Evangelization: Paul VI's definition

Pope Paul VI issued his exhortation on Evangelization in the Modern World, Evangelii nuntiandi, ten years to the day after the close of Vatican II.  Paul VI states that evangelization is at the heart of the very purpose of Vatican II, not the fabled and fictitious "spirit of Vatican II," so dear to liberal narratives, but according to the earnest prayer and hope of Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI, his successor, taken up by Pope John Paul II.  Here it is: "We wish to do so on this tenth anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council, the objectives of which are definitively summed up in this single one: to make the Church of the twentieth century ever better fitted for proclaiming the Gospel to the people of the twentieth century." Not accommodation to the new, not abandonment of the ancient truth, but better fitted for proclaiming the gospel, i.e., evangelization. Pope Paul VI never tired of reminding his Church that Vatican II did not undo, nor redefine, nor encourage novelty, nor "throw open windows" for the modern air. To appreciate his shepherd's heart concerned about the subversion of faith, read his letters on the Eucharist (Mysterium fidei) or on The Apostles Peter and Paul, not to speak of Humanae vitae. 

But to speak of his necessary correctives of progressive distortions and his affirmations of the ancient faith is to digress. His positive vision of the council as aimed at evangelization is our topic. He warns of the difficulty of defining evangelization because of the complexity of the phenomenon. But then he makes an attempt to do so. The definition is found in section 18, about which we will offer some comment line by line, reading carefully the scripture passages he selects in the footnotes (please get your Bible if you wish to continue reading).

"For the Church, evangelizing means bringing the Good News into all the strata of humanity, and through its influence transforming humanity from within and making it new: 'Now I am making the whole of creation new.'" (Rev. 21:5; cf. 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15)

The Church must bring the good news into all strata of society -- the latin term is "coetus" which means a coming together or association of people.  The message must go out to all -- workers and managers, artists and writers, mothers and fathers, politicians and economists, young people and old people. You get the idea. It would require lay apostolate because like must minister to like, and the laity will belong naturally within each of these groups. And the goal is renewal, a deep renewal called "transformation" or being made new from within. There is nothing else like it. Perhaps true education opens up a possibility of renewal from within -- but education always falls short of deep renewal of will for one, and the enlightenment of the mind through liberal arts stops short of the full mystery of human existence. There is a salutary modesty of Socratic wisdom (I know that I do not know), but the human heart must have more to nourish the parched landscape of the fallen world. And as Aquinas said so adroitly -- ok, philosophers could come to a knowledge about God (being, the most important things) but this only by a very few, after a very long time, and admixed with many errors! (ST 1.1) So it is fitting that God revealed to us our true end. "I make all things new" is the breathtaking claim of the Redeemer of Man. (Rev. 21:5) And then there is ST Paul's statement "If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation." (2 Cor 5:17) And he glories in the cross of Christ, because he is "a new creation." It is good news. Too good for a weary pagan world that knew the weight of its own futility and endless cycles of becoming. But for the modern man, there are too many false promises of renewal -- too many new fixes and patches and drugs and systems and technologies and gimmicks and personalities -- the promises are endless and the confidence men continue to step up with a new product and a new way. But there is good news, an authentic transformation, interior renewal of mind and will. It is the old time gospel of Jesus Christ.

"But there is no new humanity if there are not first of all new persons renewed by Baptism (Rom 6:4) and by lives lived according to the Gospel. (Eph 4:24-25; Col 3:9-10) The purpose of evangelization is therefore precisely this interior change"

Do we need a confidence man to sell it? Is it complicated and capable of being oversold? No. It is simple. It requires baptism. And also a conversion of life, a life lived by the Gospel. St. Paul helps as usual -- by baptism we are buried in his death, and we walk in newness by his resurrection. It is the Paschal mystery -- the mystery of the death and resurrection. We encounter the mystery of Christ and baptism requires a response of faith. "What do you ask of the Church?" "Faith" Faith is a gift. But one may desire it, one may ask for it. One must thank God for it, if received, and nurture it. So again St Paul says "put off your old nature, be renewed in your mind, put on the new nature." (Eph 4:23-25) This is something higher than liberal education; this provides a deeper basis for education in the transformation of mind and will. "Put off the old nature, put on the new nature -- renewed in knowledge after the image of the  creator." (Col. 3:9-10)

Now we come to the definition: "if it had to be expressed in one sentence the best way of stating it would be to say that the Church evangelizes when she seeks to convert, (Rom 1:16; 1 Cor 1:18, 2:4) solely through the divine power of the message she proclaims, both the personal and collective consciences of people, the activities in which they engage, and the lives and concrete milieu which are theirs."

This section touches back to our previous posts on conscience. The Church does seek to convert people, to turn them around to or turn them toward, God. There is no hiding this word -- conversion -- "I am not ashamed of the Gospel" St Paul says at Rom. 1:16, "it is the power of God for salvation." But it is "solely" through the message, not through force or subterfuge (confidence men not needed here), just sincere and honest messengers and witnesses. The power of the message will convert or transform "conscience" -- that combination of reflective self-judgment according to a standard, and the remembering, as Benedict said, or the truth of our relationship to God and others. "The word of the cross is folly" admits St Paul (1 Cor 1:18), but it is the power of God. As John Paul II explains in Redeemer of Man, Christ, through the sacrifice on the cross, reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. Love. The cross destroys the wisdom of the wise. John Paul calls the cross a "reef" or "barrier" at the deeps upon which reason may come to ruin or make a safe passage to the open seas. (see my very first post on "Swimming to the Reef", the one post in March). If we come to know the wisdom of the cross we live anew.

It will follow from the renewal of conscience, the opening of the sanctuary deep in memory (Confessions X.25) that the activities in which we engage will be converted or changed. The beatitudes set a new course for being and action, soaring beyond the self-righteousness of keeping the commandments and breathing the new air beyond the stench of sunken sin. And then as friends of the cross come together and participate in the mystery of faith (Eucharist) and go out to all circles and groups of humanity -- many more lives and the concrete milieu of society (culture) will be converted as well. The burden evangelization now seems too heavy, perhaps. But not if we keep returning to square one. Pick up the cross each day -- it is the saving power of God.


It is all of one piece. Pope Paul VI selected just the right scripture passages. And the last he cites is Rom. 2:4; it takes one aback but leaves one in a decision mode: "Do you presume upon the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" Paul is asking you.

Benedict XVI on Conscience and Evangelization

Pope Benedict XVI develops a deeper understanding of conscience and shows how it is essential to evangelization or mission. The proper sphere of the influence of the Church on society is through conscience, not directly through legislation and certainly not through force and coercion. The formation of conscience, in this classic account, amounts to the instruction in the moral norms and the availability of casuistry to cover various cases. Do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not murder.  But conscience rests upon a knowledge of first principles, called synderesis, and the unfolding of the goods of human flourishing in precepts of natural law. It is at the level of "synderesis" that Benedict seeks to open up a new approach to understanding.

He would have us consider the knowledge of first principles of morality to be called "amamnesis" or recollection, remembering. There must be, he says, "something like an original memory of the good and true implanted in us, that there is an ontological tendency within man, who is created in the likeness of God, toward the divine." (see On Conscience) Conscience therefore requires that we reach back and remember the deeper level of our being and our original relationship to God. Conscience can err because a person can refuse to remember or to recollect who or what one is, or be "deaf to the internal promptings of truth."

So Benedict says "the possibility for and right to mission rest on this anamnesis of the creator, which is identified to the ground of our existence. . . . Mission is vindicated when those addressed recognize in the encounter with the word of the gospel that is indeed what they have been waiting for." (32-33)

And in turn he explains the role of the papacy in this light. The teaching authority of the pope consists in "being the advocate of the Christian memory. . . . All the power  the papacy has is power of conscience. It is service to the double memory  on which the faith is based -- and which again and again must be purified, expanded,  and defended against the destruction of  memory that is threatened by a subjectivity forgetful of its own foundation, as well as by pressures of social and cultural conformity."

Re-evangelization requires more than a statement of moral principles. We must present a deeper account of what it is to be human; what it is to be a creature. But we must puncture the bubble of subjectivity in which we can live blithely unaware of others and love, or suffering and death. We must push back against social and cultural conformity to witness to a fresh and truthful vision of humanity. Then we thereby ake up the motto on Pope John Paul II -- "Christ reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear."

Benedict XVI Creates Council for New Evangelization

Solzhenitsyn - "Men have forgotten God . .  ."

From ZENIT

Will Be Dedicated to Secularized Christian Countries

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 28, 2010 (Zenit.org).- To ward off secularization in nations where the Gospel put down roots centuries ago, Benedict XVI is creating a new pontifical council.

