Here is the homily of our friend Fr. Anselm Ramelow, OP, for the Monday After Epiphany. Fr. Anselm is a Dominican Priest and Professor of Philosophy at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology here in the Bay Area.
I.
Did you know that your body, as you are sitting here, contains material that goes back something like 15 Billion years? After all, everything material in this world, the whole universe was contained in the first moments of the Big Bang in an unimaginably small space and incredible amounts of energy. It took Billions of years to develop all the elements from hydrogen to helium down to all the other heavier elements. They are the result of nuclear reactions in stars and supernovas. Your very body that is sitting here in the pews consists of stuff that was once part of a supernova. This is quite amazing to think about.
II.
Now consider that God in Jesus Christ took just one of those bodies as part of our human nature. That is what we call the Incarnation; we celebrate it at Christmas: God took our human nature in order to express his love for us. Already in Adam he used those flesh and bones to make an image and likeness of himself. Now in Jesus he takes up this human body with its elements in person. What this means, and what is important to notice here is that God is able to express his very own life in this nature of ours, including all the elements that it took billions of years to develop. This sheds some light, in retrospect, on the Big Bang itself, on the development of the entire cosmos with all its endless stars and galaxies. They are not just a meaningless cosmic explosion of which we are a random product. That God comes in the flesh means that he prepared for himself a body not just beginning from the promise to Abraham and the patriarchs, but from the creation of the world on. We know today that all those elements would not have emerged, if the Big Bang with its physical constants would have been just a tiny little bit off from what it actually is. Physicists have been puzzled by the minimal probability of the emergence not just of this our planet, with water and atmosphere, with life and the intelligent life that we have; even the emergence of just the heavy physical elements in the cosmos as a whole (which are a precondition for our life), are so improbable that one naturally has to suspect the hand of a creator who has orchestrated it, and who created the Big Bang in the first place.
Of all this we might want to think when we see the star over the manger. It indicates the cosmic background of the human nature with its tiny body lying in that manger. Both indicate the presence of God, guiding the astronomers of old to recognize him. In terms of importance, it puts the planet earth where older cosmologies always suspected it: in the middle of the universe. And in the middle of the earth we, like the magi, can find the manger.
III.
Not all, however, allow themselves to be guided by this evidence. The first reading from the letter of John calls these the “false prophets” in the “spirit of the Antichrist.” They deny that God came in the flesh. Accordingly, they will not see the history of the cosmos, in spite of all its improbability, as the result of God’s plan and providence. For a scientist as such, be it physicist or biologist, it would indeed be proper to remain agnostic about this question, in so far as they are engaging in a particular field of science that does not make statements about these kinds of interpretations. Many, however, go outside the realm of their competence by denying that there is a God and creator, let alone one that can became incarnate in our nature. Everything, they say, is the outcome of chance, of random mutations, survival of the fittest and the like. As an ideology, this can properly be called the ideology of the Antichrist. It certainly is not science, because science as such cannot prove this point; if anything it rather points beyond itself.
IV.
This is not an abstract speculation, but it has consequences for our lives. It has consequences for how we view our own human nature, our very body with its physical elements and its design. Is it the outcome of God’s providence from the beginning of the world? Or is it a meaningless product of random happenings that can equally randomly be changed by modern technology, by surgery or genetic manipulation?
Pope Benedict recently was attacked in Europe for saying that we do not only have a duty to protect the nature of wildlife from the destructions of modern technology and economy; with that the ecologists will agree (and Pope Benedict is actually one of the most “green” popes ever). But he added that this includes human nature, which is equally subject to technological destruction and social deformations. That he mentioned the separation of what is now called “gender” from the biology of our human nature and sexuality in order to redesign it accordingly, naturally made many people angry. But this is indeed one of the implications of the new world view. Here is where cosmological hypotheses end up changing our view of human nature and life.
Here is what Pope Benedict said verbatim, outlining our responsibilities:
“Since faith in the Creator is an essential part of the Christian Creed, the Church cannot and should not confine herself to passing on the message of salvation alone. She has a responsibility for the created order and ought to make this responsibility prevail, even in public. And in so doing, she ought to safeguard not only the earth, water, and air as gifts of creation, belonging to everyone. She ought also to protect man against the destruction of himself. What is necessary is a kind of ecology of man, understood in the correct sense. When the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman and asks that this order of creation be respected, then this is not the result of an outdated metaphysic. It is a question of faith in the Creator and of listening to the language of creation, the devaluation of which leads to the self-destruction of man and therefore to the destruction of the same work of God. That which is often expressed and understood by the term ‘gender’, results finally in the self-emancipation of man from creation and from the Creator. Man wishes to act alone and to dispose ever and exclusively of that alone which concerns him. But in this way he is living contrary to the truth, he is living contrary to the Creator Spirit. Yes, the tropical forests are deserving of our protection, but man merits no less as a creature, in which there is written a message which does not mean a contradiction of our liberty, but its condition. The great Scholastic theologians have characterized matrimony, the life-long bond between man and woman, as a sacrament of creation, instituted by the Creator himself and which Christ-- without modifying the message of creation-- has incorporated into the history of his covenant with mankind. This forms part of the message that the Church must recover: the witness in favor of the Spirit Creator present in nature in its entirety and in a particular way in the nature of man, created in the image of God. Beginning from this perspective, it would be beneficial to read again the Encyclical Humanae Vitae: the intention of Pope Paul VI was to defend love against sexuality as a consumer entity, the future as opposed to the exclusive pretext of the present, and the nature of man against its manipulation.” So far the Holy Father.
V.
What we are celebrating at Christmas, therefore, is also an Epiphany or manifestation of our very own human nature. It is only a natural consequence, if in today’s Gospel we see Jesus healing our physical nature and teaching our minds to see this nature correctly. Indeed, “the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light”; it is God’s light, manifested in the cosmos as well as in our nature, in the light of the star over Bethlehem and in the light shining from the manger, God’s light and life expressed in our human nature.
Showing posts with label Fr. Anselm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fr. Anselm. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Sacredness of Sexuality
Another fine homily, given by our friend Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P. Fr. Anselm is a Dominican Priest and Professor of Philosophy at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology here in the Bay Area.
Advent Monday III
While in today’s Gospel we hear a debate about Jesus’ and John the Baptist’s authority, the first reading does sound already somewhat more like Christmas: we hear Balaam announcing the star, i.e., the Messiah: I see him, though not now; I behold him, though not near: A star shall advance from Jacob, and a staff shall rise from Israel.
Of course, as he said: it is not here yet, it is still a time of expectancy. Expecting is anticipation, and in some sense something that is already there, and yet not quite. We also use the word “expecting” for pregnant mothers, and that is indeed the road that our Lord chose to come into this world. Balaam says that this star shall rise from Jacob, i.e. be an offspring of the house of Jacob. It was, as it turned out, Mary who conceived from the Holy Spirit, and fittingly two Marian feasts fall into the time of Advent, the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Maybe that is also one of the reasons why the Church a few days ago chose these Marian feast days to clarify some bioethical questions in a document called Dignitas Personae, the dignity of the human person, addressed not just to Catholics but to all doctors and researchers, because this is not a matter of faith only, but of human dignity and rights. It treats of the various ethical parameters that are to be taken into account, when doing research on human embryos. It is another way of highlighting the time of expectancy, a time of Advent, in which we are attentive of something to come, and yet is already there.
This special attentiveness and attention the new document gives to the question of IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) and all forms of artificial reproduction of human life, and it might be good to say a few words about this, since many people do not know about the Church’s teaching or have a hard time understanding it.
The document spells out the ways in which a human being must not be the product of someone else’s designs. We have a right not to be forced into being or even designed by someone else.
It is part of the dignity of the human person to be begotten, not made. Allowing God to arrange our genetics in the marital act of our parents is a way of giving God what is God’s. Our soul is created directly by God in the moment of conception. That is what makes that moment so special and sexual acts sacred. It is the place where the dignity of the human person emerges.
We might also want to think that although the way Mary conceived from the Holy Spirit is unusual and supernatural, there is still is an element of special divine intervention in the conception of each of us. For all of us it is true what the Gospel of John says that we are conceived not by human choice nor by a man's decision but of God (Jn 1, 13), and that we are all children of God, made in the image and likeness of our heavenly Father. We, too, are (to use the words of today’s Gospel) not just of human origins, but of “heavenly” origin.
Certainly, there are some couples who cannot conceive in the normal way. But more recently many ways have been developed in which they can be helped with legitimate medical procedures and their number is therefore actually fairly low. If nothing helps, there will certainly be a painful cross; but we also should not forget about the possibilities of adoption, especially in a time where there are so many unwanted babies.
This might be a little more plausible, if we consider the opposite possibility: in vitro fertilization. This is not only against the dignity of the human person that is to be conceived, but also against the dignity of the marriage.
Even if the sperm and egg is taken from the couple themselves (because you should not make yourself pregnant with a child unrelated to yourself), the one who is getting the wife pregnant would not be the husband, but a technician or medical engineer, while the husband is just standing by, uninvolved. The sacred act of conception would not happen in the sanctuary of marriage, but among the machines of a medical laboratory. Surrender to God’s creative act is taken over by the technological control of man – something that modern technology has been designed to do from its very beginnings in the 17th century, making us into masters and owners of nature, including human nature and life, making human beings in our image and likeness, which therefore become our property, made and discarded at will (infanticide is the next step, which is already in the discussion). It is, in so many ways, an attitude of wanting and making rather than of allowing and letting; there is, accordingly, a lot of anxiety about life, and no “let go and let God.” Someone involved in these procedures recently said in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Jesus was not conceived in the normal way either. I don't lose any sleep over what we are doing.” That is missing precisely the point that the Blessed Virgin Mary conceived by saying “let it be done to me according to your will.” Children can be received only as a gift, not a right; we are living in a time where, paradoxically, this gift is rejected by many, while others want to receive it not as a gift, but as a right and as something of their own making.
Both aspects are intrinsically related: As you are aware, the Church is against contraception, because it separates the unitive aspect of marriage from the procreative. The Church thinks holistic for a number of reasons; what God has put together, man must not divide. Contraception separates the union of the spouses from procreation, but IVF does the same in the reverse: it separates procreation from the union of the spouses. And with equally damaging results: It is not surprising that a growing number of studies find that marriage suffers from these procedures.
Without going into details of these studies, we would already expect that, naturally, husbands tend to feel disconnected from a child conceived in this way, especially if it is not even related to them genetically. Women feel humiliated by the procedure, estranged from their bodies and struggling with psychological difficulties. Both will feel alienated from the child: interestingly, they are less likely to tell the child about its origin than in the case of adoption. The relationship of the couple itself also suffers from this intrusion in their relationship. All of this confirms that what is truly life-giving does not come from technological control and production, but from the self-forgetful giving of two persons in marriage.
