Category: Vatican Files

The New Evangelization is the buzzword for much of what happens at the Vatican. It could well become the catchword of Ratzinger’s entire pontificate given the attention that is receiving. Benedict XVI instituted a new Pontifical Council in 2010 entirely dedicated to the New Evangelization. The latter is mentioned in nearly all his speeches and is slowly but steadily becoming the overarching theme of many projects sponsored by the Vatican.

            The President of the newly created Vatican department, Msgr. Rino Fisichella, has just published a book (La nuova evangelizzazione, Milano: Mondadori, 2011) where he spells out the significance of the New Evangelization and offers an interesting perspective on the direction that this initiative is going to take. Fisichella was professor of Fundamental Theology (i.e. the RC way of defining a discipline between Apologetics and Systematic Theology) for many years and then Rector of the Lateran Pontifical University, one of the major and most prestigious academic institutions in Rome. After spending much of his life reflecting on the often turbulent relationship between faith and the modern world, Benedict XVI called him to lead the Vatican efforts towards mobilizing the RC Church towards the New Evangelization. From the chair to the square, so to speak.

1. What the New Evangelization is About

Fisichella makes clear that the New Evangelization applies to those countries where the RC Church was established in ancient times and where the first proclamation of the Gospel resounded many centuries ago. He acknowledges the fact that the word “evangelization” and the vocabulary around it has been treated with suspicion in RC circles due to its “protestant” usage and overtones. Mission and catechesis were more traditional and preferred terms for a long time. It is only after Vatican II that the language of evangelization began to be used.

            The expression “New Evangelization” was coined by John Paul II in 1979 and subsequently achieved a technical theological meaning. Its specificity has to do with its recipients, i.e. the masses that have been baptized in the RC Church but have “lost a living sense of their faith”. The goal of the New Evangelization is to call them back to the mother church.

2. Why the New Evangelization is Needed

Fisichella embarks on the attempt of analyzing what has caused such a transition to practical unbelief. The root of the Western crisis is the transformation of the process of secularization in a strong movement towards secularism. The former is a sociological process which reflects pluralism, the latter is a new dogmatic religion which is anti-Christian. This new stance forgets the rich “synthesis between Greek-Roman thought and Christianity” and replaces it with an ideology of religious indifference and relativism. In a telling comment, Fisichella argues that “the pathology that afflicts the world today is cultural” and is to be entirely attributed to secularism.

            This is a standard reading of Western cultural trends from a traditional point of view. What is striking in Fisichella’s otherwise nuanced reconstruction is the lack of self-criticism as far as the RC Church is concerned. It seems that the charge of the present-day crisis lies in secularism only, whereas churches seem to bear no responsibility. Even when he deplores the profound ignorance that most people show as far as the tenets of the Christian faith is concerned, he skips over the rather obvious point about who is to blame (at least partially but truly) for it. Are we sure that European churches do not bear any responsibility in today’s spiritual and cultural crisis, especially when they claim to have 70%, 80%, 90% of baptized in most countries? Isn’t there something wrong in their theology of Christian initiation? Isn’t there a problem in their catechetical impact? Isn’t there something awkward in their witness to the Gospel? In the end, are churches blameless in the Western spiritual turmoil? For Fisichella, the issue is not even mentioned.

3. New Evangelization … New Humanism

The New Evangelization is needed because the West has turned away from its Christian roots and it is time to reverse the tide. According to Fisichella, the battle ground is cultural, the issue at stake is anthropological, the task before the Church is to promote a New Humanism, i.e. a more advanced synthesis between Christian values and the Greek-Roman heritage through the rediscovery of the virtue of coherence on the part of Christians. The New Evangelization will be a means to achieve this ambitious goal, a goal that Benedict XVI wholly embraces and proactively spearheads.

So far, the narrative of the New Evangelization does not contain crucial biblical words like repentance from past and present mistakes, confession of sin, conversion to Jesus Christ. If the New Evangelization is to bear its fruit there is no other way than the biblical one.

 

Leonardo De Chirico

leonardo.dechirico@ifeditalia.org

 

Rome, 7^th February 2012

The life of a reigning Pope is punctuated by several speeches to deliver on all kinds of occasions. Yet not all speeches have the same weight. Some are more important than others for a variety of reasons, including biographical ones. The speech that Benedict XVI addressed to the Plenary meeting of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on January 27^th belongs to a special type of event.

Founded as the Inquisition to fight against heresies and errors both inside and outside the Church, this institution was subsequently given the task to help the Pope to “strengthen the brothers” according to Luke 22:32, that is promoting RC orthodoxy and taking action against deviations from it.