The Pope announced the newest Vatican dicastery today, as he was celebrating vespers for Tuesday's feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.

This council -- dedicated to a "renewed evangelization" -- will be the 12th of the Roman Curia. There are also nine congregations.

"Man of the third millennium also desires an authentic and full life, he has need of truth, of profound liberty, of gratuitous love," the Holy Father said before announcing the new organization. "Also in the deserts of the secularized world, man's soul thirsts for God, for the living God."

The Pontiff cited his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, in affirming that the mission Christ entrusted to the Church is still far from completion, and that it requires strong commitment.

"There are regions in the world that still wait for a first evangelization; others that received it but need more profound work; others still in which the Gospel put down roots a long time ago, giving place to a true Christian tradition, but where in the last centuries -- with complex dynamics -- the process of secularization has produced a grave crisis of the sense of the Christian faith and of belonging to the Church," Benedict XVI observed.

And he announced: "In this perspective, I have decided to create a new organism, in the form of pontifical council, with the specific task of promoting a renewed evangelization in countries where the first proclamation of the faith already resounded, and where Churches are present of ancient foundation, but which are going through a progressive secularization of society and a sort of 'eclipse of the sense of God,' which constitutes a challenge to find the appropriate means to propose again the perennial truth of the Gospel of Christ."

The Holy Father did not announce who will be the president of the new dicastery.

Evangelization: Who will educate the educator?

There is a phrase in a small work by Karl Marx that has always struck me. In his Theses on Feuerbach, he says Feuerbach neglected to ask the question "who will educate the educators." Karl Marx thought only revolutionary practice will bring about the transformation of mankind, so Feuerbach's account was too passive. In other words, if I understand Marx, no one will educate the educator, but the revolutionary will transform himself. Well, we know where the self-transforming revolutionaries have landed us. The destruction of the human.

Christians believe that the revolution occurred with the Incarnation; the "Fiat" of Mary opened up a new day for humanity when the son of God was made flesh. The message of Redemptor hominis, deriving from Gaudium et spes, is that "Christ reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear." (§22) And his kingly action of sacrifice shows us the way to live, a way we understand in the Beatitudes. So Christians know who will educate the educators, the teacher, Jesus Christ, for a true transformation of mankind.

A similar problem is recognized by Pope Paul VI; he understood that evangelization must begin with the evangelizers:

"The Church is an evangelizer, but she begins by being evangelized herself. She is the community of believers, the community of hope lived and communicated, the community of brotherly love, and she needs to listen unceasingly to what she must believe, to her reasons for hoping, to the new commandment of love. She is the People of God immersed in the world, and often tempted by idols, and she always needs to hear the proclamation of the 'mighty works of God' which converted her to the Lord; she always needs to be called together afresh by Him and reunited. In brief, this means that she has a constant need of being evangelized, if she wishes to retain freshness, vigor and strength in order to proclaim the Gospel." Evangelii Nuntiandi §15

Pope John Paul II fully understood this when he spoke of the need for "re-evangelization" not only because of cultural decline of Christianity, but also because the good news must be appropriated and lived afresh  with each person, and each generation. Much of his task was teaching the faithful, to ready them for the new evangelization. The question still stands -- who will educate the educators? Pope John Paul II, as the servant of Christ. Hence, the mission for the Pope John Paul II Forum: an educational apostolate seeking to promote the understanding and appreciation of the thought of Pope John Paul II and to facilitate its application to contemporary life.

Evangelization: What is the Kingdom and What Salvation?

In these sections from Evangelii Nuntiandi Pope Paul VI lays out the basic content of evangelization (the proclamation and witness to the good news, the gospel). He saw a trend developing within the Church that reduced the gospel to just another social-political ideology of liberation or just another self-help bromide. Echoing Jacques Maritain and Leon Bloy (that pilgrim of the absolute), he said "it cannot be contained in the simple and restricted dimension of economics, politics, social or cultural life; it must envisage the whole man, in all his aspects, right up to and including his openness to the absolute, even the divine Absolute." (see §33) As you can see, he would have us open the gospel of Matthew and consider some key passages about "the kingdom" and about "salvation."

§8. As an evangelizer, Christ first of all proclaims a kingdom, the kingdom of God; and this is so important that, by comparison, everything else becomes "the rest," which is "given in addition." (Mt 16:33) Only the kingdom therefore is absolute and it makes everything else relative. The Lord will delight in describing in many ways the happiness of belonging to this kingdom (a paradoxical happiness which is made up of things that the world rejects), (Mt 5:3-12) the demands of the kingdom and its Magna Charta, (Mt 5-7.) the heralds of the kingdom, (Mt 10.) its mysteries, (Mt 13.) its children, (Mt. 18.) the vigilance and fidelity demanded of whoever awaits its definitive coming. (Mt 24-25)

§9. As the kernel and center of His Good News, Christ proclaims salvation, this great gift of God which is liberation from everything that oppresses man but which is above all liberation from sin and the Evil One, in the joy of knowing God and being known by Him, of seeing Him, and of being given over to Him. All of this is begun during the life of Christ and definitively accomplished by His death and resurrection. But it must be patiently carried on during the course of history, in order to be realized fully on the day of the final coming of Christ, whose date is known to no one except the Father. (Mt 24:36; Acts 1:7; 1 Thess 5:1-2)

§10. This kingdom and this salvation, which are the key words of Jesus Christ's evangelization, are available to every human being as grace and mercy, and yet at the same time each individual must gain them by force - they belong to the violent, says the Lord, (Mt 11:12; Luke 16:16) through toil and suffering, through a life lived according to the Gospel, through abnegation and the cross, through the spirit of the beatitudes. But above all each individual gains them through a total interior renewal which the Gospel calls metanoia; it is a radical conversion, a profound change of mind and heart. (Mt 4:17)

Evangelization and universities

As we finished reading Veritatis splendor we found that the renewal of morality is tied to evangelization. In Redemptor hominis, Pope John Paul II said that the discovery of true freedom in Jesus Christ becomes part of the proclamation of the good news. (§12) Moreover, he said, "We have, in particular, a great sense of responsibility for this truth. By Christ's institution the Church is its guardian and teacher, having been endowed with a unique assistance of the Holy Spirit in order to guard and teach it in its most exact integrity."

The renewal of morality and formation of conscience; the discovery and defense of freedom. What a suitable task for a Catholic university. Indeed, the most important task of Catholic higher education is evangelization. Pope John Paul II said as much in Ex corde ecclesiae. I have yet to find a university that acknowledges this truth. Yet here is the passage:

"By its very nature, each Catholic university makes an important contribution to the Church's work of evangelization. It is a living institutional witness to Christ and his message, so vitally important in cultures marked by secularism, or where Christ and his message are still virtually unknown. Moreover, all the basic academic activities of a Catholic university are connected with and in harmony with the evangelizing mission of the Church: research carried out in the light of the Christian message which puts new human discoveries at the service of individuals and society; education offered in a faith-context that forms men and women capable of rational and critical judgment and conscious of the transcendent dignity of the human person; professional training that incorporates ethical values and a sense of service to individuals and to society; the dialogue with culture that makes the faith better understood, and the theological research that translates the faith into contemporary language. Precisely because it is more and more conscious of its salvific mission in this world, the Church wants to have these centers closely connected with it; it wants to have them present and operative in spreading the authentic message of Christ."

The passage is not cryptic. And here are the concluding words of Ex corde:

"Beloved brothers and sisters, my encouragement and my trust go with you in your weighty daily task that becomes ever more important, more urgent and necessary on behalf of evangelization for the future of culture and of all cultures. The Church and the world have great need of your witness and of your capable, free, and responsible contribution."

Pope John Paul II's  wish is clear. So we may ask, in the words of Philip Neri,  "WELL! when shall we have a mind to begin to do good" Shouldn't the faculty and administrators at Catholic universities make a resolution to understand this task better and seek to fulfill it?

Perhaps we should begin with Pope Paul VI apostolic exhortation on evangelization, Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975). Begin reading it here. The picture of Pope Paul VI at the head of this blog entry was taken by the author in May 1976 prior to a general audience.

See also my article on universities and evangelization found on the Newman Society website.

Veritatis splendor - morality and the new evangelization

A renewal of morality is a key part of the new evangelization. The new evangelization aims in part at reviving the faith of those who have fallen away due to the dechristianization of the West. This involves a loss of faith and an "obscuring of the moral sense." The wedge between faith and life is bolstered by "today's widespread tendencies towards subjectivism, utilitarianism and relativism [which] appear not merely as pragmatic attitudes or patterns of behavior, but rather as approaches having a basis in theory and claiming full cultural and social legitimacy." (§106) The new evangelization must involve "the proclamation and presentation of morality."

