Discernment in the flow of life, not black or white

1873 words, 9 min read

On Friday morning, Pope Francis gave an interview to the Italian daily, L’Avvenire, in which he spoke at length about the Year of Mercy that concluded yesterday, about Christian unity and where he also addressed criticisms leveled at his last apostolic exhortation, Amoris Lætitia. Even though he does not name his critics, a letter published this week by four cardinals, who express “doubts” and ask for “clarification”, must have also been on Francis’ mind. What follows is my translation of parts of the interview, where I attempted to stay as close to the way Francis expresses himself in Italian, even at the expense of some of the phrases not sounding natively English (since they are not :).

Francis starts by speaking about what the Year of Mercy has meant for him:

“Those who discover that they are loved very much begin to exit a bad loneliness, a separation that brings one to hating others and oneself. I hope that many people have discovered that they are loved very much by Jesus and that they have let themselves be embraced by him. Mercy is the name of God and is also his weakness, his weak point. His mercy always leads him to forgiveness, to forgetting our sins. I like to think that the Almighty has bad memory. Once he forgives you, he forgets. Because he is happy to forgive. For me that is enough. Like with the adulterous woman of the Gospel, “whom He loved very much.” “Because He has loved very much.” The whole of Christianity is here.”

When Francis is then asked about whether his aims for the Year of Mercy had been achieved, his response shows a beautiful focus on discerning the will of God moment by moment:

“But I have not made a plan. I simply did what the Holy Spirit inspired me to do. Things just came along. I let myself be carried by the Spirit. It was only about being docile to the Holy Spirit, about letting Him act. The Church is the Gospel, it is the work of Jesus Christ. It is not journey of ideas, a tool for affirming them. And in the Church things come about when the time is ripe, when one offers oneself.”

In a response about the roots in the Year of Mercy being in the Second Vatican Council, Pope Francis then speaks about the nature of the Church:

“Experiencing in one’s own life the forgiveness that embraces the entire human family is the grace that the apostolic ministry announces. The Church exists only as a tool for communicating to people the merciful plan of God. At the Council the Church felt the responsibility of being in the world as a living sign of the love of the Father. With Lumen Gentium she ascended to the sources of her nature, to the Gospel. This moves the axis of the concept of Christianity from a certain legalism, which can be ideological, to the Person of God that has made itself mercy in the incarnation of the Son. Some - think of certain responses to Amoris Laetitia - continue to not understand, either white or black, even though it is in the flow of life that one ought to discern. The Council has told us this, historians, however, tell us that that a Council needs a century to become well absorbed by the body of the Church ... We are halfway.”

Ecumenism was also addressed in the interview, where Francis first spoke about the continuity between his efforts and those of his predecessors and of the Council, before turing to his relationship with the heads of other Christian churches:

“I live it with a lot of brotherhood. Brotherhood can be felt. There is Jesus in the midst. To me they are all brothers. We bless one another, one brother blesses another. When with Patriarch Bartholomew and Hieronymus we went to Lesbos in Greece to meet the refugees we felt as one. We were one. One. When I went to see Patriarch Bartholomew at the Phanar in Istanbul for the feast of St Andrew, for me it was a great joy. In Georgia I met Patriarch Ilia who had not gone to Crete for the Orthodox Council. The spiritual harmony that I had with him was profound. I felt that I was in front of a saint, a man of God took my hand, told me beautiful things, more with gestures than with words. The patriarchs are monks. You see behind a conversation that they are men of prayer. Kirill is a man of prayer. Also the Coptic Patriarch Tawadros, whom I have met, took off his shoes as he entered the chapel and went to pray. The Patriarch Daniel of Romania a year ago gave me a book in Spanish by St. Sylvester of Mount Athos, I have already read about the life of this great holy monk in Buenos Aires: “To pray for humanity is to shed one’s own blood.” The Saints unite us inside the Church, making her mystery current. With our Orthodox brothers we on a journey, we are brothers, we love each other, we care together, they come to study here and with us. Bartholomew also studied here.”

When asked whether the Bishop of Rome shouldn’t focus on the Catholic Church full-time instead of spending time with the heads of other Churches, Francis proceeded to spell out first principles:

“Jesus himself prayed to the Father to ask that those who are his may be one, so that the world may believe. It is his prayer to the Father. Since always, the Bishop of Rome has been called to be a custodian of, to seek and to serve this unity. We also know that the wounds of our divisions are destroying the body of Christ, we cannot heal them by ourselves. So, it is not possible to impose plans or systems to become one again. To ask for unity among Christians we can only look to Jesus and ask that the Holy Spirit works among us. That it may be him to make unity. In the meeting in Lund with the Lutherans I have repeated the words of Jesus when he says to his disciples: “Without me you can do nothing.””

Another criticism leveled by some at Pope Francis’ ecumenical efforts is that he wants to “protestantize” the Catholic Church, to which his response is very simple:

“I don’t loose sleep over it. I continue on the road of those who have preceded me, I follow the Council. As for opinions, we must always distinguish the spirit in which they are said. When there isn’t a bad spirit, they also help on the journey. In other cases it can be seen straightaway that criticism are made here and there to justify a previously adopted position, they are not honest, they are made with a bad spirit to stir up division. It can be seen immediately that certain rigorisms stem from a lack, from a wanting to hide one’s sad dissatisfaction inside an armor. If you watch the movie Babette’s Feast, this rigid behavior can be seen there.”

Next, Francis is asked whether his focus on working together with other Churches for those who are in need isn’t a putting to one side of theological question and he again goes straight to the core:

“This is not a setting aside of something. Serving the poor means to serve Christ, because the poor are the flesh of Christ. And if we serve the poor together, it means that we Christians find ourselves united in touching the wounds of Christ. Here I think of the work that Caritas and Lutheran charitable organizations can do together after the meeting in Lund. It is not an institution, it is a journey. Certain ways of opposing the “things of doctrine” with the “things of pastoral charity” instead are not according to the Gospel and create confusion.”

In response to a question about what he meant when he spoke about unity being made while walking together, Francis said:

“Unit is not made because we agree among ourselves, but because we walk following Jesus. And while walking, by the working of the One we follow, we can discover ourselves united. It is the walking behind Jesus that unites. To convert ourselves means to let the Lord live and work in us. Like that we find ourselves united in our common mission of proclaiming the Gospel. Walking and working together, we realize that we are already united in the name of the Lord, and that, therefore, unity is not created by us. We realize that it is the Spirit who impels us and carries us ahead. If you are docile to the Spirit, it will be He who will tell you the step you can take, the rest is done by Him. It is not possible to walk behind Christ if you are not carried, if you do not pushed by Spirit with his strength. Because of this it is the Spirit who is the author of Christian unity. So, this is why I say that unity is made along a journey, because unity is a grace that you have to ask for, and also because I repeat that every proselytizing among Christians is sinful. The Church never grows by proselytizing but “by attraction,” as Benedict XVI wrote. Proselytism among Christians is therefore in itself a grave sin because it contradicts the very dynamics of how to become and remain Christian. The Church is not a football team that seeks fans.”

Speaking about the importance of baptism in response to a question about something that Francis said to Patriarch Kirill, he focuses on the importance of the incarnation as protection against ideologies:

“To rediscover our unity we don’t need to “go beyond” baptism. Having the same baptism means to confess together that the Word has made itself flesh: this saves us. All ideologies and theories are born of those who do not stop at this, who do not remain in the faith that recognizes Christ who has come in the flesh, and who want to “go beyond.” From there come all the positions that take the flesh away from the Church of Christ, which “de-flesh” the Church. If we look together at our shared baptism we are also freed from the temptation of Pelagianism, which wants to convince us that we are saved by our own strength, by our own activism. And staying at baptism also saves us from gnosis. This one distorts Christianity, reducing it to a path of knowledge, which can do without a real encounter with Christ.”

What strikes me most as I re-read Pope Francis’ words is his total focus on Jesus as the person whose presence among His followers is what unites them, what guides them and what is the basis of a discernment whose horizon is the present moment. This is a Christianity that is exciting, challenging and lived in direct relationship with God, who has made himself one of us to the point of also taking on our physical nature. Everything then follows from such a life - the Year of Mercy, ecumenism, dialogue, forgiveness and a pervasive sense of joy and openness.

The least in the kingdom of heaven

1262 words, 6 min read

The Hebrew Bible presents a copious offering of laws, rules and regulations for virtually every aspect of life, as does the Church today. There is the Code of Canon Law, the Catechism and a rich body of magisterial texts that prescribe and proscribe in equal measure. All of this poses the perennial challenge of how a person is to understand and relate to such a body of laws and rules. Is full and permanent compliance with all of them the way to God and happiness? And are those who don’t comply to be reprimanded and shunned? Are laws a necessary and sufficient guarantee of holiness? Will adherence to them ensure a life that imitates that of Jesus, God who became man?

