord to make laws for their subjects, and to pass judgment on them, and to moderate every thing pertaining to the ordering of worship and the apostolate.”). Authority and obedience are undergoing a crisis. They are being given a new meaning and different implementation from that of former times—the age of blind obedience. Bishops and major superiors used to announce new assignments or destination of their subjects, priests or reli gious like an order of the day of a military officer without hardly any previous consultation with the person affected. Now they have to proceed with greater cautiousness and take into account the wishes if not the whims of their subjects by following the new claims to “dialogued obe dience.” Even in the field of education, this range of authority of prelates ‘over the appointment, or reassignment of priests and religious of both sexes on the teaching faculties of Catholic schools or colleges has been challenged.’ A typical case is that of a priest-professor who was given a teaching position in another town by his superior who assigned an other no less competent to take his place. The lay head of the depart ment remoustrated that he and his colleagues should not in principle ac cept the change. (Cf. America, Oct. 1, 1966, p. 365). -13 *The Old Christian God is out of date. “Modern world’s disco very .... contradicts the notions of a Supreme Being who governs man’s affairs. Christians, it seems, have no choice but to abandon their house hold God or dam a future that will be forged without them.” We assume that Newsweek (Nov. 7, 1966) has faithfully interpreted this “dilema described by Catholic philosopher Leslie Dewart in his brilliant new book. The Future of Belief, just published by Herder.” Against the old “classical God” which he calls “absolute theism” he advocates a “conditional theism” wherein the “truth of Christianity is contingest factual temporal” because “contingency, factuality, and tem porality are God’s historical presence and self-revelation to man.” One of the conclusions of Dewart’s “conditional theism” is astounding for a Catholic philosopher. “It gently relegates such traditional Christian dogmas as the Trinity to the ash heap of history.” Herder and Herder, the publisher, announnces and commends Dewart’s work as “the first fully articulated attempt by a Roman Catholic religious philosopher completely to recast traditional Christian doctrine.... a bril liantly original vision—the kind of theology Teilhard de Chardin would have applauded. . . ‘Dewart is in many ways more radical that the death of God theologians’—Harvel Cox”. * Explosions of Confusion. Some four hundred and fifty years ago. a challenger coined new phrases of slogans and hailed them on the door of a church in Wittcmburg in the form of theses which he claimed he was ready to defend against all comers. “Justification by faith alone,” “Popes are usurpers of all power” “Rome is Babvlon” and “if the Pope is wealthier titan Crassus why does he not himself build St. Peter’s?”, and ninetv one other propositions were posted by Luther in his initial break from Rome. Today, not a few among the sophisticated experts in ccclesiolcgical mat ters come perilously close to resuscitating the first Protestant “confes sions” contained in those locutions. They show a marked tendency to stress the side of Christ’s Church as an invisible communion of the faith ful in order to reassert the salvific against the juridical element and the action of the Spirit in the communal life of the Christians which is as it should be as long as the invisible Head is visibly represented. In 14 the same breath other tenacious traditionalists are inclined to disregard liberty and kerigma for the sake of authority or to dichotomize kerematic and legal elements as if dogma and love and service and power were incompatible. In this battle for positions, exaggerations may be committed by either side. The only way to turn a hyperbolic statement, like any error, into something fully acceptable and believable is to winnow the equivocal chaff from the sound and unquestionable ingredients. Laymen and even clerics who have as a rule felt so secured and stable in their teachings and piety, are now caught in the explosion of confusing, conflicting and even contradictory interpretations. This bewilderment is compounded because it is not a matter of choosing between two opposite camps; each side is getting lost in a labyrinthian maze of innovations. Catholics are disturbed because priests and religious are trying to create new bases for relationship with their Bishops and superiors to justify defying at titudes or their far out opinions while they are being cheered by “scho lars” of all shades of a faith or of no faith. (As a reaction, they are occasionally and summarily being restricted by their prelates who in turn are impugned by partizan critics; for example: Fathers DuBay, De Paw, the Berrigans, Berryman, Oraison, etc.) Triple Testimony It is an open secret that there prevails in several quarters of the Church an amount of nervousness and preoccupation about certain dan gers to sound doctrine and about the orthodoxy of some faithful and scholars. Cases are cited; diagnoses are pronounced; prognoses are announced. Let us cite three testimonies coming from the hierarchy that call atten tion to and try to allay this disquietude about some dangers in Church matters in this modem changing world. French Catholics, a large number of whom have grouped themselves into two bickering factions on the verge of initiating a schism in their attitude toward the post-consiliar directives, have been sternly warned by their Episcopate against exaggerated and divisive postures and have been called to promote, in brotherly dialogue and with filial docility, the rene 45 wal desired by the Council. The bishops affirm that a minority, backed up by an appeal to tradition, has the audacity of contesting the decisions on renewal agreed upon “with remarkable unanimity” by the Council Fathers. “Using as a pretext exaggerations or erroneous affirmations which the bishops are the first to deplore, these Christians generalize in correctly from limited cases, launch an unfounded case against the epis copate, the priests and even the Holy Father himself, affirm that the authority of each bishop is minimized by the collective episcopate, the primacy of the Pope compromised by collegiality, the social doctrine of the Church falsified bv ‘progression’ and the splication of the liturgical constitution disputed, etc.” Dutch Catholic scholars have been conscious in public print for their advanced new therories and the Church of the Netherlands has been considered as being in an alarming state of perilous innovations by some commentators or a leader and model on how the Church should adopt it self to the modern world by others. The Dutch hierarchy, after their meeting last August, issued a letter praising the fervid activity of theologians on the one hand and warning against certain practices and teachings too novel or radical. Among these strange points of doctrine they enumerate: 1) “the divinity of Christ as the only Son of God, but in a sense not “different from the wav men are called ‘children of God’ 2) “the Holy Spirit had something to do with the birth of Christ—not necessarily excluding a human father”; 3) “Christ is somehow present in the Eucharist—the exact wav does not make much difference”; 4) “the unity of man and woman is in itself a sign of holiness—hence there is no place for the Church to lay down rules for the sacrament of marriage”. (These quotations are taken from a report bv the Dutch Jesuit E. Schoenmaeckers in America. Oct. 8, 1966). These and other stronge ideas have been advanced and defended the bishops attest; but the author of the report adds the saving asser tion: “Actually, only very few priests or lay people hold these strange opinions; yet these few have managed to get control of most of the communication madia. As a result, however, those who disagreed were (in Fr. Shillebeeckx’ words) “slaughtered like vermin”, (id, ib.). 46 Pope Paul VI, the Holy Father in his allocution (Oct. 1) to the closing session of. the International Congress on the Theology of the Vatican II Council speaks to the theologians “of the tendency growing in some quarters to deny or at least to weaken the rapport of theology with respect to the magisterium of the Church”. The Holy Father defines the role that theology is to play in the Church. “Theology maintains a two fold rapport with the Church’s magisterium and with the entire Christian communitv. It is, to a certain extent, a mediator between the faith of the Church and its magiserium.................. theology must assess this faith as it is lived and its tendencies......... in order to harmonize them with the word of God and tradition faithfully handed down by the Church”........... On the other hand, “without theology the magisterium would lack the instruments for bringing about hannony of action and thinking which must rule the entire community so that it may think and live according to the teaching and precepts of Jesus Christ”. From this two fold principle the Pope elicits two reflections: The first concerns the spirit of service to truth; “Indeed, when they are officially entrusted with some teaching function in the Church they are, in a way, teachers of truth. Therefore, their supreme care will be that of being faithful to the truth of the faith and to the doctrine of the Church. Accordingly, they will avoid giving in to desire for easy accept ance and popularity at the expense of the sureness of the doctrine taught bv the magisterium, which in the Church represents the person of Jesus Christ, the Teacher........... “The second reflection concerns the spirit of communion: com munion with the entire Christian people, with the sacred hierarchy, bro therly communion among ourselves also.... If in younr search of truth you wander away from this magisterium there will be danger that you will be teachers without disciples, separated from all, or that you will waste your labor without producing fruits.... It might even expose you to the danger of deviating from the right path choosing your own judgment, not the thinking of the Church (‘sensus ecclesiae’) as the criterion of truth. This would be an arbitrary choice—‘airesis’, the road to heresy”. 47 Cannot we truly affirm that this is really plain talking? This ad monition shows that the Pope feels unesay about certain trends in some theological fields that may not fit in or equate satisfactorily with the Church’s magisterium nor faithfully interpret its teachings to the Chris tian community. Some Catholic writers are following the example of Episcopalian bishop Pike and other Protestant divines who begin by erasing the word “omni” (all) in the words omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent as ap plied to God and regard Adam as a symbol not a real person, the Trinity, as a “Committe God”, The Virgin Birth of Christ as a pious legend, the Resurrection as a myth.... These and other ancient be liefs, product of ages gone by have to be demytholigized and uptodated according to modern progreessive ideas. They are aiming at setting a “sloganeering, Bathmannerly, instant-theology” that may be subscribed bv men of all faiths. The net result—no faith at all. DE COLORES The Second Confrontation Guillermo Tejon, O.P. You are a cursillista. You are “de colores”. I am sure that this "week you have already attended your team reunion. And no doubt when meditation was called out, you answered promptly with a heart filled with satisfaction: “fulfilled”. Well done. God is proud of you. I also know that in the last few days somebody has approached you requesting some palanca for a new cursillista. And always an apos tle you responded generously. Again you did well. And again Christ smiled approvingly at you. You heard it several times in the Cursillo: “Now that we are tired and precisely because of that our prayers are more meritorious we are going to pray a little more”. . . . Today Christ is asking you to make another meditation and to offer another palanca. Do you remember your confrontation. . . . when, face to face with Christ, you listened and talked to Him?.... Those were wonderful moments, perhaps the most wonderful moments of your life.... Bro ther, today Christ is inviting you to another confrontation. Let us go back to the Cursillo House. You are again in the rollo room. The Spiritual Director is delivering that long rollo on the Sac49 raments. He is now talking about the Eucharist. He is telling you about the craziness of Christ’s love for you... When He had done everything that could be done for you, He still did something else... He gave Himself to you as food for your soul... With a lump in your throat and perhaps tears in your eyes you thought of how un grateful you had been to Him, how abandoned the tabernacle was, how rarely you knelt at the communion rail. . . And then you looked up, and there, in front of you, you saw that surrender sign. .. You had seen it before; but this time it was like an arrow shot straight into your heart.. . . And you surrendered. . . Then you stood up, and silently, slowly, your head bent in meditation, you walked to the chapel. . . Let us take that short and momentous walk again. Let us enter the chapel once more and kneel in front of the altar. You introduce yourself in the Cursillo way: Brother. .. .; Cursillo. . . . No. . . . Christ is smiling at you as He did on your first confrontation. Don’t you hear Him tell you how happy He is to see you again? Look up at Him, and tell Him about vourself. Pour out your heart to Him. Talk to Him as you did the first time you met Him. You made the Cursillo; and in the Cursillo you met Christ, you met yourself, and you met your brethren, Christ’s brothers and sisters. You entered the Post-Cursillo full of enthusiasm, hope and plans for the future. And ever since you have tried to live up to the expectations of the Fourth Day. But perhaps you do not understand everything about the Cursillo. Perhaps in your Post-Cursillo you have come across obstacles and dif ficulties that you did not expect to find. Perhaps there are doubts in your mind about things that in those three happy days of he Cursillo seemed so clear and easy to you.... Christ is in the tabernacle to listen to you, to advise you. to teach you.... How are you, as a cursillista, fulfilling the duties of vour profes sion? You know, a cursillista, like everybody else, needs a profession, has to earn a living. Yet, I know some cursillistas who, carried awav 50 by an excess of enthusiasm for the Cursillo Movement, have forgotten that common-sense principle “duty before devotion”. And how has the Cursillo influenced your relations with your family, that family entrusted to you by God to take care of and lead to Him? Cursillistas are church; but not a church by themselves. You be long to a parish. You are still a parishioner. And your parish priest even if he is not a cursillista—is the representative of God and the hierarchy. You are an apostle, a soldier of Christ. And you know that in our spiritual battle to conquer the world, the secret and ultimate weapon is a life of intimate union with God. If your action is to be more than just noise it has to rest upon the unshakable foundation of a solid spiritual life. How is your Service Sheet? How about you and your fellow cursillistas? The task attempted by the Cursillo Movement is a gigantic one. Your brothers need your cooperation. The Cursillo-”heeds you; and so does the Church. There are others who are not cursillistas, but who individually or as members of religious associations are engaged in apostolic work. They are your brothers, not your competitors. Are you ready to make common cause with them? There is also the general public, the people who have not made the Cursillo. but who talk about it and judge it by what they see in the cursillistas. What do they say when they see you? The Cursillo lasts three days. The Fourth Day—the Post-Cursillo— has no end. It goes on for life. They made it very clear to you that it was not worthwhile to make the Cursillo unless you were ready to pay all the attention you could to the Post-Cursillo. Are you faithful to your weekly reunion and ultreva? Do you remember that rollo entitled Study? You were told that you had to study your religion in order to understand, love and prac tice it. You certainly did a lot of studying in the Cursillo. And you learned many things, But three days are not enough to learn every thing. Your study is expected to continue in the Post-Cursillo. 