The renewal of morality requires more than teaching and preaching, it requires witness. The unity of faith and life means faith permeates life in all aspects. "The new evangelization will show its authenticity and unleash all its missionary force when it is carried out through the gift not only of the word proclaimed but also of the word lived. In particular, the life of holiness which is resplendent in so many members of the People of God, humble and often unseen, constitutes the simplest and most attractive way to perceive at once the beauty of truth, the liberating force of God's love, and the value of unconditional fidelity to all the demands of the Lord's law, even in the most difficult situations" (§107) 

The beginning of this moral renewal must start in marriage and family. The is much confusion and compromise regarding the second level of precept of the natural law, affirming the good of procreation and the fidelity of spouses. This is why John Paul devoted so much attention to the catechesis on the theology of the body, wrote reflections on Humanae vitae, and a special letter to families. "Through the family passes the primary current of the civilization of love."

In addition, the renewal must spread out through the world of corporate capitalism. In The Church in the Americas John Paul poses this challenge: "On a continent marked by competition and aggressiveness, unbridled consumerism and corruption, lay people are called to embody deeply evangelical values such as mercy, forgiveness, honesty, transparency of heart and patience in difficult situations. What is expected from the laity is a great creative effort in activities and works demonstrating a life in harmony with the Gospel."

In Veritatis splendor, Pope John Paul II laid the basis for a renewal of Catholic morality. Our nine meditations have attempted to lay out some of its key ideas.We shall next turn to the theme of evangelization.

Veritatis splendor - Christ, the martyrs and the moral life

The complexity and weight of the moral law contrasted with the increase of power and the allurement of freedom sets up a tough challenge for the Christian approach to morality. Its educative power, according to Pope John Paul II, is neither doctrinal statements nor appeals to pastoral vigilance. §85 The "secret" of its educational power is "looking to the Lord Jesus." As he said in Redemptor hominis, Christians look to the redeemer of man -- "Each day the Church looks to Christ with unfailing love, fully aware that the true and final answer to the problem of morality lies in him alone." Indeed, he reiterates the main thesis of Redemptor hominis -- "The Crucified Christ reveals the authentic meaning of freedom; he lives it fully in the total gift of himself and calls his disciples to share in his freedom."

Living a moral life is essential to faith, "walking in the light." Faith must not be separated from life, from moral life. The Fathers at Vatican II said that the separation of faith from life is the grave error of our day. The enemy is not them (secularists or pagans or Marxists or liberals) -- the enemy is us. For faith demands "a decision involving ones whole existence." It entails "an act of trusting abandonment to Christ, which enables us to live as he lived (Gal. 2:20), in profound love of God and of our brothers and sisters." (§88) Which of us is willing to pay the price? Can you drink the cup . . .

The martyrs did so. They show the possibility of "living according to the radical demands of the gospel." Their witness is not that of some Stoic endurance, nor the revelation of who is really the ultimate gladiator. They witness to the splendor of truth. The truth about God and man. "For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God." (Rom 8:19)

Their deaths often turned upon the challenge of the moral order --  "Martyrdom, accepted as an affirmation of the inviolability of the moral order, bears splendid witness both to the holiness of God's law and to the inviolability of the personal dignity of man, created in God's image and likeness. This dignity may never be disparaged or called into question, even with good intentions, whatever the difficulties involved. Jesus warns us most sternly: 'What does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?' (Mk 8:36). Martyrdom rejects as false and illusory whatever 'human meaning' one might claim to attribute, even in 'exceptional' conditions, to an act morally evil in itself." (§92)

This could still sound too far off -- too heroic. Indeed, I sometimes think of great martyrs, such as those martyred by Roman emperors, such as St Cyprian. He stood up to the emperor and was beheaded in a field in front of his flock.  Must we then call up the set for Sparticus and re-imagine this martyr's sacrifice Hollywood style? No, they serve a more important function than distant admiration or unreal imaginings. They help us to "ward off . . . [a] headlong plunge into the most dangerous crisis which can afflict man: the confusion between good and evil, which makes it impossible to build up and to preserve the moral order of individuals and communities." (§93) John the Baptist would not allow evil to be called good; so too, St Thomas More; and St Cyprian; and St Maximilian Kolbe. They are beacons of faith so needed in this age of confusion and compromise.

So the martyrs are not distant, they are close. They may be few, but . . . there is a connection between them and us because there is . . .

"a consistent witness which all Christians must daily be ready to make, even at the cost of suffering and grave sacrifice. Indeed, faced with the many difficulties which fidelity to the moral order can demand, even in the most ordinary circumstances, the Christian is called, with the grace of God invoked in prayer, to a sometimes heroic commitment. In this he or she is sustained by the virtue of fortitude, whereby — as Gregory the Great teaches — one can actually 'love the difficulties of this world for the sake of eternal rewards'." (§93)

The image is of a painting by Caravaggio, John the Baptist. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo.

Veritatis splendor - the natural law as a moral law

It is one thing to affirm the general notion of fundamental human goods, such as life, procreation and family, sociability, truth, beauty, God -- it is another thing to derive from them specific moral norms. There is the philosophical problem  about the justification of moral norms. The most obvious model to use, the one from Aristotle and Aquinas, is to see that the fundamental principle of synderesis, good is to be done and evil to be avoided, takes up each of the goods as a rule for practical action. Each good is to be protected and promoted and whatever detracts from and destroys the good is evil and ought to be avoided. And then each norm must be applied to the concrete and particular circumstances of an individual person. Conscience is the reflective knowledge or judgment concerning whether my actions have conformed to the norm or not. Have I done good, or evil?

Many, if not most,  moral philosophers and many theologians, reject this model. The idea of an absolute moral norm proves bothersome to them, especially the idea of an exceptionless negative precept, such as do not murder, or do not commit adultery. Yet these were important to the teaching of Jesus to the rich young man:  "If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments... You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness" (Mt 19:17-18).

The notion that morality is universal and permanent is also challenged vigorously by philosophers. This encyclical discusses the challenges to natural law and magisterial teaching on morality (see for example §§51-53). I do not plan to discuss these issues in great detail in the blog, but I will be posting many articles on the JP2 Forum website that do so.

In this blog I will make a few remarks about the defense of of some aspects of natural law. We need to be careful not to demand a Cartesian or Euclidean type deduction of moral norms  from first principles. Aristotle said it is a sign of an educated man to acknowledge that different types of proofs and demonstrations are fitting for various types of inquiry. If knowledge of natural law is a participation of the human person in the wisdom of God, it will be dependent upon the active engagement of people over time to actively seek the truth of morality. In Man and the State Maritain has a good discussion about the peculiar problems pertaining to the knowledge of natural law, and he emphasizes the historical unfolding of our knowledge of the natural law over time. But here are a few quotes and points from Veritatis splendor.

§50: "Natural inclinations take on moral relevance only insofar as they refer to the human person and his authentic fulfillment, a fulfillment which for that matter can take place always and only in human nature." The goods listed for human flourishing are not abstract goods, they are aspects of the concrete person. In Redemptor hominis John Paul said that we are concerned about the human person in the concrete. For example, "the origin and the foundation of the duty of absolute respect for human life are to be found in the dignity proper to the person and not simply in the natural inclination to preserve one's own physical life. Human life, even though it is a fundamental good of man, thus acquires a moral significance in reference to the good of the person, who must always be affirmed for his own sake." We defend the "right to life," or the good of life, a culture of life, but we cannot forget we are defending the dignity of particular, concrete human beings, not the abstract idea or principle. The human person is served by the moral norm and this should be the aspect that rouses our conscience.

§52: To the rich young man, Jesus confirmed the importance of the negative prohibitions. John Paul comments -- "Prohibitions which forbid a given action semper et pro semper, without exception, because the choice of this kind of behavior is in no case compatible with the goodness of the will of the acting person, with his vocation to life with God and to communion with his neighbor. It is prohibited — to everyone and in every case — to violate these precepts. They oblige everyone, regardless of the cost, never to offend in anyone, beginning with oneself, the personal dignity common to all. . . . the fact that only the negative commandments oblige always and under all circumstances does not mean that in the moral life prohibitions are more important than the obligation to do good indicated by the positive commandments. The reason is this: the commandment of love of God and neighbor does not have in its dynamic any higher limit, but it does have a lower limit, beneath which the commandment is broken." The last century of such great evil and the global rising trends today of murder, genocide, forced prostitution call out for us to affirm without ambiguity the "limit" below which humanity is defaced and lost. Evil is evil, semper et pro semper.

McInerny says, "The moral order is protected on its borders by negative precepts, but in the interior positive precepts suggest the inexhaustible openness of the human good."