Probably the best way to arrive at an answer, or at least the beginnings of one, is to see what Jesus said and did himself. Here a good starting point may be the words with which he addressed the crowds to whom he had just presented the Beatitudes:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Mark 5:17-19)

So, it sounds like compliance with the law is pretty fundamental and not even the slightest deviation from it is to be tolerated. This seems pretty clear and one would expect that the rest of the Gospel accounts would be a catalogue of Jesus being exemplary at complying with the rules and regulations of Scripture.

However, the polar opposite is actually the case!

Jesus broke the laws calling for abstaining from work on the Sabbath, by healing the withered hand of a man (Matthew 12:9-19), which incensed the Pharisees to the point of plotting his death. He cured a “blind, lame and crippled” man, again on a Sabbath (John 5:1-18). He cured another man’s blindness (John 9:1-16), yet again on a Sabbath, making the Pharisees exclaim that “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the sabbath.” And Jesus also cured a woman “crippled by a spirit; [who] was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect.” (Luke 13:11) - again on a Sabbath and much to the consternation of the authorities, with the leader of the Synagogue exclaiming in exasperation: “There are six days when work should be done. Come on those days to be cured, not on the sabbath day.”

On another occasion, Jesus condoned his disciples’ breaking the Sabbath, when they picked grain from a field to feed themselves (cf. Matthew 12:1-8). In fact, the disciples’ behavior was a source of complaint by the Pharisees on another occasion too, when they asked Jesus: “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They do not wash [their] hands when they eat a meal.” (Matthew 15:2).

Jesus broke the law again when touching a leper who approached him (Matthew 8:1-4), which goes directly against the rules laid out in Leviticus 13. He also touched a dead girl (cf. Matthew 9:25) which is against Numbers 19:11. Jesus allowed a prostitute to touch him (Luke 7:36-50) and he also ate with tax collectors on the same occasion, who broke the laws set out in Leviticus 25:36-38 that prohibit charging interest on loans. And he even invited himself for a meal at a tax collector’s house (cf. Luke 19:1-10)!

Jesus also broke the law when he stopped the stoning of an adulteress, even though the Pharisees told him directly that “in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.” (cf. John 8:1-11).

Finally, Jesus broke the law again when blasphemously identifying himself with God (cf. John 5:18), a crime he was accused of also during his trial before the Sanhedrin that lead to his - legal - condemnation to death (cf. Matthew 26:65-66).

So, what is going on here?

I believe there are two keys in the passage where Jesus declares that he has not “come to abolish the law.”

First, Jesus states that his purpose is to “fulfill” rather than abolish the law. To my mind, fulfillment is consistent both with change, since something that becomes fulfilled changes (since it was, presumably, not fulfilled before, otherwise it would have had no capacity for fulfillment) and with remaining the same (it is the one thing that grows in fulfillment). What kind of fulfillment does Jesus have in mind though? The obvious place to look to for an answer is the law that Jesus himself imposes on his followers: “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” (John 13:34). The purity laws, the laws governing the Sabbath, the laws pertaining to blasphemy get, prima facie, broken for the sake of underlining the one law that they were designed to safeguard, but whose attainment they have become at times obstacles to: love of neighbor. When Jesus transgresses against laws, his motivation is love of neighbor: of the sick, of sinners, of his disciples. He is moved by mercy (misericordia, meaning compassion felt by the heart) and it is indeed this participation of the heart in bringing laws to fulfillment that Jesus saw lacking in the reactions of the Pharisees. This in turn lead him to throwing Isaiah’s prophesy in their faces when they complained about Jesus allowing his disciples to eat with unwashed hands:

“Hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy about you when he said:
‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines human precepts.’” (Matthew 15:7-9)

Second, there is another, perhaps less immediately recognizable key in Jesus’ words, which calls for a closer reading of the text. Note what it is that Jesus is actually saying in the following sentence: “Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” If you break these commandments, you’ll be in heaven. You’ll be the least in heaven, but you’ll be in heaven! To my mind this is a brilliant piece of humor. It’s like saying: if you break the rules you’ll be the poorest among billionaires, the weakest among superheroes, the unluckiest among Leprechauns, the shortest among giants. And, let’s remember that Jesus isn’t saying that it is a free-for-all. He is quite happy to threaten exclusion and a “wailing and grinding of teeth” (cf. Luke 13:22-30) or to recommend that it would be better to “have a great millstone hung around [their] neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” for those who lead the young astray (cf. Matthew 18:6-9). This is not about laxity, but about priorities: love of neighbor precedes adherence to rules and regulations, whose breaking may actually be the act of love that someone needs to have done to them to turn their life around.

Enter darkness, make your closeness felt

1532 words, 8 min read

A book-length interview with Pope Francis, by the Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli and entitled “The Name of God is Mercy”, has been published today and I would here like to share some of my favorite passages with you (and encourage you to read it in full!).

First, there is Francis’ rooting of mercy in Ezekiel’s account of the foundation of Jerusalem:

“[M]ercy is God’s identity card. God of Mercy, merciful God. For me, this really is the Lord’s identity. I was always impressed by the story of Jerusalem as it is told in chapter 16 of the Book of Ezekiel. The story compares Jerusalem to a little girl whose umbilical cord wasn’t cut, who was left in blood and cast out. God saw her wallowing in blood, he washed the blood from her, he anointed her, he dressed her, and when she grew up he adorned her with silk and jewels. But she, infatuated with her own beauty, became a harlot, taking lovers not for money but paying them herself. God, however, will never forget his covenant and he will place her above her sisters so that Jerusalem will remember and be ashamed (Ezekiel 16:63), when she is forgiven for what she has done.

For me this is one of the most important revelations: you will continue to be the chosen people and all your sins will be forgiven. So mercy is deeply connected to God’s faithfulness. The Lord is faithful because he cannot deny himself. This is explained well by Saint Paul in the Second Letter to Timothy: “If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” You can deny God, you can sin against him, but God cannot deny himself. He remains faithful.”

Second, Francis exalts the goodness of starting again over that of an (impossible) never failing:

“The most important thing in the life of every man and every woman is not that they should never fall along the way. The important thing is always to get back up, not to stay on the ground licking your wounds. The Lord of mercy always forgives me; he always offers me the possibility of starting over. He loves me for what I am, he wants to raise me up, and he extends his hand to me.”

In fact, earlier in the book, Francis is explicit about the impossibility of not sinning and follows it up with a great quote by St. Francis de Sales:

“We must take this sad reality of ours into account: no one can avoid sin, small or great, for very long. ‘But,’ as Saint Francis de Sales said, ‘if you have a little donkey and along the road it falls onto the cobblestones, what should you do?’ You certainly don’t go there with a stick to beat it, poor little thing; it’s already unfortunate enough. You must take it by the halter and say: ‘Up, let’s take to the road again . . . Now we will get back on the road, and we will pay more attention next time.’”

Third, there is a good number of personal experiences that Pope Francis shares in the book, to give his answers to Tornielli’s questions a fresh sense of concreteness and specificity. Of these one of my favorites is the following:

“Back when I was rector of the Collegio Massimo of Jesuits and a parish priest in Argentina, I remember a mother with young children, whose husband had left her. She did not have a steady job and only managed to find temporary work a couple of months out of the year. When there was no work, she had to prostitute herself to provide her children with food. She was humble, she came to the parish church, and we tried to help her with our charity, Caritas. I remember one day—it was during the Christmas holidays—she came with her children to the College and asked for me. They called me and I went to greet her. She had come to thank me. I thought it was for the package of food from Caritas that we had sent to her. “Did you receive it?” I asked. “Yes, yes, thank you for that, too. But I came here today to thank you because you never stopped calling me Señora.” Experiences like this teach you how important it is to welcome people delicately and not wound their dignity. For her, the fact that the parish priest continued to call her Señora, even though he probably knew how she led her life during the months when she could not work, was as—or perhaps even more—important than the concrete help that we gave her.”

Fourth, in response to being asked to clarify what he meant when he said that famous “who am I to judge” soon after being elected pope, Francis said:

“I am glad that we are talking about “homosexual people” because before all else comes the individual person, in his wholeness and dignity. And people should not be defined only by their sexual tendencies: let us not forget that God loves all his creatures and we are destined to receive his infinite love. I prefer that homosexuals come to confession, that they stay close to the Lord, and that we pray all together.”

Fifth, in the context of being asked about the “scholars of the law” whom Francis frequently lambasts in his homilies, he recalled a great quote from St. Ambrose’s De Abraham:

“When it comes to bestowing grace, Christ is present; when it comes to exercising rigor, only the ministers of the Church are present, but Christ is absent.”