Of course, one important aspect has yet to be mentioned, and that is the fact that IVF implies abortion on a large scale: one cannot achieve the desired result without multiple pregnancies and subsequent eugenic selection (including sex selection), i.e. abortion of the superfluous ones. Alternatively, the rest can be frozen, but is rarely be used, and discarded, i.e. aborted later. Pope Benedict spoke of the “absurd fate” of the frozen embryos, absurd, because ethically nothing can be really done with them, even though they human beings with personal dignity. Women especially, more than their husbands, will be painfully aware that they have other children out there somewhere, frozen in an absurd fate.
It will not have escaped you that these are the emerging features of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World; there even are experiments with pregnancy in an artificial uterus, in which the child would spend the first months of his life, deprived of the psychologically necessary prenatal relationship and bonding with his mother. (Other parts of that new world are already here: surrogate motherhood, human cloning; even human-animal hybrids are already legalized in England.)
It is also a lucrative market. Statistics show that infertile couples are likely to be: older, better educated, better off financially and desperate. Many of these procedures are expensive and complicated (involving the use of many drugs over a long time), yet they are often unsuccessful: the success rate is only 1/3, of which 9% (vs. 4.2% normal) are born with defects; and at a prize of about $10,000 per cycle (while other already living children are starving elsewhere in the world, which is not an insignificant ethical issue). Because of the low success rate, there is a pressure to get better ratings through procedures that imply more “wastage” of human embryos. Ironically, all of this trumps available medical procedures (called NaPro) that are ethically responsible, procedures that work with nature as God has designed it, and are therefore much more effective.
In Texas there is already a place where one can already order designer babies. The embryos are made from eggs and sperm from two donors who have never even met. The moment of conception occurs in the laboratory and is determined by the genetic combination the clinic thinks will best meet the needs of the paying couples on its books. For about $9,500 you can buy ready-made embryos matching your expectations, including eye and hair color; the advertisement boasts that its sperm donors have doctorates and the egg donors at least college degrees (and there are waiting lists for Aryan children). We will soon see human persons being sold in batches as “quality products”, a frozen and shipped commodity, to be ordered online. All of this is certainly not the testimony to the human dignity that the new Vatican document wants to uphold.
So, if the Church produced this document in this time of Advent, there is good reason for it. All of this is just the flipside of something positive that we are to remember. It is so that the true star will be rising in our hearts, the light of God, reflected in the dignity of his image and likeness, human nature elevated to participation in God’s very own nature in the Incarnation. It is in this time especially that we remember that God not only created natural marriage and fertility with all its dignity. We also remember that he gave conception a new title of dignity, by choosing this as his very own way of entering his creation. He graced it and elevated this way of conceiving to become the royal road to our salvation.
Advent Monday III
While in today’s Gospel we hear a debate about Jesus’ and John the Baptist’s authority, the first reading does sound already somewhat more like Christmas: we hear Balaam announcing the star, i.e., the Messiah: I see him, though not now; I behold him, though not near: A star shall advance from Jacob, and a staff shall rise from Israel.
Of course, as he said: it is not here yet, it is still a time of expectancy. Expecting is anticipation, and in some sense something that is already there, and yet not quite. We also use the word “expecting” for pregnant mothers, and that is indeed the road that our Lord chose to come into this world. Balaam says that this star shall rise from Jacob, i.e. be an offspring of the house of Jacob. It was, as it turned out, Mary who conceived from the Holy Spirit, and fittingly two Marian feasts fall into the time of Advent, the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Maybe that is also one of the reasons why the Church a few days ago chose these Marian feast days to clarify some bioethical questions in a document called Dignitas Personae, the dignity of the human person, addressed not just to Catholics but to all doctors and researchers, because this is not a matter of faith only, but of human dignity and rights. It treats of the various ethical parameters that are to be taken into account, when doing research on human embryos. It is another way of highlighting the time of expectancy, a time of Advent, in which we are attentive of something to come, and yet is already there.
This special attentiveness and attention the new document gives to the question of IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) and all forms of artificial reproduction of human life, and it might be good to say a few words about this, since many people do not know about the Church’s teaching or have a hard time understanding it.
The document spells out the ways in which a human being must not be the product of someone else’s designs. We have a right not to be forced into being or even designed by someone else.
It is part of the dignity of the human person to be begotten, not made. Allowing God to arrange our genetics in the marital act of our parents is a way of giving God what is God’s. Our soul is created directly by God in the moment of conception. That is what makes that moment so special and sexual acts sacred. It is the place where the dignity of the human person emerges.
We might also want to think that although the way Mary conceived from the Holy Spirit is unusual and supernatural, there is still is an element of special divine intervention in the conception of each of us. For all of us it is true what the Gospel of John says that we are conceived not by human choice nor by a man's decision but of God (Jn 1, 13), and that we are all children of God, made in the image and likeness of our heavenly Father. We, too, are (to use the words of today’s Gospel) not just of human origins, but of “heavenly” origin.
Certainly, there are some couples who cannot conceive in the normal way. But more recently many ways have been developed in which they can be helped with legitimate medical procedures and their number is therefore actually fairly low. If nothing helps, there will certainly be a painful cross; but we also should not forget about the possibilities of adoption, especially in a time where there are so many unwanted babies.
This might be a little more plausible, if we consider the opposite possibility: in vitro fertilization. This is not only against the dignity of the human person that is to be conceived, but also against the dignity of the marriage.
Even if the sperm and egg is taken from the couple themselves (because you should not make yourself pregnant with a child unrelated to yourself), the one who is getting the wife pregnant would not be the husband, but a technician or medical engineer, while the husband is just standing by, uninvolved. The sacred act of conception would not happen in the sanctuary of marriage, but among the machines of a medical laboratory. Surrender to God’s creative act is taken over by the technological control of man – something that modern technology has been designed to do from its very beginnings in the 17th century, making us into masters and owners of nature, including human nature and life, making human beings in our image and likeness, which therefore become our property, made and discarded at will (infanticide is the next step, which is already in the discussion). It is, in so many ways, an attitude of wanting and making rather than of allowing and letting; there is, accordingly, a lot of anxiety about life, and no “let go and let God.” Someone involved in these procedures recently said in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Jesus was not conceived in the normal way either. I don't lose any sleep over what we are doing.” That is missing precisely the point that the Blessed Virgin Mary conceived by saying “let it be done to me according to your will.” Children can be received only as a gift, not a right; we are living in a time where, paradoxically, this gift is rejected by many, while others want to receive it not as a gift, but as a right and as something of their own making.
Both aspects are intrinsically related: As you are aware, the Church is against contraception, because it separates the unitive aspect of marriage from the procreative. The Church thinks holistic for a number of reasons; what God has put together, man must not divide. Contraception separates the union of the spouses from procreation, but IVF does the same in the reverse: it separates procreation from the union of the spouses. And with equally damaging results: It is not surprising that a growing number of studies find that marriage suffers from these procedures.
Without going into details of these studies, we would already expect that, naturally, husbands tend to feel disconnected from a child conceived in this way, especially if it is not even related to them genetically. Women feel humiliated by the procedure, estranged from their bodies and struggling with psychological difficulties. Both will feel alienated from the child: interestingly, they are less likely to tell the child about its origin than in the case of adoption. The relationship of the couple itself also suffers from this intrusion in their relationship. All of this confirms that what is truly life-giving does not come from technological control and production, but from the self-forgetful giving of two persons in marriage.
Of course, one important aspect has yet to be mentioned, and that is the fact that IVF implies abortion on a large scale: one cannot achieve the desired result without multiple pregnancies and subsequent eugenic selection (including sex selection), i.e. abortion of the superfluous ones. Alternatively, the rest can be frozen, but is rarely be used, and discarded, i.e. aborted later. Pope Benedict spoke of the “absurd fate” of the frozen embryos, absurd, because ethically nothing can be really done with them, even though they human beings with personal dignity. Women especially, more than their husbands, will be painfully aware that they have other children out there somewhere, frozen in an absurd fate.
It will not have escaped you that these are the emerging features of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World; there even are experiments with pregnancy in an artificial uterus, in which the child would spend the first months of his life, deprived of the psychologically necessary prenatal relationship and bonding with his mother. (Other parts of that new world are already here: surrogate motherhood, human cloning; even human-animal hybrids are already legalized in England.)
It is also a lucrative market. Statistics show that infertile couples are likely to be: older, better educated, better off financially and desperate. Many of these procedures are expensive and complicated (involving the use of many drugs over a long time), yet they are often unsuccessful: the success rate is only 1/3, of which 9% (vs. 4.2% normal) are born with defects; and at a prize of about $10,000 per cycle (while other already living children are starving elsewhere in the world, which is not an insignificant ethical issue). Because of the low success rate, there is a pressure to get better ratings through procedures that imply more “wastage” of human embryos. Ironically, all of this trumps available medical procedures (called NaPro) that are ethically responsible, procedures that work with nature as God has designed it, and are therefore much more effective.
In Texas there is already a place where one can already order designer babies. The embryos are made from eggs and sperm from two donors who have never even met. The moment of conception occurs in the laboratory and is determined by the genetic combination the clinic thinks will best meet the needs of the paying couples on its books. For about $9,500 you can buy ready-made embryos matching your expectations, including eye and hair color; the advertisement boasts that its sperm donors have doctorates and the egg donors at least college degrees (and there are waiting lists for Aryan children). We will soon see human persons being sold in batches as “quality products”, a frozen and shipped commodity, to be ordered online. All of this is certainly not the testimony to the human dignity that the new Vatican document wants to uphold.
So, if the Church produced this document in this time of Advent, there is good reason for it. All of this is just the flipside of something positive that we are to remember. It is so that the true star will be rising in our hearts, the light of God, reflected in the dignity of his image and likeness, human nature elevated to participation in God’s very own nature in the Incarnation. It is in this time especially that we remember that God not only created natural marriage and fertility with all its dignity. We also remember that he gave conception a new title of dignity, by choosing this as his very own way of entering his creation. He graced it and elevated this way of conceiving to become the royal road to our salvation.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
God or Ourselves?
Another fine homily, given this past Monday, by our friend Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P. Fr. Anselm is a Dominican Priest and Professor of Philosophy at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology here in the Bay Area.
Faith is Necessary for Salvation
I.
Jesus praises the centurion in today’s Gospel for his faith, the faith that lead to the healing of his servant. And indeed faith is necessary for our healing as well, for our salvation. Without faith, nobody can be saved. Jesus, whose first coming we remember during Advent, is the one and true mediator, and without faith in Him, we cannot be saved.