§53 "It must certainly be admitted that man always exists in a particular culture, but it must also be admitted that man is not exhaustively defined by that same culture. Moreover, the very progress of cultures demonstrates that there is something in man which transcends those cultures. This 'something' is precisely human nature: this nature is itself the measure of culture and the condition ensuring that man does not become the prisoner of any of his cultures, but asserts his personal dignity by living in accordance with the profound truth of his being." Precisely through conscience, the interior sanctuary wherein the person can encounter the divine, is it possible for man to transcend culture, to question it, to challenge it.

Mark Twain saw how conscience can be warped by culture when he wrote "the conscience -- the unerring monitor  -- can be trained to approve any wild thing you want it to approve if you begin its education early and stick to it." But Huckleberry Finn does eventually break through to affirm the humanity of the slave. There are many examples of sheer conformity to culture, but there are those significant examples of men and women who rose above their time and place. The martyrs stand out among them.

Veritatis splendor - goods of human flourishing as the basis for natural law

In the Republic Plato shows Socrates at work educating two young men about the nature of justice. Glaucon and Adiemantus wished for Socrates to prove to them that justice is preferable to injustice and they make the case against justice as heard from the sophists. Socrates admires them for making the case so challenging. But to answer the question, he says, we must first know what justice is; and to know justice in the soul, it would be easier to approach the question of justice in the city. For the city is "the soul writ large."

I think the Socratic approach to the soul through the city may help us to understand the principles of natural law. For Pope John Paul II reminds us that according to Aquinas natural law involves a "participation" in the wisdom of God. "In this way God calls man to participate in his own providence, since he desires to guide the world — not only the world of nature but also the world of human persons — through man himself, through man's reasonable and responsible care. The natural law enters here as the human expression of God's eternal law. Saint Thomas writes: 'Among all others, the rational creature is subject to divine providence in the most excellent way, insofar as it partakes of a share of providence, being provident both for itself and for others. Thus it has a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end. This participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called natural law'."

The natural law rests upon a fundamental judgment called "synderesis" or practical wisdom concerning good and evil. A Greek etymology says the term derives from a variation of "guarding over" or watching the camp. To do good and to avoid evil requires vigilance at the core of our being. To quote Solzhenitsyn again, "the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil." How do we come to know what is good and what is evil?

Pope John Paul uses a variation of the approach of St Thomas Aquinas. The goods of human flourishing are derived through reflection upon the inclinations of human beings towards various goods. Thomas lists the inclinations towards preservation of life, the procreation of life, sociability, truth, and religion. (See Summa I-II 94.2) Pope John Paul says the following: "Inasmuch as it is inscribed in the rational nature of the person, it makes itself felt to all beings endowed with reason and living in history. In order to perfect himself in his specific order, the person must do good and avoid evil, be concerned for the transmission and preservation of life, refine and develop the riches of the material world, cultivate social life, seek truth, practice good and contemplate beauty." §51

The understanding of the communicability and inexhaustibility of the good behind each inclination constitutes the foundation for moral wisdom. Life is an instinctive good for me and I understand that it is a good for all human flourishing. Sex is a visceral good which importunes throughout life, but we appreciate how the procreative act issues ultimately in a new life and thus serves a more profound good and acts as a continual source of hope and affirmation for the human community. I call to mind a Vietnamese couple I knew who escaped to the jungle forests of South Vietnam after the fall of 1975; they survived alone for two years before escaping to Malaysia and settling in Kansas. As lonely fugitives in that forest they conceived and bore a child whom they named "Phoenix." Each item on that list of inclinations and goods signifies some aspect of the full or integral human good. Communion with others, political structure, enrichment of mind, habits of good living, the fashioning of beauty, and worship of God are also essential to a full human life for which we find tokens and rules strewn throughout all cultures. Promote the full human good, and avoid the evil of its destruction and undoing -- such is the deep principle of conscience.

But for many it is hard to see how these become a matter of law or binding moral norms. Perhaps with case of respect for life and prohibition of murder the connection is fairly clear.

But to resort to the Socratic strategy -- prior to prodding ones own conscience about how to live in accord with the full good of human nature, consider first the good of the social order. Is it not fitting that any founder of a city, or a concerned citizen such as you or I, would expect to see as a matter of course the following institutions in a good city: a hospital with doctors and nurses for the preservation of life; stable families for the procreation and education of children, the future generation; schools for the education of hands, hearts, and minds; many associations for fellowship and communion, including an ordered way for the use and transfer of political power; temples and Churches for worship of the transcendent being; and monuments and galleries for sacred memory and splendid beauty.

It would be hard to honestly strike down or eliminate any one of these institutions from the fabric of human life for they minister to human flourishing. It would be a great evil to see the collapse of any of these institutions or the elimination of the people and the purposes which make them up. This is the discovery of practical wisdom, the careful watching over the foundation of a good human life.

There is natural law "writ large" in our city. How should it be reflected in our own soul?

Saving Private Ryan and the Splendor of Truth

Saving Private Ryan, the Spielberg movie about World War II, bears an affinity to the structure and meaning of Veritatis splendor we have recently discussed. I would not at all suggest that Spielberg was influenced by Pope John Paul II, but rather, I would argue that the Splendor of Truth illuminates the human condition in its full sweep. And therefore, this movie, true to human experience, reveals the truth about morality and human existence.

The affinity I would suggest lies in the structure of the movie. It begins with the existential question about the good life (what must I do to be saved or redeemed?); it directly confronts the question of absolute moral norms and rejects the utilitarian solution as it affirms the over-riding importance of moral duty; and finally, it shows forth the beauty of the life of self-sacrifice to the point of martyrdom.

The very plot of the movie is framed by the quote from Abraham Lincoln concerning the sacrifice of the war dead as if upon an "altar" of freedom:

"Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. Yours very sincerely and respectfully, Abraham Lincoln."

As a small footnote I must add that an association of Americans lay flowers upon every grave in Arlington Cemetery -- they are called "No greater love," dedicated to providing annual programs of remembrance, friendship and care for families who lost a loved one in the service of our country or by an act of terrorism. How fitting that they choose a passage from the Gospel of John concerning the sacrifice of the redeemer of man. Lincoln understood the close connection between sacrifice in war and the importance of reference to God and ultimate sacrifice.

The existential question occurs at the end of the movie, but it is the beginning of the narrative since the movie is presented as a flashback from that point. Ryan stands up from an act of kneeling at the grave of Captain Miller, the man who "saved" him, and asks his wife, "Tell me I have led a good life." She is perplexed about the meaning of the question so he asks again "Tell me I am a good man." She answers, "you are." This is the all important question for personal existence -- what is the good life?

But he is a good man only because he has been saved by Captain Miller. Captain Miller is a Christ figure, because he "saved" Ryan and because he stands for the truth of morality and he makes the ultimate sacrifice.

But as the rich young man asks at the beginning of his adult life, how can I be a good man, or what must I do to be saved, so Private Ryan reflects back on his life with grief and gratitude to ask the same question. How does one live a life that is worthy of redemption? Miller said to him, "earn it" or "Make yourself worthy of it" -- make good use of your freedom is a worthy way.

The question of moral absolutes occurs in the middle of the movie when Miller's group captures a German soldier. Some of the men wish to execute him -- in part out of anger and revenge and in part out of calculation of utility. Captain Miller stands firm on the laws of war and does not allow his men to expend the life of this enemy soldier. The German returns at the end of the movie to kill more Americans. I recall a few Air Force cadets question the wisdom of this law of war (and moral precept) during a discussion in a class at the Air Force Academy. I worked through the moral argument; a few persisted and claimed that my lack of combat experience nullified my argument (Not "real world, sir" they exclaimed). So I brought into class my friend Bill Gibson, a Marine veteran of Vietnam combat, who told them that Marines do not execute prisoners and about his experience of a "real life" situation very similar to Miller's. He released Viet Cong prisoners despite pressure to do otherwise. One must never act as an executioner or murderer. If one wishes to think through these issue I advise you to consult Elizabeth Anscombe's magisterial article entitled "War and Murder," found here.

Finally, the life of Captain Miller is given for the good of the men, the battle, and the country. He dies making the ultimate sacrifice. He is a hero. And his dying words are said to Private Ryan, "James, earn this. Earn it."

We return to the cemetery with Ryan looking at Miller's tombstone, the cross of Christ (row after row). Ryan says to Miller: "My family is with me today. They wanted to come with me. To be honest with you, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel coming back here. Every day, I think about what you said to me that day on the bridge. I’ve tried to live my life the best I could. I hope it was enough. I hope that at least in your eyes I’ve earned what all of you have done for me."

Miller hopes that he has lived a life worthy of so great a redeemer. It took the scope of a life to manifest the dignity of the sacrifice. Is this movie, this story, not a testimony to the splendor of truth and an allegory for the redeemer of man?