51 You want everybody to make the Cursillo. Good! The Cursillo is a wonderful way to get close to Christ. But do you want it to the extent that you lose your patience with or despise those who refuse to follow your suggestion? Remember: The Cursillo is a wonderful way; but it is not the only way.... I understand that you would like to be a rollista; but you don’t know how to go about it or what it takes to be one. Some of your brothers are ready to help you. Or perhaps you are already a leader in the Cursillo Movement. Excellent! But tell me: do you give the Cursillo, or your own Cursillo? True cursillistas believe that the Cur sillo is a movemtnt officially approved by the Church, by their bishop; and that it is supposed to be conducted under the supervision and di rection of the hierarchy. I do not want to think of it; but are you by any chance a fallenaway cursillista? Then you really need a second confrontation. Let us pray that it brings back to you that sanctifying and actual grace that so completely captivated your soul when its meaning was explained to you in the Cursillo. If you are not, my congratulations. By the way: what is your attitude towards those brothers of yours who have forgotten that they are cursillistas? You are “de colores”. I do hope that you really understand the full meaning of this beautiful motto. I always see a “de colores” sticker on the windshield of your car; and everytime I see it a question comes to my mind: is your soul always “de colores”? My son: Christ is addressing you from the tabernacle it seems that there are many things that you and I have to talk about. . . . However, it is getting late, and you are tired. Your knees are trembling, though vour heart is in flames. We shall continue this second confrontation some other time.... Then I shall speak to you, calm your anxieties, give an answer to your questions and a solution to your problems.... Go in peace and rest. . . . De colores! THE LAYMAN’S VIEW What The Parishioners Expect Of Their Parish Priest* ** * Now is the time for dialogue. The clashing of views makes for light for the benefit of all. For this reason similar contributions from other readers, lay or ecclesiastical, are welcome in this Section. ** This talk was delivered before the members and alumni of UST Eccle siastical Faculties, November 22, 1966, by the author. Dr. Roman is die President of the University of Santo Tomas Alumni Association, Inc.; Chair man, Department of Medicine, UST. President, Philippine Society of Gastro enterology. Dr. Francisco J. Roman I once had a Parish Priest who always delivered Sunday sermons lasting 30 to 40 minutes. I thought I would get back on you so that vou may have a feeling of how it is to be on the receiving end — you who are accustomed to deliver sermons. On second thought, I would not like to let you “pay” for the “sins” of my parish priest. I believe that alumni reunions like this should shed off formalities, and dispense with high-sounding speeches on subjects that neither you nor I believe in, much less profit from, after the occasion. So allow me to be down-to-earth. During my travels in the provinces from as far north as Tuguegarao and Laoag to as far south as Zamboanga and Davao, I have gathered a few items which I thought I might informally convey to you under the topic: “What the Parishioners Expect of Their Parish Priest.” There is increasing demand on the part of the parishioners for greater participation in church affairs. There are certain parishioners who would like to help in Catholic Action or Civic Action, but have not been provided the proper incentive or motivation from their Parish Priest — in other words, there is an apparent lack of leadership on the part of the Parish Priest. They would like to have the Parish Councils or “Centros Catolicos” more representative and more active. They would like to have these councils constituted by men and women elected by the parishioners themselves rather than appointed by the Parish Priest. In the latter instance, the Council becomes virtually a puppet organ, to use the voice of the parishioners. They would like to have the Parish Councils delineate the functions of the different “Mandated” & “Auxiliary” reli gious organizations to avoid overlapping of functions. Oftentimes, these organizations’ activities are interpreted or misinterpreted by the parishioners as mere “pasikatan,” without direct and immediate benefit to the average parishioner, even as the Parish church roof is leaking and the local cemetery full of shrubs and abandoned to the winds. They would like to have the Parish Priest engaged in a more mean ingful dialogue with the parishioners at the lower levels. Of course, we must acknowledge that some Parish Priests are over-worked, attending to their religious and temporal duties, but in general the parish priest should try to find more time to strengthen this dialogue. This apparent lack of time is due to lack of managerial abilities and lack of proper delegation. The little dialogue that the parishioners have with their Parish Priests only occur in the confessional box or in their financial dealings with their Parish Priest, which often times are not too pleasant. Although a controversial subject, they would like to have the “social priest movement” revived to bring the church to the home. The time is long past when you would ring the church bell and the faithful would go to church to hear the word of God repeated. They would like to see more “self involvement” or a sense of “pagmamalasakit” on the part of their Parish Priest for the lowly parishioner, specially 54 when these parishioners are in misery or distress. They would like to cite the case of the Iglesia ni Kristo and Protestant minorities who are closely knit, helping one another continuously, not only in hours of need. Of course, we could always dismiss this with the explanation that it happens also to Catholics in countries like the U.S.A., where Catholics are in the minority. But still, whereas this would be an acceptable sociological explanation, this is hardly a justification. They would like to see more emphasis on the actual practice of Christian Charity as an important factor in realizing “a single brother hood of men” and de-emphasizing “ritualistic piety.” They would like to see the Parish Priest bridge the gap that exists in many towns and barrios between the “haves” and the “have-nots” by convincing those that have, to share a part of their “God-given gifts” for the common good, instead of encouraging implicitly or overtly, the widening of that gaPThe Parish Priest can do a great deal in “defertilizing” the soil for communism at the parish level. We must remember that when and if communism takes-Toot in this country, the Church would be among the first to receive the brunt of their “Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” I believe that this country today has many elements for the proper implantation of Communism, such as: a. Economic dislocations and the maldistribution of wealth; b. A not-to-honest officialdom at all levels; c. An irresponsible and immature middle-class composed of politicians, pseudo-student leaders and pseudo-labor leaders who “carry chips on their shoulders,” whose main ambition in life is to compensate for what they lack economically and intellectually and to go up the social ladder by inciting the guillible and uneducated class at the bottom of die social strata. Our 85% Catholic population is no guarantee to ensure our democratic processes, as we can cite the case of Cuba, whose economic and governmental structures were very similar to what are obtaining in the Philippines. They would like to have the Parish Priest collaborate with the Civil authorities in diminishing juvenile delinquency by encouraging the organization of reading circles, by putting up small libraries, e.g. under the convent or on the premises of the parish, thus providing the youth wholesome reading materials rather than the pornography and the cheap comic-strips that our young are exposed to. Encouragement of sports tournaments, boy and girl scouting are also helpful. The youth of today in this “go-go” age, seem to have more energy than the youth of, say, 20 years ago, and this excess energy should and could be properly channelled to useful ends. The average young men and women in the small towns and barrios do not find any ways or means of dissipating their excess energy short of engaging in mischiefs. They would like also to see the Parish Priest not only as a model of piety but as a leader of culture in the community. I observe that many priests cease to get educated after they sing their first mass. Without being ostentatious they would like to see their Parish Priest decently dressed, compatible with their status, as a leader in the com munity. On the “lighter” side of things we have heard and/or seen the following: a. The absentee priest who spends more time in Manila and his home town. A month later, his Church was ransacked and robbed. Fortu nately, this and others are isolated ca es; b. The “super-ecumenical” priest — having been an ex-army chaplain, he removes all the images from the altar. Let us go slow in these changes as it is hard to demolish overnight long established traditions and beliefs. c. The priest with the “dilihen ia.” All these do not add to die image of dignity and prestige of the Filipino Parish Priest. In Summary; let me enumerate the important points of this talk: 1. Tire Parish Councils should be re-organized and strengthened to be more representative of the Parishioners and to work more actively for the common good; 2. Develop to die fullest extent a more extensive dialogue between the Parish Priest and his flock and to show more “pagmamalasakit” for the poorer pari hioners; 3. Diminish the gap between die “haves” and the “have-nots” thus block ing the entry of communism in this country. 4. The Bishops should hold more Seminars and In-Service trainings of the Parish Priest to encourage intellectual development and prevent diem 56 from getting into “cultural ruts.” In line with this In-Service train ings, subjects such as Public Relations, Organizational Planning, Lead ership Training and Personnel Management Principles should be in cluded. There is a general shortage of executive and managerial talent in this country, in business, commercial circles, and this lack of public relations and managerial talents also holds true among die religious. After all, the Parish is a social corporation. Recommendations for promotions in the Hierarchy should not be based only on the past or present accomplishments of the candidates but also on the potentialities for future advancement not only on the religious aspect but also on the cultural and executive abilities of the candidate. 5. Lastly, in dealing with the Filipino, I would like to recall the advise of a prominent Filipino Leader, of following the “lowly” Cochero’s philosophy of managing his horse, namely that of “Estira y Afloja.” The Filipino with his ingrained emotional sensitivity, partly nur tured by his 350 years of foreign domination, has “a chip on his shoulders,” making him ever alert to revolt at the least indications of domination. Neither is it wise to let go the reigns completely for he is apt to abuse, and would get a yard if you give him an inch. A good balance between discipline and freedom is best fitted for the Filipino temperament. • * The communist with their practice of one day coaxing and one day threatening, have been successful in recruiting members in so called under-developed countries long dominated by colonial powers. Finally, I wish to point out the shift of “influences” in contemporary Filipino society: in olden times, it was the Parish Priest, then came the landlord, and now the politician. There is a more dangerous group emerging: the recalcitrants, the violent, and the rebellious who are or are attempting to incite the masses through an ideology totally opposite to the teachings of Christ. The Parish Priest, among our traditional leaders, is in a unique position to stem this tide but only if the Parish Priest will be as energetic, resourceful, and committed to the cause of the Filipino well-being as the recalcitrants profess to be. NOTES AND COMMENTS The Pope and the Jesuits “Do you wish, sons of Igna tius, militants of the Society of Jesus, to be today and tomorrow and always that which you have been from your foundation until this day for the Holy Catholic Church and for this Apostolic See? This question of ours would not be justified if there had not reach ed our ears news and rumors re garding your Society for which we cannot hide our surprise and, for some of them, our sorrow.” With the quotation of these words from the speech of the Pope to the Jesuits upon the closing of the 31st General Congregation on 16th November, this year. TIME Magazine (25th Novem ber) purported to reveal the Pope’s mind concerning the Je suits. And to evaluate, in its own way, that situation and the mind of the Pontiff, TIME wrote: “To outsiders, the renewal effort (of the Jesuits’ 31st Congregation) has seemed dryly procedural and strikingly inconclusive; Paul’s sur prising purpose was to denounce sternly the ‘strange and sinister suggestions’ that he detected in the discussions.” In similar fashion the words of the Pope have been reproduced in other publications and in our local press. No wonder, then, that the image of the Society should have appeared dubious before the eyes of the public and the simple faith ful and that the good Sisters should have come to ask what was happening with the Jesuits and why had the Pope rebuked them thus. We call attention to this event m order to point out how the press of certain leanings, this Magazine in particular, as well as the local press pursue sensationalism and distort facts. They suppress and interpret as they please. The re sult is not honest reporting, but confusionism. We have seen this all through the Council days and 58 recently in reporting the speech of the Pope to the Italian Society of Gynecologists. Now, it is the Je suits’ turn. In fact, what did the Pope tell the religious of the Society of Je sus? What is the attitude of the Holy Father towards them? We feel that the faithful and the good Sisters need not lose a night’s sleep. Never, to our mind, has the So ciety of Jesus received such praises as those from Paul VI upon the closing of their General Congre gation. The pontifical document, wholly reproduced in L’Osservatore Romano on 17th Noverriber, 1966, and reprinted in many pub lications, must needs be read. It would fully substantiate our state ment. Then, again, certain circums tances clearly point to the mind of the Pope and his deep esteem for the worthy Society: 1. The closing of this Congre gation of the Society uniquely took place at the Sistine Chapel and the Pope underscored the grandeur of the place and significance of the site of the Papal elections; 2. The Supreme Pontiff concelebrated the Holy Mass with the General Prepositus and five Jesuit priests; 3. In his speech the Pope prais ed the efforts of renewal of the Congregation, together with the conservative spirit that has always inspired the Jesuit apostolate. In particular, the Pope mentioned “the arduous and intense practice of prayer, the humble and ardent discipline of the interior life, the examination of conscience, the in timate dialogue with Christ.... this wealth of spiritual modula tions,” which is “not only proper to the monk”, but also “an in dispensable armor-suit of the sol dier of Christ.” The Pope took note of the close link between re novation and conservative tradi tion in the conscientious partici pants to the 31st General Congre gation and averred that he ap proved them with all his authority. In the most expressive terms he revealed his confidence in the So ciety today as in past years and felt sure that they would remain loyal to their history. In regard to the new dimensions of their future apostolate the Pope singularly un derscored the conquest of atheism, all the forms of present day ecu menism and “the education of the youth in the secondary schools and in the universities—ecclesiastical and civil—, which has given you always greac glory and abundant merits”, and, in token of success, 59 the Holy Father pointed to “the devotion you promote to the Sac red Heart”. And the Pope ended his speech thus: “Yes, this is the time, dearly beloved sons; march on trusting and full of ordour; Christ chooses you, the Church sends you, the Pope blesses you.” That in these days of renovation and confusion there should have been self-examinations and even legitimate doubts as to the efficacy of the Ignatian structure would not bring concern to whomever knows history. Neither is it the first time in the history of the So ciety of Jesus that this should have happened. The old solution was: “Sint ut sunt aut non sint”. In the closing of the 31st Congregation we find a genuine renewal ab intus, a most conscientious leader who, knowing his limitations, would find a superior and perma nent solution in the Rock of Truth. To be sure, we believe, it all has a symbolic value. Those “news and rumors”, that sinisterly reach ed the ears of the Pope, were not exclusive of the Jesuits. They also concerned “other religious fami lies, for which we cannot hide sur prise, and for some of them, the sorrow it has caused us.” This is a deplorable omission and distor tion of TIME and the secular press. Indeed, the profound analysis that the Pope makes of the Igna tian institution and faithfulness to itself is an essential exigency of all the religious families and, in general, of all ecclesiastical insti tutions so that they may be gen uine manifestations of the divine truth and legitimate testimonies of the only and eternal apostolate of the Church. Spain's Bishops Ready to Give Up Privileges At the end of the Plenum of the Episcopate Conference, a spokesman declared that the Spa nish hierarchy has informed the Holy See that it is perfectly ready to give up all the rights and pri vileges that His Holiness may think fit, as and when the Pope 60 himself decides. The privileges enjoyed by the Catholic Church in Spain, and which are not quoted in the spokes man’s declarations, are as follows: Tax exemptions for Church ins titutions and individuals. Exemptions from military service for priests and religious. Special legal charter for clergy. Spanish State payroll for bis hops and priests. Certain financial advantages on public transport and services, such as rail fare reduction for clergy. The presence of Bishops and priests in State and legislative or ganizations. The agreement between Spain and the Holy See on Church Universities. The network of secondary schools belonging to Church or the religious orders. The Church radio network. Church circles here point out that all these privileges are enjoy ed in Spain by Clergy and the Catholic Church in general thanks to an agreement between the Holy See and Spain; the Concordat of 1953. Any changes in this Con cordat are the business of the sig natories, not the Spanish hierar chy. With this offer to renounce pri vileges, the Spanish hierarchy— these circles point out — makes clear that Spain’s prelates place no obstacles in the way of any al teration to the Concordat in ac cordance with the Spirit of Vati can II, a task which falls upon the Holy See and the Spanish government, not upon the Spanish hierarchy. International Congress of Catholic Doctors The International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations as sembled in Manila from Novem ber 2 to 5, 1966 for its XI In ternational Congress, having dis cussed the medical and ethical as pects of the general theme, “The Catholic Doctor and the Popu lation Problem,” with the end in view of greater and better service to humanity and to the Church in the spirit of II Vatican Ecu 61 menical Council did adopt the fol lowing resolutions: 1. The greatness and sanctity of human life, as a gift of God is to be treated with highest respect. 2. It .is the duty of Catholic physicians to protect life in all its periods, born and unborn; the procreative activity of husband and wife, intimately associated or combined as it is, within the psy chosomatic context of human life, should be guided, controlled, and even sublimated, without doing undue harm to the physical and psychological being of the human organism. 