Sixth, Francis addresses the important question put to him by Tornielli of whether there is a risk of “infection” when dealing with those who live in sin:

“We need to enter the darkness, the night in which so many of our brethren live. We need to be able to make contact with them and let them feel our closeness, without letting ourselves be wrapped up in that darkness and influenced by it. Caring for outcasts and sinners does not mean letting the wolves attack the flock. It means trying to reach everyone by sharing the experience of mercy, which we ourselves have experienced, without ever caving in to the temptation of feeling that we are just or perfect. The more conscious we are of our wretchedness and our sins, the more we experience the love and infinite mercy of God among us, and the more capable we are of looking upon the many “wounded” we meet along the way with acceptance and mercy. So we must avoid the attitude of someone who judges and condemns from the lofty heights of his own certainty, looking for the splinter in his brother’s eye while remaining unaware of the beam in his own. Let us always remember that God rejoices more when one sinner returns to the fold than when ninety-nine righteous people have no need of repentance.”

Seventh, there is also a great deal that made me smile in this book, like the following passage that, while clearly communicating a profound truth, does so with humor:

“At times I have surprised myself by thinking that a few very rigid people would do well to slip a little, so that they could remember that they are sinners and thus meet Jesus. I think back to the words of God’s servant John Paul I, who during a Wednesday audience said, “The Lord loves humility so much that sometimes he permits serious sins. Why? In order that those who committed these sins may, after repenting, remain humble. One does not feel inclined to think oneself half a saint, half an angel, when one knows that one has committed serious faults.””

Eighth, Pope Francis speaks beautifully about how compassion relates to mercy, using Jesus himself as the example:

“Let us reflect on the beautiful pages that describe the raising from the dead of the widow’s son. When Jesus arrived in the village of Nain in Galilee, he was moved by the tears of the widow, who was devastated by the loss of her only son. He says to her, “Woman, do not weep.” As Luke writes in the Gospel: “When the Lord saw her, he felt compassion for her” (7:13). God Incarnate let himself be moved by human wretchedness, by our need, by our suffering. The Greek verb that indicates this compassion is σπλαγχνίζομαι [splanchnízomai, ed.], which derives from the word that indicates internal organs or the mother’s womb. It is similar to the love of a father and mother who are profoundly moved by their own son; it is a visceral love. God loves us in this way, with compassion and mercy. Jesus does not look at reality from the outside, without letting himself be moved, as if he were taking a picture. He lets himself get involved. This kind of compassion is needed today to conquer the globalization of indifference. This kind of gaze is needed when we find ourselves in front of a poor person, an outcast, or a sinner. This is the compassion that nourishes the awareness that we, too, are sinners.”

Aquinas’ rational analysis of mercy

1665 words, 8 min read

During this Year of Mercy, I would like to get a deeper and richer understanding of what mercy means and how it has been understood differently by a verity of thinkers. Looking back at the Synod on the Family, an obvious place to start is with St. Thomas Aquinas, who has been referred to there on several occasions as a benchmark and on whom Pope Francis too has relied when speaking about this subject. Among St. Thomas's works too there is a clear front-runner for getting a sense of how he understood mercy, which is his monumental Summa Theologiæ.

In the Introduction to the first part of the Summa, which runs to a total of 2.8 million words (!), St. Thomas presents his aims as follows:

“We purpose in this book to treat of whatever belongs to the Christian Religion, in such a way as may tend to the instruction of beginners. [... W]e shall try, by God's help, to set forth whatever is included in this Sacred Science as briefly and clearly as the matter itself may allow.”

While sophisticated arguments for the Summa's brevity could be constructed, it is clearly not a work you'd find in the “for dummies” section, and clarity too could be contested with the contemporary reader in mind. What still makes the Summa highly attractive, to my mind, is its deeply rational approach, whose frame of reference may be dated but whose principles and method are decidedly current.

Just by way of a sample, before we proceed to mercy, here is what St. Thomas has to say about discussing faith with those who don't have it:

“If our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation, there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning, but only of answering his objections—if he has any—against faith. Since faith rests upon infallible truth, and since the contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated, it is clear that the arguments brought against faith cannot be demonstrations, but are difficulties that can be answered.” [I, Q. 1, Art. 8, co.]

Taking the text at first sight, there are definitely things to get hung up about today - referring to one’s partner in dialogue as an opponent, making claims about infallibility - but, with even just a sprinkling of the Principle of Charity, there is also a lot here that is accessible: understanding the limits of how far a person of faith can take one who is without it by reason alone, positioning reason as an unlimited ally of faith and posing a challenge to those who have faith, including the author of the above paragraph himself, to be prepared to present their faith on the level playing field of reason and to do so with confidence. It is not hard to see how the above is an invitation to humble, yet confident, dialogue and how such an attitude is echoed also in one of Benedict XVI’s most impactful exhortations made only three years ago almost to this day: “[T]he Christian can afford to be supremely confident, yes, fundamentally certain that he can venture freely into the open sea of the truth, without having to fear for his Christian identity.”

Turning to mercy now, and looking at the vast expanse of the Summa, we find that St. Thomas speaks about it 471 times there. First, he starts of by thinking about whether it is even possible for God to be merciful and he comes to the initial conclusion that the answer here, strictly speaking, has to be a resounding “no” [when air first read this, I liked his confidence in going wherever the inescapable train of logic leads him :)]:

“[A] person is said to be merciful [misericors], as being, so to speak, sorrowful at heart [miserum cor]; being affected with sorrow at the misery of another as though it were his own. Hence it follows that he endeavors to dispel the misery of this other, as if it were his; and this is the effect of mercy. To sorrow, therefore, over the misery of others belongs not to God.” [I, Q. 21, Art. 3, co.]

To understand why St. Thomas dismisses the possibility of sorrow impelling God to act, let's go back to an earlier part of the Summa, where he presents his argument for God's immutability:

“God is altogether immutable [... because] there is some first being, whom we call God; and that this first being must be pure act, without the admixture of any potentiality, for the reason that, absolutely, potentiality is posterior to act. Now everything which is in any way changed, is in some way in potentiality. Hence it is evident that it is impossible for God to be in any way changeable.” [I, Q. 9, Art. 1, co.]

Whoa! What's with the potentiality versus act business? Let's backtrack a bit further to get to the bottom of this, key point:

“For although in any single thing that passes from potentiality to actuality, the potentiality is prior in time to the actuality; nevertheless, absolutely speaking, actuality is prior to potentiality; for whatever is in potentiality can be reduced into actuality only by some being in actuality. Now it has been already proved that God is the First Being. It is therefore impossible that in God there should be any potentiality.” [I, Q. 3, Art. 1, co.]

To get to the starting point then, we need to see how St. Thomas arrives at God being the First Being:

“But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.” [I, Q. 2, Art. 3, co.]

Let's bring this all together and attempt an ultra-synthetic reconstruction of St. Thomas' argument from first principles: Because potentiality and actuality are mutually exclusive concepts, there is a need for a causal chain, which in turn necessitates a starting point. This starting point is God - a God who by being the first act cannot contain potentiality but only actuality. This also precludes him from sorrow and the desire to alleviate it, and therefore from mercy.

Rather than picking holes into the above (of which I see plenty, including a misunderstanding of infinity [see 19th century mathematicians such as Georg Kantor] and of causality [see David Hume]), I'd like to underline the rational rigor of St. Thomas’ method where he proceeds from the best available understanding of basic concepts and follows their consequences through with aplomb.

But why does he come back to mercy 471 times if he dismisses its applicability to God in the first pages of the Summa? Actually, he does not dismiss it at all and only points out that, when defined in human terms, mercy does not fit God 1:1. God's mercy - and therefore the mercy that we are ultimately called to live - is something other:

“To sorrow, therefore, over the misery of others belongs not to God; but it does most properly belong to Him to dispel that misery, whatever be the defect we call by that name. Now defects are not removed, except by the perfection of some kind of goodness; and the primary source of goodness is God, as shown above (Q. 6, A. 4). It must, however, be considered that to bestow perfections appertains not only to the divine goodness, but also to His justice, liberality, and mercy; yet under different aspects. The communicating of perfections, absolutely considered, appertains to goodness, as shown above (Q. 6, AA. 1, 4); in so far as perfections are given to things in proportion, the bestowal of them belongs to justice, as has been already said (A. 1); in so far as God does not bestow them for His own use, but only on account of His goodness, it belongs to liberality; in so far as perfections given to things by God expel defects, it belongs to mercy.” [I, Q. 21, Art. 3, co.]