Veritatis splendor: The Rich Young Man yesterday and today

At the outset of Veritatis splendor John Paul II expounds on the Gospel encounter between the rich young man and Christ (Mt 19:16) The young man asks Jesus what he needs to do to attain eternal life. Jesus responds by telling him to follow the commandments. The young man says that he has always done so. The young man is restless, he is seeking some deeper answer. He is asking for something more. John Paul says that for "the young man, the question is not so much about rules to be followed, but about the full meaning of life. This is in fact the aspiration at the heart of every human decision and action, the quiet searching and interior prompting which sets freedom in motion. This question is ultimately an appeal to the absolute Good which attracts us and beckons us; it is the echo of a call from God who is the origin and goal of man's life." (§7) The young man needs to learn the way of love, as do we all. But love requires sacrifice, perhaps demanding very much. In this case Jesus says give away all of your possessions.

Perhaps Jesus, in looking on the man with love, saw just what was holding him back, his attachment to money and privilege. Thus the young man is not willing to look beyond the law to its purpose nor is he ready to see in Jesus the embodiment of divine wisdom. He turns from Jesus with sadness because he can not bring himself to give up his attachment and to risk the venture of faith. But why is he sad? He has his wealth and his moral complacency. We could say as Newman said of conscience, the young man "vaguely reaches forward to something beyond self, and dimly discerns a sanction higher than self for its decisions." Or as John Paul said in Redemptor hominis, "the man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly‑‑and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being‑‑must with his unrest, uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ." (RH §10) The deepest reason he leaves in sadness, John Paul explains, is that he must acknowledge his own lack of self-sufficiency (§23) and face squarely a demand that transcends human aspiration and ability. (§22) He must be open to grace. But even the disciples were taken aback by the challenge -- "Lord, who can be saved?" To which Jesus responds, with God all things are possible.

John Paul says that Jesus' conversation with the rich young man continues "in every period of history, including our own." For the question: what must I do to be good, what must I do to be saved, "arises in the heart of every individual, and it is Christ alone who is capable of giving the full and definitive answer." (§25)

In his speech at world youth day in 1985 John Paul II said that youth itself is a treasure which must be given in love. John Paul was solicitous of the young, that they be challenged to live generously and fully in God. In fact, in writing of the third millennium he said: "The future of the world and the Church belongs to the younger generation, to those who, born in this century, will reach maturity in the next, the first century of the new millennium. Christ expects great things from young people, as he did from the young man who asked him: 'What good deed must I do, to have eternal life?' (Mt 19:16). I have referred to the remarkable answer which Jesus gave to him, in the recent Encyclical Veritatis Splendor, as I did earlier, in 1985, in my Apostolic Letter to the Youth of the World. Young people, in every situation, in every region of the world, do not cease to put questions to Christ: they meet him and they keep searching for him in order to question him further. If they succeed in following the road which he points out to them, they will have the joy of making their own contribution to his presence in the next century and in the centuries to come, until the end of time: 'Jesus is the same yesterday, today and for ever'." Tertio Millennio adveniente §58.

We must take from Pope John Paul's legacy a loving concern for the youth. Education must be our first priority. We use our resources on so many other things, and Catholic education often goes begging. But our youth are even more vulnerable today. For the young man in the Gospel, the moral law served a point of reference for the deeper call from Jesus. But today all cultural and moral points reference are toppled. Relativism, subjectivism, utilitarian expediency, consumerism scatter moral laws and models pell mell. John Paul said that he wrote Fides et ratio as a follow up to Veritatis splendor precisely because we need theology and philosophy to help recover critical points of reference: in "this time of rapid and complex change can leave especially the younger generation, to whom the future belongs and on whom it depends, with a sense that they have no valid points of reference. The need for a foundation for personal and communal life becomes all the more pressing at a time when we are faced with the patent inadequacy of perspectives in which the ephemeral is affirmed as a value and the possibility of discovering the real meaning of life is cast into doubt. This is why many people stumble through life to the very edge of the abyss without knowing where they are going. At times, this happens because those whose vocation it is to give cultural expression to their thinking no longer look to truth." (§7)

Western culture and academia have left the young exposed to the abyss, indeed push them to the abyss of moral chaos and collapse. An education based upon faith and reason is the best hope for the future. And there is reason for hope. For if the rich young man of the gospel, with a strong Jewish culture and the moral commandments as points of reference, still remained stuck in his sufficiency and isolation, the youth of today, with so few points of reference, will reach out to Christ lest they fall into the abyss or they will call on him to find their way out.

Veritatis splendor - purpose and structure

In the opening of Veritatis splendor, §4, Pope John Paul II says that he intends to reflect on whole of moral life because of distortions in moral thinking today in society and in the Church. These distortions include: relativism, suggesting that variations of culture must mean that there is no truth, no better or best; subjectivism, suggesting that the good is what feels good, or what I, the moral agent, judge to be good, no questions asked; and consequentialism, suggesting that we judge solely by weighing the outcomes, allowing the end to justify the means. In all cases of distortion, men flee from the burden of admitting to a universal moral standard, and specifically flee from exceptionless rules, i.e., absolutes. The moral hazard is that we are rendered helpless to confront intrinsic evil, while the maw of evil engulfed an entire century. John Paul has that knowledge carried to the heart, that no transcendence means abuse of power, and no truth means the abuse of freedom. This is the warning and requirement spoken about in Redemptor hominis. (In Veritatis, see §§96,97,99; 101)


Pope John Paul thus aims to defend the traditional doctrine regarding the natural law, and the universality and the permanent validity of its precepts. And also to reassert the authority of the Church as a magisterium. John Paul does not take a "defensive mode," because he exudes the confidence in the splendor of truth, and the faith that Christ reveals man to himself and makes his supreme calling clear. At the central point he speaks about conscience as the herald or voice of God, requiring silence and receptivity on our part. He follows with a defense of the universal standards and the notion of an exceptionless moral rule.

But we must also see the setting or structure for this account and defense of natural law. There are three chapters to the work. Chapter one expounds the parable of the rich young man. Chapter two provides the account of conscience and moral law. Chapter looks to the cross and the importance of martyrdom, particularly by those who stood firm for moral principle at the expense of their own lives.

The defense of moral principle in the modern world needs much more than a decent philosophical explanation of natural law. It requires an understanding of our existential plight, as seen in the rich young man. And it requires models of moral courage, such as the martyrs.

During the workshop, Dr. Freddoso said that we should see the work in terms of life as a pilgrimage towards a goal, towards God. We have a starting point, it can be any point along the way, represented by the rich young man. "What much I do to gain eternal life?" Or what must I do to reach the goal of life? The commandments are a part of the answer; but the call to follow Christ is the deeper answer. It is the call of service, the call of love. And where might such a life and such call eventually lead us? Surely it will require sacrifice; perhaps it will require an ultimate sacrifice. In such a setting we may finally gather the meaning and truth of moral laws and come to see relativism, subjectivism and consequentialism as fatal distortions which destroy freedom and subvert the life of love.

Newman on conscience

John Paul hoped that we would take a new look at conscience, to see it as the place where we encounter God in the form of a transcendent source of the good, and as a person calling to us. I cite again his remarks in new Orleans, "The more one seeks to unravel the mystery of the human person, the more open one becomes to the mystery of transcendence.The more deeply one penetrates the divine mystery, the more one discovers the true greatness and dignity of human beings." If "man is the way of the Church," it is because man is a window to the transcendent through conscience.

Newman came upon this approach to God a century and a half earlier than Pope John Paul II. In his compilation of texts titled "The Heart of Newman," Erich Przywara, S.J., begins with texts on conscience. We find this passage, for example: "conscience does not repose on itself, but vaguely reaches forward to something beyond self, and dimly discerns a sanction higher than self for its decisions . . .we are accustomed to speak of conscience as a voice . . .or the echo of a voice . . . like no other dictate in the whole of experience." (Heart of Newman, p. 26; from Grammar of Assent, 107-108).

[An editorial note in the book says Newman envisioned a three-stage path for "growth to full spiritual maturity." Stage one is "fallen man's path to Christianity -- the apprehension by his conscience of God as a giver of moral law."]

Then in Difficulties of Anglicans, vol. II, he speaks of conscience in more traditional scholastic terms as the "participation of the eternal law by rational creatures" (Aquinas). This notion he says is "founded on the doctrine that conscience is the voice of God." (It is in the Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, see Diff. 2:246-249) But this is a different view, he acknowledges, from the modern one, taken from literature or science wherein conscience is "another creation of man." The rule or measure of the modern age is utility or expedience or greatest good. or state convenience or fitness or pulchrum. Newman argues that these standards are too abstract or impersonal to account for that "reaching forward" or that sense of apprehension or satisfaction that comes from the "voice of conscience." Indeed, anticipating John Paul, Newman says conscience is "the aboriginal Vicar of Christ."