3. Direct abortion is condemned as a direct attack on human life. There is increasing evidence of medical and social harmful ef fects of direct abortion, and the Catholic doctors are concerned about present trends to liberalize abortion laws as dangerous mea sures for a society. 4. Catholic physicians are ob liged to promote the concept and practice of responsible parenthood. 5. In the promotion of this con cept, the physician is not merely a pure scientist, but he must also in the service of humanitv, con sider all its aspects—social, eco nomic, spiritual, and medical— and be guided always by the mind of the Church. 6. To avoid doctrinal confu sion and disturbances of conscience in the absence of Church pro nouncements * (founded on fur ther study or research in the doc trinal, social and biological scien ces), physicians should continue not to advocate the use of proges terone and other similar agents as contraceptive measures. 7. The solution of the problems arising from population is not pri marily medical, but fundamentally in education and in the application of social justice, and to an equi table distribution of wealth in all spheres, aided by other efforts in the medical, social, religious, cul tural and other fields. 8. Catholic institutions of learn ing should orient themselves to prepare their students to meet with the problems that arise from population difficulties so that their students may be provided with practical guidelines for action in modern society. *We have to take .exception to the 6th resolution with regards to the statement “in absence of Church pro nouncements". In fact the Pope, in his Address to the Italian Gynecolo gists, Oct.. 29, 1966, had denied that the Church is in State of any practic al doubt, and had insisted again on the compliance of Church’s directives Editor’s note. PASTORAL SECTION HOMILETICS Quinquagesima (February 5) OUR LENTEN RESOLUTION (I Cor. 13 1-13) We are about to enter the holy season of Lent. The Epistle this morning, undoubtedly Paul’s most magnificent passage, is a fitting introduction to this season.- The charity of which Paul speaks is love of neighbor issuing from the love which God has shown for us and the love we return to Him. Resolution and growth To many of us Lent is a time for asking ourselves: “What extra penance will I perform?” “How many candies will I give up?” “Which will I give up: my smoking or my drinking?” “Do I really need a new dress for Easter?” Penance is good. Mortification is good, But does it ever occur ro us that they will profit us nothing without real charity? “If I distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, yet do not have charity, it profits me nothing.” St. Paul here is not throwing penances and mortifications overboard. But for him the resolu tion must be something very positive, something that has effect not only on our waistlines but also on our neighbor, Our Lenten resolution must be “outgoing”. For example: “I will not miss a chance to help another.” It seems ridiculous to feel so virtuous 63 about our acts of mortification and be at the same time as selfish, impatient, irritable and critical as ever. If there is anything the Church wants of us during this season, it is progressive growth in charity, a growth that does not stop with Easter Sunday. Ideally, all of us should have grown in charity as we grew in age. “When I was a child, I spoke as a child.... Now that I have become a man. I have put away the things of a child.” Every growth in age must be accompanied by arrival at a new level of loving. Every step forward must be a growth in charity. This is what we must pray for during this holy season. Application to our discussions The resolution then is “I will not miss a chance to help another.” The list of opportunities to help our neighbor is inexhaustible. But let us mention only one. It is by no means the first or the most important in the list. But in it we could experience a real growth in charity. I am referring to politeness, politeness in our discussions as well as in our conversations. “Charity is patient, is kind, ...does not envy, is not pietentious, is not puffed up, is not provoked, is not self-seeking, thinks no evil.” Let us apply this even to our discussions. Discussion is a way of helping another find the truth. You may be right, your arguments may be impregnable, but you must present your arguments or opinions with politeness, with charity. Be open-minded: irv to understand the other person’s position; make every attempt a< reconciliation; win his sympathy by seeing him as a friend, as a brother, ns Christ Himself; do not make it difficult for him to accept the truth bv ridiculing his person; finally, be humble, pride throws everything into confusion. A psychologist summed up his principles of discussion this way: "In any discussion, the first rule is: thou shalt talk with your whole heart, with your whole mind and with your whole soul. The second is: thou shalt listen with your whole heart, with your whole mind and with your whole soul” (Fr. J. Bulatao, S.J.). That is charity. This Lent let us grow in charity, never miss a chance to help another and become more Christlike in our discussions and conversations. 64 I in Quadragesima (February 12) OBSTACLES TO THE APOSTOLATE Christ was like to us in all things save sin. He shared in our in firmities, weakness.... and temptations. He could truly say to us: “I know exactly how you feel. I was also tempted. The servant is not above his master.” Christ submitted to the three temptations that all of us go through, namely, the temptation to be sensational and the temp tation to amash power and wealth. The temptation to seek the easy way Christ was very hungry. Changing the stones into bread seemed to be a practical and easy way out of it. But, no. “Not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” When one of His Apostles brought Him food, saying: “Master, eat,” He replied: “I have meat to eat, which you know not. . . .My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me” (Jo. 4/34). The will of God i6 not always easy to do. To seek the easy way of security is to seek one’s own interest. But Christ has raised up His standard which demands total disinterested in His service. For it is no longer our lives that we are living but Christ’s. Too often the easy way proves to be the difficult way to heaven. The temptation to be sensational The second temptation we often go through is the temptation to be popular, to be successful, to be seen. But, no. We are building up not our worldly kingdoms but the Kingdom of Christ. Christ re jected the temptation to throw Himself down from the pinnacle in order to show us that we must not build His Kingdom by sensational means, but by the witness of our faith. Obscurity and humility are the foundation stones of His Kingdom. Therefore, we must constantly reject the illusion that we can win the crowd for Christ by means of our worldly popularity and success. Christ’s 65 increase is proportionate to our decrease. The more my ego decreases, the more Christ increases in me and in others. The temptation to power and wealth Lastly, Christ’s rejection of the riches, splendor and glory displayed before Him is a lesson. Riches. Money and what it can buy. Too often lying, cheating, injustice, cruelty, even killing, are resorted to just to build up one’s bank account. With money goes the desire to amash power and to remain in power even if one has rendered himself un worthy or incapable. Unless we are free from temporal cares and self-seeking, we can not play a dynamic role in the apostolate. It is not in the world’s wealth and power that our strength lies. We must re-discover ourselves in Christ who alone is our wealth and power. Worldly wealth and power are nor necessarily signs of active membership in the Church; all too often they constitute a great obstacle to the apostolate. These are the temptations we all go through in life. They consti tute the obstacles to the apostolate. They retard the spread of the Kingdom in us and in the world. To overcome them is indeed to share in the victory of Christ. II in Quadragesima (February 19) THE TRANSFIGURATION: A CALL TO PURITY Christ brought Peter, James and John with Him into Thabor in order to strengthen their faith. He wished to arm them in advance against the scandal of the cross, because He foresaw that they would soon be witnesses of His abasements and weakness. He would be lifted up on a cross; His Body would be spurting out blood; He would be transfixed with nails; He would be hanged between two thieves. In order that these might not be an occasion of their falling away, He showed them His glory. On this mount He was lifted off the earth; from His Body spurted out golden rays; He was transfigured with splendor; He 66 hovered between Moses and Elias. A fitting revelation of His future triumph on that early Easter morning! By means of this Transfiguration Christ prepared the three for the cross and the crucifixion. A revelation of our transfiguration But we are interested more in what this mystery holds for us today. This Gospel is truly a wonderful message of hope, for it discloses to us the message of this season of Lent. It shows us where Christ leads those who share with Him His sufferings through the crucifixion of their flesh: like Him they will be glorified. The glcry which surrounds Jesus in the Transfiguration will be ours. It is a revelation of our future transfiguration. This is just a foreshadowing for “it has not yet appeared what we shall be.” (I Jo. 3/2) But we know herebelow that our bodies will be glorious like unto His own upon Thabor, because according to Him, the just shall “shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Mt. 13/43). We shall, therefore, share in the glory which shone fort in Him. St. Paul ex pressly tells us so: “But our citizenship is in Heaven from which also we eagerly await a savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will refashion the body of our lowlinessj conforming it to the body of His glory” (Phil. 3/21). To live in the spirit of Lent is not just to be lost in our mortifica tions, fastings, abstinence and almsgiving. It is to look towards the future. The account of the Transfiguration this morning is intended to give finality to the little crucifixions to which we submit our bodies. Purity and holiness We mention the word crucifixion, for we are not meant to merely hope for our transfiguration in Christ. The Epistle shows us how we may crucify, and thus transfigure, our bodies. How? Through purity and holiness. God is calling us to holiness. It is His will that not only our souls but also our bodies must radiate holiness. If we want our bodies to shine as the sun, if we want them to be glorious like unto Christ’s, then we must heed St. Paul: that is, 67 abstain from every sort of immorality, especially impurity (Cf. I Cor. 5/11; 6/9, 13, 15-20; I Tim. 1/10). We must leam how to possess our bodies (“vessel”) in holiness and honor. Let none transgress or over reach his brother by means of adultery. “For God has not called us unto uncleaness, but unto holiness.” This, my dear brethren, is what the mystery of Christ’s Transfigura tion holds for us right now. Through the progressive control of our bodies, we prepare ourselves for our future transfiguration, III IN Quadragesima (February 26) DECIDING FOR CHRIST “He who is not with me is against me.” The greatest decision we can make in life is the decision for Christ. It is too bad that many postpone it to the time of their death, when it is most difficult to make decision. I am reminded of a priest who asked a dying man “Are you sorry for all your sins?” The dying man answered, “I sure am very sorry, Father.’” But when the priest said “Do you renounce Satan and all his works and all his pomps,” the same dying man replied, “Father, I am not in the position to antagonize anyone now.” That’s the kind cf decision we might make if we do not make up our minds now in favor of Christ. Christ: the stronger But let us decide for Christ, choose Christ right now and sustain this with a life lived in humility and truth. Satan is powerful only be cause we make him powerful with our sinfulness. In truth, he has no weapon other than those which we give him. Christ came in order to wage an invisible war with Satan. He has every right over us. Satan, the liar par excellence, has none. Of the two Christ is the stronger. “When the strong man, fully armed, guards liis courtyard, his property is undisturbed. But if a stronger than he 68 attacks and overcomes him, he will take away all his weapons that he relied upon, and will divide his spoils.” Christ is the stronger because “all power is given to Him” “in heaven, on earth and under the earth.” Undaunted, he upholds salvation. He accepts defeat and death only to use them as propitiation for our sins. His defeat is truly a victory. Uncompromising decision If we choose Christ now, we can put all our trust in Him. His apparent weakness and vulnerability is no longer a scandal. He says to each of us, as He did to His disciples: “Take courage, I have over come the world” (Jo. 16/33). “Now is the judgment of the world; now will the prince of the world be cast out” (Jo. 12/31). To the extent that our decision for Christ is uncompromising, we shall cast out Satan from the world. To the extent that our surrender to Christ is unconditional, we shall dominate Satan. This decision then must be honest, else it is no decision at all. Avoid occasions of sin How can we sustain our decision? By “imitating God” and "walk ing in love.” We render Satan weaponless by removing sin from our lives. We must get down to the root of our sin, if we do not want the same to keep recurring; it will weaken us more each time and even tually conquer (Cf. Mt. 11/24-26). Truly this decision is going to hurt. The change is not going to be fun. For often the most deeply rooted sins are occasioned by per sons, places, and things to which we are so strongly and passionately attached and drawn. And yet how can we be so attached to them and still not be separated from Christ? There is no third alternative. Either Christ or Satan. And we must decide for Christ. Rev. Fr. Angel N. Lagdameo CASES AND QUERIES “FOLLOW YOUR INDIVIDUAL CONSCIENCE” Married couples’ problems centering on the necessity of limiting the jdmily size weight heavily upon the responsibility of confessors, as they come up in an ever increasing number. To those of us ordained ten years ago, these problems are rather new and of no easy solution. In the course of a Holy Retreat for priests, where these pastoral problems came up for discussion, it was indeed surprising, to put it mildly, to hear with an air of “take it or leave it’’, that where the par ties concerned are very reluctant to practice sexual abstinence, let’s say, for a week or so, and furthermore the “rythm” has been tried and failed, whether or not these couples can make use of the contraceptive now en joying an exceptional demand—the pill (2-1/2 mg.), should be left “to the individual conscience.” To make this consultation brief and useful, could you, Reverend Father, shed some light on the five following ques tions — a) Should we priest-confessors insist with prudence and tact, a great deal more on the moral practical possibility of practicing sexual abstinence for long periods, where it becomes necessary? b) Are priest-confessors acting intelligently in recommending the use of the “Rythm”, as an effective means of spacing births, in spite of physicians claiming that it is practically unsafe, simply it doesn’t work, many say? c) In advising the married couples to follow their individual con science, in cases as the one just referred to above, does the con science of the priest-confessor get morally involved, if the peni tent resorts to the use of the contraceptive pill? 70 d) Is the permissive-directive “follow your individual conscience” theologically correct and sound? e) The fact that the priest is celibate, does it disqualify him to speak with authority on the moral, pastoral aspects of marriage, and marriage problems? * * * 1 Toward a Theology of Self-denial, by Donald W. Kraus. Rome, 1965, Catholic Book Agency; pp. 48-57. Allocutio of Paul VI, Cfr. “L’Osservatore Romano,” July 8, 1965. Marriage and the Sex Problem, by F. W. Foster, “The indispensability of the ascetic ideal”: Chapter IX, pp. 127-162. 2 400 German Doctors Memorandum. Cfr. Herder Correspondence, II, n. 4, April, 1965; pp. 110-112. A) Indeed, the need of the hour is to live an authentic Christian life, and this way of life calls for a degree of self-denial, self-mastery far greater than most of us care to believe in and practice.1 The ability eo sublimate sexual forces for the sake of a higher goal represents a basic possibility in man and essential attribute distinguishing him from the animal, and this will become a happy reality if man grows morally while it develops physically and intellectually.1 2 Paul VI in a speech delivered at St. Peter’s on Feb. 12, 1966, to participants in the XIII National Congress of Italian women, a Con gress held at Domus Marine said in part: “La nuova Pentecoste della Chiesa che tutto il Popolo di Dio ha demandata intensamente nella preghiera di questi anni, e che speriamo la misericcrdia di Dio abbia a donazc alia sua Chiesa, non potra essere un tempo di maggiore facilita morale, ma piuttosto di maggiore impegno per tutti, anche per gli sposi cristiani” “Entrate per la porta stretta.... stretta e la porta e impervia la via che conduce alia vita.” (Mtt 7, 13-14) AAS., 58, n. 3 31 martii, 1966, p. 224. Cfr L’Osservatore Romano (French edition) 25 Fevrier, 1966, p. 1. col. 5. 1. 71). Periodic continence or sexual abstinence is a necessary part of every marriage, worthy of this sacred name. If not adopted for higher conside rations, it will be imposed by illness, childbirth, absence from home, and so on. The idea of restraint of the sexual faculty is not to be regarded as a remote level of virtue to be attained only by those of exceptional 71 character or unusual piety; rather it is the way humans have to live often enough, in many circumstances of ordinary existence, if they do factually try to preserve their self-respect at all.3 4 In the context of Christ ian teaching and life marital chastity * is not only a possibility, it is a blessed and most uplifting reality. Thousands of married couples stand “witnesses” to man’s God given power and practical ability for selfmastery in the area of sex.5 * The Christian soul may well proclaim with St. Paul: “Nothing is beyond my power, thanks to the strength God gives me” (Phil. 4:15), To married people as well as to the un married the following words of a well known German theologian may have a salutary and reassuring effect. Writes K. Rahner, S.J.: 3 The Ovulation Method, by John Billings, M.D., The Advocate Press, Melbourne, 1965, p. 14 ff. 4 UNITAS, Sept. 1966: pp. 419-420. 