Human mercy hinges on identifying the other’s suffering with my own and alleviating it as my own. It is applied only to those others in whom I see myself. In some sense human mercy therefore passes through selfishness - I help you, but I do it by alleviating the root cause of my own suffering, which is your suffering. God’s mercy instead is devoid of selfish motives and is the result of goodness and justice given freely. I don't believe St. Thomas is speaking against human mercy here, but that he is pointing to what perfect justice looks like, as arrived at from rational first principles, and that this mercy is effectively a purified form of our own, where the good is done for its own sake and where all are therefore destinataries of mercy.

The only thing that’s changed is everything

2610 words, 13 min read

Yesterday, at the closing mass of the Synod on the Family, Pope Francis concluded his homily with the following words:

“There is a [...] temptation, that of falling into a “scheduled faith”. We are able to walk with the People of God, but we already have our schedule for the journey, where everything is listed: we know where to go and how long it will take; everyone must respect our rhythm and every problem is a bother. We run the risk of becoming the “many” of the Gospel who lose patience and rebuke Bartimaeus. Just a short time before, they scolded the children (cf. Mark 10:13), and now the blind beggar: whoever bothers us or is not of our stature is excluded. Jesus, on the other hand, wants to include, above all those kept on the fringes who are crying out to him. They, like Bartimaeus, have faith, because awareness of the need for salvation is the best way of encountering Jesus. In the end, Bartimaeus follows Jesus on his path (cf. v. 52). He did not only regain his sight, but he joined the community of those who walk with Jesus. Dear Synod Fathers, we have walked together.”

To my mind, these few lines sum up the Synod perfectly, by presenting two poles: one, characterized by rules, clarity and predictability and the other by an path that twists and turns, that is full of surprises, but where we are walking not only among Jesus’ friends, but side-by-side with Jesus himself.

Detractors of the Synod have already declared it a failure, a preservation of the status quo, a “no change” of doctrine, a failure for not opening up access to the Eucharist for the divorced and remarried and a giving-in to African pressures on gays. They, however, are precisely the group for whom Pope Francis had harsh words in the speech he delivered after the Synod Fathers voted on the final report (the Relatio Finalis) paragraph-by-paragraph:

“[The Synod] was about bearing witness to everyone that, for the Church, the Gospel continues to be a vital source of eternal newness, against all those who would “indoctrinate” it in dead stones to be hurled at others. It was also about laying bare closed hearts that frequently hide even behind the Church’s teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, and judge difficult cases and wounded families.”

Instead of being a failure, I believe, that the Synod was a dramatic first step along the path that Pope Francis presented the week before, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the institution of the Synod of Bishops. In that landmark speech, Francis shared his vision of a synodal Church, a Church that is on a journey with Christ in the present moment:

“A synodal Church is a Church of listening, knowing that listening “is more than hearing”. It is a mutual listening in which everyone has something to learn. Faithful people, the College of Bishops, Bishop of Rome: each one listening to the others; and all listening to the Holy Spirit, the “Spirit of truth” (Jn 14:17), to know what he “says to the Churches” (Rev 2:7).”

In such a synodal Church, authority too changes, and becomes rooted in the cross, as Pope Francis explains:

“Let us never forget it! For the disciples of Jesus, yesterday, today and always, the only authority is the authority of service, the only power is the power of the cross, in the words of the Master: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.”(Mt 20: 25-27). It shall not be so among you: in this expression we reach the heart of the mystery of the Church - “it shall not be so among you” - and receive the necessary light to understand hierarchical service.”

Pope Francis is also very clear, in the homily he delivered on the morning of the Synod’s last day, about a consequence of being a journeying, synodal Church also being constant change. However, since the journeying party includes Jesus, it is not a thrashing about or a bending with the wind. Instead it is a tight adherence to the person of Christ, while being immersed in the ever-changing now. A freedom with rather than a freedom from or a freedom to:

“The times change and we Christians must change continuously. We must change while being firm in our faith in Jesus Christ, firm in the truth of the Gospel, but our attitude must move continuously according to the signs of the times. We are free. We are free by the gift of freedom that Jesus Christ gave us. But it is our task to look at what happens inside us, to discern our feelings, our thoughts; and what happens outside us and to discern the signs of the times. With silence, with reflection and with prayer.”

All of the above is, to my mind a beautiful spelling out of what Pope Benedict XVI meant when he said, at the beginning of the 2012-13 Year of Faith, that faith “is no theory, but an encounter with a Person who lives within the Church.”

With the above perspective, of a community walking with Jesus, where service is the basis of authority and where life is full of surprises because we aren’t following a set of instructions, but developing a relationship with Jesus instead, let us look at what the Synod on the Family was all about.

First, the Synod was a resounding endorsement of the family, as Cardinal Schönborn put very clearly:

“I think that the principal message of this Synod is the theme of the Synod: that the Catholic Church around the world, with one billion and 200 million Catholics, have discussed the topic of marriage and the family for two years, with all its positives aspects and difficulties ... This alone is a remarkable fact for our time, because the core of the message is this: a great yes to the family. The success of this Synod for me is a great yes to the family; that the family is not over, not an old model, but that it is a fundamental model of human society.”

Second, that this endorsement wasn’t just a pre-cooked message to be rubber-stamped, but that it was, instead, the result of an intense process of discernment, discussion and at times even outright verbal warfare both inside the Synod and by interests outside it. Just as examples, a letter from some cardinals to the pope got leaked and resulted in all sorts of recriminations, some cardinals accused others of being opposed to Jesus, and false news about the pope’s health was released two days before the final vote. The inappropriate nature of some of the behavior inside the Synod lead the German language working group to open their final report with the following words:

“We have observed the public statements of individual Synod Fathers regarding the people, content and course of the Synod with great dismay and sadness. This contradicts the spirit of walking together, the spirit of the Synod and its elementary rules. The images and comparisons used are not only coarse and wrong, but hurtful. We distance ourselves from them categorically.”

Third, that there was a great diversity among the Synod Fathers. One of the English language working group’s reports stated that “[o]n many [...] points there was consensus, on others there was wide if not universal agreement, and on a few there was significant disagreement.” Pope Francis too saw this very clearly, when he said in his closing speech:

“[W]e have also seen that what seems normal for a bishop on one continent, is considered strange and almost scandalous for a bishop from another; what is considered a violation of a right in one society is an evident and inviolable rule in another; what for some is freedom of conscience is for others simply confusion. Cultures are in fact quite diverse, and each general principle needs to be inculturated, if it is to be respected and applied.”

To my mind this is a very positive picture, which sends a clear message that it is possible to talk about even divisive and sensitive topics openly in the Church.

Fourth, that there was a tremendous desire for unity in the Synod, in the face of the variety of disparate views represented in it. Two things evidence this very clearly. First, that all of the final report’s 94 points were accepted with a 2/3rds majority. In fact, the vast majority (something around 80% of the points) were accepted with near unanimity, and even the handful of more controversial points received support from over 2/3rds of the Synod Fathers. Second, that the German language working group, which included the strongest proponents of both positions in favor of least change (Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller) and of most change (Cardinal Walter Kasper), arrived at unanimous support for all of its reports. Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who was also in that group, gave a very intimate account of how that came about in one of the official press conferences:

“You have to argue. You can’t say I have an opinion. You must be very clear in your knowledge, to quote St. Thomas and the others. When you listen for a few minutes to Cardinal Müller, Cardinal Kasper and Cardinal Schönborn discussing about St. Thomas that is very interesting and when they say St. Thomas said this or that then he really did. So, you have to be together and say: that is the meaning of St. Thomas. [...] We had the will to make a text together. It was clear when we wouldn’t find unanimity but we tried to come together and also in the different points, for example regarding the divorced and remarried, we tried to make a text that everyone could accept as a proposal to the Holy Father. [Before the first set of reports we felt that other groups were looking to us to see whether we would find unanimity, given who we are in this group] and Cardinal Schönborn said: “The others are looking at us, so make an effort to come together.””

Fifth, the Synod presented the family as a subject, an agent, rather than an as an object, as something that needs to be managed. One of the Italian working groups put this particularly clearly:

“Given [...] that evangelization is the duty of the whole Christian people, [...] families, under the grace of the sacrament of marriage, need to become ever more subjects of pastoral care, expression of a mission that becomes visible through a concrete life, not something that is only theoretical but an experience of faith rooted in people’s real problems. Priests should therefore be trained to recognize families as subjects, valuing the skills and experiences of all: lay, religious and ordained.”

Sixth, that the sheer variety and breadth of family circumstances and factors affecting them requires closeness, tenderness and discernment to be the basis of sharing God’s love with all. No set of rules, laws, principles can be a substitute for personal relationships, and Pope Francis is very clear about this too:

“[T]he true defenders of doctrine are not those who uphold its letter, but its spirit; not ideas but people; not formulae but the gratuitousness of God’s love and forgiveness. This is in no way to detract from the importance of formulae, laws and divine commandments, but rather to exalt the greatness of the true God, who does not treat us according to our merits or even according to our works but solely according to the boundless generosity of his Mercy (cf. Rom 3:21-30; Ps 129; Lk 11:37-54). It does have to do with overcoming the recurring temptations of the elder brother (cf. Lk 15:25-32) and the jealous labourers (cf. Mt 20:1-16). Indeed, it means upholding all the more the laws and commandments which were made for man and not vice versa (cf. Mk 2:27).”