But if faith is necessary for salvation, how about all those before Jesus’ coming? How about those who did not know him? How about all the righteous people in the Old Testament? The Church teaches that all those who lived before Jesus, were saved by their faith and hope for the coming of the Messiah. This is described wonderfully also in the letter to the Hebrews, in the 11th chapter. There it also says: without faith it is impossible to please him [God], for anyone who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. So what we need is at least an implicit faith in God as our redeemer, and the readiness to accept everything he is going to reveal to us. It is faith as hoping for things unseen. During this Advent season we are entering in some way the mind of the patriarchs and fathers of ancient Israel again. We renew our faith.
II.
Faith is an attitude of trust, a trust that is ready to embrace all and everything that the heavenly Father is going to reveal. The patriarchs of the Old Testament had this trust.
In our age, however, we sadly see that even those, to whom all of this has now been revealed, are not ready to embrace God’s revelation. Even those who claim to be Christians often claim the right to pick and choose among those things that God has revealed. They are often called Cafeteria Catholics. A few days ago, the wife of the governor of California explicitly called herself a Cafeteria Catholic. She called herself a good Catholic who is going to Church every week, but claims the right to pick and choose among the teachings of the Church. She is for gay marriage, abortion and communion for those who are divorced and remarried; what she likes and picks from Catholic teaching is only the message on compassion and social justice.
Even though it is more scandalous if this is said by a prominent Catholic in the news, it is by no means an attitude that is rare in the Church today. If Jesus in today’s Gospel does not seem to find the Centurion’s faith in Israel, he might today not find much of it in the Church either.
I think we need to be very clear that this is not a path that leads us to heaven. Without faith nobody can be saved. But a faith that willfully excludes something that God puts before us to be believed cannot be called faith. It is less than the faith of the forefathers of the Old Testament who in their hope for the Messiah were ready to accept everything that God was about to do even thought they did not know yet, what it would be. They were saved in hope and expectation.
We on the other hand know and yet we do not accept. But that cannot be supernatural faith; it is at the most human credulity. Faith is a grace that cannot be had on our own terms, but only on God’s terms, and that is: as a whole or not at all. Everything else is not faith, but mere human opinion, our own subjective choice, picking and choosing according to our taste.
III.
Faith, I said, can be had only as a whole, or not at all. There are a number of reasons for this: the object of our faith, God’s revelation and all that is taught by the Church in matters of faith and morals, is one seamless garment. Everything hangs together, and you cannot have one without the other. Wherever in history we see groups rejecting one little detail, they will soon lose the rest as well; the fabric starts to unravel. Faith is then coming down like a house of cards, from which you remove just one. Because in our faith one element builds on the other, what we have left, when we deny any one of them, is something that cannot be understood and believed consistently. It does not have an inner unity. Unity without consistency is not unity, but confusion.
IV.
What we need, therefore, is the humble acceptance of everything that God shows us, regardless of whether we know all the details or understand them. Indeed, in some ways we find ourselves still in the situation of the Old Testament patriarchs. Who of us could say that he knows every detail of the Church’s teaching? Not even most theologians would claim that. And even what we know is something that we can still come to understand ever more deeply. Our faith is inexhaustible, and it is consoling to know that we do not have to know and understand everything all the time. We can be at peace in knowing that God entrusted this faith to the Church as a whole. She in the meanwhile guards it, keeping it in her profession of faith, even where we do not grasp the whole. The Church is the true subject of faith,[1] and we can only enter the Church’s faith as something that will always be greater than our minds.
This does, therefore, require from us an act of trust, humility and faith before the Church that God has entrusted with this faith, knowing that it would be too big for us. That is why we confess: “I believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church.” Without the Church we cannot believe, we could only, like the Protestants, go our own ways, believing with our subjective credulity various things, contradicting each other, not knowing who is right; because none of us can exhaust the whole; only a Church guided by the Holy Spirit can safeguard the whole “deposit of faith.”
V.
What is reflected in our relationship with the Church is ultimately our relationship with God himself. I said: what we believe, always remains a reality that is greater than we and the capacity of our minds, something that does not enter our mind (which could never contain it), but rather something into which our minds are entering. The reason for this is that the ultimate object of faith is God himself, who will always be greater than our minds. He is the principle of everything else; he is the author of his revelation as well as of our faith.
The traditional definition of faith is the following:
“Faith is the theological virtue that inclines the mind, under the influence of the will and of grace, to yield a firm assent to revealed truths, because of the authority of God.”
We believe because of God’s authority who witnesses to the truth. He is the one in whom we believe, as well as the one whom we believe. We believe in a God whose witness is truthful, because he reveals to us nothing else but what he himself knows to be true. Faith amazingly is a participation in God’s own self-knowledge here on earth. This is obviously not something we can have on our own power, but a gift from God, a pure grace. As such, faith is itself the beginning of our justification and salvation, because it is the beginning of our union with God, which will find its fulfillment in the beatific vision of heaven. But already here and now, faith enlightens our hearts and minds, giving us the strength to carry our crosses and endure our sufferings.
God’s own self-knowledge, in which we participate, is his own knowledge of who he is, and of what he decided to do here on earth, in creating this world and revealing himself in it. All of the content of our faith is contained in God’s self-knowledge. But just as God is utterly simple, so is his knowledge. He knows everything in one concept, in one word, in the Eternal Word which is his Son, who came to bring us the faith as the Messiah.
It is in the simplicity of this one word of God’s self-knowledge that we participate when we have true supernatural faith. This faith can only be total, it cannot pick and choose; it cannot be partial or half-hearted. As the philosopher Aristotle pointed out: something simple can be had only as a whole or not at all. You cannot pick and choose a part from a mathematical point, because a mathematical point does not have parts. And so it is with God’s self-knowledge, in which we participate by faith: it is simple, and we can participate in it only if we are that simple, too, i.e., if we are single-hearted and simple-minded enough to allow this faith to enter into us. We can only believe with whole-hearted surrender or not at all. [In the simplicity of God, everything in our faith holds together consistently, and in true unity rather than in confusion. Something simple does not have parts that could contradict each other.]
It is this simplicity which is the sign of true supernatural faith. It is a faith that does not make itself into a judge over God’s revelation. It is the single-mindedness that is itself a sign of the presence of God. It is this simplicity that is required of us, in order to go through the narrow gate, the needles ear, which is too small for anything to pass through except something that is simple and total. Just as the rich young man had to give up his riches to get through this needles ear, we have to give up the richness of our personal opinions that we reserve to ourselves in spite of what God shows to our faith through his Church.
What we receive in faith is simple and round like the host that we receive at communion. And just as we say our “Amen” there, we say it to the faith of the Church as a whole. The host contains the whole of God, as well as his mystical body the Church, under each and every particle. As we say “Amen” at communion, we say Amen to the whole God, and the whole Creed, and the entire faith of the Church.
VI.
The San Franciso Chronicle a few days ago quoted a parishioner of St. Dominic’s being upset about how backwards the Church is, and how she is trying to change the way the Church is thinking. Now we always want to give people the benefit of the doubt, but taken at face value, this statement is a counterexample of what I have just said. To think that we can teach the Church a lesson is not only a lack of the necessary humility, it also indicates a lack of insight into oneself. It indicates that we do not really know who we are, and who the Church is: we overestimate ourselves, or rather the influence of the secular culture that we have allowed to take over our minds; and we underestimate the Church, because we are already lacking the necessary faith that would acknowledge that the Church is not just a human institution or a party whose party-line we can change by our lobbying. The Church is divine in origin; it is founded in Jesus Christ himself, who built it on the foundation of the apostles. He charged the apostles with keeping the deposit of faith, because he knew that this faith would be questioned, and he asked Peter above all others, to strengthen the faith of his fellow apostles – something Peter and his successors have done ever since.
VII.
Without the Church, or even sitting in judgment over the Church, we are left to our own devices and credulities. We are making our own religion in our own image and likeness, i.e. according to our taste rather than God’s revelation. This faith of ours will be a form of idolatry, a work of our own making, be it our hands or minds. “I am spiritual, not religious”, often means that we want to fabricate our own beliefs. But it was always foolish to give our faith to an idol, the work of human hands and minds: idols cannot speak, they cannot hear; they are dead wood. And so are the fabrications that we call our religions or spiritualities, made according to our personal tastes and preferences. But indeed that is exactly what we need to be liberated from, because they will not save us as little as idols of wood. Salvation cannot be something that we make ourselves, as if pulling ourselves out of the mire by our own bootstraps. We need God to tell us the truth in such a way that we cannot replace his revelation again through our own productions and opinions, or worse, those of the secular world. In other words: we need the Church to believe. Faith comes from hearing, not from imagination.
VIII.
This faith requires a decision, an assent of the will. It requires a conversion from the world and its opinions; we cannot listen to two masters, God and Mammon; we need to be single-minded. This can sometimes be harder to realize for cradle Catholics. But in these times we all will have to make a decision. These times force us into an examination of conscience: if you feel you cannot agree on some established teaching of the Church, be it matters of faith, as for the example the virgin birth, the divinity of Christ or his presence in the Eucharist; or be matters of morals, as euthanasia, gay marriage or abortion – if you cannot agree on this, then you have to do some serious soul-searching, because that is not optional. Read up on it; that is, if not an act of humility, at least an act of fairness of hearing all the sides, not just that of the secular world. (If you are getting your knowledge about the teaching of the Church from the secular media, then this might already be where your problem is.) And while you read also remember that, as Immanuel Kant and Cardinal Newman said: difficulties are not doubts. Finally bring it in prayer before God; say the Creed meditatively, asking yourself, whether you believe everything that is said there; and pray: “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief”, help me to believe like the patriarchs of the Old Testament.
Again: faith is neither irrational or arbitrary; nor is it ever merely knowing something; it is an acceptance of something greater than our minds, of something that requires an assent of our will. This decision is a grace, a gift from God, something you need to pray for. And then you have to make that decision, knowing that what is at stake is nothing less but the salvation of your soul.
[1] “We believe…” has its truth after all; but the formula “I believe …” is important too, because by it we enter personally the faith of the Church.
Faith is Necessary for Salvation
I.
Jesus praises the centurion in today’s Gospel for his faith, the faith that lead to the healing of his servant. And indeed faith is necessary for our healing as well, for our salvation. Without faith, nobody can be saved. Jesus, whose first coming we remember during Advent, is the one and true mediator, and without faith in Him, we cannot be saved.