In 1990 John Paul wrote a brief letter on Newman. He remarks about the importance of conscience in Newman as a way to acquire truth and to make "contact with the reality of a personal God." This teaching on conscience is lived out his Newman's life: "By following the light of his conscience, Newman made a journey of faith which he has described with force and clarity in his writings."

The experience of conscience, fully understood, should bring us to see both freedom and truth -- the great themes of Veritatis splendor and Redemptor hominis. But Christian philosophers have a task before them to argue through the alternative views of conscience listed by Newman in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk and to develop the phenomenology of conscience begun by Wojtyla.

Veritatis splendor -- conscience as sanctuary

I would like to begin some meditations on John Paul's Veritatis splendor. The document is very dense -- and its structure is very important. But I wish to jump into a key passage in the middle that unites the beginning and the end. In subsequent meditations I shall look at this structure.

Conscience is described as a "sanctuary of God." In 1983 Pope John Paul II said "Moral conscience does not close man within an insurmountable and impenetrable solitude, but opens him to the call, to the voice of God. In this, and not in anything else, lies the entire mystery and the dignity of the moral conscience: in being the place, the sacred place where God speaks to man." (General Audience, 17 August 1983) He repeats this statement in section 58 of Veritatis splendor. Conscience is not so much a "process of moral reasoning" or a moral syllogism or self-reflection but primarily a "dialogue of man with God." He reminds us that Saint Bonaventure teaches that "conscience is like God's herald and messenger; it does not command things on its own authority, but commands them as coming from God's authority, like a herald when he proclaims the edict of the king. This is why conscience has binding force." We listen and we receive something in this sanctuary.

The protection of religious freedom, or the right to conscience, is a protection of the deepest "sanctuary" in the person, the aspect that defines the person as a person, not as creator of value, but as capable of responding to God. Capax Dei.

Augustine arrives at this deep structure of the human person in Book X c. 25 of the Confessions. He says -- "But where in my memory dost thou abide, O Lord? Where dost thou dwell there? What sort of lodging hast thou made for thyself there? What kind of sanctuary hast thou built for thyself?" Augustine travels, according to Gilson, from the exterior to the interior, from the inferior to the superior. From the senses and appetites through memory, choosing and thinking, Augustine arrives at something that transcends human power -- truth.

So our encounter with truth is a receptive moment, implying a hollow, if you will, in our own making and doing. But this encounter opens us to something numinous or light-filled and beautiful. We can return to the encounter. How is this possible? He speaks of a sanctuary in our memory where God resides.

The idea of a sanctuary -- it is a holy place, but it is also an open space. It is not some object belonging to Augustine (or you or I) It is a place of encounter -- a place to listen. A place to see. So silence and emptiness is so important for conscience. And of course that is why in the modern world, conscience is muffled. We are bombarded by messages from without, by offers of so many good and promising things. How can we hear God, i.e., the truth in conscience?

I draw upon a third source, the wonderful British Catholic writer, Caryll Houselander, The Reed of God. She writes with a humility, a purity, and beauty like no other writer. This woman reflects the beatitudes with hard crystalline light and if you have not read her I hope you do so soon. The Reed of God is Mary. And Ms Houselander proceeds forthwith in chapter one on "emptiness." Emptiness, she opens, is a "virginal quality." Such emptiness is "not a formless emptiness, a void without meaning; on the contrary, it has a shape, a form given to it by the purpose for which it was intended." Mary is the virgin, the Reed of God -- hence this emptiness is like "the hollow in the reed, the narrow riftless emptiness which can have only one destiny: to receive the piper's breath and to utter the song that is in his heart." The richness of her meditation is overflowing in its poetry and signals her own profound love of God and man.

But she challenges as well -- she says both zealots and triflers flee the emptiness and crave to fill the empty space with important projects or unimportant noises and things. "They dread silence because the do not want to hear their own pulses beating out the seconds of their life, and to know that each beat is a knock on the door of death." The dark and lonely emptiness of death, she says, is so different from that "still, shadowless ring of light round which our being is circled."

We must rediscover the sanctuary of conscience, the depth of memory, the point of dialogue with God in our souls. We must, she says, sift and sort out "everything that is not essential and that fills up space and silence in us." Then we are ready for moral reflection. And its goal, ultimately making sense of law and virtue, is love. And what purpose God has for us.

There is no replacing a full examination of conscience on many points of morality. But here is Houselander's simple, but profound question for an examination of conscience at the very root of our life: "Are we reed pipes? Is he waiting to live lyrically through us?"

Technology in Gaudium et spes

I appreciate the blog posted yesterday by Professor Clarage and the comments by Mitchell Thomas. I should point out that I have made it very easy now to comment on any post and I encourage people to do so. You no longer need to log in or to read special characters.

A few comments on his blog.

I am not sure why we would say that nuclear energy or even deep sea drilling has gone too far. The technology is not per se evil or dehumanizing -- but its use can be evil. The case nuclear weapons used to incinerate an entire city is the evil use of technology. Some preliminary indications are that the gulf oil spill resulted from poor technical decisions and poor managerial decisions (the people on the rig and close to the work were ignored by the upper management or corporate bosses; we shall learn more soon.)

I like the quote from JP2 statement on Galileo in the June 11 blog -- that there are two modes of development, a horizontal and a vertical development. We lag in the vertical development. But in principle, the development of technology could increase our time for awareness or God. A longer passage from Gaudium et spes (§57) explains the various aspects:

"Christians, on pilgrimage toward the heavenly city, should seek and think of these things which are above. This duty in no way decreases, rather it increases, the importance of their obligation to work with all men in the building of a more human world. Indeed, the mystery of the Christian faith furnishes them with an excellent stimulant and aid to fulfill this duty more courageously and especially to uncover the full meaning of this activity, one which gives to human culture its eminent place in the integral vocation of man.

When man develops the earth by the work of his hands or with the aid of technology, in order that it might bear fruit and become a dwelling worthy of the whole human family and when he consciously takes part in the life of social groups, he carries out the design of God manifested at the beginning of time, that he should subdue the earth, perfect creation and develop himself. At the same time he obeys the commandment of Christ that he place himself at the service of his brethren.

Furthermore, when man gives himself to the various disciplines of philosophy, history and of mathematical and natural science, and when he cultivates the arts, he can do very much to elevate the human family to a more sublime understanding of truth, goodness, and beauty, and to the formation of considered opinions which have universal value. Thus mankind may be more clearly enlightened by that marvelous Wisdom which was with God from all eternity, composing all things with him, rejoicing in the earth, delighting in the sons of men.

In this way, the human spirit, being less subjected to material things, can be more easily drawn to the worship and contemplation of the Creator. Moreover, by the impulse of grace, he is disposed to acknowledge the Word of God, Who before He became flesh in order to save all and to sum up all in Himself was already 'in the world' as 'the true light which enlightens every man' (John 1:9-10).

Indeed today's progress in science and technology can foster a certain exclusive emphasis on observable data, and an agnosticism about everything else. For the methods of investigation which these sciences use can be wrongly considered as the supreme rule of seeking the whole truth. By virtue of their methods these sciences cannot penetrate to the intimate notion of things. Indeed the danger is present that man, confiding too much in the discoveries of today, may think that he is sufficient unto himself and no longer seek the higher things.

These unfortunate results, however, do not necessarily follow from the culture of today, nor should they lead us into the temptation of not acknowledging its positive values. Among these values are included: scientific study and fidelity toward truth in scientific inquiries, the necessity of working together with others in technical groups, a sense of international solidarity, a clearer awareness of the responsibility of experts to aid and even to protect men, the desire to make the conditions of life more favorable for all, especially for those who are poor in culture or who are deprived of the opportunity to exercise responsibility. All of these provide some preparation for the acceptance of the message of the Gospel-- a preparation which can be animated by divine charity through Him Who has come to save the world."

In the statement on Galileo, JP2 mentions having the proper balance, harmony, priorities. Obviously, the modern world is out of whack as long as God is denied.

Does Pope John Paul II Bash Technology?

Guest blog: Dr. Jim Clarage, Univ St Thomas

Someone asked me whether John Paul II and the Catholic Church "bash technology." From the writings I'm familiar with it appears the contrary: an open praise for technology. As an example, in John Paul II's 1980 address to teachers and university students in Cologne, entitled "Connection Between Scientific Thought and the Power of Faith in the Search for Truth: On Principles for dialogue" the Holy Father wrote:

"There is no reason to consider technico-scientific culture as opposed to the world of God's creation. It is clear beyond all doubt that technical knowledge can be used for good as well as for evil. Anyone who studies the effects of poisons can use this knowledge to cure as well as to kill. But there can be no doubt in what direction we must look to distinguish good from evil."