An example of this personal discernment-based approach is also the proposal in the final report regarding the divorced and re-married, which says (in §85-86):

“It is [...] the task of pastors to accompany interested [divorced and civilly remarried] persons on the way of discernment in keeping with the teaching of the Church and the guidance of bishops. In this process it will be useful to make an examination of conscience through times of reflection and penitence. The divorced and remarried should ask themselves how they behaved toward their children when the conjugal union entered into crisis; if there were attempts at reconciliation; how is the situation with the abandoned partner; what consequences the new relationship has on the rest of the family and the community of the faithful; what example it offers to young people who must prepare for marriage. A sincere reflection can strengthen the trust in the mercy of God which is never denied to anyone. [...] Therefore, while upholding a general norm, it is necessary to recognize that the responsibility regarding certain actions or decisions is not the same in all cases. Pastoral discernment, while taking account of the rightly formed conscience of persons, must take responsibility for these situations. Even the consequences of the acts carried out are not necessarily the same in all cases. The process of accompaniment and discernment directs these faithful to an awareness of their situation before God. Conversation with the priest, in the internal forum, contributes to the formation of a correct judgment on what hinders the possibility of a fuller participation in the life of the Church and the steps that can foster it and make it grow.”

Seventh, that mercy is the root of divine love [“Misericordia est radix amoris divini”] as already St. Thomas Aquinas taught and as Pope Francis again underlined as the Synod closed and as the opening of the Jubilee of Mercy approaches:

“The Church’s first duty is not to hand down condemnations or anathemas, but to proclaim God’s mercy, to call to conversion, and to lead all men and women to salvation in the Lord (cf. Jn 12:44-50). […] In effect, for the Church to conclude the Synod means to return to our true “journeying together” in bringing to every part of the world, to every diocese, to every community and every situation, the light of the Gospel, the embrace of the Church and the support of God’s mercy!”

One of the Synod Fathers, Fr. Antonio Spadaro SJ, the director of the Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica, summed this up beautifully in a tweet today:

“After #Synod15 the #Jubilee switches from the binary logic of a door, open/closed, to that of a face, which vitally changes before another face.”

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Just in case you are left feeling short-changed about the content of the final report, the scarcity of references to it in the above post are a consequence of two facts: first, that it has no magisterial value (i.e., it is not the Church speaking to its faithful or the world through it - instead, it is a collection of ideas that serve as input for Pope Francis), and, second, that it was the shared journey of the Synod Fathers that matters rather than that document - in keeping with Pope Francis’ call for being a synodal Church instead of one that feels herself best expressed in laws, rules or documents.

Schönborn: The door is never closed

Yesterday, the Jesuit journal, La Civiltà Cattolica, published an extensive interview of its director Fr. Antonio Spadaro, SJ with Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna in Italian. Even though some partial translations in English are already available, the following is my, rough translation of the passages that spoke to me most strongly (it is around 90% of the full text and the passages I left out were only left out for practical reasons …).

In response to a question about whether the scope of the upcoming Synod on the family ought to be doctrinal, Cardinal Schönborn replied:

"The challenge that Pope Francis puts in front of us is to believe that, with the courage that comes from simple closeness, from the everyday reality of people, we will not distance ourselves from doctrine. We don't risk diluting its clarity by walking with people, because we ourselves are called to walk in faith. Doctrine isn't, in the first place, a series of abstract statements, but the light of the word of God demonstrated by the apostolic witness at the heart of a Church and in the hearts of believers who walk in the world today. The clarity of the light of faith and its doctrinal development in each person is not in contradiction with the journey that God undertakes with us, who are often far from living the Gospel fully."

When asked about how we ought to view and what attitude we ought to have towards those who live in irregular arrangements, he then replied:

"At the last Synod, I proposed an interpretative key that has lead to much discussion and was referred to in the Relatio post disceptationem, but that was no longer present in the final document, the Relatio Synodi. It was an analogy with the ecclesiological interpretative key given by Lumen Gentium, the constitution on the Church, in its article 8. There the question is: "Where is the Church of Christ? Where it is incarnated concretely? Does the Church of Jesus Christ, which he desired and founded, really exist?" To this, the Council responded with the famous statement: "The only Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church", subsistit in Ecclesia catholica. It is not a pure and simple identification, like saying that the Church of Jesus Christ is the Catholic Church. The Council affirmed: it "subsists in the Catholic Church", united with the Pope and legitimate bishops. The Council adds this phrase, which has become key: "Although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity." Other denominations, other churches, other religions are not simply nothing. Vatican II excludes and ecclesiology of the all or nothing. The all is fulfilled in the Catholic Church, but there are elements of truth and holiness in other churches, and even in other religions. These elements are elements of the Church of Christ, and by their nature they tend to catholic unity and the unity of mankind, towards which the Church herself tends, in anticipation of, so to speak, the great plan of God that is the one Family of God, humanity. The approach of the Council is justified in this key, because of which one does not consider first what is missing in the other Churches, Christian communities or religions, but what is positive there. One gathers the semina Verbi, as has been said, the seeds of the Word, elements of truth and sanctification."

And how does this translate to the family?

"I simply proposed to apply this interpretation to the ecclesiological reality of the sacrament of marriage. Because marriage is a Church in miniature, an ecclesiola, the family as a small Church, it seems legitimate to me to establish an analogy and say that the sacrament of marriage is fully realized where there is a properly established sacrament between a man and a woman living in faith etc. But this does not prevent that, outside of this full realization of the sacrament of marriage, there be elements of marriage that are anticipatory signs, positive elements."

Let's take, for example, civil marriage:

"Yes, we consider it as something more than simple cohabitation. Why? It is a simple civil contract that from a strictly ecclesial point of view has no meaning. But we recognize that in civil marriage there is more commitment, therefore a greater alliance, than in simple cohabitation. The two make a commitment before society, humanity and themselves, in a more explicit alliance, anchored legally with sanctions, obligations, duties, rights ... The Church believes that this is a further step than simply living together. There is in this case a greater proximity to sacramental marriage. As a promise, an anticipatory sign. Instead of speaking about all that is missing, one can approach these realities, noting the positive that exist in this love that is becoming more stable."

How do we therefore consider situations that have objective shortcomings?

"We should look at the numerous situations of coexistence not only from the point of view of what is missing, but also from the point of view of what is already promised, what is already present. Moreover, the Council adds that, although there is always real holiness in the Church, it is made up of sinners and advances along the path of conversion (LG 8). It is always in need of purification. A Catholic mustn't put themselves on a step above others. There are saints in all the Christian churches, and even in other religions. Jesus said twice to the pagans, a woman [cf. Luke 8:48] and a Roman officer [Luke 7:9]: "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith." A true faith, that Jesus found outside the chosen people."

So, the dividing line is not between those who live sacramental marriage and who don't?

"Those who have the grace and the joy of living sacramental marriage in faith, humility and mutual forgiveness, in a trust in God who acts in our daily lives, know how to look and discern in a couple, in a cohabitation, the elements of true heroism, true charity, true mutual giving. Even though we must say: "It is not yet the full reality of the sacrament." But who are we to judge and say that there are no elements of truth and sanctification in them? The Church is a people that God draws to himself and to which all are called. The Church's role is to accompany everyone in growth, along a path. As a pastor I experience this joy of being on a journey, among believers, but also among many non-believers."

Cardinal Schönborn then gives examples of how a person who has been through several marriages may find faith in later life and how accompanying them and caring for them may require considering their specific, individual circumstances rather than a simple application of rules. He concludes that answer with saying "I can't hide [...] that I have been shocked by how a purely formalist way of thinking wields the axe of the "intrinsece malum." Fr. Spadaro then explains it in a footnote thus: "What is meant by an "intrinsically evil" (intrinsece malum) act is an action whose moral connotation is such that it can in no case change from negative to positive. Therefore it is an act that is always considered morally evil, irrespective of the ulterior intentions of the one acting and of the circumstances."

Could you elaborate on the problem of that which is defined as "intrinsece malum"?

