Who Is Jesus? What Theologians Are Saying About Christ

Sept. 17,America 2007 THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY $2.75 Who Is Jesus? What theologians are saying about Christ

Alejandro Garcia-Rivera Kevin Burke Robert P. Imbelli John R. Donahue William Thompson- Uberuaga Robert Krieg OR THE BETTER PART of two weeks Working Among Jews and Muslims. last month, I found myself In New York, we were joined by both America engaged in ecumenical and inter- Jewish interlocutors and Catholic lay col- Published by Jesuits of the United States religious dialogue. At the leagues. Jewish contributors like Rabbi Editor in Chief FUniversity of Notre Dame, I participated Harold Hirsch from Regis University in in the fourth annual Mennonite-Catholic Denver and Professor Harold Kasimow Drew Christiansen, S.J. Theological Colloquium, where theolo- from Grinnell University in Iowa showed Acting Publisher gians from both communities evaluated enormous appreciation for the teaching Called Together to Be Peacemakers, the 2004 and initiatives of Pope John Paul II. One James Martin, S.J. report of the International Catholic- could sense as they spoke just how much Managing Editor Mennonite Dialogue. Theologians on John Paul’s commitment to Catholic- both sides explored how to build new Jewish relations had achieved. During a Robert C. Collins, S.J. bridges. Some pressed those responsible tour of Jewish New York, the hazan or Business Manager for the dialogue to move still further, cantor at the Portuguese Synagogue on Lisa Pope while others reminded everyone that some Central Park West, the oldest in the differences will not be easily overcome. United States, educated us not only on Editorial Director There was considerable disappoint- early American Jewish history but on the Karen Sue Smith ment on the Mennonite side that various liturgical styles of western Catholics have done relatively little to Sephardism, singing for us the very dif- Online Editor make Called Together better known. (An ferent melodies used in Amsterdam, Maurice Timothy Reidy abridged version with discussion questions Hamburg and Venice, the other cities is available for parish and congregational where the Portuguese Jewish diaspora Associate Editors use from Pandora Press, Waterloo, Ont.) had taken refuge. Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J. Peace activists on both sides pressed hard Among the formal papers were studies against the just war theory and the failure of anti-Semitism in the Spanish conquista George M. Anderson, S.J. of the U.S. bish- of the Dennis M. Linehan, S.J. ops to condemn Americas James P. McDermott, S.J. the war in Iraq and of the Matt Malone, S.J. once it had Of Many Things exclusion of begun. conversos James T. Keane, S.J. Gerald Schlabach, a professor at St. (Jewish converts and their descendants) Literary Editor Thomas Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., from the Jesuit order beginning in the who recently became a Catholic, embod- late 16th century. James Bernauer, S.J., of Patricia A. Kossmann ied this ecumenical spirit in making a Boston College reported on Jesuits Poetry Editor strong case for a cause he has been pro- named among “the righteous” by Yad moting for a few years: a Mennonite Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Memorial, James S. Torrens, S.J. order in the Catholic Church. One can for saving Jews from extermination. Assistant Editor think of precedents. The Anglican Usage, In Washington we explored Ignatian for example, is the celebration of much of themes informing our interreligious Francis W. Turnbull, S.J. the Anglican liturgy by former Anglican involvements. These included the early parishes that have accepted communion Jesuits’ desire to live and work among Design and Production with Rome. Muslims (whom they called infidels) and Stephanie Ratcliffe The limits of formal, high-level dia- the praesupponendum of the Spiritual logue and the consequent need for mid- Exercises, a disposition on entering into Advertising level gatherings, like the colloquium, and dialogue to give a generous interpretation Julia Sosa grass-roots ecumenism like Bridgefolk, a to the statements of others—in other North American Catholic-Mennonite words, not to presume a negative or hos- 106 West 56th Street encounter, were also evident as I listened tile meaning in their words. New York, NY 10019-3803 to presentations and audience discussion. It is sobering to remember that Jesuit Ph: 212-581-4640; Fax: 212-399-3596. For some participants displayed a perfec- dialogue with Muslims began with a E-mail: [email protected]; tionism that wished for more than an mule. As a new convert, St. Ignatius [email protected]. institutional dialogue can reasonably Loyola encountered a Muslim who he Web site: www.americamagazine.org. deliver on short order after 500 years of believed had insulted the Virgin Mary. Customer Service: 1-800-627-9533. estrangement. Angered, Iñigo wanted to follow and © 2007 America Press, Inc. Before and after my days at Notre throttle the Moor. Hesitating at the Dame, I met with Jesuits from around prospect of committing violence, he left the world who are engaged in interfaith the problem for his mule to decide. It Cover art “Christ the Teacher,” by dialogue. First, at Fordham University in took a trail that led away from the alleged Michael O’Neill McGrath, O.S.F.S., New York, we gathered as Jesuits in blasphemer, averted a fight and so inau- from At the Name of Jesus: The Way the Dialogue With Jews; then at Georgetown gurated a line of faith-filled openness to Truth, the Light (World Library University in Washington as Jesuits others. Drew Christiansen, S.J. Publications, www.wlpmusic.com). www.americamagazine.org Vol. 197 No. 7, Whole No. 4785 September 17, 2007 Articles What Are Theologians Saying 11 About Christology? Alejandro Garcia-Rivera, Kevin Burke, Robert P. Imbelli, John R. Donahue, William Thompson-Uberuaga, Robert A. Krieg Scholars report what theologians are saying about the church’s confession of Jesus as Christ and Son of God. Commentaries 21 John J. Strynkowski, Gerald O’Collins 11