But if faith is necessary for salvation, how about all those before Jesus’ coming? How about those who did not know him? How about all the righteous people in the Old Testament? The Church teaches that all those who lived before Jesus, were saved by their faith and hope for the coming of the Messiah. This is described wonderfully also in the letter to the Hebrews, in the 11th chapter. There it also says: without faith it is impossible to please him [God], for anyone who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. So what we need is at least an implicit faith in God as our redeemer, and the readiness to accept everything he is going to reveal to us. It is faith as hoping for things unseen. During this Advent season we are entering in some way the mind of the patriarchs and fathers of ancient Israel again. We renew our faith.
II.
Faith is an attitude of trust, a trust that is ready to embrace all and everything that the heavenly Father is going to reveal. The patriarchs of the Old Testament had this trust.
In our age, however, we sadly see that even those, to whom all of this has now been revealed, are not ready to embrace God’s revelation. Even those who claim to be Christians often claim the right to pick and choose among those things that God has revealed. They are often called Cafeteria Catholics. A few days ago, the wife of the governor of California explicitly called herself a Cafeteria Catholic. She called herself a good Catholic who is going to Church every week, but claims the right to pick and choose among the teachings of the Church. She is for gay marriage, abortion and communion for those who are divorced and remarried; what she likes and picks from Catholic teaching is only the message on compassion and social justice.
Even though it is more scandalous if this is said by a prominent Catholic in the news, it is by no means an attitude that is rare in the Church today. If Jesus in today’s Gospel does not seem to find the Centurion’s faith in Israel, he might today not find much of it in the Church either.
I think we need to be very clear that this is not a path that leads us to heaven. Without faith nobody can be saved. But a faith that willfully excludes something that God puts before us to be believed cannot be called faith. It is less than the faith of the forefathers of the Old Testament who in their hope for the Messiah were ready to accept everything that God was about to do even thought they did not know yet, what it would be. They were saved in hope and expectation.
We on the other hand know and yet we do not accept. But that cannot be supernatural faith; it is at the most human credulity. Faith is a grace that cannot be had on our own terms, but only on God’s terms, and that is: as a whole or not at all. Everything else is not faith, but mere human opinion, our own subjective choice, picking and choosing according to our taste.
III.
Faith, I said, can be had only as a whole, or not at all. There are a number of reasons for this: the object of our faith, God’s revelation and all that is taught by the Church in matters of faith and morals, is one seamless garment. Everything hangs together, and you cannot have one without the other. Wherever in history we see groups rejecting one little detail, they will soon lose the rest as well; the fabric starts to unravel. Faith is then coming down like a house of cards, from which you remove just one. Because in our faith one element builds on the other, what we have left, when we deny any one of them, is something that cannot be understood and believed consistently. It does not have an inner unity. Unity without consistency is not unity, but confusion.
IV.
What we need, therefore, is the humble acceptance of everything that God shows us, regardless of whether we know all the details or understand them. Indeed, in some ways we find ourselves still in the situation of the Old Testament patriarchs. Who of us could say that he knows every detail of the Church’s teaching? Not even most theologians would claim that. And even what we know is something that we can still come to understand ever more deeply. Our faith is inexhaustible, and it is consoling to know that we do not have to know and understand everything all the time. We can be at peace in knowing that God entrusted this faith to the Church as a whole. She in the meanwhile guards it, keeping it in her profession of faith, even where we do not grasp the whole. The Church is the true subject of faith,[1] and we can only enter the Church’s faith as something that will always be greater than our minds.
This does, therefore, require from us an act of trust, humility and faith before the Church that God has entrusted with this faith, knowing that it would be too big for us. That is why we confess: “I believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church.” Without the Church we cannot believe, we could only, like the Protestants, go our own ways, believing with our subjective credulity various things, contradicting each other, not knowing who is right; because none of us can exhaust the whole; only a Church guided by the Holy Spirit can safeguard the whole “deposit of faith.”
V.
What is reflected in our relationship with the Church is ultimately our relationship with God himself. I said: what we believe, always remains a reality that is greater than we and the capacity of our minds, something that does not enter our mind (which could never contain it), but rather something into which our minds are entering. The reason for this is that the ultimate object of faith is God himself, who will always be greater than our minds. He is the principle of everything else; he is the author of his revelation as well as of our faith.
The traditional definition of faith is the following:
“Faith is the theological virtue that inclines the mind, under the influence of the will and of grace, to yield a firm assent to revealed truths, because of the authority of God.”
We believe because of God’s authority who witnesses to the truth. He is the one in whom we believe, as well as the one whom we believe. We believe in a God whose witness is truthful, because he reveals to us nothing else but what he himself knows to be true. Faith amazingly is a participation in God’s own self-knowledge here on earth. This is obviously not something we can have on our own power, but a gift from God, a pure grace. As such, faith is itself the beginning of our justification and salvation, because it is the beginning of our union with God, which will find its fulfillment in the beatific vision of heaven. But already here and now, faith enlightens our hearts and minds, giving us the strength to carry our crosses and endure our sufferings.
God’s own self-knowledge, in which we participate, is his own knowledge of who he is, and of what he decided to do here on earth, in creating this world and revealing himself in it. All of the content of our faith is contained in God’s self-knowledge. But just as God is utterly simple, so is his knowledge. He knows everything in one concept, in one word, in the Eternal Word which is his Son, who came to bring us the faith as the Messiah.
It is in the simplicity of this one word of God’s self-knowledge that we participate when we have true supernatural faith. This faith can only be total, it cannot pick and choose; it cannot be partial or half-hearted. As the philosopher Aristotle pointed out: something simple can be had only as a whole or not at all. You cannot pick and choose a part from a mathematical point, because a mathematical point does not have parts. And so it is with God’s self-knowledge, in which we participate by faith: it is simple, and we can participate in it only if we are that simple, too, i.e., if we are single-hearted and simple-minded enough to allow this faith to enter into us. We can only believe with whole-hearted surrender or not at all. [In the simplicity of God, everything in our faith holds together consistently, and in true unity rather than in confusion. Something simple does not have parts that could contradict each other.]
It is this simplicity which is the sign of true supernatural faith. It is a faith that does not make itself into a judge over God’s revelation. It is the single-mindedness that is itself a sign of the presence of God. It is this simplicity that is required of us, in order to go through the narrow gate, the needles ear, which is too small for anything to pass through except something that is simple and total. Just as the rich young man had to give up his riches to get through this needles ear, we have to give up the richness of our personal opinions that we reserve to ourselves in spite of what God shows to our faith through his Church.
What we receive in faith is simple and round like the host that we receive at communion. And just as we say our “Amen” there, we say it to the faith of the Church as a whole. The host contains the whole of God, as well as his mystical body the Church, under each and every particle. As we say “Amen” at communion, we say Amen to the whole God, and the whole Creed, and the entire faith of the Church.
VI.
The San Franciso Chronicle a few days ago quoted a parishioner of St. Dominic’s being upset about how backwards the Church is, and how she is trying to change the way the Church is thinking. Now we always want to give people the benefit of the doubt, but taken at face value, this statement is a counterexample of what I have just said. To think that we can teach the Church a lesson is not only a lack of the necessary humility, it also indicates a lack of insight into oneself. It indicates that we do not really know who we are, and who the Church is: we overestimate ourselves, or rather the influence of the secular culture that we have allowed to take over our minds; and we underestimate the Church, because we are already lacking the necessary faith that would acknowledge that the Church is not just a human institution or a party whose party-line we can change by our lobbying. The Church is divine in origin; it is founded in Jesus Christ himself, who built it on the foundation of the apostles. He charged the apostles with keeping the deposit of faith, because he knew that this faith would be questioned, and he asked Peter above all others, to strengthen the faith of his fellow apostles – something Peter and his successors have done ever since.
VII.
Without the Church, or even sitting in judgment over the Church, we are left to our own devices and credulities. We are making our own religion in our own image and likeness, i.e. according to our taste rather than God’s revelation. This faith of ours will be a form of idolatry, a work of our own making, be it our hands or minds. “I am spiritual, not religious”, often means that we want to fabricate our own beliefs. But it was always foolish to give our faith to an idol, the work of human hands and minds: idols cannot speak, they cannot hear; they are dead wood. And so are the fabrications that we call our religions or spiritualities, made according to our personal tastes and preferences. But indeed that is exactly what we need to be liberated from, because they will not save us as little as idols of wood. Salvation cannot be something that we make ourselves, as if pulling ourselves out of the mire by our own bootstraps. We need God to tell us the truth in such a way that we cannot replace his revelation again through our own productions and opinions, or worse, those of the secular world. In other words: we need the Church to believe. Faith comes from hearing, not from imagination.
VIII.
This faith requires a decision, an assent of the will. It requires a conversion from the world and its opinions; we cannot listen to two masters, God and Mammon; we need to be single-minded. This can sometimes be harder to realize for cradle Catholics. But in these times we all will have to make a decision. These times force us into an examination of conscience: if you feel you cannot agree on some established teaching of the Church, be it matters of faith, as for the example the virgin birth, the divinity of Christ or his presence in the Eucharist; or be matters of morals, as euthanasia, gay marriage or abortion – if you cannot agree on this, then you have to do some serious soul-searching, because that is not optional. Read up on it; that is, if not an act of humility, at least an act of fairness of hearing all the sides, not just that of the secular world. (If you are getting your knowledge about the teaching of the Church from the secular media, then this might already be where your problem is.) And while you read also remember that, as Immanuel Kant and Cardinal Newman said: difficulties are not doubts. Finally bring it in prayer before God; say the Creed meditatively, asking yourself, whether you believe everything that is said there; and pray: “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief”, help me to believe like the patriarchs of the Old Testament.
Again: faith is neither irrational or arbitrary; nor is it ever merely knowing something; it is an acceptance of something greater than our minds, of something that requires an assent of our will. This decision is a grace, a gift from God, something you need to pray for. And then you have to make that decision, knowing that what is at stake is nothing less but the salvation of your soul.
[1] “We believe…” has its truth after all; but the formula “I believe …” is important too, because by it we enter personally the faith of the Church.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Christ and Antichrist
Another fine homily, given yesterday, by our friend Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P. Fr. Anselm is a Dominican Priest and Professor of Philosophy at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology here in the Bay Area.
Martyrdom, the Antichrist and the Christian Witness
(Feast of the Vietnamese Martyrs)
Today we celebrate the Vietnamese Martyrs, many Catholic faithful, priests and laity who have given their life for their faith throughout several centuries, be it the political persecutions of the 19th century or the communist persecutions of the 20th century. These persecutions are ongoing. We know them through the many Vietnamese brothers and sisters who are living in this country. Their strong faith has lead many of them also to embrace vocations to the priesthood and religious life, including the Dominican Order. With that they are an important witness to all of us.