"In practice, it excludes any reference to the question of fitness [convenientia] that, for St. Thomas, is always a way of expressing prudence. It is neither utilitarianism nor an easy pragmatism, but a way to express a sense of appropriateness, of conformity, of harmony. Regarding the question of divorce, this type of argument has been systematically excluded by our intransigent moralists. If misunderstood, the intrinsece malum suppresses discussion of - by definition complex - circumstances of and situations in life. A human act is never simple, and the risk is to "paste" in a false relationship between the true object, purpose and circumstances, which instead should be read in the light of freedom and of an attraction to the good. The free act is reduced to a physical one so that the clarity of logic suppresses any moral discussion and all circumstances. The paradox is that by focusing in the intrinsece malum one loses all the wealth, I would say almost the beauty of a moral articulation, resulting in its annihilation. Not only does the moral analysis of situations become univocal, but but one is left cut off from a comprehensive perspective on the dramatic consequences of divorce: economic, educational, psychological, etc. This is true for everything that regards the themes of marriage and the family. The obsession with intrinsece malum has so impoverished the debate that we are deprived of a wide range of arguments in favor of the uniqueness, indissolubility, openness to life, of the human foundation of the doctrine of the Church. We have lost the flavor of discourse on these human realities. One of the key elements of the Synod is the reality of the Christian family, not from an exclusive point of view, but from an inclusive one. The Christian family is a grace, a gift of God. It is a mission, and by its nature - if it is lived in a Christian way - is something to be welcomed. I remember a proposal for a pilgrimage for families in which the organizers wanted to invite only those who practice natural birth control. During a meeting of the Bishops Conference we asked them how they would: "Select only those who practice 100%, n%? How do you do that?". From these somewhat caricature expressions you realize that if the Christian family is lived in this way, it inevitably becomes sectarian. A world apart. When you seek safety, you are not a Christian, you are focused only on yourself!"

On the challenges of pastoral accompaniment of persons living in irregular unions:

"If a valid sacramental marriage existed, a second marriage is an irregular union. However, there is the whole dimension of spiritual and pastoral care for people living in irregular situations, where it will be necessary to discern between everything and nothing. You can not transform an irregular situation into a regular, but there are ways of healing, of deepening, ways in which the law is experienced step by step. There are also situations where the priest, the accompanying person, who knows the people well, may arrive at saying: "Your situation is such that, in conscience, in your and in my consciousness as a pastor, I see your place in the sacramental life of the Church.""

Could you tell me about a pastoral experience that was particularly significant for you?

"I have an unforgettable memory of the time when I was a student at Saulchoir, with the Dominicans in Paris. I was not yet a priest. Under the bridge over the Seine that leads to the Évry convent lived a homeless couple. She had been a prostitute and I don't know what he has done in life. Certainly they were not married, nor did they frequent the Church, but every time I passed by there, I said to myself: "My God, they help each other along the path through such a hard life." And when I saw gestures of tenderness between them, I said to myself: "My God, it is beautiful that these two poor people should help each other, what a great thing!" God is present in this poverty, this tenderness. We must break free from this narrow perspective on the access to the sacraments in irregular situations. The question is: "Where is God in their lives? And how can I, as a pastor, discern the presence of God in their lives? And how can they can me to better discern the work of God in a life?" We need to learn how to read the Word of God in actu [in reality] between the lines on which life is written and not only between the lines of incunabula!"

Are there any situations that are irreparable for the mercy of God?

"There may certainly be situations of self-exclusion. When Jesus says: "But you were unwilling" [Matthew 23:37]. Faced with this, in some way, God is disarmed, because He gave us the freedom … And the Church must recognize and accept the freedom to say no. It's hard to want to reconcile at all costs complex situations in life with full participation in the life of the Church. This will never prevent either hoping or praying, and will always be an invitation to entrust such a situation to the providence of God, which can continuously offer instruments of salvation. The door is never closed."

How can we find realist and Gospel-based words to accompany homosexuals along their journey of faith?

"We can and we must respect the decision to form a union with a person of the same sex, to seek means under civil law to protect their living together with laws to ensure such protection. But if we are asked, if it is demanded of the Church to say that this is a marriage, well, we have to say: non possumus [we cannot]. It is not a discrimination of persons: to distinguish does not mean to discriminate. This absolutely does not prevent having great respect, friendship, or collaboration with couples living in this kind of union, and above all we mustn't look down on them. No one is obliged to accept this doctrine, but one can't pretend that the Church does not teach it."

Have you come across circumstances in the lives of homosexuals that have spoken to you in a particular way?

"Yes, for example, I know a homosexual person who has lived a series of experiences for years, not with a particular person or cohabiting, but frequent experiences with different people. Now he has found a stable relationship. It is an improvement, if nothing else then on a human level, this not jumping from one relationship to another, but being in a stable relationship that is not based only on sexuality. One shares one's life, one shares the joys and sufferings, one helps one another. We must recognize that this person has made an important step for his own good and for the good of others, even though, of course, this is not a situation that the Church can consider regular. The judgment on homosexual acts as such is necessary, but the Church mustn't look first in the bedroom, but in the dining room instead! We must accompany."

What then is the correct, Gospel-based attitude in the face of all these challenges?

"Pope Benedict has magnificently shown in his teaching that the Christian life is not at first a morality, but a friendship, a meeting, a person. In this friendship we learn how to behave. If we say that Jesus is our teacher, it means that we learn directly from him the path of Christian life. It is not a catalog of abstract doctrine or a backpack full of heavy stones that we must carry, it is a living relationship instead. In the life and Christian practice of following Christ, the Christian path shows its soundness and its fruits of joy. Jesus promised us that on this path "the Holy Spirit will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you." (Jn 14:26). The entire doctrine of the Church acquires sense only in a living relationship with Jesus, of a friendship with him and a docility towards the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Herein lies the power of Pope Francis’ gestures. I think that he really lives the charism of the Jesuits and of St. Ignatius, that of being available to the movement of the Holy Spirit. It is also the classical doctrine of St. Thomas on the new law, the law of Christ, which is not an external law, but the work of the Holy Spirit in the human heart. Of course, we also need external teaching, but for it to be a living reality, it must pass through the heart. When we observe a lived Christian marriage, we perceive the meaning of marriage; and seeing Mother Teresa in action, in her gestures, we understand what it means to love the poor. Life teaches us doctrine, more than doctrine not teaching us life."

How do we unite the two dimensions of doctrine and mercy?

"The doctrine of the Church is the doctrine of the Good Shepherd. In an attitude of faith, there is no opposition between "doctrine" and "pastoral". Doctrine is not an abstract utterance without a link to "what the Spirit says to the churches" (Rev 2.7). Pastoral ministry is not a degraded putting into practice, or even a pragmatic version of doctrine. The doctrine is the teaching of the "Good Shepherd", which manifests itself in his person, the true way of life, a teaching of a Church who, as she walks, goes towards all those who are awaiting Good News, a waiting that is sometimes kept secret in the heart . The pastoral is a doctrine of salvation in actu [in reality], the "Good Teacher"'s Word of life for the world. There is an involution between these two dimensions of the Word of God, of which the Church is bearer. The pastoral without doctrine is nothing but a "clashing cymbal" (1 Cor 13.1). The pastoral without doctrine is only "human thought" (Mt 16:[23]). Doctrine is first of all the Good News: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life." (Jn 3:16). It is the announcement of the fundamental truth of faith: God has used mercy. And all that the Church teaches is this message, that is then translated into complementary doctrines, into a true hierarchy of truth, both dogmatic and moral. We must constantly return to the kerygma, to what is essential and gives meaning to our whole body of doctrine, especially to moral teaching."

We need to be pastors [shepherds] ...

"Pope Francis calls each of us, pastors to a real pastoral conversion. In the final speech of the Synod, he summed up what he meant when he said that the experience of the Synod is an experience of the Church: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic and composed of sinners, in need of His mercy. It is the Church who is not afraid of eating and drinking with prostitutes and tax collectors. The Pope expresses perfectly the balance that must characterize this pastoral conversion. At the end of this, his speech, all spontaneously stood up, and there was a unanimous and intense applause. Everyone felt that it was the Pope, Peter, who spoke."

I feel a great sense of gratitude towards Cardinal Schönborn for his deep wisdom and obvious love for humanity, that has also shone during this last days in his welcoming of Syrian refugees - a welcoming that was not only conceptual by highly practical when he went to meet and welcome them as they crossed the border from Hungary to Austria. I wish the bishops of other Central European countries would follow his example. I am also grateful to Fr. Spadaro for not only having conducted such an outstanding interview, but for having made it freely available. Thank you!

