Spe salvi (2)
The First Letter of Peter counsels, in a well-known verse, “Always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in you” (3:15). And that hope is new life through Jesus Christ — now and in eternity.
Pope Benedict’s Australian pilgrimage continues in unusually balmy weather. In season and out of season, the Pope proclaims the good news of Jesus Christ, the source and foundation of Christian hope.
In his meeting with leaders of Christian communities he said:
Every element of the Church’s structure is important, yet all of them would falter and crumble without the cornerstone who is Christ. As “fellow citizens” of the “household of God”, Christians must work together to ensure that the edifice stands strong so that others will be attracted to enter and discover the abundant treasures of grace within. As we promote Christian values, we must not neglect to proclaim their source by giving a common witness to Jesus Christ the Lord. It is he who commissioned the apostles, he whom the prophets preached, and he whom we offer to the world.
Dear friends, your presence fills me with the ardent hope that as we pursue together the path to full unity, we will have the courage to give common witness to Christ. Paul speaks of the importance of the prophets in the early Church; we too have received a prophetic calling through our baptism. I am confident that the Spirit will open our eyes to see the gifts of others, our hearts to receive his power, and our minds to perceive the light of Christ’s truth. I express heartfelt thanks to all of you for the time, scholarship and talent which you have invested for the sake of the “one body and one spirit” (Eph 4:4; cf. 1 Cor 12:13) which the Lord willed for his people and for which he gave his very life. All glory and power be to him for ever and ever. Amen!
And to representatives of other religious traditions he reflected upon both commonalities and distinctiveness:
The world’s religions draw constant attention to the wonder of human existence. Who can help but marvel at the power of the mind to grasp the secrets of nature through scientific discovery? Who is not stirred by the possibility of forming a vision for the future? Who is not impressed by the power of the human spirit to set goals and to develop ways of achieving them? Men and women are endowed with the ability not only to imagine how things might be better, but to invest their energies to make them better. We are conscious of our unique relationship to the natural realm. If, then, we believe that we are not subject to the laws of the material universe in the same way as the rest of creation, should we not make goodness, compassion, freedom, solidarity, and respect for every individual an essential part of our vision for a more humane future?
Yet religion, by reminding us of human finitude and weakness, also enjoins us not to place our ultimate hope in this passing world. Man is “like a breath, his days are like a passing shadow” (Ps 144:4). All of us have experienced the disappointment of falling short of the good we wish to accomplish and the difficulty of making the right choice in complex situations.
The Church shares these observations with other religions. Motivated by charity, she approaches dialogue believing that the true source of freedom is found in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Christians believe it is he who fully discloses the human potential for virtue and goodness, and he who liberates us from sin and darkness. The universality of human experience, which transcends all geographical boundaries and cultural limitations, makes it possible for followers of religions to engage in dialogue so as to grapple with the mystery of life’s joys and sufferings. In this regard, the Church eagerly seeks opportunities to listen to the spiritual experience of other religions. We could say that all religions aim to penetrate the profound meaning of human existence by linking it to an origin or principle outside itself. Religions offer an attempt to understand the cosmos as coming from and returning to this origin or principle. Christians believe that God has revealed this origin and principle in Jesus, whom the Bible refers to as the “Alpha and Omega” (cf. Rev 1:8; 22:1).
I’m not sure about beer and the beatific vision (see Spes Salvi 1), but i am concerned about the Pope’s words being drowned out or even heard in the aftermath of the day’s news.
Thus his address to WYD didn’t make the world news I saw or the daily paper here.
Gore gort big play and, the usual partisan discussion by Washington pols and talking heads followed.
Today the Pope took up terrorism -see Africa Reuters report from Sydney.
Today, Barak Obama leaves for his trip and who’s better at terrorism is already ringing around the campaign circuit.
Listen to Michael Sheehan’s analysis at NPR’s Morning Edition today and you’ll see there’s little difference between McCain and Obbama except political talking points.
But I’ll lay a few quid that will drown out Benedict’s message on the news.
I also note BXVI says the Church can learn from other faiths.Part of the problem when his message on major world issues gets out is their value is diminished among his own followers: on the left, by those who see the principles he espouses for justice not carried out by him in his own institution; on the right, by those who love his traditionalism but take a muted view of his social pronciples because of their own politico/ideological preconceptions.
