Faithful Renewal— Lessons from St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena

Plenary Talk Napa Institute – July 24, 2019 Very Rev. John A. Langlois, O.P. President, Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception

It’s certainly easy to be discouraged about all that’s going on in the Church and the culture today. The culture seems to become more and more polarized, radical, and anti-Christian by the day. And the Church, the place that we’d expect to be the solid anchor in turbulent times, the place where we’d expect to find some comfort and hope, is itself rocked by scandal and confusion. These are indeed challenging times for those of us who love the Church and who want her to be the light of the world that Christ intends her to be. And there’s no question that the scandals and the confusion regarding doctrine are making it more difficult for the Church to preach and evangelize at this time. But my friends, I want to assure you today that we have great reason for hope in these dark times. In fact, I want to begin my talk by giving you three reasons why we should be hopeful and not discouraged. First, what we’re going through today is not really new. As bad as it seems and is, the Church has been through it all before. In fact, to be honest, there have been some ages where the challenges and corruption have been much, much worse! Now this is not to minimize at all the gravity of the situation we’re facing. But it is to say that what we’re dealing with is not new. The Church has made it through the previous times of challenge and scandal. She will do so again! That’s because the Church is the mystical body of Christ. We have to remember this important truth. The Church is not just a human institution. It is a divine institution composed of fallible, imperfect, and sinful human beings. But we are 2 members of the body of Christ, and He is the head of this body. So the Church will always participate in Christ’s victory over sin and death and will always rise to new life after times of trial and corruption. The second reason for hope is this: because the Church has already experienced similar challenges in her history, we can learn from how she dealt with these issues in earlier times. In particular, we can learn from the saints who helped renew and reform the Church in other periods of trial. So this afternoon, we’re going to look at how St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena responded to the challenges of the Church in their time. And hopefully we’ll learn from them a thing or two about what we can do to help bring about the renewal needed today. They are also a reminder to us that even in the darkest of times, the Church is producing saints—God’s grace is always at work. In fact, St. Paul affirmed that “where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more,” (Romans 5:20). And so today we need to remember that there are lots of saints in our midst too, and lots of wonderful things happening in the Church despite the scandals The third reason for hope is to understand that God is permitting the present trial for a reason. What he’s doing is allowing the rot and corruption to be exposed precisely so that we can begin to address the illness. For example, a person can be sick with cancer for months or even years before symptoms manifest themselves. It isn’t until symptoms appear that the person becomes aware of the cancer and can get it treated. Now hearing the doctor tell you that you have cancer is a very scary thing—I’m sure many of you have had to deal with hearing that news. But the news is a blessing because it exposes something that is threatening your life. The same is true with what’s happening in the Church. This is a blessing! It’s a blessing that the scandals are bringing to light the illnesses plaguing the clergy and the Church at this time. Now we know exactly what we’re dealing with, and we have the opportunity to begin seeking a cure for the disease. 3