Their primary witness, though, was and is not for us, but before the powers of the world. That is what we call martyrdom. That Church has always considered martyrdom to be primarily a public and political act. You are not a martyr, if you die through an accident, or as a victim of a criminal act of private persons. Martyrdom is the outcome of a confrontation with political authority, with those who hold public office.
This is true even today in Vietnam, or also in Orissa, India. I am sure you have followed that in the news. There the government might hide behind the criminal acts of violence and murder by organized mobs or gangs. But their public refusal to take legal and police actions against the perpetrators is a clear endorsement of these acts. Standing by where it is your authority and duty to act, is itself an official statement.
At times the confrontation will be more explicit. This we see among the early Christian martyrs, who were arrested and killed by the authorities of the Roman Empire. They were brought before the courts and legally tried. That is why we get some of our documentation of these martyrs from the archives of the Roman Empire. Again, martyrdom is not death through a criminal act, but death through the very legal system itself that is meant to protect us from criminal acts.
That is also, why traditionally the role of the Antichrist is associated with a political power, as one can see in the book of Revelation, but also in much of the later literature, e.g. in Michael O’Brien’s Father Elijah or Robert Hugh Benson’s The Lord of the World or in the writings of Vladimir Solovyev, all of whom rely on much older perennial wisdom in the Church.
Political power is not, of course, something bad in and by itself. Indeed, Paul’s letter to the Romans says that all political authority is from God. But political power is always deeply ambivalent. (Even if it is in favor of the Church it tends to corrupt her.) The Antichrist is traditionally conceived of as a political ruler, and even a ruler that aspires to world rule.
Jesus promised us as much: he said that they will bring you before governors and courts. He also said that we are not worry, because at this point the Holy Spirit will take over. He will be the one who will give us the right words to answer.
And why is that? It is because we are giving a public witness for the Christian faith. We are not just giving witness for our own subjective opinions before some other equally subjective private individuals, but we are giving witness before public authorities to an equally public faith that is not just ours, but ultimately comes from God himself. It is the faith of the Church that the creator of the universe has established for this public witness. We are speaking not for ourselves, but for the Church, and therefore we will be able to speak with the authority of the Church, i.e., with the Holy Spirit.
But we will also speak for Jesus Christ himself. Jesus himself was put on trial. He was brought before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. He witnessed to the truth before the public authorities of the Roman Empire – only to receive the cynical answer: what is truth? He received a court sentence from these authorities, a death sentence, as an expression of a perverted political and judicial system that had replaced questions of truth with the questions of power.
Ever since, public authorities and courts have frequently put themselves in that position, not realizing that the ones who are really on trial are the judges themselves, because they are attempting to judge the king of the universe, who judges them by becoming a witness, a martyr.
Whenever Christians are in those situations, they should realize that they are standing in for Jesus himself, or rather that Jesus is standing there for them, giving witness in and through them in the Holy Spirit. We might suffer, but we will have his support and power for our witness.
But why this conflict in the first place? Why is there a perpetual struggle between Church and State, with the Roman Empire and then its successors in the Middle Ages and finally throughout modern history and in all parts of the world? Why is the public square never a neutral arena, but will always bear witness to either Christ or Antichrist?
For one, because God is different from the world; he is not identical with it, but its creator. God transcends this world, stands over against it in total freedom. He has created it freely and governs it according to his gracious will. That is why Jesus can tell Pilate in his trial that his kingdom is not of this world.
Pope Benedict has also pointed out that the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount would probably not work, if you would make them into state laws. Turning the other cheek and not caring for tomorrow are more likely to be realized by individual Christians aspiring to something greater than the secular government, and rightly so. He sees this as opening up the legitimately different directions and purposes of Church and secular state, something unique to Christian history.
So far, so good. But why would we then have a conflict? After all, if the state cares about the world, and the Church about heaven, they should be able to coexist peacefully. No reason for court trials and martyrdom here.
The reason is that we are monotheists. We do not believe that God is responsible only for heaven and its kingdom, and another god would have made the earthly world and rules that kind of kingdom. We are not dualists. Both heaven and earth were made by God. The world is not a bad place; it is made by God, too. And we are meant to live in it and shape it as well. We have a responsibility for heaven and earth. In our own personal lives and for others it will matter what we do in this world and in the realm of the powers that have authority over it. This is what leaves us in the tension of being citizens of the kingdom of heaven and of living in this world at the same time. (It was already St. Irenaeus of Lyon who made this point in the 2nd century; he claimed that martyrdom is in this way specific to the Christian faith, and later became a martyr himself.)
Again, Jesus is the model: Jesus is God, the second person of the Trinity, existing from all eternity. But he is not staying far away; rather, he takes our human nature, lives a human, earthly life, preaching the Sermon on the Mount to people who continued to lead lives in their particular circumstances. Jesus did so himself. And just as this brings him into conflict with political authority, it will also do so for all those who follow him. (As he promised: “the servant is not greater than the master.”) So, while the Church is not all about politics and a social Gospel, it is impossible that the message of the Church will not have political implications and will raise eyebrows, if not persecutions.
That might be, why the letters of St. John describe the Antichrist as the one who denies that Jesus came in the flesh. He fears the unavoidable interference in his own political realm. He does not want another power besides himself. A Church that has a special, legally guaranteed status through concordats, that is a “perfect society”, complete in its own right, with its own laws (canon law) does not fit the neat logical of a purely earthly realm. Early modern political philosophy has always taken exception to this (e.g., Hobbes, Spinoza, Rousseau, Hegel), and so does the Antichrist. That is why he wants world rule. It is a total rule, and it is an international rule, where no other international power like the Vatican can interfere in the affairs of national states. Nation states will not be able to control an external authority like the Vatican, but a World-government might. It is the direct competition to the universal spiritual authority of the Church.
Ultimately, however, the witness of the Church does not just challenge national authorities or even international authorities, but the ultimacy of the world as such. It is a witness, sometimes a martyrial witness, to the fact that this life, this world is not all that there is. And this is the true scandal that provokes persecution.
The Antichrist is not primarily someone who is a bad person in the usual sense. He is not a criminal. He is not even the usual kind of selfish tyrant. In fact he is usually expected to be humanitarian, self-less, ascetic, sometimes a vegetarian, a compassionate friend of man and animal.
The conflict is not selfishness or immorality of the usual kind, but it is primarily a conflict of authority and a conflict over the question where true authority comes from. Even political authority comes from God, yet the Antichrist will speak in his own name.
Implied in this is also the question where our ultimate hope comes from: If there is no hope and no God beyond this world, then we will have to play God ourselves. That is what the snake promised: you will be like God, knowing good and evil for yourself. Yes, one can and should promote politically humanitarian goals, but if it is in the spirit of the Antichrist it will be in the name of inner-worldly goals and authorities; it will argue with the logic of the needs of this world and make individuals and religions subservient to the survival of the planet, arguing, e.g., for eugenics, euthanasia and population control. While indeed it will be Christianity that defends the sanctity of life in the human person as an image and likeness of God – an image, which just like the God it represents, transcends the earthly goals and ends of this world.
If religions, however, refuse to serve the goals of the Antichrist and disrupt the process, they will be treated like another pest in the organism of humanity that is to be exterminated. Already in the Roman Empire Christians were singled out in this way as being “anti-social” or being filled with an odium humani generis – a hatred of the human race.
So we see some perennial features emerging, which writers of various kinds of pointed out throughout the ages.
And this scenario should sound familiar to our own experience as well: in a time, when these inner-worldly goals and measures are more and more codified in our legal system, trying to coerce the Church and its individual members into its very structures, this conflict will be increasingly unavoidable. Not just in the U.S., but in the whole western world, if not globally, we might in the near future find ourselves in the position of being brought before the courts. Cardinal Stafford recently said in Washington (at the Catholic University of America) that in the next few years Gethsemane will not be marginal for American Christian. “We will know that garden.” While we might not lose our lives as the Vietnamese martyrs did, we might sometimes lose our jobs, our freedom, our money and our institutions (especially in teaching and healthcare).
This is why we have reason to recall some of the perennial wisdom of the Church about the principles that rule this world and govern history. This is not the first time and it probably will not be the last time that shows some more apocalyptic features. The Vietnamese martyrs show the same situation, and indeed it is something that we will find whenever we are called to a public witness for our faith before the political powers of this world.
Martyrdom, the Antichrist and the Christian Witness
(Feast of the Vietnamese Martyrs)
Today we celebrate the Vietnamese Martyrs, many Catholic faithful, priests and laity who have given their life for their faith throughout several centuries, be it the political persecutions of the 19th century or the communist persecutions of the 20th century. These persecutions are ongoing. We know them through the many Vietnamese brothers and sisters who are living in this country. Their strong faith has lead many of them also to embrace vocations to the priesthood and religious life, including the Dominican Order. With that they are an important witness to all of us.
Their primary witness, though, was and is not for us, but before the powers of the world. That is what we call martyrdom. That Church has always considered martyrdom to be primarily a public and political act. You are not a martyr, if you die through an accident, or as a victim of a criminal act of private persons. Martyrdom is the outcome of a confrontation with political authority, with those who hold public office.
This is true even today in Vietnam, or also in Orissa, India. I am sure you have followed that in the news. There the government might hide behind the criminal acts of violence and murder by organized mobs or gangs. But their public refusal to take legal and police actions against the perpetrators is a clear endorsement of these acts. Standing by where it is your authority and duty to act, is itself an official statement.
At times the confrontation will be more explicit. This we see among the early Christian martyrs, who were arrested and killed by the authorities of the Roman Empire. They were brought before the courts and legally tried. That is why we get some of our documentation of these martyrs from the archives of the Roman Empire. Again, martyrdom is not death through a criminal act, but death through the very legal system itself that is meant to protect us from criminal acts.
That is also, why traditionally the role of the Antichrist is associated with a political power, as one can see in the book of Revelation, but also in much of the later literature, e.g. in Michael O’Brien’s Father Elijah or Robert Hugh Benson’s The Lord of the World or in the writings of Vladimir Solovyev, all of whom rely on much older perennial wisdom in the Church.
Political power is not, of course, something bad in and by itself. Indeed, Paul’s letter to the Romans says that all political authority is from God. But political power is always deeply ambivalent. (Even if it is in favor of the Church it tends to corrupt her.) The Antichrist is traditionally conceived of as a political ruler, and even a ruler that aspires to world rule.
Jesus promised us as much: he said that they will bring you before governors and courts. He also said that we are not worry, because at this point the Holy Spirit will take over. He will be the one who will give us the right words to answer.