0 Meeting Christ in the Sacraments, by C. E. O’Neill, O.P., Alba House, Staten Island, N.Y., 1964: pp. 272-273. ” Nature and Grace, by K. Rahrser, S.J., Sheed and Ward, London, pp. 102 ff. “If we Christians, when faced with a moral decision, really realized that the world is under the Cross on which God himself hung nailed and pierced, that obedience to God’s law can also entail man’s death, diat we may not do evil in order that good may come of it, that it is an error and heresy of this eudemonic modem age, to hold that the morally right thing can never lead to a tragic situation from which in this world there is no way out; if we really realized that as Christians we must expect almost to take for granted that at some time in our life our Christianity will involve us in a situation in which we must either sacrifice everything or lose our soul, that we cannot expect always to avoid a ‘heroic’ situation, then there would indeed be fewer Christians who think that their situation requires a special ruling which is not so harsh as the laws proclaimed as God’s laws by the Church, then there would be fewer confessors and spiritual advhers who, for fear of telling their penitent how strict is God’s law, fail in their duty and tell him instead ‘to follow his conscience’, as if he had not asked, and done right to ask, which among all the many voices clamouring within him was the true voice of God, as if it were not for God’s Church to try and distinguish it in accordance with his law, as if the true conscience could speak even when it had not been informed by God and the faidi which comes from hearing.”11 72 May I add that these words are a faithful summary and echo of the morality of the Gospels and St. Paul’s.7 No substitute in pills pre sent or future; no substitute for self-discipline and self-mastery. The very use of the “pill” itself calls for the this sterling quality. To the men and women of little faith in the power stemming from humble trust in God, the happy reality of our faith ought to be stressed more fre quently and, whenever possible, more effectively. When marital chastity is practiced, very often it marks the thoughtful, intelligent, successful; authentic Catholic couple. 7 Theology of the New Testament, by John Bonsirven, S.J., Bums and Oates, London, 1963, p. 125 ff. 8 New Blackfriars, September 1966: pp. 636-646. “Sex, Sterility and the Catholic", by Don and Helen Kannabay, Alba House, Staten Island, N.Y., 1964: Chapters II and VI. B) It would be a timely reminder to some expert priests “stop prac ticing medicine without license”, but a priest is far from practicing me dicine when he commends directly or indirectly the use of “Rhythm” method in association with the use of basal temperature readings. The progressive women theologian, Mrs. Rosemary Haughton, has this much to say on the reliability of the Rhythm:—“Let it be said at once that the safe period, properly understood and practiced, is safe, and the remarks about it are made by people who haven’t studied the subject properly. It is unsafe when used with insufficient instruction and care—not enough calculation; in fact, its disadvantages are not due to its unsafeness, but to the sometimes too long periods of continence it imposes... ”.8 What happens, in many instances, is this: instruction in sex and Rhythm is obtained thru hearsay, casual reading of popular culture media, and this kind of information and subsequent use often leads to disastrous, disappointing results. Consciencious and intelligent physicians, willing to be of service to the best interests of their patients, should know there is available scientifically reliable information, and look for it. But in the words of Dr. Ch. Rendue, “competence is not enough for the Catholic physician who wishes to come to the aid of married couples; it is necessary that he himself live an interior life as intense as possible, nourished in a most special manner by prayer... It should not be assumed that this is outside the point, when we are rather at the 73 very core of the problem. God is Love and Fecundity. The fertile couple is an image of God (Gen. I, 27-28). One deprives himself of an indis pensable light on human love and fecundity, if one does not foster a life of intimate, reverent familiarity with the most Holy Trinity”.9 11 La regulation des naissances dans le cadre familial et chretien, by Dr. diaries Rendu. Cfr. Nouvelle Revue Tlieologique, n. 6, juin 1965. The paper is worthwhile reading and meditating. Dr. di. Rendu is a well-known interna tional authority in this field of work. 10 AAS, 55, 31, iulii 1964; p. 588: ,-Un gravissimo problema morale”. C) Not infrequently it is assumed that one’s individual case is not covered by the law of God or of the Church, and therefore one may safely follow the course of action the here dnd now circumstances sug gest to be a satisfactory solution. I believe a great deal of self-decep tion is taking place, which in the name of intellectual honesty ought to be dispelled. Still others keep on resorting to the “pill” as a means of regulating the ovulation cycle. The threefold action of the pill is well known today, whereas its subsequent regulating effect of the slightly irregular ovulation cycle (within normal) has not been scientifically established; far from that, Hence numerous married women keep on taking the “pill” as a regulating factor, indefinitely, for fear of being caught un aware .... Finally, the much advertised fact that a high percentage of Catho lics thruout the world resort today to the use of the “pill” as a con traceptive, plus the overestimated theological opinion of Catholic writers, laymen and clergymen, has tended to create a sort of practical doubt in some quarters, as to the here dnd how binding force in conscience of the statement of Paul VI of June 24, 1964, which disapproves of said practice.10 In the three just stated cases, if the confessor, in answer to the penitent’s request for light, says “follow your individual conscience”, he is morally involved in the course of action taken by the penitent. D) The pennissive-directive “follow your individual conscience” given in the context of the three situations as viewed under section C) is definitely wrong in the light of Catholic doctrine. Vatican Coun 74 cil II, The Church Today11 No. 51, teaches that “when there is ques tion of harmonizing conjugal love with the responsible transmission of life, the moral aspect of any procedure does not depend solely on sin cere intentions or on an evaluation of motives. It must be determined by objective standards. These, based on the nature of the human per son and his acts, preserve the full sense of mutual self giving and hu man procreation in the context of true love. Such a goal cannot be achieved unless the virtue of conjugal chastity is sincerely practiced. Re lying on these principles, sons of the Church may not undertake methods of regulating procreation which are found blameworthy by the teaching authority of the Church in its unfolding of the divine law.” The De cree on Religious Freedom12, No. 14, contains some very pertinent doctrine. “In the formation of their consciences, the Christian faithful ought carefully to attend to the certain and sacred doctrine of the Church. The Church is the will of Christ, the teacher of the truth. It is her duty to give utterance to and authoritatively to teach, that Truth which is Christ Himself, and also to declare and confirm by her au thority those principles of * the moral order which have their origin in human nature itself.” 11 The Documents of Vatican Council II, Walter M. Abbot, S.J., Gen. Editor: Herder and Herder, 1966, p. 256, n. 51. 1J Ibidem, p. 694-695, n. 14; The Church Today, n. 16; pp. 213-214. It is one’s individual conscience that we are entitled to follow, when and after it has been dutifully informed, as to which of the many voices it hears is the true voice of God, and consequently it is to be presumed that when a catholic couple calls on a confessor and asks to be informed on what to do or not to do, it simply means here and now they wish to have their conscience dutifully and rightly instructed concerning God’s will, and know thereby the direction their human activity ought to take. Fear of telling one’s penitent how strict is God’s law should not lead to the fatal mistake of his “follow your conscience” (Rahner). Protestant situation ethics teaches, it is true, that no law, no au thority, no church can manifest to the individual conscience which for that individual conscience as such, in the given situation, is here and now the will of God, for this judgment of conscience has no other norm 75 than the situation-ds-d-revelation of the wilt of God, and this personal reveldtion may, on certain occasions, be opposed to abstract norms of the natural law, or even the divine positive law13, This doctrine paves the way to moral subjectivism and amorality. Rejecting Protestant situation ethics — duthentic catholic doctrine teaches us that it is the personal judgment of conscience vis-a-vis a situa tion that reveals God’s will here and now, and consequently what is wrong and what is right, in the light of the objective order which God has established, and thereby manifests to us His Holy Will. “We are convinced”—say Y. Cougar, o.p.,—“that the authentic demands of an ethic of God’s immediate will (or “situation ethic”) are met by the thomist theology of action, with its enlightening ideas in the practical order, of prudence and of the gifts of the Holy Spirit”11. Man’s practical daily life must conform to the dentdnds of redlity, to the principles of the moral order as declared and confirmed by the teaching authority of the Church,—a God given authority for our own good; catholic writers laymen and clergymen alike ought not to assume an authority equal or even at times superior to that of the Supreme Pontiff, thus creating enormous confusion, leading ultimately to immoral prac tices and a moral living' ". Finally, our consultant will do well to read the Allocutio of Paulus VI printed in this same issue of the Boletin for it dees away with inac curate, wide-spread beliefs, such as, contraception is forbidden by Church law, a law therefore which she may, will, must change'1 or one may well ' Dieu et I’homme, by E. Schillebecckx, O.P., Ed. cep./Bruxelles, 1965: pp. 253-269.Cf. La Coscicn^a by Pietro Palazzini. Studi Cattolici Roma, 1961: "la conscicnza nella teologia protestante, pp. 276-288. 14 Modern Catholic Thinkers, Vol. II, Harper Tordibook'. “In the world but not of the world”, by Y. Congar, O.P., p. 279. Psychology vs. Morality, by Rimaud, Jean, Cross Currents, winter, 1951, pp. 26. Cfr. Ford and Kelly: "Psychiatry and moral responsibility", in Theolo gical Studies, March 1954, pp. 59 ff.; Proceedings of the Catholic Philosophical Association: "Ethics and other Knowledge”: Vol. vl, 1957: pp. 106 ff. B.E., above, p.—. 17 Jubilee, December 1965: pp. 40-41. "The Church will not change”, by John Cavanagh, M.D. 76 presume such law is not binding under pain of grave sin, at a time when the problems are still under study!.... "We express our confidence — the Pope speaks to Obstetricians and Gynecologists — in your authoritative understanding and your free col laboration concerning a norm which the law of God far more than our authority—and the supreme interest of human life considered in its in tegral fulness, dignity and destiny—far more than any partial interest— make into the best and most sacred norm for us all”. “Meanwhile... i the norm till now taught by the Church, integrated by the wise instruc tions of the Council, demands faithful and generous observance. It can not be considered not binding, as if the magisterium of the Church were in state of doubt.. .”. It is the natural law; it is a divine law rather than a human law, we are dealing with; the implications and full understand ing of this law admit of degrees of knowledge. That is why the church is in a state of reflection, but no charge by human authority may be con templated. E) The validity of what the priest has to say on the foregoing mar riage problems is in no way conditioned or dependent on existential’knowl edge of marriage problems. One needs, above all, the right perspective to see things as they are; neither too close nor too far from the object.1'' Empathy rather than sympathy is necessary for correct judgment of these marriage problems. Let us keep in mind that the role of the priest here is not the counsellor’s role, but the role of the theologian. The priest speaks for the Church. Now, “The attitude of the Church to birth control does not rest on the arguments put forward by her theologians. That these arguments are valid in their own sphere and that they de velop the meaning of marriage is not being called into question; but because they are arguments of human reason concerning a natural ins titution, they are incapable of expressing all that the Church knows about marriage. These arguments derive from natural ethics, and as such have their own demands to make on human reason. They show how the teaching of the Church is a defense of human nature and of the dig nity of man. But they fail utterly to convey or to give the compelling 18 The Meaning of Christian Marriage, Edited by E. McDonagh, Gill and Son, Dubin, 1963, p. 192-193. 77 reason why the Church’s teaching is what it is. Those who do not ac cept her authority as guardian and interpreter of revelation are incapable of appreciating the divine certainty of her doctrine on marriage. It is part of her mission to try to convince the unbeliever by rational argu ments. For her cwn children she has a greater treasure, and she exacts from them, in virtue of her divine mission, a greater obedience of faith which holds fast to the word of God, even when unaided reason would hesitate. For the Church there is only one true happy ending, the face-to-face vision of God. She is romantic about conjugal happiness, only when it means that the story will end in heaven”19. ”C.E. O’Neill, O.P, op. cit., pp. 258-259. 20VERBO, serie IV, n. 37-38; pp. 389-404—Archbishop Marcel Lefevre. 21 AAS, 1966, pp. 659-661. Sacra Congr. pro Doctrina Fidei. Epistula ad Card. Ottaviani, 24 iulii, 1966. 22 Marriage in the Modern World, by Bernard Haring, c.ss.r, the Mercier Press, Cork, 1964; p. 295 ff. The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, April 1966. The Dilemma in B-C, by D’ Callaghan. As long as laity and clergy keep on listening to the morally highly polluted new magisterium of public opinion2'1, while the so-called “or dinary universal magisterium of the Supreme Pontiff”—“ad regionem rerum opinabilium fere relegatur”—21 we shall see nothing but additional muddy thinking in the area of sex with endless misuse and degradation. It is true, that as a rule, the confessor is not in possession of the existential knowledge of marriage; but there is little evidence of some 'enlightened catholics” being in possession of existential knowledge of virginity. Both are needed. Marriage and virginity are two Christian mysteries in human existence that face and illumine each other". The Church knows plenty about them, and the world has much to gain by listening attentively to what the Vicar of Christ on earth has to say, for our own good, on this matter, for “he who heareth you heareth Me (Lk. 10:16) F. del RiO, O.P. 78 ON THE WORKS OF TEILHARD DE CHARDIN When dealing with questions on anthropology and evolution, one of our Lecturers in the Graduate School cautioned his students against the doctrines of Teilhard de Chardin as being contrary to the Church’s doctrine. I later found Teilhard’s works, on sale, in one of the leading bookstores in town. This bookstore has a reputation for offering only books which are reliable from the Catholic point of view. I wish to be clarified on the following points-. (?) Are the works of Teilhard de Chardin banned by the Church? (2) If not, why should our Lecturer warn us against the doctrines of this author? Before answering these questions, an observation concerning the works banned by the Church, or the “Index” of prohibited books, may be in order. According to a Notification of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, dated June 14, 1966, “The Index retains its moral force, insofar as it instructs the conscience of the faithful, that they beware of those writings which may endanger faith and good morals; however, it no longer has the force of eccle siastical law with its appended censures. ‘‘Wherefore, the Church confide; in the mature conscience of the faithful, especially of Catholic authors and publishers and of those who are dedi cated to the education of the youth. She, nevertheless, rests her firmest hope in the watchful solicitude of every Ordinary and of the Confer ences of Bishops, whose right and duty is to inspect and forestall per nicious books and, if the matter calls for it, to reprove and condemn 79 them.” (Cfr. Bol. Ec. de Filipinas, August, 1966, p. 475. Trans by the Rev. Ralph Salazar of the UST Central Sem.) With this criterion in mind, we may answer the queries of our interrogator, thus: 1. The works of Teilhard de Chardin have neither been formally banned by the Church, nor have they been included in the “Index,” Yet, the following “Monitum,” or Warning, has been issued by the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office on July 30, 1962: “There are in circulation certain works of Father Pierre Teilhard de Chatdin, published even after his death, which obtain no mean attention. "Intending no judgment on those which pertain to the positive sciences, it is manifest enough that in philosophical and theological matters, the aforesaid works abound with such ambiguities, nay, even grave errors, that they offend Catholic doctrine. “Wherefore, the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Fathers of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office exhorts all Ordinaries and Superiors of Religious Institutes, Rectors of Seminaries and Presidents of Universities, to efficaciously safeguard the mind-, of the youth espe cially, against the dangers of the works of Father Teilhard de Chardin and his followers.” (Cfr. AAS, 1962, p. 526. Trans, by the Rev. Ralph Salazar.) It may be worth noting that this Warning was issued shortly before the opening of Vatican II under the pontificate of good Pope John. Even a perfunctory reading will indicate a clear distinction in this document with regard to the works of Teilhard, the positive sciences, such as anthropology or paleology, and his doctrines on philosophical and theological matters. a. No judgment is passed (praetennisso iudicio) pro or con about Teilhard’s teaching on the positive sciences. In this field, while some scholars claim a real validity to current views on the aforesaid matters, about anthropology and evolution in particular, other scientists, on the other hand, contend that such claims do not go beyond the limit of mere, so far, undemonstrated theories. The fact remains, however, that the natural sciences fall within the legitimate competence of the human mind, and beyond the jurisdiction of the Church when the field of Christian faith and life is not adversely affected by their investigations. 