Another way of describing what’s happening is that God is allowing the Church to be purified. St. Catherine of Siena explains this process regarding the situation of the Church in her own day, the late fourteenth century. In a letter to Pope Gregory XI, she writes, “For ever since the Church has paid more attention to the material than to the spiritual, things have gone from bad to worse. This is why you have seen God in his just judgment permitting the Church to suffer so many persecutions and trials. But take heart, father, and don’t be afraid, no matter what has happened or may yet happen. God is doing it to make the Church perfect once again,” (Letter of Catherine to Pope Gregory XI, Noffke, p. 201). This is precisely what’s happening again today, my friends. God is permitting the corruption in the Church to be exposed, and even to cause great scandal, only so that he might purify her once more. As painful as this process is for us, we need to realize that it is ultimately for the good and will result in renewal and new life. So these are all the reasons that we have to be hopeful in these difficult times. Now let’s see what St. Dominic and St. Catherine have to teach us regarding how we can be instruments of renewal at this particular time. St. Dominic lived in the thirteenth century. Generally speaking, this was a very vibrant period in the Church’s history. In many ways, it was even what we might call “a golden age.” It was a time when Catholic culture in Europe was flourishing. This is the age when the great Gothic cathedrals are rising all over Europe and the first universities are being established. It’s a time when the spiritual and moral authority of the papacy is at a high point. And yet, and yet, this is also a time of significant challenges for the Church. Perhaps the biggest challenge is the loss of large numbers of people to heretical movements, particularly in southern France and northern Italy. So what was behind this hemorrhaging in an otherwise glorious age? First of all, the spiritual needs of the laity were generally not being met. Preaching was 4 practically non-existent—bishops reserved to themselves the authority to preach, and did so rarely. And so the laity were receiving very little instruction in the faith and practically no inspirational nourishment for their spiritual life. They were hungering for it, but not being fed! Secondly, it was an open secret that some priests and even bishops were not living chastely, many of them had concubines. Third, bishops were generally indifferent to correcting these problems because they were more concerned with their own comfort and status. It’s no wonder then that many laity lost faith in the clergy and the Church, and began looking for a more authentic religious experience elsewhere. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? When you get right down to it, the challenges of the thirteenth century were very similar to those of our own time. Now one of the more popular heretical movements drawing people away from the Church at this time was Albigensianism, named after the town of Albi in southern France where it was centered. Albigensianism was rooted in a dualistic, black and white view of reality. In the Albigensian worldview, all physical and material reality was seen as evil while all spiritual reality was considered good. So for them, human beings were both good and evil by their very nature, being composed of a good soul and an evil body. Now such a pessimistic view of the body in turn led to extreme ascetical practices by adherents of the sect. They practiced severe fasting as a way of punishing the evil body. They also practiced complete abstinence from sexual relations even for married couples, since the worst thing in the world was to create more evil by having children! Pretty sick, isn’t it? Now you might be thinking how in the world could anyone be attracted to such a simplistic and illogical belief system? You would think that the severe ascetical practices alone, if nothing else, would have been a huge turn off to most people! But Albigensianism in fact proved very attractive. One explanation for 5 this is that only the preachers of the heresy were expected to practice the strict ascetical code, and thus they were known as “The Perfect”—everyone else could be what they called “credentes” or ordinary believers. The ordinary believers could pretty much live a normal life, eating what they wanted and having children, as long as they renounced the Church and then repented of giving in to bodily pleasures before their death. So that certainly made the heresy more appealing! But truth be told, there was another reason why many lay people were attracted by the Albigensian preachers or “the Perfect.” It was because the Perfect, by contrast with many of the Catholic clergy at the time, lived an exemplary life. In fact outwardly their lives seemed to be more in accord with Gospel values, though for a far different rationale. They observed perfect continence, they fasted, and they lived very simply, but all out of hatred for the evil body. Gospel asceticism, on the other hand, a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience, involves the renunciation of material things, not because they are evil but because they are lesser goods. Lesser goods are renounced for the sake of higher spiritual goods. But you see, to the ordinary people, the Perfect seemed to be living more according to the Gospel than the priests and bishops. And because they practiced what they preached, people saw them as more authentic and therefore more believable. St. Dominic early on in his preaching to the Albigensians came to recognize the importance of the preacher preaching first and foremost by the witness of his life. So what can we learn from him and his attempts to renew the Church of his time? We need to begin with the story of how he discovered his call to be a preacher. He was already a priest, a canon of the cathedral of Osma in Spain. Canons were diocesan priests living in community with their bishop according to a rule. One day, the king of Castile commissioned the Bishop of Osma, Diego, to travel to Scandinavia to arrange a marriage between his son and a Scandinavian princess. Bishop Diego decided to take along with him one of his canons, 6

Dominic, as a companion. Of course, their journey north took them through southern France, right through the heart of Albigensian country. Stopping at an inn near Toulouse one evening, Dominic discovered that the innkeeper was an Albigensian. As the story goes, the man began to argue with him about what he saw as the errors of the Catholic faith. But Dominic stayed up all night with him, patiently answering his questions and arguments. And lo and behold, by morning, the man asked to be received back into the Church. This encounter was not only a life-changing experience for the heretic, but for Dominic as well. Dominic and Bishop Diego went on to complete the mission for the king, and then both asked and received permission from the pope to return to France and preach for the conversion of the Albigensians. Now when Dominic and Bishop Diego arrived back on the scene in southern France, they encountered there other preachers already commissioned by the pope for the same purpose. These were Cistercian monks. Right away, the monks shared with the new arrivals their absolute discouragement at how little progress they had made in converting people back to the faith. Dominic instantly put his finger on the problem. The monks, you see, although very upright morally speaking, were traveling from town to town very comfortably. As official emissaries of the pope, they were entitled to certain status symbols of their office—horses for travel, a retinue of servants to attend to their needs, fine food and wine to help take the edge off the rigors of their work. Right away, Dominic realized this was the problem! Because the Perfect were exemplars of austerity and simplicity, the Catholic preachers would never make any headway in their attempts to convert Albigensians unless they too lived a more simple and penitential life in keeping with the Gospel. Before they could preach doctrine, they needed to preach by their way of life. 7