In his long career at the service of the RC Church, Ratzinger was Prefect of the same Congregation from 1981 to his election to the papal office in 2005. For during the time throughout John Paul II’s reign, he has acted as the chief “enforcer” of the faith, as summarized by his biographer John L. Allen. So, this address to the members of the Congregation that he had lead for nearly 25 years was no ordinary task. For he knows very well both the structure, the people, and the issues that the Congregation is dealing with.

            The theme of this year’s Plenary meeting was ecumenism so Benedict XVI touched on some of the current ecumenical challenges for the RC Church.

1. What ecumenism is not

Before entering the analysis of present-day trends, Ratzinger says that the RC involvement in ecumenical affairs is to be “coherent” with regard to Vatican II and the “entire Tradition” of the Church. Ecumenism stems from what the RC Church believes in its dogmatic outlook, for it has no other theological framework than the traditional teachings. In light of this remark, the Pope argues that present-day ecumenism runs into two potential pitfalls: “false irenicism” and  “indifferentism”. The former lowers the contentious points for the sake of peace but at the expense of truth; the latter downplays truth and faith and elevates other criteria as primary driving reference points for unity.

The outcome of both “false irenicism” and “indifferentism” is that ecumenism becomes the attempt to draft a “social contract” whereby the parties involved negotiate patterns of relationship and common action. If this is the case, ecumenism deviates into a “praxis-ology”, i.e. a discourse exclusively revolved on practices aimed at creating a better world.

Although this is not the language of the Pope, one can say that unity runs the risk of becoming an idol, an absolute, a self-referential project that makes unity a means to its own ends. There is a tendency in ecumenical circles to become so passionate about unity to the point of forgetting that unity is not an isolated item in God’s plan for the church and the cosmos. Biblical unity is always qualified by truth even though it may lead to recognize lasting fundamental differences with other people. Here Ratzinger does not talk about Biblical unity. The unity he envisages is a kind of unity which is coherent with RC tradition which he defines as “the Divine truth that speaks to us through the Word of God”. In RC theology the Word of God is a very elastic and dynamic category including the written Bible, oral traditions, the magisterial teachings, and the living tradition of the Church. The Word of God is much more than Scripture alone. For Ratzinger, RC ecumenism is called to be coherent to the whole of this Biblical and extra-Biblical tradition.

The basic reference points between Evangelical and Roman Catholic views of unity are different, yet they find a convergence in being serious about questioning an ecumenism of “being nice” to one another and of “transforming the world together” (my expressions, not Ratzinger’s).

2. The Real, Central Issue

Beside expressing concerns about possible ecumenical pitfalls, Benedict XVI does not shy away from indicating what is the real issue in ecumenism today. Here it is important to be note that he is speaking to a Vatican institution whose task is to offer a theological service to the Church. So he is concentrating on the theological foundation of unity.

            “The crucial problem is the structure of Revelation – the relationship between Sacred Scripture, the living Tradition in the Holy Church and the Ministry of the Apostles’ successors as a witness to the true faith”. In a nutshell, the Pope provides a summary of the real ecumenical issue according to Roman Catholicism. It is the complex nexus between Revelation, Scripture, Tradition and the Church.

Revelation has its own “internal structure” which RC ecumenism should give voice to and preserve. Benedict summarizes it in a question form: “How does the truth of God come to us?”. The answer to this question contains the crux of ecumenism. The exegesis of this question should be the starting point and the guiding principle of any meaningful ecumenical dialogue. The issue is therefore ecclesiological, but it is much more than that. It goes directly to the heart of the RC vision touching on various fundamental doctrines all intertwined and organically connected.

            In some ecumenical circles, e.g. the Evangelicals and Catholics Together initiative, it is common to find people saying that Evangelicals and Catholics basically agree on the Triune God, Revelation, Salvation, and the moral Christian vision. What still divides them is the doctrine of the church. The tendency is to separate theologically the doctrines at stake as if they were unconnected pieces of a jig-saw. Here the Pope is saying something totally different. He is saying that ecclesiology depends on and is nurtured by a much wider theological vision. Ecclesiology is a reflection of Revelation which in turn is enacted in Scripture, in Tradition, and in the ministry of the Church. So ecclesiological differences are not merely ecclesiological but belong to the basic structure of the respective faiths.

            Interestingly, Ratzinger approvingly gives an example of a well pursued ecumenical dialogue according to RC principles. It is the recent provision for Anglo-Catholics who desire to be in full communion with the RC Church. There the “crucial problem” has been solved. Does he mean that other dialogues are intended to be stepping stones toward the same end?