80 b. Conversely, in matters philosophical and theological, the teach ings of Teilhard de Chardin are denounced by the Sacred Congregation as downright plagued with “such ambiguities, nay, even grave errors, that they offend Catholic doctrine.” In the face of this serious pro nouncement, Catholic scholars and professors who accept the divine authority of the Church to teach and to guide consciences, should accept the Church’s admonition in the exercise of their teaching profession. 2. From the foregoing statements, our questioner may obtain the answer to the second part of his query. The warning given by the Lecturer in the Graduate School was not uncalled for. In calling the attention of his students against the dangers of Teilhard’s works, he lias shown himself a responsible Catholic and his lectures on this point are perfectly in line with the directives of the Church. Quintin M. Garcia, O.P. THE CHURCH HERE AND THERE United States Important measures taken by American Catholic Hierarchy. The American Catholic Hierarchy in its last annual conference issued several declarations which caused great sen sation among the general public. Among these were: issuance of a vigorous call to all men of goodwill to work as one in fighting racial dis crimination in housing projects, education and other spheres of life, as against reason and Christian teach ing; agreement to abolish abstinence from eating meat on Friday ; and declaration of their moral support to the basic commitment of the country regarding die Vietnam war, but at the same time reminding “the duty to seek for alternative solution” to tire situation. Another decision, perhaps the most important, was the use of English at the Canon of the mass. It was also agreed upon to seek the approval of the Holy See for the use of English, instead of Latin, in tire rites of or dination to the priesthood and con secration of bishops; to allow priests to read the Canon in a high voice; and to use various modem versions of the Bible including the recent re vised edition common to Prorestent Churches and the Bible of Jerusalem version, in the reading of the Bible during mass, etc. Capetown, South Africa Thirty three Anglican bishops united with apostolate of Catholic bishops. Thirty three Anglican bishops signed a meaningful docu ment to join the apostolate against racial discrimination. The signa tories, after praising the collective stand of Catholic bishops in a pasto ral letter directed to the government, united themselves to use all po sible means and resources to guarantee each man “tire freedom of association, advancement of human person, sta bility of family life, free access to labor and total participation in the government of the country.” “If die Anglican church and other churches of South Africa”, the document pointed out, “have not totally involv ed themselves in fighting racial dis crimination”, now the thirty three Anglican pastors affirm that “we have to exhort all Christians of our country to a meaningful patriotism making known to all the terms of Vatican Council II that racial dis crimination is against the Will of God.” Chechoslovakia Priests returned to their parishes. Several priests prohibited from exer cising the pastoral ministry during the past years were allowed to return to 82 their respective parishes. Notwith standing this opening towards religi ous freedom, which was noted by neu tral observers, the number of priests was very low due to continuous hara.sment from the government. There are only 77 seminarians this year as compared to 1,500 in 1948. England Anglican Assembly studying' ad ministrative reforms. The Anglican Assembly of England called a meet ing to study the reformation of its administrative organization. An Anglican committee, named by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and composed of 746 mem bers, proposed a general synod of 43 diocesan bishops, 200 from the clergy and an equal number of laymen, to give the latter a bigger participation in the administrative affairs of the church. The synod will deal on mea sures subjected for approval to the Parliament, to pass canonical laws and opinions on moral issues. Doc trinal matters will be submitted to the Assemblies of Canterbury and York which will be composed of cler gies. A diocesan synod will be estab lished in each diocese. Vatican The Czechoslovakian government believes in the possibility of an agree ment with the Holy See, in the near future, to settle some issue which die Church has pending in the said coun try. This was disclosed by Josef Plojhar, Minister of Health and Reli gious Affair-. Several times, during the past years, there were negotia tions and dialogues between the Vati can and Prague. This news gathered from reliable sources, received credi bility during the recent visit of Car dinal Koenig to this country. Car dinal Beran, Archbishop of Prague and now residing at Rome, referred several times in his public statements to the possibility of this agreement, though quite difficult at the moment as was learned from several observers both in Rome and Czechoslovakia. Y ugoslavia A personal message of Marshal Tito to the Pope. Mr. Crvlje named by his government Representative to the Holy See arrived recently. As learned before, the Holy See and Yugoslavian government reached an agreement in which several issues, among them the exchange of represen tatives was ironed out. Monsignor Cagna, who worked hard for this agreement, was named by His Holi ness, representative of the Holy See to Belgrade at the same time exer cising the office of Apostolic Dele gate to Yugoslavia. It was also known that Mr. Crvlje was the bearer of Marslial Tito’s personal message to His Holiness Pope Paul VI. Manila Pope Paul names two new bishops. Two new Filipino bishops have been named by Pope Paul VI, according to a report received from the Vati can. The new bishops are Msgr. Bienvenido Lopez of Manila, who was named auxiliary bishop to Rufino Cardinal Santos, Archbishop of Ma nila while Msgr. Manuel Salvador 83 was appointed Auxiliary bishop to Msgr. Julio Rosales, Archbishop of Cebu. Bishop-elect Bienvenido Lopez was assistant chancellor and private secre tary to Cardinal Santos. He was also national director of the Family Rosary Crusade. ' Bom in Bu:tos, Bulacan, of a deeply pious family on March 22, 1924, the young Lopez started his seminary training at San Jose Semi nary. After his ordination to die priesthood on March 29, 1952, was assigned assistant parish priest in Imus, Cavite. On August the same year, he was sent to Rome to take up post graduate courses in Canon Law at the Pontifical Gregorian Uni versity where lie obtained a doctorate degree in Canon Law on June, 1955. Bishop-elect Manuel Salvador was bom in Dalaguete, Cebu, on January 7, 1925. He studied in the archidio cesan San Carlos Seminary in Cebu. When he showed remarkable talent in his studies, he was sent to the Cen tral Seminary of Santo Tomas Uni versity for his philosophy and theo logy in 1946 where he graduated “summa cum laude” with licentiate in philosophy and theology. Imme diately after his ordination to the priesthood on March 21, 1953, he was sent to the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas in Urbe (Angelicum) Rome where he obtained a doc torate degree in Canon Law. At the time of the papal appointmeht, he was Vicar General, Diocesan Cons Liltor and Parish priest of San Nicolas Church in Cebu City. Convention of Vocation Directors. Participation in general sessions and group discussions were the highlights of the three day Convention of the Vocation Directors’ held last Dec 9-12, at die Loyola Retreat House, Angono, Rizal. The theme “Strenghtening and Enriching Voca tion Promotions Program for the Priesthood and Religious Life” was discussed. Present were Vocation Directors, Rectors of Seminaries, and Masters of Novices of different reli gious orders and congregations and diocesan priests. The convention had an aspect of a dialogue among priests and religious; between priests and parents; and between priests and the youths. The dialogue-atmosphere of die convention brought about mu tual understanding among recruiters and enabled them to put up a com mon front “Priests and Religious for our Mother Church.” Suggestion! for the revision of canon lan\ The fifth annual discus sion meeting of the Technical Com mittee on Religious, Apostolic and Clerical formation was held Dec. 15 at the University of Santo Tomas. Suggestions for the revision of articles of caqon law applicable to the novi tiate were discussed. The result of the discussion will be the specific recarpmendations for revision that can be forwarded to Rome to assist the Episcopal Cbtnmittee now working at’tftit'tifck of such a revision. Six teen: Masters of Novices of different religious Orders and congregations attend'd. BOOK REVIEWS F. M. BERGOUNIOUX, O.F.M., and JOSEPH GOETZ, S.J., Prehistoric dnd Primitive Religions, Bum and Oates, London, 1965, 160 pp. 9s 6d. Men liave always been religious. Long before the dawn of history, they have fallen upon their knees to worship a God. This book depicts how both prehistoric and primitive men have adored their God. Prehistoric men, composed of the Neanderthal, Paleolithic and Neolithic men, were characterized by their religious cult of the dead. For them, death was not the end of human existence; an invisible ‘double’ continued to exist after death: gentle or cruel, friend or enemy, well wisher or advirer, it was important to make an ally of this being. Primitive men, on the other hand, who constitute the so-called ‘backward, isolated civilizations’ we have nowadays amidst our mountains and forests, are distinguished for their worship of the Sky God. Conceived as close and real being, creator and provider, that has an effective influence in man’s daily life, the Sky God has no organized cult, but is the object of spontaneous wor ship, often of an intense nature. P. Salgado, O.P. RYKWERT, JOSEPH, Church Building, Bums and Oates, London, 1966, 128 pp. 9s 6d. The Church is not any ordinary building. Besides being workable and efficient, a church has to be a temple that expresses man’s beliefs. The author aptly gives the history and description of these churches, from the beginning of die Christian era to modem times. The book is dius divided into seven chapters; corresponding to the seven epochs in which church building has undergone change and evolution. He who wishes to know about Church architecture, may well consult this book. P. Salgado, O.P. 85 COMPANION TO THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES, Dy Jonathan Robert. Bumes & Oates. 1965. 159 page 16s. This book contains 67 colloquies over the meditations for spiritual exer cises of tlte long Retreat (The four weeks of St. Ignatius). The Retreat, taken by the author as a test for his vocation when a Jesuit novice, follows some of the points of the original work of St. Ignatius ac cording to the somewhat free translation or adaptation of Corbishley, S.J. It follows this order: “Fundamental Principle”, sin, Christ the King, the Passion, the Resurrection and Contemplation for achieving love. A double appendix deals with the making of a decision and the rules for discerning spirits. The author, the Foreword states, who “had previously held important academic posts” left the novitiate to assume the life of a Catholic Man. This book, therefore, reflects the sentiments of a layman who went through the intense experience of St. Ignatius four w.eeks and certainly will inspire retreatants and lay people of similar frame of mind. Q. M. Garcia, O.P. BLANCHARD, RAOUL, and DU BUIT, M, O.P, Geography of the Holy Land, Bums and Oates, London, 1966, 144 pp. 9s 6d Palestine holds a unique place in Christianity. Many Christian beliefs have connection widi its geography. For one thing, the Bible cannot be fully understood, without a thorough knowledge of the land of Palestine. Hence the necessity for a book such as this. The book is divided in three parts. The first, written by Raoul Blan chard, offers a general study of Palestinian geography; the second, by M. du Buit, O.P, supplies studies which have been left untreated by the former, like landscape features, rainfall and climate, vegetation and wildlife, agriculture and livestock. The third part, explains why and how this land is still called “holy’. P. Salgado, O.P. EVANS, ILLTUD, O.P, Editor, Light on the Natural Law, Burns and Oates, London, 1965, 128 pp. 10s 6w The aim of this book is to discuss the subject of natural law in the light of modern times. Its purpose is not to form a new concept of natural law, much less to destroy it; rather, it is to restate the traditional concept in the living context of present human affairs. A philosopher, a political scientist, 86 a lawyer, a doctor and an anthropologist, treat the subject as applied to the existential needs of today. Doctrine, Pope John had indeed said, “should be studied and taught through the methods of research and the literary forms of modem thought”. P. Salgado, O.P. GOD MAKES THE WORLD. JESUS WORKS MIRACLES, The Bible for Children. Pictures by Emile Probst. Text by Hamish Swanston. Bums & Oates. 3s 6d (each vol.). "The Bible for Children’’ is very appropriately called. The selections found in the volumes show evidence of careful and meticulous choice. Every biblical story seems to be well-adapted to the young and still-developing mentality and personality of elementary school children. All the sories have been very wellsimplified, both in matters of style and vocabulary. Nevertheless, the inten tional simplification has not, in any way destroyed or marred the idea or con tent of the stories. One can still easily grasp the message or lesson that God, the Author, wishes to convey. The illustrations are just as praiseworthy as the stories that they picture out, as they are modern in style, yet clear enough for children to appreciate. The prints and lay-out in general represent the purpose of the book—a “Bible for Children.” The Author, artist, and publishers deserve our congratulations for their well-rewarded efforts. A. Valbuena, O.P. J. M. CAMERON, Images of Authority, Bums and Oates, London, 1966 128 pp. 10s 6d This book contains the series of lectures, the author gave at Yale Univ ersity in the year 1964. Its central theme is to elucidate on the relationship between divinely given authority and the obedience due it from the subjects. As the author tersely puts the problem, “The claim that a man, emperor or pope, ruler or priest, is Grid’s deputy and acts with a delegated authority is always subject to a torturing process of verification; for the proposition This is the command of a legitimate authority does not entail the proposition This is a divine command.” The author suggests likewise, that in the Johann ... Church authority is much clearer, in as much as it authority backed by secular power, which has been cons, the ideal. P. S. FILTHAUT, THEODOR, Learning to Worship, Burns and Oates, Lv 1965, x-192 pp. 15s Widi die liturgical changes being experienced nowadays, some books are needed to guide and direct die people. The book we have now, seeks to tackle some of the educational tasks presented by such liturgical revival. Various liturgical points are thus treated in the book, like history’s an swer to modern liturgical problems, the liturgical problems, the essence and the purpose of the liturgy, its theocentricity and christocentricity, liturgy as the public worship of the Church, the place of worship, preaching, etc. From these, the faithful will have the opportunity to learn how to worsliip. P. Salgado, O.P. THE HEART OF THOMAS MORE. Readings for Every Day of the Year. Selected E. E, Reynolds. Burnes and Oates. 1966. 178 pages. 15s In this new book E. E. Reynold, the well known biographer of St. Tho mas More, presents the heart of this most humane and corteous of saints with the very words of the saintly humanist. It comes in the fashion of short readings arranged for the days of each month through a period of one year. In the Introduction, the reader finds the description of the contents of these delicate, touching pages: “Most of die extracts in this book are taken from The Works of Sir Thomas More Knygrt sometyme Lorde Chancellour of England, nrytten by him in the English tonge, a folio volume printed in Lon don in 1557, and usually referred to as the English Works. It was edited by his nephew William Rastell. The remaining passages, a much smaller number, are from William Roper’s The Life of Syr Thomas More. This book, there fore, consists of extracts chosen from St. Thomas More’s english writings, or from his reported works”. We recommend this anthology to our readers. Every sentence is full of wisdom, often no less admirable than the Imitation, in great variety of insnity to the smallest details of Christian life and Q. M. Garcia, O.P. P., The Water and the Fire, Fontana Books, William 4 Co., Ltd., Glosgow, C.4, 1961, 220 pp. 2/6 Ji, O.P. is an English Dominican who has several well-acclaimhis favor. Writing in beautiful prose, he depicts in this book .(eristics of the modem age as well as the remedies to be taken its evils. The frenzied tempo of the modern age, where everything ... rush and hurrying, the disintegration of education which is now almost ex clusively the utilitarian scramble for material and above all commercially re warding facts, the loss of our roots in Nature and in home life where fami lies are broken up so often and home becomes a ‘machine for living in’, the loss of symbols, of the vocation of woman, of organic community life, the degradation of matter—these are symptoms of contemporary age. They mani fest one central fact, says Fr. Vann, “die impoverishment of the human spirit which goes very deep indeed and which seems like, unless something is done, to lead to a final eclipse of die- spirit in the life of our society.” P. Salgado, O.P. ROBERT SPEAIGHT., The Christian Theatre, Burn AC Oates: London, 1960, pp. 1-142. R. Speaight, a professional actor and a writer, gives us in this interesting book an historical and literary account of the Catholic influence in the theatrical field. The Christian Theatre attempts “to trace the Christian pre.ence in the more important sections of European Drama during the past seven hundred years.” This selective survey analyzes most of all plays written in the English language, although the significant role of the French, Spanish, and German theatres in the making of Christian Theatre, is justly acknowledged and under scored. The matter and scope of the book are clearly stated in the titles of its six chapters: The Middle Ages, Reformation and Renaissance, Shakespeare, the Jesuits and Calderon, Corneille and Racine, Loss and Recovery. In Chapter VI, the masterful plays of P. Claudel and T. S. Eliot, and the controversial plays of G. Greene are intelligently studied. The Christian Theatre is a selective catalogue on European Christian Playwrights from the time of the establish ment of Christianity to the present day. Fausto Gomez, O.P. VKRAUT art glass*neon 879 BILIBID VIEJO • MANILA • TfL 3-39-23
