Benedict in Nazareth (Update)
Before thirty thousand the Pope celebrated Mass today in Nazareth. Here is part of his homily:
Dear friends, in the Opening Prayer of today’s Mass we asked the Father to “help us to live as the Holy Family, united in respect and love”. Let us reaffirm here our commitment to be a leaven of respect and love in the world around us. This Mount of the Precipice reminds us, as it has generations of pilgrims, that our Lord’s message was at times a source of contradiction and conflict with his hearers. Sadly, as the world knows, Nazareth has experienced tensions in recent years which have harmed relations between its Christian and Muslim communities. I urge people of good will in both communities to repair the damage that has been done, and in fidelity to our common belief in one God, the Father of the human family, to work to build bridges and find the way to a peaceful coexistence. Let everyone reject the destructive power of hatred and prejudice, which kills men’s souls before it kills their bodies!
More from the finely-named Rachel Donadio in today’s Times.
Update:
Pope Benedict prayed Vespers in the Basilica of Nazareth with his fellows Catholics, both Arab and Hebrew speaking. In his homily he reflected on the Mystery which Mary’s fiat made possible:
The Spirit who “came upon Mary” (cf. Lk 1:35) is the same Spirit who hovered over the waters at the dawn of Creation (cf. Gen 1:2). We are reminded that the Incarnation was a new creative act. When our Lord Jesus Christ was conceived in Mary’s virginal womb through the power of the Holy Spirit, God united himself with our created humanity, entering into a permanent new relationship with us and ushering in a new Creation. The narrative of the Annunciation illustrates God’s extraordinary courtesy (cf. Mother Julian of Norwich, Revelations 77-79). He does not impose himself, he does not simply pre-determine the part that Mary will play in his plan for our salvation: he first seeks her consent. In the original Creation there was clearly no question of God seeking the consent of his creatures, but in this new Creation he does so. Mary stands in the place of all humanity. She speaks for us all when she responds to the angel’s invitation. Saint Bernard describes how the whole court of heaven was waiting with eager anticipation for her word of consent that consummated the nuptial union between God and humanity. The attention of all the choirs of angels was riveted on this spot, where a dialogue took place that would launch a new and definitive chapter in world history. Mary said, “Let it be done to me according to your word.” And the Word of God became flesh.
When we reflect on this joyful mystery, it gives us hope, the sure hope that God will continue to reach into our history, to act with creative power so as to achieve goals which by human reckoning seem impossible. It challenges us to open ourselves to the transforming action of the Creator Spirit who makes us new, makes us one with him, and fills us with his life. It invites us, with exquisite courtesy, to consent to his dwelling within us, to welcome the Word of God into our hearts, enabling us to respond to him in love and to reach out in love towards one another.
Fr. Imbelli –
It struck me thinking about this text and the others from Benedict’s sermons that his messages are much like Martin Luther King’s, and that taken out of context they could be taken as mere truisms. But when I think of King in the midst of the civil rights era and how his words were new to many, many people, and not just Christians, I realize that the Pope’s message might be electrifying if you haven’t heard it or thought about it before.
I wonder how new the teachings of Vatican II are to the Middle Easterners and, I I wonder how his message is being received there, not just by the Christians but by the others. Is his message really new there? Certainly the rights of all religions to exist was not taught to Christians even 100 years ago, nor were we all taught to respect them.
Thinking of MLK, I also pray for benedict’s safety. He is a very brave man.
Ann,
Thank you for your generous sentiment. I also admire Benedict’s bravery … and his patient endurance: the New Testament “hypomone.”
please forgive me robert and ann. as a mere laymen who has not been trained as you have, i struggle to understand benedict’s words. based on your comments. i assume he is trying to reach across the religious divide to members of other faiths. the commonweal brand is tightly defined [both good and bad from a branding standpoint]. like C’weal’s brother and sister brands, First Things and America, its scope can be best described as limited to “preaching to the choir.” the wider world needs to hear you, but they will listen only if you present yourselves in a way that joe the christian [me] can understand. god bless.