So authenticity of life is an essential requirement in the work of evangelization! To their credit, the Cistercian preachers followed Dominic’s advice. They ditched their horses and retinue and began to live again more like true monks, with better results for their preaching. Yet conversions were still few and far between. Something was still missing, but what was it? Eventually the Cistercians gave up the work out of discouragement, and Bishop Diego died, leaving Dominic practically by himself to continue on. During the next few years Dominic had plenty of time to think about what else was necessary for effective preaching. The answer he eventually came upon was the need for study, serious study of sacred Truth as found in Scripture and theology. For preaching to be ultimately effective, it needed to be able to provide intelligent answers to people’s questions and arguments. And so Dominic conceived of a new religious Order in the Church that would have preaching as its mission and whose members would prepare for this work by serious study. Dominic’s vision became reality when the Order of Preachers was officially approved by the pope in 1216, thirteen years after his first encounter with the heretical innkeeper in Toulouse. It is now over eight hundred years later. But Dominic’s critical insight that effective evangelization requires informed preaching coupled with a witness of authenticity is as relevant as ever! This is precisely what is needed today to bring back fallen away Catholics, or to convert those who have embraced the secular and materialistic culture. Of course, there are still plenty of Dominicans to do the Dominican thing! The Order that St. Dominic founded is alive and thriving, especially here in the States. But I’d like to spend a few minutes now on how you as laity can work for the renewal of the Church and culture in our own time using some of the insights gained from St. Dominic’s life and experience. 8

The first lesson is not to allow the scandals to stop us from reaching out and trying to bring people into the Church, or back to the Church. Sometimes, I think, we feel embarrassed and think “why would anyone want to join the Church right now? Many are leaving because of the scandals. What’s the point of trying to convince them to stay?” The point, my friends, is that the Church is still the instrument of God’s saving grace in the world! We have the fullness of the Truth, we have the sacraments, and most of all, we have the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This is an incredible treasure that you can find no where else. That’s what we can’t be afraid to say to people. St. Dominic was convinced of this treasure, and convinced of people’s desire for it! He was also convinced of their ability to recognize the power and beauty of the faith despite the counter-witness sometimes given by priests and laity alike. The scandals of his time did not prevent him from preaching! And so following his example, we too must not abandon the work of preaching and evangelization in a time of scandal. It’s the devil’s work to try and discourage us and make us think it’s not worth it. We mustn’t give in to this temptation. As a side note, I gave one of the RCIA talks this year at a parish on Capitol Hill, and the coordinator told me she was shocked at the sizable number of catechumens in the class this year despite all the scandals. This, my friends, is the power of grace! The second lesson we can learn from St. Dominic is that effective evangelization involves both knowing our faith and living our faith. Now you don’t need to go out and get a degree in theology to evangelize and witness. But that being said, the more you can learn about the faith, especially with all the resources now available to you in print and online, the more you’ll feel comfortable engaging people who are questioning and wondering why the Church teaches this or that. But keep in mind also the importance of your life witness. We can’t be effective evangelizers if our life is at odds with what we say we believe. 9

The witness of authenticity is as important for today’s millennials as it was for the Albigensians of the thirteenth century. Finally, I want to come back to the significance of St. Dominic’s first encounter with the heretic at the inn. I mentioned that he spent the night talking with the man, and by morning had brought him back to the faith. We don’t have a record of what St. Dominic said to him, and that’s not the most important thing for us to know. I’m sure what converted the innkeeper in the end was not only what Dominic said, but the patience and great charity he experienced from St. Dominic, the fact that Dominic listened to him, took his questions seriously and loved him enough to stay up all night with him talking about his. In other words, the man experienced the love of Christ in Dominic. That is ultimately what converts others! In our own relationships and encounters, within our families, at work, or wherever we might be, we are called to be instruments of Christ’s love—and it’s the power of his love in us that changes hearts and minds. We move on now to a brief look at St. Catherine of Siena to see what she can teach us about how to renew the Church and culture. As challenging as the situation was for the Church in St. Dominic’s time, it was even worse 150 years later during St. Catherine’s life. In fact, I’d say that our troubles today pale by comparison as well! In the thirteenth century, we saw that some priests and bishops were a source of scandal either as a result of unchastity or adopting a worldly lifestyle. The papacy, however, was untainted. This is not the case in the fourteenth century. A major reason for scandal reaching into the papacy is that for most of the fourteenth century, in fact for seventy years, the popes chose to live, not in Rome, but in Avignon in the south of France. Now at the time, Avignon was actually not part of the French kingdom—it was an independent territory belonging to the pope. But you might be wondering, why did the popes choose to live there instead of Rome? 10