DOCTRINAL SECTION Post-Conciliar Movements: Ideas In The Making Ju a n La br a d o r , O.P. This is the epoch of phrase making. Hundreds and even thousands of eye catching phrases, symbolizing new ideas, are sprouting like mushrooms. This post-conciliar era seems to be a happy hunting ground for new labels. The Second Vatican Council confronted the modern world and passed judgment over many of its problems and palpitant issues with clarity and down to earth objectiveness as never before. Now the world is turning its face back to the Church and is attempting to size her up and judge her realities and possibilities in the light of the present-day theses and hypotheses. Since the world contains all kinds of human beings, just as the Ark of Noah was the refuge of all “species” of animals, the Church is confronted with all sorts of moot points, real and unreal, mundane and spatial, And is being placed under a microscopic scrutiny where her doctrines are re-examined, her functions critically reassed. her organization and ministerial rites re-evaluated, in an attempt to have her component elements refurbished, streamlined, made easier, more glamorous, with greater popular appeal. The secular press voices these novelties, whether they be ideological or merely phraseological, and some Catholic writers reverberate them or vice-versa. Although St. Thomas conceives the Church as the mystical body and taken it in an almost biological sense as “a multiplicity organized into unity by the collaboration of different activities and functions”. 34 Some Novel Notions Even among the People of God, some harbor bizarre notions about Church organization, that scandalize the timorous with their brazen innovations, e.g.: 1. Why shouldn’t priests have some say, at times final, in the policies of the diocese and be able to share power with their bishop just as the bishops share Collegial rule with the Pope? (“After all, the priests are closer'to the needs of the parish and know its pulse better than the bishop in his ivory tower.")2. Wherefrom the obligation of the priest or subject to obey his bHhop or superior comes? Are not the prelates, servants of their flocks? Why shouldn’t they obey rather than command? (A Dutch theologian makes the enlightening remark that obedience comes from the Latin “ob-audire”—to listen and draws the conclusion: therefore the superiors should listen to their inferiors; therefore oGey also? not vice-versa? Why not have the bishops be elected by the faithful as was done at times in primitive Christianity? (“The Church was conceived as a democratic assembly not as a monolithic monarchy.”). 3. Why is the rule of celibacy for priests not modified or abolished in the Church? (“The obligation of clerical celibacy has been imposed upon him, not by the contemporary demands of the Gospel or Christian doctrine, but by an arbitrary and artificial fact of law,” says the “suspended” priest of Los Angeles, Dubay.) - 4. Why shouldn’t diocesan priests fonn unions like employees under episcopal management so that they demand better working conditions and treatment with the right to go into strike? Why can women be not ordained priests, make the Church recognize their equal status with men and help solve the problems of diminution of priestly vocations? (The Swedish Parliament has licensed the Lutheran Church to ordain women as ministers.). 35 5. Why not.hark back to the pre-Constantinian customary rule and the Church, being a communal Church, use its wealth to build community centers or provide for the needs of the poor “rather than . construct lavish tribal cathedrals?” (“Burn down the church,” says one priest, “for a church is something to be rather than some place to go to.”)- The Church should return to the simplicity of the Gospel pruning it from the doctrinal and ritualistic accretions that are encumbering it now. (Many of the advocates of the return to the primitive of early Christianity if they are clergymen they wear well-pressed, well-cut cassocks of the best material; if they are lay men their clothes are well-fitting, costly suits; if they arc lay women they strive to look rejuvenated with made-up faces and minima! expensive dresses. Why don’t they return to the simpleness, unpretentiousness or rusticity of their great-great grandfathers if not to the piety and mortified lives of the early Christians? Why don’t they sell their cars, T.V. sets, golf clubs, mansions, perfumery and jewelry and help the naked, hungry, homeless people of the slums?) These are some of the many novel ideas advanced in the Canonical and structural field. In the realm of doctrine or dogma, they are no less newfangled, such as: a) The laity are endowed with a priestly character not very dissimilar from that of the ordained priest; b) The Mass is hardly anything but a eucharistic rite, merely an act of thanksgiving; and scarscly a sacrificial oblatory immolac) A famous theologian of St. Michel’s College, Toronto argues that since the question of contraceptives is under study, it is a debatable issue and therefore doubtful. Now doubtful laws arc not necessarily binding and parents may in good conscience make use of contraceptive means. How the good Father has commented the recent statements of Pope Paul VI, which are nothing but restatements of former declarations, I do know yet. John Lee in his “News and Views” in the Commonweal (Apr. 15, 1966) transcribed a paragraph from the Tablet of 36 London in which Card. Dopfner of Munich was allegedly made to say that he approved contraceptive marital intercourse by responsible parents under conditions. Few days later I read in the Tablet a correction stating that the Cardinal had been misinterpreted. If the Commonweal has reproduced the retractation I have failed to see it. May be John Leo has not seen that Tablet issue. I have read so many of his views always in favor of his colleagues or against those of different tendencies (Cardinals, bishops, priests and faithful) that I am asking the Good Lord to forgive me if a temerarious judgment has crossed my mind. (Lately I have seen an issue where he is making an attempt to give both sides) Dr. John T. Noonan, not the consultant, but one of the many periti to the commission appointed by Paul VI to study and advise on family problems and contraceptives, in his speech delivered at the 20th World Medical Medical Congress held in Manila last month, was reported to have stated that “strong indications that the Catholic Church would soon lift the ban on artificial birth control” and that “the Vatican was considering changing the stand of the Church on the issue.” Dr. Noonan is not a physician, as many thought, but a Catholic lawyer and director of the Institute of Natural Law of Notre Dame University. The newspaper account adds that “although the Church had always been sternly against artificial birth control, Noonan said the Church had seen the need for changing its stand”. (Daily Bulletin Nov. 11, 1966) d) There was never any Adam and Even in the natural state of grace. Regardless of whether “Adam” was in fact one or— “what is more scientifically correct—polygenic,” he is nothing but a symbol that need not be an exact equivalent of the person symbolized, and “literal and mathematical minded modern westerners seek an exact equation—real man ‘Adam’ against the real Jesus Christ:” Paul’s Adam is such a symbol and his “analogies are often forced: he does not scruple to accommodate texts wrenched from the original contexts and at times given mean37 ing clean contrary to what they had before.” (J.L. Delapine in London’s Tablet, Aug. 6, 1966). Adam’s and Eve’s primitive state of grace from which they fell, is not a thing of the past but of the future when, as a final stage of evolutionism, man will attain the summit of perfection, the Omega point, the real glorification of the new Adam and Eve. The present misery of mankind resulting from the all accumulated past failings of man is the only original sin that has ever been committed. (’’This interpretation of original sin appears in certain expositions of the thought of Teilhard de Chardin and has provoked many serious objections.” Maurice Flick, S.J. in The Tablet of London, Sept. 10, 1966). Pope Paul Vi’s interpretation seems to be at variance with this novel doctrine. “The explanations of the original sin given by some modern authors will seem to you irreconcilable with the Catholic doctrine. . . . Starting from the undermonstrated premise of polygenism, they deny, more or less clearly, that sin was first of all the disobedience of Adam, first man...........Consequently, these explanations do not agree wits the teaching of Scripture, of sacred tradition and the Church’s magisterium ...” “Even the theory of ‘evolutionism’ favored today by may scientists and not a few theologians owing to its probability will not seem acceptable to you where it is not decidedly in acord with the immediate creation of each and very human soul by God and where the disobedience of Adam, universal proto-parent did not make him lose the holiness and justice in which he was constituted.” (Allocution to the theologians who took part in a symposium on the Original sin, July 15, 1966). These and other not less novel audaciou blue-prints for church reform are exhibited in some Cotholic and clamorously commented by the secular press. New Labels If we pass from the level of new ideas to the plane of new labels - which are generally meant to convey new doctrines - we find that many of them may be only half truths and even one third truths. They may be 38 orthodox if correctly interpreted but they also may be easily misunderstood. Take the following slogans as samples: *The laity is the church. (“The laity is not . an appendage of the church: it is the Church,” Hans Kung, Structures of the Church, p. X.) The phrase wrenched from its context sound as illiberal as the other fragmentary half-truth, “The Church is the hierarchy and clergy.” King uses two lines before a more correct expression than laity, ‘congregation fidelium.’ Neither the laity nor the clergy are mere appendages. The surprising thing is that on page 86 of the same book King transcribes a passage of an address of Pius XII in 1946 wherein in crystal clear words the Pope speaks of the elements that compose the Church: The faithful — more precisely, the laity — stand in the front line in the life of the Church; through them the Church proves herself to be the life-principle of human society. Hence it is they especially who must arrive at an ever-clearer awareness: we not only belong to the Church: but we are the Church, the community of the faithful on earth under the common supreme head, the pope and the bishops united with him. They are the Church, (l.c. p. 86). *Marxism and Christianity are not necessarily incompatible. According to Marcel Reding, professor of Catholic theology at the Berlin University, “the law of history itself, the core of Marxism, its essence, is not atheistic, “although” in regard to is practical attitude toward religion, we have enough information to say that it would be an illusion to entertain any doubt about it.” By a curious contrast, Roger Garaudy, Director of Marxist Studies in Paris, cnfronted his opponent Reding in the Paulusgesellschaft convention at Salzburg with the surprising rejoinder: “atheism is one of the essential implications of dialectical materialism,” although “the Marxist alternative to religion is not a materialistic atheism but a humanism involving man’s total existence.” (Ingo Hermann in Concilium, Vol. 16, May 1966, pp. 160-161). Do these statements mean that, according td a Catholic scholar, atheism and Christianity are of their nature reconcilable and, in the opinion of a Marxist savant, religion necessarily excludes materialistic disbelief? This sounds as paradoxical as the discussion by theologians about God’s death or of 39 so-called Christian philosophers who do not believe in Christianity or those who profess that the Gospel should be disassociated from religion. A prolific thelogian and liturgist, Father George Tavard makes the astounding statement that we must “rid our mind of the fear of communism and admit the right of the people to choose a Communist from of social order if they wish so” (The Sign, Aug. 1966); therefore also atheism which is considered by Marxists themselves an integral part of “their social order”?: therefore we have no right to fear and reject evil? You are so ergotist!, the progressives may argue. A theologian who does not believe in God’s existence would be as incongruous as an astronaut who is trying to get to the moon convinced that there is no moon at all or a “stupendous stupidity” cracking a Chestertonian witticism. *Evolutionism is the religion of atheism. This phrase has been coined in the campus of evolution. The prophet of this new religion is Julian Hurley who calls it also evolutionary humanism. (Cfr. R.J. Nogar, O.P., in Concilium, May, 1966). Evolution must not stop at the biological anthropological sciences; it has attacked the roots of religion by dealing a death blow to the dualism of matter and spirit, the natural and supernatural. All matter is spirit and all spirit is matter, just as the natural and the supernatural coalesce in evolutionary humanism. Huxley and some of his coreligionists have extolled the cultural and humanistic evolutionism of Teilhard de Chardin as if he (the controverted Jesuit) had been their forerunner. Some of his critics may disagree with him on a number of questions and may fonsider a lot of his points as visionary or objectionable or even unorthodox; but his life and motivations reveal him as a deeply believing pious soul. Dogma does not violate the conscience. Hans Kung reasons out this apothegm with a strange kind of sylogism. “A Catholic is convinced that there is no real conflict between the Churcs’s dogma and his own conscience. But it is also true that dogma does violate the conscience, it respects the conscience. This means that a Christian must never accept a dogma of the Church if it is against his conscience”. (The Church and Freedom, p. 131). 40 We declare that we are unable to solve this riddle: How is it that there cannot be a real conflict between dogma and conscience and at the same time a Christian may refuse to accept a dogma if it is against his conscience? How can the general term Christian in the conclusion, be derived from a more particular term Catholic in the major premise? Maybe only a dialectic old fashioned scholastic may detect an illogical illation or Aristotle may have become obsolete and discarded. Kung is, of course, aware of the truth of the two propositions: a. A Catholic who admits the infallibility of the Church cannot in good conscience reject a dogma defined by her and remain a Catholic. b. A non-Catholic cannot “be forced against his will into accept ance of the Catholic faith,” for he himself quotes this Canon 1351. If the ears of English purists would not be scandalized, a better expression would have been: “A Catholic conscience cannot be violated by dogma,” for the moment he denies a dogma he ceases to be a Catholic. It is just inadvertence or itching for cliches, After his citation of the Canon, he adds: “In the few countries such as Spain, etc., where there is still not full freedom of conscience, religion and worship. ...” In about one half of the 25 European countries and a little over one dozen of the other almost one hundred member nations of the U.N., there is much less freedom of conscience, etc., than in Spain. Of cource, Spain is the classical model or scapegoat when certain writers give us a sample of religious intolerance or is there fuller freedom of religion etc., in Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, the Arab, African, or Middle and East States? *The Church is a mystery. The Church is the People of God. The Church is a Sacrament. Tsese are but random samplings of the many new mottos. They are officially accepted and embodied by Vatican II in her terminology, (Constitution on the Church), and explained in what sense and to what extent they may be given an authentic interpre41 tations. (However, the phrase, The Church is a sacrament, is qualified by a modifier: “The Church is, in Christ, like a sacrament........... ” The Council has planted these and other seed-ideas in the expectation that they would grow and mature into a fuller Christian life and action. But their growth must follow a homogenous development, not in explosion of confusion as a result of sudden break from most traditional beliefs and practices and their substitution by novel interpretation of teachings, not intended by the Council. If emphasis on the first two elements of the Church, i.e. as a Mystery and the People of God, described by the Constitution De Ecclesia is done with a purpose: to de-emphasized the juridical character of the Church under the allegation that up to now the laity was considered only an “appendage” and that the hierarchical structure had been overemphasized, the stress may be well placed; but if it is toned down under the pretext that our conciliar times demand that a liberal Christianity should replace the brick-and-mortar ecclesiasticism and that the juridical element has become a secondary, non-essential component part of the Church, then the phases may become one third truths. As a reaction against some ecclesiologists who placed on undue stress on the hierarchical aspect as though the Church were constituted merely by the clergy (the laity, some are supposed to have said, are merely to obey, to pray, and to pay) or as though every papal utterance were stamped with the seal of infallibility, the new theologians who are trying to present Catholic doctrine in a silver plate to Protestants or make it more palatable to all dissenters assert that, as a post-tridentine reversion against the Reformation, the Papacy was ascribed too much juridical power, that it assumed too great an importance and exerted a domineering influence. (As tf in centuries before Luther Popes Gregory VII, Innocent III, Boniface VIII and other medieval Pontiffs had not dominated the ecclesiastical as well as the secular spheres) ’’“Authority in the Church means service and love, not power to command. This cliche will help, according to some, to solve the “crisis of authority,” that has become too authoritarian. Others see in it a “crisis of obedience” that is being challenged or denied by clergy and religious. 