And why is that? It is because we are giving a public witness for the Christian faith. We are not just giving witness for our own subjective opinions before some other equally subjective private individuals, but we are giving witness before public authorities to an equally public faith that is not just ours, but ultimately comes from God himself. It is the faith of the Church that the creator of the universe has established for this public witness. We are speaking not for ourselves, but for the Church, and therefore we will be able to speak with the authority of the Church, i.e., with the Holy Spirit.
But we will also speak for Jesus Christ himself. Jesus himself was put on trial. He was brought before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. He witnessed to the truth before the public authorities of the Roman Empire – only to receive the cynical answer: what is truth? He received a court sentence from these authorities, a death sentence, as an expression of a perverted political and judicial system that had replaced questions of truth with the questions of power.
Ever since, public authorities and courts have frequently put themselves in that position, not realizing that the ones who are really on trial are the judges themselves, because they are attempting to judge the king of the universe, who judges them by becoming a witness, a martyr.
Whenever Christians are in those situations, they should realize that they are standing in for Jesus himself, or rather that Jesus is standing there for them, giving witness in and through them in the Holy Spirit. We might suffer, but we will have his support and power for our witness.
But why this conflict in the first place? Why is there a perpetual struggle between Church and State, with the Roman Empire and then its successors in the Middle Ages and finally throughout modern history and in all parts of the world? Why is the public square never a neutral arena, but will always bear witness to either Christ or Antichrist?
For one, because God is different from the world; he is not identical with it, but its creator. God transcends this world, stands over against it in total freedom. He has created it freely and governs it according to his gracious will. That is why Jesus can tell Pilate in his trial that his kingdom is not of this world.
Pope Benedict has also pointed out that the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount would probably not work, if you would make them into state laws. Turning the other cheek and not caring for tomorrow are more likely to be realized by individual Christians aspiring to something greater than the secular government, and rightly so. He sees this as opening up the legitimately different directions and purposes of Church and secular state, something unique to Christian history.
So far, so good. But why would we then have a conflict? After all, if the state cares about the world, and the Church about heaven, they should be able to coexist peacefully. No reason for court trials and martyrdom here.
The reason is that we are monotheists. We do not believe that God is responsible only for heaven and its kingdom, and another god would have made the earthly world and rules that kind of kingdom. We are not dualists. Both heaven and earth were made by God. The world is not a bad place; it is made by God, too. And we are meant to live in it and shape it as well. We have a responsibility for heaven and earth. In our own personal lives and for others it will matter what we do in this world and in the realm of the powers that have authority over it. This is what leaves us in the tension of being citizens of the kingdom of heaven and of living in this world at the same time. (It was already St. Irenaeus of Lyon who made this point in the 2nd century; he claimed that martyrdom is in this way specific to the Christian faith, and later became a martyr himself.)
Again, Jesus is the model: Jesus is God, the second person of the Trinity, existing from all eternity. But he is not staying far away; rather, he takes our human nature, lives a human, earthly life, preaching the Sermon on the Mount to people who continued to lead lives in their particular circumstances. Jesus did so himself. And just as this brings him into conflict with political authority, it will also do so for all those who follow him. (As he promised: “the servant is not greater than the master.”) So, while the Church is not all about politics and a social Gospel, it is impossible that the message of the Church will not have political implications and will raise eyebrows, if not persecutions.
That might be, why the letters of St. John describe the Antichrist as the one who denies that Jesus came in the flesh. He fears the unavoidable interference in his own political realm. He does not want another power besides himself. A Church that has a special, legally guaranteed status through concordats, that is a “perfect society”, complete in its own right, with its own laws (canon law) does not fit the neat logical of a purely earthly realm. Early modern political philosophy has always taken exception to this (e.g., Hobbes, Spinoza, Rousseau, Hegel), and so does the Antichrist. That is why he wants world rule. It is a total rule, and it is an international rule, where no other international power like the Vatican can interfere in the affairs of national states. Nation states will not be able to control an external authority like the Vatican, but a World-government might. It is the direct competition to the universal spiritual authority of the Church.
Ultimately, however, the witness of the Church does not just challenge national authorities or even international authorities, but the ultimacy of the world as such. It is a witness, sometimes a martyrial witness, to the fact that this life, this world is not all that there is. And this is the true scandal that provokes persecution.
The Antichrist is not primarily someone who is a bad person in the usual sense. He is not a criminal. He is not even the usual kind of selfish tyrant. In fact he is usually expected to be humanitarian, self-less, ascetic, sometimes a vegetarian, a compassionate friend of man and animal.
The conflict is not selfishness or immorality of the usual kind, but it is primarily a conflict of authority and a conflict over the question where true authority comes from. Even political authority comes from God, yet the Antichrist will speak in his own name.
Implied in this is also the question where our ultimate hope comes from: If there is no hope and no God beyond this world, then we will have to play God ourselves. That is what the snake promised: you will be like God, knowing good and evil for yourself. Yes, one can and should promote politically humanitarian goals, but if it is in the spirit of the Antichrist it will be in the name of inner-worldly goals and authorities; it will argue with the logic of the needs of this world and make individuals and religions subservient to the survival of the planet, arguing, e.g., for eugenics, euthanasia and population control. While indeed it will be Christianity that defends the sanctity of life in the human person as an image and likeness of God – an image, which just like the God it represents, transcends the earthly goals and ends of this world.
If religions, however, refuse to serve the goals of the Antichrist and disrupt the process, they will be treated like another pest in the organism of humanity that is to be exterminated. Already in the Roman Empire Christians were singled out in this way as being “anti-social” or being filled with an odium humani generis – a hatred of the human race.
So we see some perennial features emerging, which writers of various kinds of pointed out throughout the ages.
And this scenario should sound familiar to our own experience as well: in a time, when these inner-worldly goals and measures are more and more codified in our legal system, trying to coerce the Church and its individual members into its very structures, this conflict will be increasingly unavoidable. Not just in the U.S., but in the whole western world, if not globally, we might in the near future find ourselves in the position of being brought before the courts. Cardinal Stafford recently said in Washington (at the Catholic University of America) that in the next few years Gethsemane will not be marginal for American Christian. “We will know that garden.” While we might not lose our lives as the Vietnamese martyrs did, we might sometimes lose our jobs, our freedom, our money and our institutions (especially in teaching and healthcare).
This is why we have reason to recall some of the perennial wisdom of the Church about the principles that rule this world and govern history. This is not the first time and it probably will not be the last time that shows some more apocalyptic features. The Vietnamese martyrs show the same situation, and indeed it is something that we will find whenever we are called to a public witness for our faith before the political powers of this world.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Life, Reality, and Natural Law
Another excellent and timely homily, given yesterday, by our friend Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P.
Fr. Anselm is a Dominican Priest and Professor of Philosophy at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology here in the Bay Area.
I.
“What do you want me to do for you?” He replied, “Lord, please let me see.” Jesus told him, “Have sight; your faith has saved you.” He immediately received his sight. This story is countercultural. Far from crying out for Jesus to make us seeing, the present culture seems intent on preserving its blindness.
II.
There is, for example, the blindness for what is called the natural law. Natural law, as its name says, is a law that is inscribed in the nature of things. There is something in how things are that tells us how they should be: If we see a cat with only three legs, we know that these are only three legs, and that the cat rather ought to have four legs. It is the nature of the cat to have that many legs.
III.
We ordinarily do perceive these things. Yet, we are less willing to acknowledge that there is something like a nature of things, when it becomes inconvenient. The same perception should, for example, tell us something about our very own nature. For the most part, we acknowledge our nature, for example, when it comes to health care: when we perceive that we are sick, we do see that we are not how we ought to be – just like the cat with the three legs. And so we go to the doctor. We also know that we should not overeat, because it is unhealthy and leads to physical states that are contrary to our nature. People also exercise to stay healthy, although here it might already get inconvenient, and we are therefore more ready to be in denial about what our nature is.
IV.
That denial, however, becomes most pronounced when we enter the realm of sexual ethics. That certain organs and their use are made by nature for the sake of procreation seems to unduly limit our freedom. And I am not only talking about gay marriage here, but also about contraception and quite generally the promiscuity of our society. Even pregnancy is changed from the preciousness of fertility into an accident, an illness that is to be taken care of by abortion, with the help of one’s health-insurance. Here the nature of things is turned into it’s very opposite.
Any appeal to the normative demands of the natural law, which in ordinary life is unwittingly accepted, suddenly starts to become something of an outrage. We will even hear the accusation of imposing our faith on other people.
V.
But this not about faith at all. It is natural law, i.e., it is about nature, not about grace or the supernatural. We do not need faith to see that a cat with three legs is missing something. This is something that is accessible to all people who possess reason. We are therefore also held responsible for any violation of the natural law. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse; we are supposed to know.
When the man in the Gospel asks Jesus to see, Jesus tells him: your faith has saved you. Faith can indeed make us seeing, where we have become blind even to the things that we can know by nature and reason. But we ought to know them even apart from faith; that is itself part of our nature.
VI.
The natural law, I said, is a law inscribed into the nature of things. Who wrote it there? The one who made these natures. The one who made our natures, our bodies and brains as well. God himself wrote that law, and not just on the stone tablets of the 10 commandments, but into the nature of things as well as into the very flesh of our hearts, as St. Paul says. He is the lawgiver who obliges us to follow the law; but he also gives us a law that is our very own: if we break that law, we break ourselves.
VII.
If on the other hand, there is no God, if the way how cats are and how we are, is just the meaningless outcome of a Darwinist evolution, then there is no natural law. Modern science since Descartes has made an effort to describe reality in such a way, that it could be understood without God. That included the emphatic denial of something like the nature of things, i.e., of anything normative in reality. Everything therefore was open to the boundless manipulation by the new technologies that this modern science yielded.
This eliminated therefore the theoretical basis for natural law. And so we find ourselves indeed in the situation that Dostoevsky described, when he said: if there is no God, then everything is permitted. And the existentialist Jean Paul Sartre emphatically stated that this is not a bad thing, but rather the liberation of man.
VIII.
What we are looking at is therefore ultimately the attempt to liberate man from God. Because if God exists, then reality has meaning, then it will reflect God’s design. There will be a nature of things that expresses the purpose of God; it will be something that we have to respect, be it in animals, endangered plant species or in ourselves. It will put limitations on what we can rightfully do with each other, with ourselves and with embryos. The very existence of God implies this.
The next battle that we will have to face will be therefore not just about abortion or gay marriage; it will be about the very existence of God himself, including our ability to teach children about him. You might think I am exaggerating. But the movement called “New Atheism” is already producing bestsellers like Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Daniel Dennett’s "Breaking the Spell." It is already making inroads in the academic world. Even at a “hardcore” Catholic College like Steubenville students are reported to have lost their faith after reading these books.