Current Comment 4 25 Editorial The President’s Man 5 Signs of the Times 6 Life in the 00s 8 Paying Down the Debt Terry Golway Faith in Focus The Peculiar Grace of Failure Valerie Schultz 25 Horace McKenna, Apostle of the Poor 28 Kevin J. O’Brien Poem Chewing Anne Fleming 30

Book Reviews 31 FDR; Earlier Poems; There Before Us Letters 37 The Word 39 Money and Spirituality Daniel J. Harrington

This week @ James Martin, S.J., talks about his new book, A Jesuit Off-Broadway. James T. Fisher and Edward Murphy, S.J., discuss the new documentary, "The Camden 28." America Connects Plus archive articles, interviews and podcasts at www.americamagazine.org. Current Comment

Edwards, who owns a 28-acre compound in Dawson It’s a Dog’s Life Springs, Ky. The compound serves both as the group’s Cruelty toward pets, all agree, is the kind of behavior law- headquarters and as the site of the annual Nordic Fest, a abiding citizens should not tolerate. Understandably, then, white supremacist music festival held on Memorial Day recent revelations that N.F.L. quarterback Michael Vick weekend. It brings together not only Klan members but oversaw a dog-fighting operation that tortured and killed also racist skinheads and members of other violent hate dogs have prompted widespread public condemnation, as groups. well as satisfaction that Vick could face up to five years in Commenting on the larger picture of racism in the prison. But does one detect a certain excess of zeal in some United States, the center points to a 40 percent rise in of the reactions? “While we are pleased to hear that the hate groups in the last seven years, contending that the Vick case is being settled through the criminal justice sys- increase has been driven by “anti-immigrant furor aimed tem,” said a representative of the American Kennel Club, largely at Latinos” (Lou Dobbs, take note). Because of liti- “we remain concerned that the punishment will be inade- gation against supremacist organizations over the past quate considering the heinous nature of the crimes.” decades, S.P.L.C. officials have received death threats—a In many jurisdictions in the United States, a five-year sign of just how successful the litigation has been. sentence exceeds the maximum allowed for spousal abuse or assault. Countless athletes over the past decade have been found guilty of one or both and walked away with far lighter sentences. No one will shed too many tears for Going Soft Michael Vick after discovery of his awful crimes, but does A recent profile of the publisher and editor Mort the sudden frenzy of calls for draconian retribution send a Zuckerman in The New Yorker included the surprising disturbing message to human victims of physical violence? news that despite an impressive run in the 1990s, which That our pets are more important than our people? saw his print periodical, U.S. News & World Report, Don’t think so? Note that the late Leona Helmsley left almost catch Time and Newsweek in terms of circulation two of her grandchildren $10 million apiece, leaving two and prestige, the magazine recently gutted its investigative others nothing at all, “for reasons which are known to staff in favor of soft news “amid a retrenchment severe them,” as she stated in her will. There was room, however, even by the dismal standards of the category.” for another gift: she left $12 million to her pet dog, It’s depressing news for Mr. Zuckerman, but he has Trouble. company: most of the mainstream print organs in the United States have seen their relevance diminish rapidly in recent years, and journals of opinion everywhere struggle with declining (and graying) readerships. What does it all Klan Group Under Fire mean? Are Ray Bradbury’s feverish dreams of a deliberate- Hate groups around the country continue to be challenged ly illiterate culture becoming a reality? by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Imperial Klans One can view the latest news from Iraq within scant of America, the nation’s second largest Ku Klux Klan minutes on CNN; similarly, any number of Web sites can group, is the defendant in a lawsuit filed by the S.P.L.C. in tell us much quicker than The New York Post what exact- late July. An earlier suit against the same organization ly Lindsay Lohan’s breath smelled like to her arresting stemmed from the vicious beating in 2006 of a 16-year-old officer. Even some devotees of newspapers will admit that American boy of Panamanian descent. Two of the attack- the instant gratification provided by online information ers, members of the Imperial Klans, are currently serving has changed their reading habits; we skim the headlines, prison terms. The beating, which resulted in serious scan for items above the fold, absorb the pictures without injuries, took place on the county fairgrounds in always bothering with the text. Brandenburg, Ky., during an I.K.A. recruiting drive, at What will happen to long-form investigative journal- which the men were distributing flyers for the “white ism in this brave new world? In a nation whose fourth only” event. estate has a long and proud history, where will tomorrow’s The present suit includes as defendants not only the journalistic enterprises find the time or place for the I.K.A. organization, but also its Imperial Wizard, Ron muckrakers of yesteryear?