So, I think the question is how (in the current environment) do we get his words the hearing they deserve?
“the Church eagerly seeks opportunities to listen to the spiritual experience of other religions.” (Benedict)
It’s often said that people flocked to John Paul II to see him, but they flock to Benedict to hear him. Why the attraction to what he says? I think it’s because he is so splendid at getting to the foundations of our beliefs. So what? you ask.
So: because it is extremely difficult to get clearly into foundations. Why? Because, I think, foundations are very simple, and it takes intelligence such as Benedict’s to get at abstractions very easily. Abstractions? What do they have to do with foundations? you sneer? Abstractions yield very little truth, so they’re *boring*! (Well, no not always.) Americans, super-sensate as we are, especially seem to hate them, though in my experience as a philosophy teacher, I found that most people don’t really know just what they are and why they’re valuable.
Herein follows a plea for abstractions, with an application to Benedict.
Abstraction is essentially a process of finding simplicities in a complex mass of data. How? By a mental process of leaving out differences in the data. Among other things, geniuses are those who can find those simplicities easily and express them clearly. Though the differences are left out, the simples are often our most important insights, e.g., the meaning of “love”. (And, yes, abstractions are insights.) Just as we need the genius who realized what a circle is and then invented the wheel, so we need abstractions for spiritual understanding, especially the foundational truths that bind our spiritual lives together.
Consider this statement of Benedict’s in the quotation above: “the Church eagerly seeks opportunities to listen to the spiritual experience of other religions.”
Quite abstract, quite simple. But ISTM it provides a basis (foundation) for eliminating some of the rancor between the RCC and other religions. Note that Benedict’s point is that it is *listening to the spiritual experience* of members of other religions that is valuable, the spiritual experiences of the individuals of other faiths. This suggests that the *structural* parts of other religions are not what can unite us. Indeed, given the rejection of the papacy by Protestants, not to mention other religions, our structures are incompatible. Rather, it’s the insight of *individuals* of other religions which can be incorporated into Church teachings without fear of distorting the structural parts of the Church or the foundational teachings themselves. Yes, this point is an ontological one, concerned with the simplest metaphysical parts of the Church (i.e., individuals and the relations (structural parts) among them).
It seems to me that Benedict’s highly abstract thinking here, his simple, foundational thinking, can help mend the rifts amongst us. It recognizes the value of what individuals alone can know, which after all is one of the main values cherished by Protestants.
(Sorry this is so long. If I were better at abstraction I could make it simpler.)
Ann,
I do not think B16 would accept your contrast of “spiritual experiences” with “religious structures”. Religious structures are a part of spiritual experience for someone who is at the top of a divinely ordained hierarchical structure. (he believes that, whther anyone else agrees or not.)
Dut the idea you find here is basic to B16, I believe. It also appeared in last years Doctrinal Note on Evangelization from the CDF:
“Beyond its intrinsic anthropological value, every encounter with another person or culture is capable of revealing potentialities of the Gospel which hitherto may not have been fully explicit and which will enrich the life of Christians and the Church.”
All this unity above the structures talk is lovely but falls apart in his admonition to Anglicans not to split over their internal conflicts over women bishops and homosexuality. Is not the practice of excommunication and interdict divisive? The only difference between Catholics and Anglicans is that excommunication and interdict just chips away at the Church one individual at a time. Who cares if a few rebellious women separate themselves? Whether or not is is a slow chipping away of individuals or a massive chunk it is still division.
It is the slow chip chipping away that will be the undoing of the Church as more and more disaffected Catholics drift away into other religions or secularism. Someone needs to take the beam out of his own eye before telling another to do so.
My last post on this as BXVI heads back to Rome Monday.
I kept waiting for my Sunday papers to see how they dealt with WYD and the Pope in Australia,.
The Sunday Times? Zilch!
My local (Santa Fe) paper – the Pope’s apology and victim group’s reaction that they want “actions, not words.”
At least my server’s news carried Benedicyt’s warning today against greed and materialism -wonder how that would really play here.
Since not much of the general populace watches Whispers on line, I don’t see much of BXVI’s message getting lots of play and what does mainly revolves around the sex abuse crisis.
If that’s a fair view of the way media frames his trip, we here didn’t get much as we merrily roll along in our partisan bickering, talking point divide world.