The authors of these books claim that religion is just an aberration of the evolution of our species that should be eliminated. One of the ways to eliminate it, is to forbid parents to teach their children any kind of religion. Dawkins and Dennett declare religious education for children to be a form of child abuse. I have no doubts that we will face even this battle in the near future. Already now God is pushed out of the public square, replaced not by something neutral – for there is no neutrality in these matters – but replaced by an atheistic faith, which is proclaimed by silence and absence.
IX.
As awful as this is, it puts the focus where it belongs: it is not about this or that moral issue, it is about the very existence of God. If there is no God, then there is no natural law that would put any limitation on our freedom. If on the other hand, God exists, then there will be ethical consequences that people are increasingly inclined to reject.
The question for us is: would we want to live in a society in which God is declared dead? Would we want to live in a society, in which everything is allowed, not just to ourselves, but also to others, including those in government? How would we live together at all, with no common nature to appeal to? And would we want to live in a society in which there is no guidance anymore regarding right and wrong, except majority votes? In other words, would we want to live in a society in which might is right?
In the name of what would we protest against injustices against the health and well-being of people, if not in the name of our nature, a nature created by God, a nature that expresses his designs and laws, a nature that wants to be well and ought to be well? The appeal to human rights becomes vacuous, if it is not concretized in natural law.
Could we even appeal to the freedom of choice of those who are oppressed? How is their will not just another part of their nature? Would it not just be another brute fact that gets in the way of our own freedom, something that can be just as well trumped by a stronger, but equally brute fact, that of the majority choice? And how about those who are too old or too young or too sick to exercise their free choice?
X.
It would seem that the words that the first reading from the book of Revelation addresses to the Church at Ephesus are addressed to our culture as well:
Realize how far you have fallen. Repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
It would seem that we have all reason to cry out with the blind man in Jericho: Lord, please let me see! It is our gift as Catholics that we have a faith that makes us see what everyone should be able to see by the light of his conscience: the law of nature, which is an expression of God’s gracious will. It is a faith that cures us from our blindness. And by curing us it will help others to see as well: the Gospel tells us that the blind man immediately received his sight and followed him (Jesus), giving glory to God. When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God.
Those who perceive the natural law have overcome their blindness, they will follow Jesus, and they will know nothing less but God himself. And they will praise him.
Fr. Anselm is a Dominican Priest and Professor of Philosophy at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology here in the Bay Area.
I.
“What do you want me to do for you?” He replied, “Lord, please let me see.” Jesus told him, “Have sight; your faith has saved you.” He immediately received his sight. This story is countercultural. Far from crying out for Jesus to make us seeing, the present culture seems intent on preserving its blindness.
II.
There is, for example, the blindness for what is called the natural law. Natural law, as its name says, is a law that is inscribed in the nature of things. There is something in how things are that tells us how they should be: If we see a cat with only three legs, we know that these are only three legs, and that the cat rather ought to have four legs. It is the nature of the cat to have that many legs.
III.
We ordinarily do perceive these things. Yet, we are less willing to acknowledge that there is something like a nature of things, when it becomes inconvenient. The same perception should, for example, tell us something about our very own nature. For the most part, we acknowledge our nature, for example, when it comes to health care: when we perceive that we are sick, we do see that we are not how we ought to be – just like the cat with the three legs. And so we go to the doctor. We also know that we should not overeat, because it is unhealthy and leads to physical states that are contrary to our nature. People also exercise to stay healthy, although here it might already get inconvenient, and we are therefore more ready to be in denial about what our nature is.
IV.
That denial, however, becomes most pronounced when we enter the realm of sexual ethics. That certain organs and their use are made by nature for the sake of procreation seems to unduly limit our freedom. And I am not only talking about gay marriage here, but also about contraception and quite generally the promiscuity of our society. Even pregnancy is changed from the preciousness of fertility into an accident, an illness that is to be taken care of by abortion, with the help of one’s health-insurance. Here the nature of things is turned into it’s very opposite.
Any appeal to the normative demands of the natural law, which in ordinary life is unwittingly accepted, suddenly starts to become something of an outrage. We will even hear the accusation of imposing our faith on other people.
V.
But this not about faith at all. It is natural law, i.e., it is about nature, not about grace or the supernatural. We do not need faith to see that a cat with three legs is missing something. This is something that is accessible to all people who possess reason. We are therefore also held responsible for any violation of the natural law. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse; we are supposed to know.
When the man in the Gospel asks Jesus to see, Jesus tells him: your faith has saved you. Faith can indeed make us seeing, where we have become blind even to the things that we can know by nature and reason. But we ought to know them even apart from faith; that is itself part of our nature.
VI.
The natural law, I said, is a law inscribed into the nature of things. Who wrote it there? The one who made these natures. The one who made our natures, our bodies and brains as well. God himself wrote that law, and not just on the stone tablets of the 10 commandments, but into the nature of things as well as into the very flesh of our hearts, as St. Paul says. He is the lawgiver who obliges us to follow the law; but he also gives us a law that is our very own: if we break that law, we break ourselves.
VII.
If on the other hand, there is no God, if the way how cats are and how we are, is just the meaningless outcome of a Darwinist evolution, then there is no natural law. Modern science since Descartes has made an effort to describe reality in such a way, that it could be understood without God. That included the emphatic denial of something like the nature of things, i.e., of anything normative in reality. Everything therefore was open to the boundless manipulation by the new technologies that this modern science yielded.
This eliminated therefore the theoretical basis for natural law. And so we find ourselves indeed in the situation that Dostoevsky described, when he said: if there is no God, then everything is permitted. And the existentialist Jean Paul Sartre emphatically stated that this is not a bad thing, but rather the liberation of man.
VIII.
What we are looking at is therefore ultimately the attempt to liberate man from God. Because if God exists, then reality has meaning, then it will reflect God’s design. There will be a nature of things that expresses the purpose of God; it will be something that we have to respect, be it in animals, endangered plant species or in ourselves. It will put limitations on what we can rightfully do with each other, with ourselves and with embryos. The very existence of God implies this.
The next battle that we will have to face will be therefore not just about abortion or gay marriage; it will be about the very existence of God himself, including our ability to teach children about him. You might think I am exaggerating. But the movement called “New Atheism” is already producing bestsellers like Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Daniel Dennett’s "Breaking the Spell." It is already making inroads in the academic world. Even at a “hardcore” Catholic College like Steubenville students are reported to have lost their faith after reading these books.
The authors of these books claim that religion is just an aberration of the evolution of our species that should be eliminated. One of the ways to eliminate it, is to forbid parents to teach their children any kind of religion. Dawkins and Dennett declare religious education for children to be a form of child abuse. I have no doubts that we will face even this battle in the near future. Already now God is pushed out of the public square, replaced not by something neutral – for there is no neutrality in these matters – but replaced by an atheistic faith, which is proclaimed by silence and absence.
IX.
As awful as this is, it puts the focus where it belongs: it is not about this or that moral issue, it is about the very existence of God. If there is no God, then there is no natural law that would put any limitation on our freedom. If on the other hand, God exists, then there will be ethical consequences that people are increasingly inclined to reject.
The question for us is: would we want to live in a society in which God is declared dead? Would we want to live in a society, in which everything is allowed, not just to ourselves, but also to others, including those in government? How would we live together at all, with no common nature to appeal to? And would we want to live in a society in which there is no guidance anymore regarding right and wrong, except majority votes? In other words, would we want to live in a society in which might is right?
In the name of what would we protest against injustices against the health and well-being of people, if not in the name of our nature, a nature created by God, a nature that expresses his designs and laws, a nature that wants to be well and ought to be well? The appeal to human rights becomes vacuous, if it is not concretized in natural law.
Could we even appeal to the freedom of choice of those who are oppressed? How is their will not just another part of their nature? Would it not just be another brute fact that gets in the way of our own freedom, something that can be just as well trumped by a stronger, but equally brute fact, that of the majority choice? And how about those who are too old or too young or too sick to exercise their free choice?
X.
It would seem that the words that the first reading from the book of Revelation addresses to the Church at Ephesus are addressed to our culture as well:
Realize how far you have fallen. Repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
It would seem that we have all reason to cry out with the blind man in Jericho: Lord, please let me see! It is our gift as Catholics that we have a faith that makes us see what everyone should be able to see by the light of his conscience: the law of nature, which is an expression of God’s gracious will. It is a faith that cures us from our blindness. And by curing us it will help others to see as well: the Gospel tells us that the blind man immediately received his sight and followed him (Jesus), giving glory to God. When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God.
Those who perceive the natural law have overcome their blindness, they will follow Jesus, and they will know nothing less but God himself. And they will praise him.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Proposition 8: The State, Rights, and Duties.
An excellent and timely homily, given yesterday, by our friend Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P.
Fr. Anselm is a Dominican Priest and Professor of Philosophy at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology here in the Bay Area.
Homily on feast of St. Leo the Great
I.
As you are perfectly aware, the success of Prop. 8 caused a lot of rebellion in this city; yesterday a group was demonstrating in front of the Cathedral, shouting obscenities, today there are demonstrations in various parts of California. Opponents still claim that “gay marriage” is a matter of rights, and they try to override Proposition 8 again, against the majority vote.
Since you will not get the Catholic position from the San Francisco Chronicle (at most they will give you a report on Catholic dissent), let me try to say something tonight (St. Leo the Great would certainly approve of this message).
II.
The first thing is to let you know as Catholics about the teaching of the Church. Her perpetual teaching regarding homosexuality has not changed and indeed cannot and will not change. To give you one clear statement, I am quoting n. 2357 of the CCC:
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
The Catechism gives several scripture references; I will only quote the passage from the first chapter of Romans to you, which relates this topic to the idolatry of pagan Rome, i.e. to a darkened sense of who God is (be prepared for some strong language; this is the word of God, though, and we need to hear it):
20 Ever since the creation of the world, his (God’s) invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse; 21 for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. 22 While claiming to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes. 24 Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, 27 and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper.
What does this mean? It means that sexuality cannot be divorced from our view of God. As John Paul II has explained in his theology of the body, the family and the sexual complementarity of man and woman are an image of the Trinity itself. When God says: let us make man in our image and likeness and: male and female he made them, then we are invited to see divine and sacred things in sexual relations. In the New Testament, marriage can therefore be elevated to a sacrament, reflecting the fertile relationship between Christ and his bride the Church; the Eucharist itself is the marriage banquet that celebrates our salvation.
By contrast, if we follow St. Paul’s thought, then he is saying that homosexual relationships do not express this, but that they are rather proclaiming a totally different god, demon or idol.