4 America September 17, 2007 Editorial The President’s Man

HE RECENT RESIGNATION of Attorney of appearing “soft on terrorism,” has largely permitted his General Alberto Gonzales brought to an expansion of executive authority to go unchecked. end the most misguided attorney general- A disturbing example of this is last month’s amendment ship since John Mitchell ran the Justice of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Department as a field office of the Nixon (FISA), the federal law that regulates how and when the Tre-election campaign. In fact, the two attorneys general government can spy on its own citizens. We learned in have something in common. They both saw themselves 2005 that the Bush administration was conducting war- principally as servants of the president’s political agenda rantless telephone and e-mail surveillance of American cit- rather than the public interest. In Mr. Gonzales’s case, he izens in obvious contravention of FISA. Last month, never appeared to make the transition from partisan Congress rewarded this illegal behavior by legally permit- White House counsel to impartial attorney general. This ting it—effectively suspending our Fourth Amendment was nowhere more evident than in his vigorous defense of protections against unreasonable searches and seizures the dramatic expansion of executive authority that has until the law expires in six months. occurred during this administration. FISA was enacted before the globalization of telecom- The American people look to the Justice Department munications. Because of changing technology, the law to protect the integrity of our constitutional system. Mr. needed updating. This was not unusual; FISA has been Gonzales helped to undermine it: the firings of able feder- updated more than 50 times since it was first enacted. This al prosecutors for political ends, Mr. Gonzales’s possible time, however, it was different. Congress and the adminis- perjury before Congress, his defense of a virtually unre- tration went far beyond closing loopholes—they placed strained executive privilege and his questionable legal justi- direct oversight of the FISA surveillance program in the fications for the detention of so-called enemy combatants attorney general’s office, removing it from a court of law. In at the Guantanamo prison have all weakened important other words, now the executive branch is to police itself. constitutional safeguards. At every turn, the Bush administration has sought to EVERY GRADE SCHOOLER KNOWS that our constitutional sys- expand the power and authority of the president. We are tem relies on checks and balances in order to function told that this is justified on grounds of national security. responsibly. The new FISA undermines this system by giv- No one disputes that these dangerous times require ing the executive branch a greatly enhanced ability to lis- unconventional responses. But there is also an ideological ten in on the private communications of American citizens agenda at work. This White House is a champion of the without proper judicial or legislative oversight. Moreover, so-called doctrine of the unitary executive—a distorted the Bush administration now asks the courts and Congress view of the Constitution used to justify unlimited expan- not only to ignore its previous illegal wiretapping but to sion of presidential authority. This specious theory was grant immunity to the telecommunications companies that developed in full in the 1970s and ’80s in response to the were complicit in it. Some congressional leaders have said diminution of presidential authority during the post- that many provisions of the new FISA law are unaccept- Watergate years. able and should be revisited. The rest of Congress should It should be remembered, however, that the president’s follow their lead. When the law expires in February, law- power was deliberately curtailed at that time because it had makers should restore direct judicial oversight over all been illegally expanded and seriously abused. To be sure, domestic surveillance by insisting on warrants for spying both Democratic and Republican presidents have pushed on U.S. citizens. presidential power beyond its constitutional limits. But it If Americans are asked to waive part of their constitu- was the scandals of Watergate and Vietnam that finally tional rights, they deserve to know why. They also deserve prompted Congress and the American people to dismantle an attorney general who will defend the rights of what the historian Arthur Schlesinger called the “imperial American citizens and the government of law promised by presidency” and restore the office to its proper place in our Constitution. Congress should view additional reform our constitutional system. President Bush has sought to and restraint of FISA as only a first step toward restoring undo this reform; and unfortunately this Congress, afraid the balance of power in the federal government.