42 The last attitude is exemplified in an increasing number of cases, (There is no doubt that priests and religious have abused their freedom just as some prelates may not have acted very judiciously.). New directives by Vatican II are cited to show that there must be a new approach to authority. ("Ecclesiastical office is not dominion over the Church but service to the Church as the community of the faithful. Bishops, as members of the episcopal college in union with the Pope, have a duty and function of service in the guidance of the universal Church. The Petrine Office means not absolute power over the Church but, in union with the college of bishops, selfless and loving service,” Hass Kung, Structures in the Church, p. X. Italics by the author). “The base of authority in the New Testament is love, not he power to command or the power to coerce.” John L. McKensie, S.J.). The Constitution “De Ecclesia” devotes the whole Chapter III to enumerate, describe, and emphasize the Pastoral Office as a ministry of service, love, duties, “truth and holiness,” but it also mentions that it does have the power and the-rigdt to govern. (“In virtue of this power, bishops have the sacred right and duty before the Lord to make laws for their subjects, and to pass judgment on them, and to moderate everything pertaining to the ordering of worship and the apostolate.”). Authority and obedience are undergoing a crisis. They are being given a new meaning and different implementation from that of former times—the age of blind obedience. Bishops and major superiors used to announce new assignments or destination of their subjects, priests or religious like an order of the day of a military officer without hardly any previous consultation with the person affected. Now they have to proceed with greater cautiousness and take into account the wishes if not the whims of their subjects by following the new claims to “dialogued obedience.” Even in the field of education, this range of authority of prelates ‘over the appointment, or reassignment of priests and religious of both sexes on the teaching faculties of Catholic schools or colleges has been challenged.’ A typical case is that of a priest-professor who was given a teaching position in another town by his superior who assigned an other no less competent to take his place. The lay head of the department remoustrated that he and his colleagues should not in principle accept the change. (Cf. America, Oct. 1, 1966, p. 365). -13 *The Old Christian God is out of date. “Modern world’s discovery .... contradicts the notions of a Supreme Being who governs man’s affairs. Christians, it seems, have no choice but to abandon their household God or dam a future that will be forged without them.” We assume that Newsweek (Nov. 7, 1966) has faithfully interpreted this “dilema described by Catholic philosopher Leslie Dewart in his brilliant new book. The Future of Belief, just published by Herder.” Against the old “classical God” which he calls “absolute theism” he advocates a “conditional theism” wherein the “truth of Christianity is contingest factual temporal” because “contingency, factuality, and temporality are God’s historical presence and self-revelation to man.” One of the conclusions of Dewart’s “conditional theism” is astounding for a Catholic philosopher. “It gently relegates such traditional Christian dogmas as the Trinity to the ash heap of history.” Herder and Herder, the publisher, announnces and commends Dewart’s work as “the first fully articulated attempt by a Roman Catholic religious philosopher completely to recast traditional Christian doctrine.... a brilliantly original vision—the kind of theology Teilhard de Chardin would have applauded. . . ‘Dewart is in many ways more radical that the death of God theologians’—Harvel Cox”. * Explosions of Confusion. Some four hundred and fifty years ago. a challenger coined new phrases of slogans and hailed them on the door of a church in Wittcmburg in the form of theses which he claimed he was ready to defend against all comers. “Justification by faith alone,” “Popes are usurpers of all power” “Rome is Babvlon” and “if the Pope is wealthier titan Crassus why does he not himself build St. Peter’s?”, and ninetv one other propositions were posted by Luther in his initial break from Rome. Today, not a few among the sophisticated experts in ccclesiolcgical matters come perilously close to resuscitating the first Protestant “confessions” contained in those locutions. They show a marked tendency to stress the side of Christ’s Church as an invisible communion of the faithful in order to reassert the salvific against the juridical element and the action of the Spirit in the communal life of the Christians which is as it should be as long as the invisible Head is visibly represented. In 14 the same breath other tenacious traditionalists are inclined to disregard liberty and kerigma for the sake of authority or to dichotomize kerematic and legal elements as if dogma and love and service and power were incompatible. In this battle for positions, exaggerations may be committed by either side. The only way to turn a hyperbolic statement, like any error, into something fully acceptable and believable is to winnow the equivocal chaff from the sound and unquestionable ingredients. Laymen and even clerics who have as a rule felt so secured and stable in their teachings and piety, are now caught in the explosion of confusing, conflicting and even contradictory interpretations. This bewilderment is compounded because it is not a matter of choosing between two opposite camps; each side is getting lost in a labyrinthian maze of innovations. Catholics are disturbed because priests and religious are trying to create new bases for relationship with their Bishops and superiors to justify defying attitudes or their far out opinions while they are being cheered by “scholars” of all shades of a faith or of no faith. (As a reaction, they are occasionally and summarily being restricted by their prelates who in turn are impugned by partizan critics; for example: Fathers DuBay, De Paw, the Berrigans, Berryman, Oraison, etc.) Triple Testimony It is an open secret that there prevails in several quarters of the Church an amount of nervousness and preoccupation about certain dangers to sound doctrine and about the orthodoxy of some faithful and scholars. Cases are cited; diagnoses are pronounced; prognoses are announced. Let us cite three testimonies coming from the hierarchy that call attention to and try to allay this disquietude about some dangers in Church matters in this modem changing world. French Catholics, a large number of whom have grouped themselves into two bickering factions on the verge of initiating a schism in their attitude toward the post-consiliar directives, have been sternly warned by their Episcopate against exaggerated and divisive postures and have been called to promote, in brotherly dialogue and with filial docility, the rene45 wal desired by the Council. The bishops affirm that a minority, backed up by an appeal to tradition, has the audacity of contesting the decisions on renewal agreed upon “with remarkable unanimity” by the Council Fathers. “Using as a pretext exaggerations or erroneous affirmations which the bishops are the first to deplore, these Christians generalize incorrectly from limited cases, launch an unfounded case against the episcopate, the priests and even the Holy Father himself, affirm that the authority of each bishop is minimized by the collective episcopate, the primacy of the Pope compromised by collegiality, the social doctrine of the Church falsified bv ‘progression’ and the splication of the liturgical constitution disputed, etc.” Dutch Catholic scholars have been conscious in public print for their advanced new therories and the Church of the Netherlands has been considered as being in an alarming state of perilous innovations by some commentators or a leader and model on how the Church should adopt itself to the modern world by others. The Dutch hierarchy, after their meeting last August, issued a letter praising the fervid activity of theologians on the one hand and warning against certain practices and teachings too novel or radical. Among these strange points of doctrine they enumerate: 1) “the divinity of Christ as the only Son of God, but in a sense not “different from the wav men are called ‘children of God’ 2) “the Holy Spirit had something to do with the birth of Christ—not necessarily excluding a human father”; 3) “Christ is somehow present in the Eucharist—the exact wav does not make much difference”; 4) “the unity of man and woman is in itself a sign of holiness—hence there is no place for the Church to lay down rules for the sacrament of marriage”. (These quotations are taken from a report bv the Dutch Jesuit E. Schoenmaeckers in America. Oct. 8, 1966). These and other stronge ideas have been advanced and defended the bishops attest; but the author of the report adds the saving assertion: “Actually, only very few priests or lay people hold these strange opinions; yet these few have managed to get control of most of the communication madia. As a result, however, those who disagreed were (in Fr. Shillebeeckx’ words) “slaughtered like vermin”, (id, ib.). 46 Pope Paul VI, the Holy Father in his allocution (Oct. 1) to the closing session of. the International Congress on the Theology of the Vatican II Council speaks to the theologians “of the tendency growing in some quarters to deny or at least to weaken the rapport of theology with respect to the magisterium of the Church”. The Holy Father defines the role that theology is to play in the Church. “Theology maintains a two fold rapport with the Church’s magisterium and with the entire Christian communitv. It is, to a certain extent, a mediator between the faith of the Church and its magiserium.................. theology must assess this faith as it is lived and its tendencies......... in order to harmonize them with the word of God and tradition faithfully handed down by the Church”........... On the other hand, “without theology the magisterium would lack the instruments for bringing about hannony of action and thinking which must rule the entire community so that it may think and live according to the teaching and precepts of Jesus Christ”. From this two fold principle the Pope elicits two reflections: The first concerns the spirit of service to truth; “Indeed, when they are officially entrusted with some teaching function in the Church they are, in a way, teachers of truth. Therefore, their supreme care will be that of being faithful to the truth of the faith and to the doctrine of the Church. Accordingly, they will avoid giving in to desire for easy acceptance and popularity at the expense of the sureness of the doctrine taught bv the magisterium, which in the Church represents the person of Jesus Christ, the Teacher........... “The second reflection concerns the spirit of communion: communion with the entire Christian people, with the sacred hierarchy, brotherly communion among ourselves also.... If in younr search of truth you wander away from this magisterium there will be danger that you will be teachers without disciples, separated from all, or that you will waste your labor without producing fruits.... It might even expose you to the danger of deviating from the right path choosing your own judgment, not the thinking of the Church (‘sensus ecclesiae’) as the criterion of truth. This would be an arbitrary choice—‘airesis’, the road to heresy”. 47 Cannot we truly affirm that this is really plain talking? This admonition shows that the Pope feels unesay about certain trends in some theological fields that may not fit in or equate satisfactorily with the Church’s magisterium nor faithfully interpret its teachings to the Christian community. Some Catholic writers are following the example of Episcopalian bishop Pike and other Protestant divines who begin by erasing the word “omni” (all) in the words omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent as applied to God and regard Adam as a symbol not a real person, the Trinity, as a “Committe God”, The Virgin Birth of Christ as a pious legend, the Resurrection as a myth.... These and other ancient beliefs, product of ages gone by have to be demytholigized and uptodated according to modern progreessive ideas. They are aiming at setting a “sloganeering, Bathmannerly, instant-theology” that may be subscribed bv men of all faiths. The net result—no faith at all.
NOTES AND COMMENTS The Pope and the Jesuits “Do you wish, sons of Ignatius, militants of the Society of Jesus, to be today and tomorrow and always that which you have been from your foundation until this day for the Holy Catholic Church and for this Apostolic See? This question of ours would not be justified if there had not reached our ears news and rumors regarding your Society for which we cannot hide our surprise and, for some of them, our sorrow.” With the quotation of these words from the speech of the Pope to the Jesuits upon the closing of the 31st General Congregation on 16th November, this year. TIME Magazine (25th November) purported to reveal the Pope’s mind concerning the Je suits. And to evaluate, in its own way, that situation and the mind of the Pontiff, TIME wrote: “To outsiders, the renewal effort (of the Jesuits’ 31st Congregation) has seemed dryly procedural and strikingly inconclusive; Paul’s surprising purpose was to denounce sternly the ‘strange and sinister suggestions’ that he detected in the discussions.” In similar fashion the words of the Pope have been reproduced in other publications and in our local press. No wonder, then, that the image of the Society should have appeared dubious before the eyes of the public and the simple faithful and that the good Sisters should have come to ask what was happening with the Jesuits and why had the Pope rebuked them thus. We call attention to this event m order to point out how the press of certain leanings, this Magazine in particular, as well as the local press pursue sensationalism and distort facts. They suppress and interpret as they please. The result is not honest reporting, but confusionism. We have seen this all through the Council days and 58 recently in reporting the speech of the Pope to the Italian Society of Gynecologists. Now, it is the Jesuits’ turn. In fact, what did the Pope tell the religious of the Society of Jesus? What is the attitude of the Holy Father towards them? We feel that the faithful and the good Sisters need not lose a night’s sleep. Never, to our mind, has the Society of Jesus received such praises as those from Paul VI upon the closing of their General Congregation. The pontifical document, wholly reproduced in L’Osservatore Romano on 17th Noverriber, 1966, and reprinted in many publications, must needs be read. It would fully substantiate our statement. Then, again, certain circumstances clearly point to the mind of the Pope and his deep esteem for the worthy Society: 1. The closing of this Congregation of the Society uniquely took place at the Sistine Chapel and the Pope underscored the grandeur of the place and significance of the site of the Papal elections; 2. The Supreme Pontiff concelebrated the Holy Mass with the General Prepositus and five Jesuit priests; 3. In his speech the Pope praised the efforts of renewal of the Congregation, together with the conservative spirit that has always inspired the Jesuit apostolate. In particular, the Pope mentioned “the arduous and intense practice of prayer, the humble and ardent discipline of the interior life, the examination of conscience, the intimate dialogue with Christ.... this wealth of spiritual modulations,” which is “not only proper to the monk”, but also “an indispensable armor-suit of the soldier of Christ.” The Pope took note of the close link between renovation and conservative tradition in the conscientious participants to the 31st General Congregation and averred that he approved them with all his authority. In the most expressive terms he revealed his confidence in the Society today as in past years and felt sure that they would remain loyal to their history. In regard to the new dimensions of their future apostolate the Pope singularly underscored the conquest of atheism, all the forms of present day ecumenism and “the education of the youth in the secondary schools and in the universities—ecclesiastical and civil—, which has