Michael Gonyea does check into dotCommonweal, and in doing so in recent days has made some very to the heart of the matter observations. Is there a possibility, and I certainly include myself, that the conversation is in the end among a fairly narrow circle? I have for some time noted that there are twenty-one contributors listed as presenters to the site. But in practice several are never heard from and quite a few others, rarely. And yet, I am extremely grateful to those, such as Father Imbelli, who keep the excellent conversation going. All the more, because I know that they have fuller than full lives beyond this site. I am very much in their debt.
John,
You are always gracious in your comments. I share (and have shared with the editors) your concern about the small number of fairly regular contributors to the site.
Michael,
I know we are continually challenged to communicate as directly as we can … and that is a challenge for all of us.
I have an observation and a question. The Pope’s words on this occasion were during a Vespers service and were addressed primarily to his fellow Catholics, not to members of other faiths.
But, here is my question: do you find the following words unintelligible to any believing Muslims of Jews who might read them or hear them?
“It challenges us to open ourselves to the transforming action of the Creator Spirit who makes us new, makes us one with him, and fills us with his life. It invites us, with exquisite courtesy, to consent to his dwelling within us, to welcome the Word of God into our hearts, enabling us to respond to him in love and to reach out in love towards one another.”
Father,
An observation first, then a question in answer to yours:
When the Pope’s comments in a Vespers service appear on dot.Commonweal they are no longer addressed just to his fellow Catholics.
If the “Creator Spirit” who is present in all men “invites us with exquisite courtesy, to consent to his dwelling within us, to welcome the Word of God into our hearts, enabling us to respond to him in love and to reach out in love to one another”, why do so few people respond to this invitation?
While this is a question for every person to reconcile for himself, it is also a question for the Church.
With the understanding that this comment is ridiculously long and likely to confound your server, I’m posting it anyway.
How to end the fighting over the one true God: A pragmatist’s perspective.
As members of monotheistic religions, Christians and Muslims share the belief that there is one God. They even agree that He is the God of Abraham. But because He chose to reveal himself to them through different texts written by different authors at different times, Christianity’s concept of the one God and Islam’s concept of the one God are far from one-and-the-same.
The Holy Spirit inspired them, but men wrote the Bible. Most Christians believe that to be fully understood the Bible needs to be interpreted. Debate among Christians over what in the Bible is literally true and what is metaphorically or allegorically true continues to this day. God wrote the Qur’an. It contains His perfect word as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad through the Archangel Gabriel. It is not necessary to read between the lines to understand the Qur’an. It is, word-for-word, literally true.
Christians believe God is actively present within man. He is involved in human lives. Muslims believe that God is so great as to be absolutely transcendent. An absolutely transcendent God does not interact with man. Because they share a belief in the same one God, and the belief that only through the one God can man attain salvation, Christians and Muslims have been fighting over who possesses the truth about the one God since the time of Muhammad.
Religious leaders are duty bound to defend the dogmas of their respective faiths as absolute truths. In the case of Christianity, the Bible has been reasoned-through to the point that the Church has a bulletproof defense for each of its infallible dogmas. Many have tried, using both the social and natural sciences, but no one has been able to unequivocally disprove a single one. In the case of Islam, the Qur’an is God’s word-for-word transcendent truth. The one true God is Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet. To question the perfect word of God as recorded in the Qur’an constitutes blasphemy.
Until 1965, the Roman Catholic Church took the position that all non-Catholics, including fellow Christians, went to hell. The Second Vatican Council, by declaring that other religions “often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men”, opened the door for the first time to the possibility that Christ’s Truth could be present even in religions that do not believe Jesus is Christ. However, it continues to hold that when a non-Catholic leads a life worthy of salvation, he does so only because he has been enlightened by Christ [whether he knows it was Christ doing the enlightening or not]. The only path to salvation is through the one true Church of Christ.