September 17, 2007 America 5 Signs of the Times

Ex-Legionary Group Offers Court Computer Files Doctor Fights Cancer With Umbilical Cord Cells The head of a network of former mem- and ReGAIN to recover what the order bers of the Legionaries of Christ and claims is private property and to deter Regnum Christi has offered to hand over what it said is improper use of stolen computer files to a Virginia circuit court materials. The complaint said ReGAIN, after being sued by the religious order. “along with other co-conspirators, have Paul Lennon, president of the nonprofit intentionally taken out of context organization Religious Groups excerpts from...stolen materials and Awareness International Network, posted them on the Internet as part of a appeared before the Circuit Court of concerted effort to wage a malicious dis- Alexandria Aug. 22 during a seizure hear- information campaign against the ing. Glenn Favreau, a former member of Legion.” the Legionaries and a member of The complaint, dated Aug. 2, was ReGAIN, told Catholic News Service posted on the Web site of ReGAIN, Aug. 28 that the court accepted Lennon’s which offers information about alleged offer. No further steps have been taken problems associated with the Legionaries in the case against Lennon and ReGAIN, and Regnum Christi, an apostolic Favreau said. Catholic movement associated with the The Legionaries are suing Lennon Legionaries. Patrick Stiff

About 10 years ago, Holly Becker’s Zimbabwe’s Bishops Deplore Attacks future appeared bright. At 24, she had Zimbabwe Catholic just graduated from college, moved out Bishops’ Conference of her parents’ home and taken a job in said in an Aug. 29 sales and marketing. But then something statement from the went terribly wrong. She started running capital, Harare. “The temperatures of 105.4 degrees and she Catholic Church has could not eat. Doctors diagnosed Becker never been and is not with stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. an enemy of The cancer had already spread to her Zimbabwe,” the spleen, liver and bone marrow. She bishops said, noting spent six months undergoing that the church’s ser- chemotherapy without success. She was vice to Zimbab- in desperate need of a bone-marrow weans includes run- transplant, but no donor was available. “I ning 60 hospitals, was really as bad as somebody could 174 schools and get,” she told The Catholic Explorer, many orphanages. the newspaper of the Diocese of Joliet, “Our record during in a telephone interview. Running out of the years of the liber- options, she went to the Loyola Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe at a burial service in Harare, July ation struggle speaks University Medical Center in Maywood 18, during which he mocked Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo. for itself,” they said. for an umbilical-cord-blood stem-cell Zimbabwe gained transplant. “Cord blood has opened the Zimbabwe’s bishops called attacks on independence from Britain in 1980 after door to curing patients who otherwise Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo a guerrilla war. The bishops noted that would die,” Patrick Stiff, M.D., director “outrageous and utterly deplorable” the archbishop’s case was before the of Loyola’s Cardinal Bernardin Cancer and an attempt to divert attention from High Court of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo Center, told The Catholic Explorer. the catastrophe that Zimbabwe has and should not be discussed in public “We actually have transplanted patients become. “The recent attacks by some until a verdict has been delivered. In July, in whom the only other option was a politicians and the state media on the Onesimus Sibanda claimed damages from hospice program.” Before receiving the person” of Archbishop Ncube, who is the archbishop for an alleged affair with cord blood, Becker received full-body being sued for adultery, “constitute an his wife, Rosemary Sibanda. radiation treatments twice daily and assault on the Catholic Church, to high-dose chemotherapy to wipe out her which we take strong exception,” the From CNS and other sources. CNS photos. immune system.