"Technical science, aimed at the transformation of the world, is justified on the basis of the service it renders man and humanity."

But has technology gone too far? Surely with nuclear energy, biological cloning (deep sea drilling?) we have gone too far, right? John Paul goes on to address this concern:

"It cannot be said that progress has gone too far as long as many people, in fact whole peoples, still live in distressing conditions, unworthy of man, which could be improved with the help of technico- scientific knowledge. Enormous tasks still lie before us, which we cannot shirk. To carry them out represents a brotherly service for our neighbor, to whom we owe this commitment, just as we owe the man in need the work of charity, which helps his necessity."

So technology is a good, representing a form of service, one which has not even gone far enough in its duty to the good. Of course there are limits under which technology must act. Being the product of finite human reason and creativity it clearly has intrinsic limits. The Church recognizes also certain moral limits:

"We render our neighbor a brotherly service because we recognize in him that dignity characteristic of a moral being; we are speaking of personal dignity. Faith teaches us that man's fundamental prerogative consists in being the image of God. Christian tradition adds that man is of value for his own sake, and is not a means for any other end. Therefore man's personal dignity represents the criterion by which all cultural application of technico-scientific knowledge must be judged."

That is the limit is that the end (telos, good) of any technology must be directed in accord with man's personal dignity. Makes good sense (at least to good sensible people).

Digression/Appendix on truer meanings of word "Technology":

To expound further-- and this only became clear to me during the Summer JP2 Forum at the University of St. Thomas-- it's hard to imagine anyone properly using faith+reason to "bash" technology. For to say Technology is "bad" is like saying Art is bad. I mean this literally. In our culture many of us sloppily think of technology as the same as science, and so either praise or bash the two as one. E.g, if we feared the math in a science class we reflexively fear technology. This is horrible mistake. For technology is as much art as science. Apple computer employs as much art (graphical, industrial, visual) in building an iPod as it does science (semiconductor and magnetic physics). In fact Steve Jobs early on credits his graphical design course and calligraphy courses for how Apple came to be, and his early collaborators believed they were creating "modern art" not "science" or "technology". In fact they were, and are, doing both.

The Greeks understood this. The word "technology" has its root in Greek "techne" (I don't know how to get blog to do Greek characters, tau-epsilon-chi-nu-eta), which means craft or art. In fact the standard line "Jesus was a carpenter" is a poor translation of the Greek. The word in gospel for Christ's secular vocation (according to UST's art historian) is close to word "techne" (tau+epsilon+chi+tau+omega+nu) and is closer to "builder", or "architect" (alpha+rho+chi+techne). Know Greek. Know thyself... Who is man? Man is imago dei. Our reason and science also inform us that Man is Homo Sapien (man rational). And besides rational we are "builder." Homo Habilus (man tool maker) was our ancestral builder, walking on Earth 1-2 million years ago, the earliest know species of the genus Homo. Stone tools are found near these fossils. Man is builder and rational. Christ is savior and God-- and also builder. Our technology is art+science; it is tools+rationality to become builder and creator (or "constructor" since only God "creates" in technical theological sense). Thus technology is part of our human+divine nature. And technology, like anything we wield, be it our words, our deeds, is used to Build the Kingdom if we use faith to guide these building hands.

The Blood of Sacrifice

In 1968, my father was killed in action in Quang Nam province, the Republic of South Vietnam. He was approaching his forty-second birthday. Now a life-time later, forty-two years later, I experienced a tremendous grace through the communion of faith. I was invited to a Mass at the Vietnamese Dominican Sisters (see website here). My friend John Le sent me the following invitation:

"A vigil MASS will be offered in gratitude for the heroic sacrifices of all American Vietnam servicemen, for the repose of the souls of those who fell in Vietnam, most especially your father, Lieutenant Colonel Francis R. Hittinger, Jr., USMC, and for the consolation of their families, left behind, wounded by their absences.
I chose to have this mass celebrated specifically on 12 June 2010, the Saturday "Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary" (after the Friday "Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus") to highlight that :
1. The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, torn asunder, loves to the extreme, unto His death.
2. The Immaculate Heart of Mary redemptively suffers with her son.
3. The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced through, encompasses the grieving Immaculate Heart of Mary in which are buried the sacrificial hearts of fallen American Vietnam servicemen and of their sorrowful families. Three (3) concentric heart layers, united by suffering, in others' behalf !
4. On 13 June 1917, Our Lady of Fatima prophesied that many countries would be annihilated by communism. The last country to fall turned out to be South Vietnam, on 30 April 1975 ! But she promised that "in the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph."
If possible, I intend to repeat this mass each year, on the Saturday "Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary" to gratefully remember your father, all American Vietnam servicemen (and their families) who valiantly defended South Vietnam's freedom, until the collapse of Saigon on 30 April 1975!"

We placed a picture of my father to the left of the altar. The Sisters prayed for him at the prayers of the faithful. And as I went up to communion, I walked between the rows of Sisters who sang a Eucharistic hymn with the sweetest sound of praise and thanksgiving. As I drank the sacred blood of Jesus I knew that I shared in the communion with the blood of sacrifice offered up by all who suffered and died in Christ. My father's blood was poured out for faith and freedom. I received back one-hundred fold from the sacrifice of Christ. The body of Christ flourishes.

In Christ we transcend politics, culture, and time and suffering, as we are united in his one sacrifice for all time.

I owe a debt of gratitude to John Le, the Dominican Sisters and for the faith of our fathers.

Two Modes of Development and the loss of the vertical

In the final session of our summer workshop, a participant said that the Church could be in danger of losing science or scientists. We did not have time for a long conversation on this issue. John Paul II did much to facilitate the dialogue between science and faith. His special study and pronouncements on Galileo are an important set of texts to read. I plan to discuss details of the pronouncement in a future blog. Today I am interested in commenting on a section near the end of the statement on Galileo. The Pope draws back and provides a wide context for understanding science and faith in terms of the full development of humanity. He identifies a horizontal component, including science and technology and ethics, and a vertical component involving religion and no doubt, art and literature. Here is the quote:

"Humanity has before it two modes of development. The first involves culture, scientific research and technology that is to say whatever falls within the horizontal aspect of man and creation which is growing at an impressive rate. In order that this progress should not remain completely external to man, it presupposes a simultaneous raising of conscience, as well as its actuation. The second mode of development involves what is deepest in the human being, when transcending the world and transcending himself, man turns to the One who is the Creator of all. It is only this vertical direction which can give full meaning to man's being and action, because it situates him in relation to his origin and his end. In this twofold direction, horizontal and vertical, man realizes himself fully as a spiritual being and as homo sapiens. But we see that development is not uniform and linear, and that progress is not always well ordered. This reveals the disorder which affects the human condition. The scientist who is conscious of this twofold development and takes it into account contributes to the restoration of harmony." L'Osservatore Romano 4 November 1992

This statement may help us understand better why there may be a conflict still between science and religion, when there really should not be one.

For it should be clear that the Church acknowledges the proper autonomy of science. In a key section (§36) of Gaudium et spes we find this made explicit -- the world is good and has a “proper autonomy” deriving from its creaturely status. It has its own weight, intelligiblity,laws etc which must be discovered by reason and through science. But there is a false autonomy which asserts that created things do not depend on God, and that man can use them without any reference to their Creator.

Could the conflict that now remains be due primarily to the claim for an exaggerated autonomy? That is, to extrapolate from the limited account of science a complete view about man and the cosmos, leaving out God, leaving out the vertical dimension entirely? Are there scientists who are conscious of "the two fold development" and who "take it into account"?

The academy does not encourage consideration of this vertical dimension. As Pieper once said, "the dome of the world is screwed down tight." We cannot transcend the workaday world.

Redeemer of Man, conclusion

Two concluding thoughts from Redeemer of Man

First, Fidelity is important for the witness of the Church. Pope John Paul explains the that faith is a response to revelation and therefore fidelity to the truth is paramount -- fidelity to Christ's teaching as it comes through the Church.

Faith is a supernatural virtue “infused into the human spirit” and it makes us sharers in knowledge of God. For this reason all believers share in the prophetic office of Christ and we must be ready to speak he truth in and out of season, speaking the "whole truth about man and God."