Sin and faith: the gift of Christian identity

A couple of weeks ago, Cardinal Walter Kasper gave an interview to EWTN during which he displayed great patience in the face of persistently being misunderstood (or willfully misrepresented?) by his interviewer. Why do I bring this up? Because, in the course of that interview, in a moment of exasperation, Cardinal Kasper presented the following, beautiful synthesis of how the Church needs to be a sacrament - i.e., sign and instrument - of mercy, which he derived from Jesus’ self-sacrifice having been in response to a rejection by his people:

“[M]arriage is an icon, an image of the alliance of God with his people. And notice that in Holy Scripture, how often the people of God abandoned him … And also Jesus was rejected by his people. He substituted himself [for them], went to the cross, g[a]ve them a chance. And before he went on Easter Eve he [...] gave the Church, his apostles, the authority to forgive or not to forgive, to bind and to loose [cf. Matthew 18:18]. And all this, this is also a sign of mercy. It is not only the category of human justice you can apply here. You must, the Church must, act according to the action of God and God’s mercy, and the Church is sacrament of mercy. It means sign and instrument of the mercy of God. That’s our Catholic understanding of the Church. And if God gives, acts in this way, the Church can do it also.”

That Jesus gave his disciples the authority both to impose and abolish what the Church is to do and not do, to believe and not believe, to denounce and to value, is not just a turn of phrase to illustrate the completeness of passing “power of attorney” to His followers, members of His mystical body, but an imperative to keep her teaching be a means to union with Him in every present moment. Kasper prefixing the above reminder of Matthew 18:18 with a spelling out of the fact that even at the pinnacle of His love for us, at the moment of his loving self-sacrifice, Jesus was rejected by his people, is no accident either and, to my mind, serves as a stark reminder that the goods that the Church gives access to in the name of her head are not rewards, addressed to those who fully comply with her teaching, but expressions of His gratuitous, wholly undeserved and merciful self-giving.

As I kept returning to delighting in and thinking about Cardinal Kasper’s words, Pope Francis (five days later) chose the question of Christian identity (which is implicit in Kasper’s reasoning) during a morning homily at Santa Marta. Note also that identity is a key prerequisite to dialogue for Francis.

The angle chosen by Francis that day was that “sin is part of our identity,” that we are “sinners, but sinners with faith in Jesus Christ,” and that “it is God who gives us this identity as a gift.” Saying that sin is integral to our identity - an identity given to us by God as a gift - struck me as a rather stark claim (though one that immediately made me think of the “felix culpa” of the Easter Vigil liturgy). Placing it alongside Cardinal Kasper’s thoughts, it seemed to me that it is the key to understanding not only the idea of a Christianity that needs to go out and be prepared to get hurt in the process, which Pope Francis spoke about also in Evangelii Gaudium (§49), but also to the centrality that mercy has in Francis’ teaching.

Before going any further, let’s look at Pope Francis’ words in more detail in terms of what constitutes Christian identity:¹

“We too must traverse a long journey during our lives, so that this Christian identity may be strong, so that we may give witness. It is a journey which we can defined as being from ambiguity to true identity.

It’s true, there is sin, and sin makes us fall, but we have the Lord’s strength to get up and proceed with our identity. But I would also say that sin is part of our identity: we are sinners, but sinners with faith in Jesus Christ. It is not only a faith of understanding, no. It’s a faith that is a gift from God and that entered us from God. It is God himself who confirms us in Christ. And he has anointed us, he has impressed his seal in us, he has given us the down payment, the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts. It is God who gives us this gift of identity.

It is essential to be faithful to this Christian identity and to let the Holy Spirit, who is precisely the guarantee, the pledge in our hearts, to bring us forward in life. We are not people who follow a philosophy; we are anointed and have the guarantee of the Spirit.

Ours is a beautiful identity that shows itself in witness. It is because of this that Jesus speaks of witness as the language of our Christian identity. And this is so even though Christian identity, since we are sinners, is being tempted, will be tempted; temptations always come and our identity can weaken and can be lost.”

Pope Francis describing himself as a sinner since the very beginning of this pontificate is not some humble-bragging, but a reminder that sin, weakness, failure are intrinsic to what it is to be human. It is also central to what it means to be Christian. We are not perfect, flawless, wholly-compliant, but addled with sin, with failure, with imperfection. What Pope Francis points out though in the above homily is that these flaws are not a source of resignation or pessimism, something that ought to trouble us, or something to be denied, but instead a basis for being open to God’s merciful love. I am a sinner, someone who gives in to temptation, who fails to love, who makes mistakes, but I know that I am loved by God and I entrust myself to Him and give space to him so that he may lead me - with all my flaws - ever closer to Himself.

This is in stark contrast to a position that seems to, at least implicitly, underlie the thought processes of many who oppose openness to all, regardless of their closeness to the Church’s teaching, and who seem to be operating on the assumption that participation in the life of the Church has perfection as a prerequisite. Failure here is a personal weakness that disqualifies one from participating in the mystical body of Christ and that needs to be overcome before re-integration can take place. Here the Church is an association of the flawless and of the self-sufficient.

This is not a Church I recognize, and neither is this the Church that presents herself in the Catechism. Already the Gospel is characterized there as “the revelation in Jesus Christ of God’s mercy to sinners” (§1846), which is followed by declaring that ““You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” The same is true of the Eucharist, the sacrament of redemption”. Next, sin is presented as undeniably part of us, and its recognition in oneself as a precursor to mercy:

“To receive his mercy, we must admit our faults. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”” (§1847)

And St. Paul goes even further, by correlating grace with sin:

“As St. Paul affirms, “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” But to do its work grace must uncover sin so as to convert our hearts and bestow on us “righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Like a physician who probes the wound before treating it, God, by his Word and by his Spirit, casts a living light on sin: Conversion requires convincing of sin; it includes the interior judgment of conscience, and this, being a proof of the action of the Spirit of truth in man’s inmost being, becomes at the same time the start of a new grant of grace and love: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Thus in this “convincing concerning sin” we discover a double gift: the gift of the truth of conscience and the gift of the certainty of redemption. The Spirit of truth is the Consoler.” (§1848)

Truth, recognizing our sinfulness, is followed by God’s merciful action and His gift of redemption, which as Cardinal Kasper stated so clearly, the Catechism too links to the pinnacle of Jesus’ loving self-sacrifice:

“It is precisely in the Passion, when the mercy of Christ is about to vanquish it, that sin most clearly manifests its violence and its many forms: unbelief, murderous hatred, shunning and mockery by the leaders and the people, Pilate’s cowardice and the cruelty of the soldiers, Judas’ betrayal—so bitter to Jesus, Peter’s denial and the disciples’ flight. However, at the very hour of darkness, the hour of the prince of this world,the sacrifice of Christ secretly becomes the source from which the forgiveness of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly.” (§1851)

A recognition of my sinfulness is no guilt-ridden pessimism, but instead a source of joy, since God’s love exceeds whatever flaws I have and envelops me, all of my brothers and sisters and the whole of creation. My flaws are an invitation to be merciful to all, regardless of their beliefs or way of life, since they are loved by God just as much as I am.

O felix culpa!

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¹ Since the quotes from Pope Francis homily were much more extensive in the Italian account that day, the following is my, crude translation of that text, rather than the official English text by Vatican Radio.

The face of mercy

On Saturday evening, on the eve of Mercy Sunday, Pope Francis proclaimed the opening of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy that will run from 8th December 2015 until 20th November 2016 by presenting the bull of indiction, Misericordiae Vultus - "The face of mercy." At 9.5K words some have called it "Evangelii Gaudium II" already, and in terms of significance of content, it is not hard to see why. If you have the time and inclination, I would very much like to encourage you to read it in full, but, if you prefer, the following is my selection of key passages from this important statement.

To begin with, Francis identifies mercy with Jesus and its recipients with all of humanity:

"Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. These words might well sum up the mystery of the Christian faith. Mercy has become living and visible in Jesus of Nazareth, reaching its culmination in him." (§1)

"How much I desire that the year to come will be steeped in mercy, so that we can go out to every man and woman, bringing the goodness and tenderness of God! May the balm of mercy reach everyone, both believers and those far away, as a sign that the Kingdom of God is already present in our midst!" (§6)

A love that to God is "visceral," fatherly and motherly is then presented as the motivation for mercy:

"[T]he mercy of God is not an abstract idea, but a concrete reality through which he reveals his love as that of a father or a mother, moved to the very depths out of love for their child. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that this is a “visceral” love. It gushes forth from the depths naturally, full of tenderness and compassion, indulgence and mercy." (§6)

Several parables are then pointed to as examples of Jesus explaining what mercy means, with a particularly poignant one being the parable of the ruthless servant in which mercy becomes "a criterion for ascertaining who his true children are":

"In the parables devoted to mercy, Jesus reveals the nature of God as that of a Father who never gives up until he has forgiven the wrong and overcome rejection with compassion and mercy. We know these parables well, three in particular: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the father with two sons (cf. Lk 15:1-32). In these parables, God is always presented as full of joy, especially when he pardons. In them we find the core of the Gospel and of our faith, because mercy is presented as a force that overcomes everything, filling the heart with love and bringing consolation through pardon. [...]