Progressive Catholic scholars, encouraged that Vatican II had finally opened the door to salvation for non-Catholics but concerned that the Church’s insistence it was in exclusive possession of the path to salvation hindered interfaith relations, began to question the assumptions upon which that claim was based. Pointing to several New Testament passages, they argued that God would reveal himself fully to man only at the end of time. Without saying that salvation can come through channels other than Christ, they suggested that Christ’s Truth might be operative in other religions outside the Christian understanding of it.
In 2000, the Prefect of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, responded to the reformers with a stern rebuke. His Dominus Jesus [issued under the signature of John Paul II] decreed that the Roman Catholic Church is the one true Church. Other Christian churches “suffer from certain defects” and are “not church’s in the proper sense”, and members of non-Christian religions are “in a gravely deficient situation”. To clear up lingering uncertainty, in 2007 Pope Benedict issued a letter that confirmed the points made in Dominus Jesus, most notably that in the one true Church “alone are found all the elements that Christ himself instituted” for salvation.
Some reformers, in their attempts to develop an argument as to how Christ’s Truth might be operative in other faiths, quickly ran afoul of Church dogma. But others, such as Father [first name?] Dupuis developed compelling arguments that did not. Dupuis argued that just as the one Trinity is comprised of three distinct but equal beings, Jesus had both a divine nature and a human nature. While the role of the human Christ was to teach man the Truth of God, and to make the ultimate sacrifice to save all men from sin, the divine Christ was, and is, operative in other religions in ways that remain a mystery to man. Therefore even those who reject Christ’s human teachings can still be enlightened by His divine Truth. The implications of this argument are potentially far reaching, but if true, it would certainly mean that religions other than the one true Church of Christ offer equally valid paths to salvation.
Religious leaders, who at least in theory could help overcome the deep mistrust that divides Christians and Muslims, have only have mostly exacerbated the problem. Not surprisingly, given that each religion claims exclusive possession of the truth about the one God and with it the one path to salvation, attempts at interfaith dialogue between the leaders of Christianity and Islam have not born fruit.
Pope Benedict’s much-heralded Catholic-Muslim forum, held at the Vatican in November 2008, was no exception. It yielded little more than feel good truisms and the expected condemnation of terrorism – something both religions had previously done on numerous occasions. It produced no agreement on tangible actions to be taken to confront religious fanaticism.
As the world’s single most influential religious leader, the onus is on Benedict to lead. If he were to tactfully set the stage for productive dialogue in advance of the next Catholic-Muslim forum [scheduled for early 2010], it is possible he could put all religions [and their adherents] on separate but parallel paths that would allow for peaceful coexistence.
Benedict need only pose a few questions that, without compromising their respective dogmas, the highly esteemed participants in the forum need to answer to pave the way for productive dialogue.
Does God, the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful one who will judge all men have the ability to save any man of any faith [or no faith at all]? Would a just God condemn a good person to hell simply for choosing [or being born into] the wrong religion? Is God’s Truth present in some form in all religions? If no single religion can claim salvific exclusivity, does it not follow that no religion has any basis for imposing its beliefs on the others – either by stifling the right of an individual to freely practice the religion of his choice, or by committing violent acts against non-believers in His name?
It is conceivable Benedict’s legacy could be that of the 21st century pope who built historic bridges between cultures. Unfortunately his orthodoxy and his inability to communicate effectively have so far combined to prevent him from doing so. He can begin to build those bridges simply by considering beforehand the impact his words and actions will have on members of other faiths, and by being prepared in advance to explain them in a positive and respectful way. He need not waffle on dogma. In fact he need not say anything new, he need only say it better than he has said it so far.
If God should see fit to give him a nudge in that direction, reasonable people everywhere would no doubt be grateful. Amen.
Michael,
when you write: “Until 1965, the Roman Catholic Church took the position that all non-Catholics, including fellow Christians, went to hell.” This is not true.
As for the rest of your comments, the qualifications needed to be expressed would far exceed the capacity of a thread.
I am no less qualified than anyone who who would express a sincere desire for interfaith reconciliation. The thread will continue, I suspect.