It all started in 1309 when Pope Clement V, a Frenchman, became concerned about the political situation in Rome and the intrigues of certain nobles in the city. So he decided it would be safer for him to reside in Avignon. Now that’s certainly seems like a legitimate rationale, right?—"Rome isn’t safe right now, so I’ll get out of Dodge,” so to speak. The problem is that when he dies five years later, the cardinals elect another Frenchman, John XXII, and he decides to continue residing in Avignon rather than moving back to Rome. This now becomes precedent and the next several successors will follow suit! Pope John also inaugurates a very princely style of life that will come to characterize the papal court at Avignon. And of course, the bad of example of the popes in this regard will trickle down to the cardinals and bishops, and even the lower clergy. As bad as all that is, the most scandalous thing for most members of the Church at this time is that the popes are not living in Rome, the seat of their spiritual authority as the Successor of St. Peter. We’ll see that St. Catherine will challenge Pope Gregory XI on both counts, the scandal of the worldliness of the hierarchy and the scandal of the papacy being permanently away from Rome. Now the interesting thing about St. Catherine is that she was not a person of prominence through birth or nobility. She was the twenty-third child in her family, the daughter of a cloth-dyer. However, from an early age she was graced with mystical experiences from the Lord. Having grown up in the Dominican parish in Siena, she eventually became a Dominican tertiary, or a lay Dominican. She joined a group of tertiaries known as the mantellate because of the black mantle they wore. Initially, she tried to live as a recluse in her family home. But God told her that her mission lay in the world and that he would use her as an instrument of his love for others and the Church. At first she took this to mean service to the poor and the sick. But over time, the Lord began to inspire her to engage in a much larger and more prominent scope of activity. At a time when several Italian 11 city-states were at war with one another, Catherine became an ambassador for peace, acting as a mediator between princes to try and resolve differences. She also began to actively work for renewal in the Church, writing letters to bishops, cardinals, and even the pope, strongly urging them to reform their lives and to be faithful shepherds. I’d like to share with you now a few passages from her letters to Pope Gregory XI which will help illustrate her approach. Now Gregory himself was upright in his personal life, as well as committed to reform. The problem was that he was somewhat weak and vacillating in his resolve. So let’s see how St. Catherine attempts to both encourage and challenge him in her letters. First of all, she often addresses him as “babbo,” caro babbo, or dear babbo. Do you know what babbo means in Italian? It literally means “daddy.” Yes, she addresses the pope as “dear daddy”! I’ll offer some thoughts a little later on the significance of that, but for the moment let’s continue with the content of the letters. In an early letter to Gregory, she writes, “If till now you haven’t been very firm in truth, I want you, I beg you, for the little time that is left, to be so— courageously and like a brave man—following Christ, whose vicar you are…Don’t be afraid, for divine help is near. Just attend to spiritual affairs, to appointing good pastors and administrators in your cities, for you have experienced rebellion because of bad pastors and administrators. Do something about it!” (Noffke, Letters, p. 169). A little later, she writes concerning the need for Gregory to return to Rome, “The starving little sheep are waiting for you to come and take possession of the place of your predecessor and model, the apostle Peter. You, as Christ’s vicar, ought to be residing in your proper place…Don’t put it off any longer! Take heart, and don’t be afraid of anything that might happen, for God will be with you,” (Noffke, Letters, pp. 205-206). And finally in a later letter, she becomes more pointed in her counsel, “Since [God] has given you authority and 12 you have accepted it, you ought to be using the power and strength that is yours. If you don’t intend to use it, it would be better and more to God’s honor and the good of your soul to resign…If I were in your place I would be afraid of incurring divine judgment. And so with all my heart I am begging you in the name of Christ crucified to be obedient to God’s will,” (Noffke, Letters, pp. 222-223). Wow, what chutzpah! I think it’s abundantly clear from these selections that Catherine speaks with authority and does not mince words! But she doesn’t speak from a sense of self- righteousness, as if she is somehow above the pope! No, the authority of her words lies in the fact that she is reminding the pope of his authority. She is reminding him of what it means for him to be the Vicar of Christ, and encouraging him to exercise his authority for the good of the Church! She is reminding him of the truth of who he is! That’s what makes her words so powerful. And by addressing him as “babbo” or “daddy,” she is again acknowledging the reality of who he is as pope—papa! She’s pulling on his heart strings, as a little child would cry out to her father saying “Dad, protect us!” What’s more, she is demonstrating a loving personal affection for him. So even though she may speak forcefully to him, her words are spoken out of love, as from a daughter who loves her father. Another reason why she is able to speak with such authority and power is because of her profound humility. She doesn’t just point out the corruption of others in the Church. She acknowledges that she too is part of the problem. She writes to Pope Gregory, “I believe the stench of my sins has been the cause of much evil, discord, and great misfortune. So take as much vengeance on me your miserable daughter as you like,” (Noffke, p. 205). Now this is a saint who is saying this—and it’s not a false humility. She has a deep awareness of her sins in the light of God’s holiness! So it’s not just the worldly priests and bishops who are the problem. She too acknowledges her own responsibility for corruption in the 13