given you always greac glory and abundant merits”, and, in token of success, 59 the Holy Father pointed to “the devotion you promote to the Sacred Heart”. And the Pope ended his speech thus: “Yes, this is the time, dearly beloved sons; march on trusting and full of ordour; Christ chooses you, the Church sends you, the Pope blesses you.” That in these days of renovation and confusion there should have been self-examinations and even legitimate doubts as to the efficacy of the Ignatian structure would not bring concern to whomever knows history. Neither is it the first time in the history of the Society of Jesus that this should have happened. The old solution was: “Sint ut sunt aut non sint”. In the closing of the 31st Congregation we find a genuine renewal ab intus, a most conscientious leader who, knowing his limitations, would find a superior and permanent solution in the Rock of Truth. To be sure, we believe, it all has a symbolic value. Those “news and rumors”, that sinisterly reached the ears of the Pope, were not exclusive of the Jesuits. They also concerned “other religious families, for which we cannot hide surprise, and for some of them, the sorrow it has caused us.” This is a deplorable omission and distortion of TIME and the secular press. Indeed, the profound analysis that the Pope makes of the Ignatian institution and faithfulness to itself is an essential exigency of all the religious families and, in general, of all ecclesiastical institutions so that they may be genuine manifestations of the divine truth and legitimate testimonies of the only and eternal apostolate of the Church. Spain's Bishops Ready to Give Up Privileges At the end of the Plenum of the Episcopate Conference, a spokesman declared that the Spanish hierarchy has informed the Holy See that it is perfectly ready to give up all the rights and privileges that His Holiness may think fit, as and when the Pope 60 himself decides. The privileges enjoyed by the Catholic Church in Spain, and which are not quoted in the spokesman’s declarations, are as follows: Tax exemptions for Church institutions and individuals. Exemptions from military service for priests and religious. Special legal charter for clergy. Spanish State payroll for bishops and priests. Certain financial advantages on public transport and services, such as rail fare reduction for clergy. The presence of Bishops and priests in State and legislative organizations. The agreement between Spain and the Holy See on Church Universities. The network of secondary schools belonging to Church or the religious orders. The Church radio network. Church circles here point out that all these privileges are enjoyed in Spain by Clergy and the Catholic Church in general thanks to an agreement between the Holy See and Spain; the Concordat of 1953. Any changes in this Concordat are the business of the signatories, not the Spanish hierarchy. With this offer to renounce privileges, the Spanish hierarchy— these circles point out — makes clear that Spain’s prelates place no obstacles in the way of any alteration to the Concordat in accordance with the Spirit of Vatican II, a task which falls upon the Holy See and the Spanish government, not upon the Spanish hierarchy. International Congress of Catholic Doctors The International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations assembled in Manila from November 2 to 5, 1966 for its XI International Congress, having discussed the medical and ethical aspects of the general theme, “The Catholic Doctor and the Population Problem,” with the end in view of greater and better service to humanity and to the Church in the spirit of II Vatican Ecu61 menical Council did adopt the following resolutions: 1. The greatness and sanctity of human life, as a gift of God is to be treated with highest respect. 2. It .is the duty of Catholic physicians to protect life in all its periods, born and unborn; the procreative activity of husband and wife, intimately associated or combined as it is, within the psychosomatic context of human life, should be guided, controlled, and even sublimated, without doing undue harm to the physical and psychological being of the human organism. 3. Direct abortion is condemned as a direct attack on human life. There is increasing evidence of medical and social harmful effects of direct abortion, and the Catholic doctors are concerned about present trends to liberalize abortion laws as dangerous measures for a society. 4. Catholic physicians are obliged to promote the concept and practice of responsible parenthood. 5. In the promotion of this concept, the physician is not merely a pure scientist, but he must also in the service of humanitv, consider all its aspects—social, economic, spiritual, and medical— and be guided always by the mind of the Church. 6. To avoid doctrinal confusion and disturbances of conscience in the absence of Church pronouncements * (founded on further study or research in the doctrinal, social and biological sciences), physicians should continue not to advocate the use of progesterone and other similar agents as contraceptive measures. 7. The solution of the problems arising from population is not primarily medical, but fundamentally in education and in the application of social justice, and to an equitable distribution of wealth in all spheres, aided by other efforts in the medical, social, religious, cultural and other fields. 8. Catholic institutions of learning should orient themselves to prepare their students to meet with the problems that arise from population difficulties so that their students may be provided with practical guidelines for action in modern society. *We have to take .exception to the 6th resolution with regards to the statement “in absence of Church pronouncements". In fact the Pope, in his Address to the Italian Gynecologists, Oct.. 29, 1966, had denied that the Church is in State of any practical doubt, and had insisted again on the compliance of Church’s directives Editor’s note.
PASTORAL SECTION HOMILETICS Qu in q u a g e s ima (February 5) OUR LENTEN RESOLUTION (I Cor. 13 1-13) We are about to enter the holy season of Lent. The Epistle this morning, undoubtedly Paul’s most magnificent passage, is a fitting introduction to this season.- The charity of which Paul speaks is love of neighbor issuing from the love which God has shown for us and the love we return to Him. Resolution and growth To many of us Lent is a time for asking ourselves: “What extra penance will I perform?” “How many candies will I give up?” “Which will I give up: my smoking or my drinking?” “Do I really need a new dress for Easter?” Penance is good. Mortification is good, But does it ever occur ro us that they will profit us nothing without real charity? “If I distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, yet do not have charity, it profits me nothing.” St. Paul here is not throwing penances and mortifications overboard. But for him the resolution must be something very positive, something that has effect not only on our waistlines but also on our neighbor, Our Lenten resolution must be “outgoing”. For example: “I will not miss a chance to help another.” It seems ridiculous to feel so virtuous 63 about our acts of mortification and be at the same time as selfish, impatient, irritable and critical as ever. If there is anything the Church wants of us during this season, it is progressive growth in charity, a growth that does not stop with Easter Sunday. Ideally, all of us should have grown in charity as we grew in age. “When I was a child, I spoke as a child.... Now that I have become a man. I have put away the things of a child.” Every growth in age must be accompanied by arrival at a new level of loving. Every step forward must be a growth in charity. This is what we must pray for during this holy season. Application to our discussions The resolution then is “I will not miss a chance to help another.” The list of opportunities to help our neighbor is inexhaustible. But let us mention only one. It is by no means the first or the most important in the list. But in it we could experience a real growth in charity. I am referring to politeness, politeness in our discussions as well as in our conversations. “Charity is patient, is kind, ...does not envy, is not pietentious, is not puffed up, is not provoked, is not self-seeking, thinks no evil.” Let us apply this even to our discussions. Discussion is a way of helping another find the truth. You may be right, your arguments may be impregnable, but you must present your arguments or opinions with politeness, with charity. Be open-minded: irv to understand the other person’s position; make every attempt a< reconciliation; win his sympathy by seeing him as a friend, as a brother, ns Christ Himself; do not make it difficult for him to accept the truth bv ridiculing his person; finally, be humble, pride throws everything into confusion. A psychologist summed up his principles of discussion this way: "In any discussion, the first rule is: thou shalt talk with your whole heart, with your whole mind and with your whole soul. The second is: thou shalt listen with your whole heart, with your whole mind and with your whole soul” (Fr. J. Bulatao, S.J.). That is charity. This Lent let us grow in charity, never miss a chance to help another and become more Christlike in our discussions and conversations. 64 I in Qu a dr a g e s ima (February 12) OBSTACLES TO THE APOSTOLATE Christ was like to us in all things save sin. He shared in our infirmities, weakness.... and temptations. He could truly say to us: “I know exactly how you feel. I was also tempted. The servant is not above his master.” Christ submitted to the three temptations that all of us go through, namely, the temptation to be sensational and the temptation to amash power and wealth. The temptation to seek the easy way Christ was very hungry. Changing the stones into bread seemed to be a practical and easy way out of it. But, no. “Not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” When one of His Apostles brought Him food, saying: “Master, eat,” He replied: “I have meat to eat, which you know not. . . .My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me” (Jo. 4/34). The will of God i6 not always easy to do. To seek the easy way of security is to seek one’s own interest. But Christ has raised up His standard which demands total disinterested in His service. For it is no longer our lives that we are living but Christ’s. Too often the easy way proves to be the difficult way to heaven. The temptation to be sensational The second temptation we often go through is the temptation to be popular, to be successful, to be seen. But, no. We are building up not our worldly kingdoms but the Kingdom of Christ. Christ rejected the temptation to throw Himself down from the pinnacle in order to show us that we must not build His Kingdom by sensational means, but by the witness of our faith. Obscurity and humility are the foundation stones of His Kingdom. Therefore, we must constantly reject the illusion that we can win the crowd for Christ by means of our worldly popularity and success. Christ’s 65 increase is proportionate to our decrease. The more my ego decreases, the more Christ increases in me and in others. The temptation to power and wealth Lastly, Christ’s rejection of the riches, splendor and glory displayed before Him is a lesson. Riches. Money and what it can buy. Too often lying, cheating, injustice, cruelty, even killing, are resorted to just to build up one’s bank account. With money goes the desire to amash power and to remain in power even if one has rendered himself unworthy or incapable. Unless we are free from temporal cares and self-seeking, we cannot play a dynamic role in the apostolate. It is not in the world’s wealth and power that our strength lies. We must re-discover ourselves in Christ who alone is our wealth and power. Worldly wealth and power are nor necessarily signs of active membership in the Church; all too often they constitute a great obstacle to the apostolate. These are the temptations we all go through in life. They constitute the obstacles to the apostolate. They retard the spread of the Kingdom in us and in the world. To overcome them is indeed to share in the victory of Christ. II in Qu a d r a g e s ima (February 19) THE TRANSFIGURATION: A CALL TO PURITY Christ brought Peter, James and John with Him into Thabor in order to strengthen their faith. He wished to arm them in advance against the scandal of the cross, because He foresaw that they would soon be witnesses of His abasements and weakness. He would be lifted up on a cross; His Body would be spurting out blood; He would be transfixed with nails; He would be hanged between two thieves. In order that these might not be an occasion of their falling away, He showed them His glory. On this mount He was lifted off the earth; from His Body spurted out golden rays; He was transfigured with splendor; He 66 hovered between Moses and Elias. A fitting revelation of His future triumph on that early Easter morning! By means of this Transfiguration Christ prepared the three for the cross and the crucifixion. A revelation of our transfiguration But we are interested more in what this mystery holds for us today. This Gospel is truly a wonderful message of hope, for it discloses to us the message of this season of Lent. It shows us where Christ leads those who share with Him His sufferings through the crucifixion of their flesh: like Him they will be glorified. The glcry which surrounds Jesus in the Transfiguration will be ours. It is a revelation of our future transfiguration. This is just a foreshadowing for “it has not yet appeared what we shall be.” (I Jo. 3/2) But we know herebelow that our bodies will be glorious like unto His own upon Thabor, because according to Him, the just shall “shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Mt. 13/43). We shall, therefore, share in the glory which shone fort in Him. St. Paul expressly tells us so: “But our citizenship is in Heaven from which also we eagerly await a savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will refashion the body of our lowlinessj conforming it to the body of His glory” (Phil. 3/21). To live in the spirit of Lent is not just to be lost in our mortifications, fastings, abstinence and almsgiving. It is to look towards the future. The account of the Transfiguration this morning is intended to give finality to the little crucifixions to which we submit our bodies. Purity and holiness We mention the word crucifixion, for we are not meant to merely hope for our transfiguration in Christ. The Epistle shows us how we may crucify, and thus transfigure, our bodies. How? Through purity and holiness. God is calling us to holiness. It is His will that not only our souls but also our bodies must radiate holiness. If we want our bodies to shine as the sun, if we want them to be glorious like unto Christ’s, then we must heed St. Paul: that is, 67 abstain from every sort of immorality, especially impurity (Cf. I Cor. 5/11; 6/9, 13, 15-20; I Tim. 1/10). We must leam how to possess our bodies (“vessel”) in holiness and honor. Let none transgress or overreach his brother by means of adultery. “For God has not called us unto uncleaness, but unto holiness.” This, my dear brethren, is what the mystery of Christ’s Transfiguration holds for us right now. Through the progressive control of our bodies, we prepare ourselves for our future transfiguration, III IN Qu a d r a g e s ima (February 26) DECIDING FOR CHRIST “He who is not with me is against me.” The greatest decision we can make in life is the decision for Christ. It is too bad that many postpone it to the time of their death, when it is most difficult to make decision. I am reminded of a priest who asked a dying man “Are you sorry for all your sins?” The dying man answered, “I sure am very sorry, Father.’” But when the priest said “Do you renounce Satan and all his works and all his pomps,” the same dying man replied, “Father, I am not in the position to antagonize anyone now.” That’s the kind cf decision we might make if we do not make up our minds now in favor of Christ. Christ: the stronger But let us decide for Christ, choose Christ right now and sustain this with a life lived in humility and truth. Satan is powerful only because we make him powerful with our sinfulness. In truth, he has no weapon other than those which we give him. Christ came in order to wage an invisible war with Satan. He has every right over us. Satan, the liar par excellence, has none. Of the two Christ is the stronger. “When the strong man, fully armed, guards liis courtyard, his property is undisturbed. But if a stronger than he 68 attacks and overcomes him, he will take away all his weapons that he relied upon, and will divide his spoils.” Christ is the stronger because “all power is given to Him” “in heaven, on earth and under the earth.” Undaunted, he upholds salvation. He accepts defeat and death only to use them as propitiation for our sins. His defeat is truly a victory. Uncompromising decision If we choose Christ now, we can put all our trust in Him. His apparent weakness and vulnerability is no longer a scandal. He says to each of us, as He did to His disciples: “Take courage, I have overcome the world” (Jo. 16/33). “Now is the judgment of the world; now will the prince of the world be cast out” (Jo. 12/31). To the extent that our decision for Christ is uncompromising, we shall cast out Satan from the world. To the extent that our surrender to Christ is unconditional, we shall dominate Satan. This decision then must be honest, else it is no decision at all. Avoid occasions of sin How can we sustain our decision? By “imitating God” and "walking in love.” We render Satan weaponless by removing sin from our lives. We must get down to the root of our sin, if we do not want the same to keep recurring; it will weaken us more each time and eventually conquer (Cf. Mt. 11/24-26). Truly this decision is going to hurt. The change is not going to be fun. For often the most deeply rooted sins are occasioned by persons, places, and things to which we are so strongly and passionately attached and drawn. And yet how can we be so attached to them and still not be separated from Christ? There is no third alternative. Either Christ or Satan. And we must decide for Christ. Re v . Fr . An g e l N. La g d a me o

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