"[In the parable of the “ruthless servant," (Matthew 18:21-35)] Jesus affirms that mercy is not only an action of the Father, it becomes a criterion for ascertaining who his true children are. In short, we are called to show mercy because mercy has first been shown to us. Pardoning offences becomes the clearest expression of merciful love, and for us Christians it is an imperative from which we cannot excuse ourselves. At times how hard it seems to forgive! And yet pardon is the instrument placed into our fragile hands to attain serenity of heart. To let go of anger, wrath, violence, and revenge are necessary conditions to living joyfully. Let us therefore heed the Apostle’s exhortation: “Do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Eph 4:26). Above all, let us listen to the words of Jesus who made mercy as an ideal of life and a criterion for the credibility of our faith: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Mt 5:7): the beatitude to which we should particularly aspire in this Holy Year." (§9)

Having set out the centrality of mercy in Jesus' teaching and identified it with Him, Pope Francis places it at the basis of the Church and insists that "nothing in her preaching and in her witness to the world can be lacking in mercy":

"Mercy is the very foundation of the Church’s life. All of her pastoral activity should be caught up in the tenderness she makes present to believers; nothing in her preaching and in her witness to the world can be lacking in mercy. The Church’s very credibility is seen in how she shows merciful and compassionate love. The Church “has an endless desire to show mercy.” Perhaps we have long since forgotten how to show and live the way of mercy. The temptation, on the one hand, to focus exclusively on justice made us forget that this is only the first, albeit necessary and indispensable step. But the Church needs to go beyond and strive for a higher and more important goal. On the other hand, sad to say, we must admit that the practice of mercy is waning in the wider culture. It some cases the word seems to have dropped out of use. However, without a witness to mercy, life becomes fruitless and sterile, as if sequestered in a barren desert. The time has come for the Church to take up the joyful call to mercy once more. It is time to return to the basics and to bear the weaknesses and struggles of our brothers and sisters. Mercy is the force that reawakens us to new life and instils in us the courage to look to the future with hope." (§10)

Next, two complementary points are made about language and silence: the need for merciful expression and for silence so as to hear God's Word:

"It is absolutely essential for the Church and for the credibility of her message that she herself live and testify to mercy. Her language and her gestures must transmit mercy, so as to touch the hearts of all people and inspire them once more to find the road that leads to the Father." (§12)

"The Evangelist reminds us of the teaching of Jesus who says, “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36). It is a programme of life as demanding as it is rich with joy and peace. Jesus’s command is directed to anyone willing to listen to his voice (cf. Lk 6:27). In order to be capable of mercy, therefore, we must first of all dispose ourselves to listen to the Word of God. This means rediscovering the value of silence in order to meditate on the Word that comes to us. In this way, it will be possible to contemplate God’s mercy and adopt it as our lifestyle." (§13)

To complement the positive expressions of mercy, Pope Francis also sets out a negative one (negative in the sense that it proscribes rather than prescribes) that echoes his "Who am I to judge?" that so many have downplayed since it was pronounced in an interview rather than an official, magisterial document:

"The Lord asks us above all not to judge and not to condemn [cf. (Luke 6:37-38)]. If anyone wishes to avoid God’s judgement, he should not make himself the judge of his brother or sister. Human beings, whenever they judge, look no farther than the surface, whereas the Father looks into the very depths of the soul. How much harm words do when they are motivated by feelings of jealousy and envy! To speak ill of others puts them in a bad light, undermines their reputation and leaves them prey to the whims of gossip. To refrain from judgement and condemnation means, in a positive sense, to know how to accept the good in every person and to spare him any suffering that might be caused by our partial judgment and our presumption to know everything about him. But this is still not sufficient to express mercy. Jesus asks us also to forgive and to give. To be instruments of mercy because it was we who first received mercy from God. To be generous with others, knowing that God showers his goodness upon us with immense generosity." (§14)

Pope Francis then links mercy to the Father's self-giving that he characterizes using the hallmarks of the life of the Trinity:

"Merciful like the Father, therefore, is the “motto” of this Holy Year. In mercy, we find proof of how God loves us. He gives his entire self, always, freely, asking nothing in return. He comes to our aid whenever we call upon him." (§14)

Leading his exposition of mercy to practical measures, Francis points to the corporal and spiritual acts of mercy that the Church has advocated since its beginning:

"Jesus introduces us to these works of mercy in his preaching so that we can know whether or not we are living as his disciples. Let us rediscover these corporal works of mercy: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead. And let us not forget the spiritual works of mercy: to counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, admonish sinners, comfort the afflicted, forgive offences, bear patiently those who do us ill, and pray for the living and the dead.

We cannot escape the Lord’s words to us, and they will serve as the criteria upon which we will be judged: whether we have fed the hungry and given drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger and clothed the naked, or spent time with the sick and those in prison (cf. Mt 25:31-45). Moreover, we will be asked if we have helped others to escape the doubt that causes them to fall into despair and which is often a source of loneliness; if we have helped to overcome the ignorance in which millions of people live, especially children deprived of the necessary means to free them from the bonds of poverty; if we have been close to the lonely and afflicted; if we have forgiven those who have offended us and have rejected all forms of anger and hate that lead to violence; if we have had the kind of patience God shows, who is so patient with us; and if we have commended our brothers and sisters to the Lord in prayer. In each of these “little ones,” Christ himself is present. His flesh becomes visible in the flesh of the tortured, the crushed, the scourged, the malnourished, and the exiled … to be acknowledged, touched, and cared for by us. Let us not forget the words of Saint John of the Cross: “as we prepare to leave this life, we will be judged on the basis of love.”" (§15)

That mercy is not about following rules, but about a going out towards those who are in need of it and a respect for their dignity, is put clearly next:

"For his part, Jesus speaks several times of the importance of faith over and above the observance of the law. It is in this sense that we must understand his words when, reclining at table with Matthew and other tax collectors and sinners, he says to the Pharisees raising objections to him, “Go and learn the meaning of ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice.’ I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mt 9:13). Faced with a vision of justice as the mere observance of the law that judges people simply by dividing them into two groups – the just and sinners – Jesus is bent on revealing the great gift of mercy that searches out sinners and offers them pardon and salvation. One can see why, on the basis of such a liberating vision of mercy as a source of new life, Jesus was rejected by the Pharisees and the other teachers of the law. In an attempt to remain faithful to the law, they merely placed burdens on the shoulders of others and undermined the Father’s mercy. The appeal to a faithful observance of the law must not prevent attention from being given to matters that touch upon the dignity of the person." (§20)

Pope Francis then goes on to situating mercy in an inter-religious context, with a particular focus on Judaism and Islam, and with a call to open-mindedness, respect and peacefulness:

"There is an aspect of mercy that goes beyond the confines of the Church. It relates us to Judaism and Islam, both of which consider mercy to be one of God’s most important attributes. Israel was the first to receive this revelation which continues in history as the source of an inexhaustible richness meant to be shared with all mankind. As we have seen, the pages of the Old Testament are steeped in mercy, because they narrate the works that the Lord performed in favour of his people at the most trying moments of their history. Among the privileged names that Islam attributes to the Creator are “Merciful and Kind.” This invocation is often on the lips of faithful Muslims who feel themselves accompanied and sustained by mercy in their daily weakness. They too believe that no one can place a limit on divine mercy because its doors are always open.

I trust that this Jubilee year celebrating the mercy of God will foster an encounter with these religions and with other noble religious traditions; may it open us to even more fervent dialogue so that we might know and understand one another better; may it eliminate every form of closed-mindedness and disrespect, and drive out every form of violence and discrimination." (§23)

The next day - on Mercy Sunday, Pope Francis returned to the starting point of Misericordiae Vultus, where he identifies mercy with Jesus and went on to spell out the basis of that identity:


"[T]he Lord shows us, through the Gospel, his wounds.  They are wounds of mercy.  It is true: the wounds of Jesus are wounds of mercy. [...]

Jesus invites us to behold these wounds, to touch them as Thomas did, to heal our lack of belief.  Above all, he invites us to enter into the mystery of these wounds, which is the mystery of his merciful love. Through these wounds, as in a light-filled opening, we can see the entire mystery of Christ and of God: his Passion, his earthly life – filled with compassion for the weak and the sick – his incarnation in the womb of Mary.

Faced with the tragic events of human history we can feel crushed at times, asking ourselves, “Why?”.  Humanity’s evil can appear in the world like an abyss, a great void: empty of love, empty of goodness, empty of life.  And so we ask: how can we fill this abyss?  For us it is impossible; only God can fill this emptiness that evil brings to our hearts and to human history.  It is Jesus, God made man, who died on the Cross and who fills the abyss of sin with the depth of his mercy."