Church. She too is a sinner in need of reform. So if we want to be instruments of renewal in the Church today, we have to recognize like Catherine that renewal includes ourselves. It’s not just about getting priests and bishops to reform. Yes, they do need to be challenged—but so do we, and we need to begin by challenging ourselves. We can also learn a great deal from the approach Catherine used to challenge Pope Gregory to carry out the responsibilities of his office. Maybe God wants you to encourage/challenge your pastor or your local priest, or even your bishop on some matter—we’ll leave challenging the pope to others! Now if you do so, it needs to be done from a position of humility, and with great love and respect for who they are by their ordination—other Christs. Your words will be powerful if you, like Catherine, challenge them by acknowledging and reminding them of the truth of who they are. On this note, I’d like to end with two selections on the priesthood from St. Catherine’s Dialogue. The Dialogue is a written record of mystical conversations that Catherine had with God the Father in prayer. Regarding the situation of sinful priests in her own time, God counseled St. Catherine to deal with the problem in this way. He said, “You ought to hate the sins of those priests who lead evil lives. But you may not for all that set yourselves up as their judges; this is not my will because they are my christs and you ought to love and reverence the authority I have given them.” (Dialogue, chap. 120, p. 230). He goes on to tell Catherine that she should consider these priests as if they were someone who, though filthy and shabbily dressed, nevertheless offers her a great treasure—that treasure of course being the sacraments. For love of this treasure and the Lord who gives it, God tells Catherine that she should not disdain the filthy bearer, but rather “do what you can to persuade him to get rid of his filth and put on better clothes.” “You ought to despise and hate the ministers’ sins,” he says, “and try to dress them in the new 14 clothes of charity and holy prayer, and wash away their filth with your tears. In other words, you should hold them out to me with tears and great desire, so that I in my goodness may clothe them with the garment of charity.” (Dialogue, chap. 120, p. 230) We have here in The Dialogue, I think, the formula for how best we can respond to the scandals of our time. The Lord wants us first of all to continue to reverence the priestly character of even sinful priests, because after all Christ still acts through them when they act sacramentally. But, out of love for the priesthood and the Church, we should also do what we can to persuade such priests to live up to the demands of their consecrated state. Most importantly, we should pray for their repentance and conversion. Yes, pray for your priests, pray for your fathers! Pray for them in your families at home, and before the Lord in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Offer holy hours for priests. Our intercessory prayer for priests will do more to bring about a real transformation in the priesthood than any new program or policy can ever achieve. And so in this time of scandal and confusion in the Church, and opposition from the culture, let us not lose hope. Christ, the Head of his mystical body, is with us and will not allow anything from within or without to destroy his Church. All that is happening right now is part of his plan to renew the Church and particularly the priesthood. Our part is to pray for the conversion and holiness of our priests, to encourage them and perhaps even challenge them, if the Holy Spirit so moves us. And following the example of St. Dominic, let us not be afraid or ashamed to invite others to discover the beauty of our Catholic faith. We must not allow the scandals to stop the work of evangelization! I leave you with what Christ said when he heard that his friend Lazarus was sick. He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God,” (Jn. 11:4). The Church has been very sick at many different points in her two 15 thousand-year history. But God has manifested his glory every time and brought her back to life. He will certainly do so once again in this present age!

Sources:

Bedouelle, Guy. St. Dominic—The Grace of the Word. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987.

Jarret, Bede. Life of St. Dominic. Washington: Dominicana Publications.

Kelly, J.N.D. Oxford Dictionary of Popes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Noffke, Suzanne. Catherine of Siena—The Dialogue. New York: Paulist Press, 1980.

Noffke, Suzanne. The Letters of St. Catherine of Siena, vol. 1. Binghamton: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1988.

O’Driscoll, Mary. Catherine of Siena: Passion for the Truth, Compassion for Humanity. New Rochelle: New City Press, 1993.

Tugwell, Simon. Early Dominicans—Selected Writings. New York: Paulist Press, 1982.