To appropriate the truth of the Gospel we do need study -- the study of the Bible and the sacred tradition; study of Vatican II and papal encyclicals. (Here again I mention that facilitation of this study is one great goal of the Pope John Paul II Forum) John Paul links out study to our love of the Gospel:

“Being responsible for that truth also means loving it and seeking the most exact understanding of it, in order to bring it closer to ourselves and others in all its saving power, its splendour and its profundity joined with simplicity. This love and this aspiration to understand the truth must go hand in hand, as is confirmed by the histories of the saints in the Church. These received most brightly the authentic light that illuminates divine truth and brings close God's very reality, because they approached this truth with veneration and love -- love in the first place for Christ, the living Word of divine truth, and then love for his human expression in the Gospel, tradition and theology.” §19

It is love that fuels our quest for knowledge. Those remarks should come to define our lives as Christians who share in the prophetic office of Christ.

I cannot resist a reference to Newman one more time. In a homily on "watching for Christ," he explains the attentiveness to Christ as follows:

"They, then, watch and wait for their Lord, who are tender and sensitive in their devotion towards Him; who feed on the thought of Him, hang on His words; live in His smile, and thrive and grow under His hand. They are eager for His approval, quick in catching His meaning, jealous of His honour. They see Him in all things, expect Him in all events, and amid all the cares, the interests, and the pursuits of this life, still would feel an awful joy, not a disappointment, did they hear that He was on the point of coming. 'By night I sought Him whom my soul loveth,' says the inspired canticle; 'I sought Him and found Him not. I will rise, and in the streets and broad places will I seek Him.' Must I be more definite in my description of this affectionate temper?" [Find the entire sermon here.]

The second concluding thought really follows from the previous one. John Paul concludes with this thought: “The full truth about human freedom is indelibly inscribed on the mystery of the Redemption. The Church truly serves mankind when she guards this truth with untiring attention, fervent love and mature commitment and when in the whole of her own community she transmits it and gives it concrete form in human life through each Christian's fidelity to his vocation.” §21

John Paul II described the Church as the guardian of freedom; the guardian of the treasure of the the Redemption; and now he concludes by saying the Church is the guardian of the truth about human freedom.

Redeemer of Man was issued in 1979; John Paul II explained that he composed it in his heart and head in the years following Vatican II. As we look back we can see how this single document defined his long pontificate of 26 years. John Paul the Great -- Guardian of truth, freedom, and the treasure of great price.

'Santo Subito' -- 'Sainthood now'

Redeemer of Man - The Church and the mystery of Christ

In section 12 Pope John Paul II called the Church the "guardian of freedom." Freedom, he said, must be exercised under the requirement of truth and heedful to the warning that there exists an illusory freedom. He ends section 17, on rights, by stating that the Church, in approaching the modern world, asks for "no privilege," but "only respect for an elementary right." Paul VI and Jacques Maritain said concerning Vatican II, the Church asks only for freedom. (See my article on Church and State, found here)

The final section of Redeemer of Man is entitled "The Church's Mission and Man's Destiny." While the Church on earth is indeed the Guardian of Freedom, her full nature and mission is more deeply ennobled by the mystery of Christ. The Church is more truly the "guardian of a great treasure." That treasure is Christ. The Church lives "more profoundly her own nature and mission by penetrating into the depths of this mystery."

The mystery transforms all who enter into it; "Man is transformed inwardly by this power as the source of a new life that does not disappear and pass away but lasts to eternal life." The full vocation and destiny of each human being is revealed in the life of Christ.

"This 'divine destiny' is advancing, in spite of all the enigmas, the unsolved riddles, the twists and turns of 'human destiny' in the world of time. Indeed, while all this, in spite of all the riches of life in time, necessarily and inevitably leads to the frontier of death and the goal of the destruction of the human body, beyond that goal we see Christ."

Redeemer of Man - Importance of Rights

Pope John Paul II was a great champion of human rights. He spoke of human rights very often throughout his many travels and in his many discourses. He has been criticized for this frequent and emphatic use of "rights discourse." But we must understand why and how he uses the discourse about rights. I will briefly comment upon the context for this discourse, the principle of human rights, the purpose of these rights, and the order of these rights.

The context of rights discourse: The philosophy of human rights originated in the seventeenth century with Hobbes and Locke. Both transformed the tradition of political philosophy by lowering the goal of political society from virtue to public safety or peace and by appealing to self-interest properly understood instead of the nobility or intrinsic good of moral life. The great beneficiaries of the new discourse were the bourgeoisie and the owners of property. In three hundred years much has intervened. Suffice it to say that the background rise of totalitarianism and the devastation of two world wars sets the context for John Paul II's rights discourse. Human rights are to be a "fundamental principle of work for man's welfare." §17

The principle: the principle for human rights is the "welfare of the person in community." John Paul formulates the notion of human rights differently from the way Locke and Hobbes did so, on assumptions of individualism, the priority of property and self interest. Instead, he uses the notion of rights to stimulate action for solidarity among all people and for the true flourishing of the person.

The purpose: the discourse of rights should encourage the participation of the person in the political community and to promote human flourishing.

The order of rights: there is a clear priority to the right of conscience and the freedom of religion.
"Certainly the curtailment of the religious freedom of individuals and communities is not only a painful experience but it is above all an attack on man's very dignity, independently of the religion professed or of the concept of the world which these individuals and communities have."
and
"Actuation of this right is one of the fundamental tests of man's authentic progress in any regime, in any society, system or milieu." §17

John Paul II's account of rights is very similar to that given by Jacques Maritain. I compare Maritain with Locke and contemporary theorists in a chapter entitled "Three Philosophies of Human Rights," in Liberty, Wisdom and Grace, found here.

Redeemer of Man -- Critique of Society

The standard of love is the source for the Christian critique of society; what is called by many "social justice" concerns is but one part of a comprehensive critique of society . "Man's situation is far removed from the objective demands of the moral order, from the requirements of justice, and even more of social love." (§16) The economic system aims at multiplying things that people can use, and the advancement of persons is neglected. Man himself is subjected to manipulation "through the whole of organization of community life, through the production system and through pressures of social communication." The result is that the person becomes a slave of things, the slave of his own products. There are many aspects of this new slavery. The worker is exploited by owners of capital or state business, the poor are left to languish is poverty despite abundance, and the consumer builds a life upon the disorder of avarice.

John Paul calls for greater sense of solidarity and efforts to include more people in the progress of society. John Paul references Paul VI's great work On the Development of Peoples, the topic of his subsequent encyclical On Social concerns, and as did Benedict XVI in Truth in charity. Economic progress alone is partial standard which will "suffocate man, breaking up society." §16

In later encyclicals, John Paul develops the critique of consumerism. Consumerism is one sign of the degradation which calls for a more authentic witness by Catholics in society today. As John Paul II continues his critique in the Gospel of Life he traces the denial of God and the loss of the respect for the creature to a degradation of man:

Man is no longer able to see himself as “mysteriously different” from other earthly creatures; he regards himself merely as one more living being, as an organism which, at most, has reached a very high stage of perfection. Enclosed in the narrow horizon of his physical nature, he is somehow reduced to being “a thing”, and no longer grasps the “transcendent” character of his “existence as man”. He no longer considers life as a splendid gift of God, something “sacred” entrusted to his responsibility and thus also to his loving care and “veneration”. Life itself becomes a mere “thing”, which man claims as his exclusive property, completely subject to his control and manipulation. (EV §22)

This is the cultural matrix of consumerism. The growth of consumerism is treated by Pope John Paul II in Centesimus Annus because it is put forward as an alternative to communist society. John Paul II defines consumerism in terms of the appeal to the material and instinctive over the spiritual and personal. It is a manifestation of culture, or an orientation towards the human good:

The manner in which new needs arise and are defined is always marked by a more or less appropriate concept of man and of his true good. A given culture reveals its overall understanding of life through the choices it makes in production and consumption. It is here that the phenomenon of consumerism arises. In singling out new needs and new means to meet them, one must be guided by a comprehensive picture of man which respects all the dimensions of his being and which subordinates his material and instinctive dimensions to his interior and spiritual ones. If, on the contrary, a direct appeal is made to his instincts -- while ignoring in various ways the reality of the person as intelligent and free -- then consumer attitudes and lifestyles can be created which are objectively improper and often damaging to his physical and spiritual health. Of itself, an economic system does not possess criteria for correctly distinguishing new and higher forms of satisfying human needs from artificial new needs which hinder the formation of a mature personality. (CA §36; see also §§40-41)

The impact of consumerism on the culture of death is more subtle and indirect. Consumerism reflects an attitude of practical materialism, for it neglects the spiritual for the material. Consumerism is caught up with what is “external” rather than “internal.” Consumerism emphasizes “having” over “being.” (EV §23; CA §36). The world is reduced to “things” which can be manipulated and possessed or disposed of for one’s personal satisfaction. The quest for truth, beauty, and communion with others are not part of this lifestyle. The first harmed by this attitude are the women and children, when the standard for value is efficiency, productivity and having.