While this is the understanding of the Catholic faith, it is not a matter of mere faith that we would impose on other people, but something that also follows from pure reason and the natural law: “gay marriage” in so far as it claims to be marriage, is about sexual acts. I.e., it is not about the love of friendship. That kind of love, the love of friendship, can, of course, exist in all sorts of relationships. Nobody denies that this will be a genuine good, but it is not marriage. The love of marriage on the other hand is of a different kind in that it integrates these aspects into a sexual relationship. It forms a bond of a very different kind than that between friends, or parents and children, or grandparents, or caretakers and those entrusted to them.
Sexual acts by their nature are designed to produce offspring. Homosexual acts cannot do that, even though they are using the organs of procreation. In other words, it is an improper use of these organs. It can certainly never represent their normal function and intended situation. This is obvious for anyone who believes that this world and our bodies and their organs were created purposefully by an intelligent and loving God.
But it is even obvious to those who deny this, i.e. those who say that everything is the outcome of random mutation and natural selection; even Darwinists would agree that sexual organs are made for procreation.
Now the state has neither right nor duty nor interest to be involved in marriage, except because marriage is the place where future generations and citizens originate. In other words: the state is involved in marriage, because marriage is procreative. “Gay marriage” by its nature does not do that; it therefore has no more claim to special political recognition than any other kind of partnership, as for example grandparents living with their grandchildren or caretakers – for these there is no marriage either, even though they might feel love and affection for each other as well.
III.
Now I am perfectly aware that there is a growing number of countries in this world, in which I would be thrown into jail for saying this, i.e. for preaching the faith of the Church. Go and try saying this, for example, in Sweden, Canada or Colombia. Without Proposition 8, this might become an issue in California as well. Broadcasting licenses for Catholic radio stations, for example, would be revoked, if they would present this Catholic position. Also, conscientious objection to hosting gay events or marriages or renting space for such occasions, or even declining to be professional photographers at these events will be impossible. Already now courts have fined photographers and others for their conscientious objection.
What that means is: Proposition 8 is not about the rights of gay people, but about our rights of free speech and conscientious objection.
Teachers at public schools, for example, do already have to teach children about the equality of gay relationships (Senate Bill 777). But surely no Catholic teacher can comply with this; rather, today’s Gospel would speak to this situation:
“Things that cause sin will inevitably occur,but woe to the one through whom they occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neckand he be thrown into the seathan for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. Be on your guard!"
Without Proposition 8, this situation would extend even to Catholic schools, which would otherwise lose their accreditation.
How about teaching your very own children? You cannot refrain from warning your children about false ideas about sexuality and the implied practices. Would you not scream, if you see your children running out on the street, into the moving traffic and being run over? Would you not defy anyone who tries to stop you from rescuing your child, just because it is not politically correct, or because others choose to claim as their right to run out into the moving traffic without looking?
IV.
Catholics do believe that there is that deathly traffic out there; and much worse than this, because that kind of traffic only kills the body. In other words: we do indeed believe that there is a hell and we do believe that homosexual acts would lead you there.
We therefore have not only the right but the duty to warn people about the danger they are putting themselves in. It should be a matter of charity and care to do so, not an act of hatred or homophobia. It is in fact the very teaching of the Church that rejects persecution of people with a homosexual orientation. Let me quote from the Catechism again:
2358. The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359. Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
There are, by the way, many people with same-sex attraction trying to live in this way, with the help of support groups like “Courage”, to whom I am actually one of the chaplains. We might also want to think, what we would be saying to people who are making this effort, if we were to advocate gay marriage: are we telling them that they are actually fools for trying to live according to the Gospel?
We certainly do not want to do that, as little as we want to discriminate people for their sexual orientation. But notice that the Church can say this without therefore implying a “right to marriage”, which is by its nature impossible. Much of what gay people are seeking can already be taken care of by civil union as it is. Any step beyond this would make claims on the rights of other parties involved, not the least those of children.
In other words, we are not here to take away any genuine rights or to insult anyone. But we are here to defend our own rights:
1) the right to disagree, i.e. the right to believe otherwise and to say so;
2) the right to defend the salvation of our own souls through conscientious objection;
3) the right to warn those entrusted to us, the faithful in the Church and the children at home or in our schools, through the exercise of free speech;
4) and last, but by no means least, the right to be concerned for our brothers and sisters with same sex-attraction, who are endangering themselves, and whom we want to warn, so that they can be with us one day with God in heaven.
Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney
Fr. Anselm is a Dominican Priest and Professor of Philosophy at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology here in the Bay Area.
Homily on feast of St. Leo the Great
I.
As you are perfectly aware, the success of Prop. 8 caused a lot of rebellion in this city; yesterday a group was demonstrating in front of the Cathedral, shouting obscenities, today there are demonstrations in various parts of California. Opponents still claim that “gay marriage” is a matter of rights, and they try to override Proposition 8 again, against the majority vote.
Since you will not get the Catholic position from the San Francisco Chronicle (at most they will give you a report on Catholic dissent), let me try to say something tonight (St. Leo the Great would certainly approve of this message).
II.
The first thing is to let you know as Catholics about the teaching of the Church. Her perpetual teaching regarding homosexuality has not changed and indeed cannot and will not change. To give you one clear statement, I am quoting n. 2357 of the CCC:
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
The Catechism gives several scripture references; I will only quote the passage from the first chapter of Romans to you, which relates this topic to the idolatry of pagan Rome, i.e. to a darkened sense of who God is (be prepared for some strong language; this is the word of God, though, and we need to hear it):
20 Ever since the creation of the world, his (God’s) invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse; 21 for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. 22 While claiming to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes. 24 Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, 27 and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper.
What does this mean? It means that sexuality cannot be divorced from our view of God. As John Paul II has explained in his theology of the body, the family and the sexual complementarity of man and woman are an image of the Trinity itself. When God says: let us make man in our image and likeness and: male and female he made them, then we are invited to see divine and sacred things in sexual relations. In the New Testament, marriage can therefore be elevated to a sacrament, reflecting the fertile relationship between Christ and his bride the Church; the Eucharist itself is the marriage banquet that celebrates our salvation.
By contrast, if we follow St. Paul’s thought, then he is saying that homosexual relationships do not express this, but that they are rather proclaiming a totally different god, demon or idol.
While this is the understanding of the Catholic faith, it is not a matter of mere faith that we would impose on other people, but something that also follows from pure reason and the natural law: “gay marriage” in so far as it claims to be marriage, is about sexual acts. I.e., it is not about the love of friendship. That kind of love, the love of friendship, can, of course, exist in all sorts of relationships. Nobody denies that this will be a genuine good, but it is not marriage. The love of marriage on the other hand is of a different kind in that it integrates these aspects into a sexual relationship. It forms a bond of a very different kind than that between friends, or parents and children, or grandparents, or caretakers and those entrusted to them.
Sexual acts by their nature are designed to produce offspring. Homosexual acts cannot do that, even though they are using the organs of procreation. In other words, it is an improper use of these organs. It can certainly never represent their normal function and intended situation. This is obvious for anyone who believes that this world and our bodies and their organs were created purposefully by an intelligent and loving God.
But it is even obvious to those who deny this, i.e. those who say that everything is the outcome of random mutation and natural selection; even Darwinists would agree that sexual organs are made for procreation.
Now the state has neither right nor duty nor interest to be involved in marriage, except because marriage is the place where future generations and citizens originate. In other words: the state is involved in marriage, because marriage is procreative. “Gay marriage” by its nature does not do that; it therefore has no more claim to special political recognition than any other kind of partnership, as for example grandparents living with their grandchildren or caretakers – for these there is no marriage either, even though they might feel love and affection for each other as well.
III.
Now I am perfectly aware that there is a growing number of countries in this world, in which I would be thrown into jail for saying this, i.e. for preaching the faith of the Church. Go and try saying this, for example, in Sweden, Canada or Colombia. Without Proposition 8, this might become an issue in California as well. Broadcasting licenses for Catholic radio stations, for example, would be revoked, if they would present this Catholic position. Also, conscientious objection to hosting gay events or marriages or renting space for such occasions, or even declining to be professional photographers at these events will be impossible. Already now courts have fined photographers and others for their conscientious objection.
What that means is: Proposition 8 is not about the rights of gay people, but about our rights of free speech and conscientious objection.
Teachers at public schools, for example, do already have to teach children about the equality of gay relationships (Senate Bill 777). But surely no Catholic teacher can comply with this; rather, today’s Gospel would speak to this situation:
“Things that cause sin will inevitably occur,but woe to the one through whom they occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neckand he be thrown into the seathan for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. Be on your guard!"
Without Proposition 8, this situation would extend even to Catholic schools, which would otherwise lose their accreditation.
How about teaching your very own children? You cannot refrain from warning your children about false ideas about sexuality and the implied practices. Would you not scream, if you see your children running out on the street, into the moving traffic and being run over? Would you not defy anyone who tries to stop you from rescuing your child, just because it is not politically correct, or because others choose to claim as their right to run out into the moving traffic without looking?
IV.
Catholics do believe that there is that deathly traffic out there; and much worse than this, because that kind of traffic only kills the body. In other words: we do indeed believe that there is a hell and we do believe that homosexual acts would lead you there.
We therefore have not only the right but the duty to warn people about the danger they are putting themselves in. It should be a matter of charity and care to do so, not an act of hatred or homophobia. It is in fact the very teaching of the Church that rejects persecution of people with a homosexual orientation. Let me quote from the Catechism again:
2358. The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359. Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
There are, by the way, many people with same-sex attraction trying to live in this way, with the help of support groups like “Courage”, to whom I am actually one of the chaplains. We might also want to think, what we would be saying to people who are making this effort, if we were to advocate gay marriage: are we telling them that they are actually fools for trying to live according to the Gospel?
We certainly do not want to do that, as little as we want to discriminate people for their sexual orientation. But notice that the Church can say this without therefore implying a “right to marriage”, which is by its nature impossible. Much of what gay people are seeking can already be taken care of by civil union as it is. Any step beyond this would make claims on the rights of other parties involved, not the least those of children.
In other words, we are not here to take away any genuine rights or to insult anyone. But we are here to defend our own rights:
1) the right to disagree, i.e. the right to believe otherwise and to say so;
2) the right to defend the salvation of our own souls through conscientious objection;
3) the right to warn those entrusted to us, the faithful in the Church and the children at home or in our schools, through the exercise of free speech;
4) and last, but by no means least, the right to be concerned for our brothers and sisters with same sex-attraction, who are endangering themselves, and whom we want to warn, so that they can be with us one day with God in heaven.
Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