Leonardo De Chirico

leonardo.dechirico@ifeditalia.org

Rome, 28^th January 2012

At the beginning of the new year, following the celebrations of Christmas and the Epiphany, the Pope meets the diplomatic body accredited to the Vatican and offers ambassadors from various countries his wishes for the new year as well as sketching a global road map that shows what is at stake in the world as far as the Vatican is concerned.

Not including its diplomatic relationships with international organizations, the Vatican has official relations with some 179 countries, second in number only to the United States of America. In 2011, agreements were reached with Malaysia and Azerbaijan, whereas those with Mozambique and Montenegro are still to be ratified. China and Saudi Arabia are the two major countries which still do not have diplomatic relations with the Vatican.

This is normal for a state entity. What is unique is the status of the Vatican, which combines both religious and political dimensions. Before turning to the Pope’s speech it is perhaps useful to put it in its institutional context.

1. Both Church and State

The Roman Catholic Church is the only church which is organically related to a sovereign state (i.e. the Vatican) with its own political, financial, juridical and diplomatic structure. It the only ecclesial body which deals with other states through the Vatican at a peer-level. When it signs agreements with a state in the form of a concordat, for instance, it does so according to the rules of international law as a sovereign country vis-à-vis another sovereign country. The Pope is both head of the church and head of state. When he visits a nation he is welcomed as if he were a king, not simply as archbishop or another ecclesiastical figure.

Though small and symbolic, the Church also has an army, like any other state. It cleverly plays with its double identity (ecclesial and political) which is the fruit of its long and complex history, but also an indication of its composite institutional nature: both church and state in one. Theology and politics are so intertwined in the system of the Catholic Church and in its activities that it is impossible to separate them.

Many Evangelical traditions are based on the principle of the separation between church and state and find it difficult to understand a church which is also a state and vice versa. Even those Evangelical traditions which are accustomed to a covenant-type of relationship between church and state still operate according to the principle that, theologically and institutionally, church and state are two very different entities. Not so for the Vatican, which is both. This uniqueness must be grasped in order to deal with RC issues at all.

2. From the Economic Crisis to Religious Freedom … with some Blind Spots

The speech of Benedict XVI surveys the global scene and the challenges the world is facing.

First, the Pope gives attention to the “global economic and financial crisis”. The ones who are most affected are the young. They are particularly in distress in North Africa and the Middle East. In this region the Pope explicitly mentions Syria, the Holy Land, and Iraq. The international community has to engage them in dialogue and aiming at reconciliation knowing that “the path of peace is at the same time the path of the young”. Education, family, and openness to life (i.e. pro-life behaviors) are the roads towards development for the younger generation. Although the Pope says that the crisis calls for “new rules which ensure that all can lead a dignified life and develop their abilities for the benefit of the community as a whole”, no remark here is made about the devastating distortions of the global economy and human responsibility in them.

The second pillar of Pope Benedict’s speech is religious freedom, “the first of human rights, for it expresses the most fundamental reality of the person”. After paying tribute to the murdered Pakistani Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, the Pope speaks of Christians deprived of fundamental rights and sidelined in public life in too many places of the world. Religiously motivated terrorism has also reaped many victims, especially in Asia and in Africa. In other unnamed parts of the world (perhaps Europe and the West?), policies tend to marginalize the role of religion in society. No remark is made about China notwithstanding the fact that two RC bishops are in prison, perhaps out of diplomatic prudence towards a very delicate situation.

 

3. Italy as example?

In closing the speech, the Pope makes reference to the 150^th anniversary of the unity of Italy as a nation (1861-2011). In this respect, he hopes that “Italy will continue to foster a stable relationship between Church and State, and thus serve as an example to which other nations can look with respect and interest”. From an Italian and Evangelical perspective, it is at least curios that Italy should be taken as example of church-state relationships. While religious freedom is granted by the Italian Constitution, the RC Church has a uniquely privileged status which is far higher than other religious communities. This legal privilege gives rise to many economic, social, political, and media benefits which would be utterly unthinkable in many Western nations.

Does the Pope mean that the (totally unfair) privileges that the RC Church enjoy in Italy should be extended elsewhere and become a model for other countries? If this is what it appears to be, the opposite should be affirmed instead. Italy is still in need to learn what religious freedom means in an advanced sense, and one major obstacle to achieving this is exactly the Church-State settlement which the Pope advocates for in this speech.

The tone of the speech is at the same time both very “catholic” (i.e. global in scope) and very “roman” (i.e. attached to a very peculiar point of view).

 

 

Leonardo De Chirico

leonardo.dechirico@ifeditalia.org

 

Rome, 16^th January 2012