6 America September 17, 2007 School Checklists Reflect and most popular paths for the foot pil- high school teacher who introduced him Modern Times grim is to the Spanish city of Santiago de to the thinking of Jacques Maritain, Compostela. More than 100,000 people Gabriel Marcel and Emmanuel Mounier, Long gone are the days when it was walk, bike or ride atop donkeys or horses mid-20th century French Catholic enough for school officials to take inven- every year to visit the shrine of St. James philosophers. Maritain was a leader in tory of desks, school supplies and audio- there. A once little-known pilgrim path the Neo-Thomist revival and Mounier visual equipment before the start of the from Canterbury, England, to Rome— was a founder of the school known as school year. Today’s back-to-school the Francigena Way—is also gaining in personalism. checklists are far more complex in order popularity. Rabbi Klenicki described the Jewish- to ensure that faculty and staff members Catholic dialogue as “my I-Thou voca- are ready to face any kind of potential Rabbi Knighted for tion,” alluding to the groundbreaking disaster from a weather-related event, a book I and Thou, by Martin Buber. “The medical emergency or an act of violence. Interfaith Work recognition of the other,” he continued, “The more prepared we are, the less Pope Benedict XVI has honored Rabbi “entails a sense of responsibility, an affir- chance we’ll be vulnerable,” said Michael Leon Klenicki, naming him a Knight of mation that the other is irreplaceable.... Caruso, assistant superintendent for sec- the Order of Saint Gregory the Great for Dialogue is an attempt to know and ondary schools and government relations his contribution to Jewish-Catholic rela- accept the validity of the spirituality of in the Diocese of Washington, D.C., tions. Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston the other, sharing his or her living expe- during an Aug. 24 emergency-prepared- led the ceremony Aug. 26 at the Holy rience of God.” He concluded, “Let us ness seminar for principals. At the very See Permanent Observer Mission to the build on this sacred relationship of least, school officials need to have such United Nations in New York. Rabbi Catholic to Jew and Jew to Catholic, of items on hand as: updated first-aid kits, Klenicki was the longtime interfaith subject of faith to equal subject of faith, emergency supplies, evacuation plans, director of the Anti-Defamation League. that God may pass and light the world emergency contact information, student In his acceptance remarks, he thanked his with understanding and blessing.” and staff rosters, portable communication devices, like walkie-talkies or cellphones, and, if possible, an emergency weather radio. They also need to consider worst- Indian Archdiocese Temporarily Closes Schools case scenarios and be prepared for their response.

Modern Pilgrims: Jet-Setters or Trekkers? The sky was no longer the limit when a Rome travel agency started offering spe- cially chartered flights exclusively for globe-trotting pilgrims. Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, run by the Diocese of Rome, had long been offering special package tours for religious destinations worldwide. Each year some 300,000 pilgrims book their religious journey by plane, train and bus through the agency. Recently, Opera Romana signed a five- People set a truck on fire during a protest in the Northern Indian city of Agra Aug. 29. year contract with Mistral Air, a small Italian airline run by the Italian postal ser- The Agra Archdiocese temporarily Miranda, archdiocesan chancellor, told vice, to run charter flights exclusively for closed all its schools and colleges after the Asian church news agency UCA pilgrims. The inaugural flight from Rome violence erupted in the city that is home News Aug. 30. “The situation is calm to Lourdes Aug. 27 went well; but because to the Taj Mahal, the famous marble now.” of security rules, the pilgrims were not mausoleum. Police imposed a curfew The archdiocese closed its schools and allowed to bring their bottles of Lourdes Aug. 29 after one person was killed and colleges in the area as a precaution, water with them on the return flight. several were injured in demonstrations Father Miranda said, and planned to Despite the conveniences of air travel, reacting to the deaths of four Muslim reopen them Sept. 1. Violence broke out greater numbers of modern-day pilgrims youths. Television footage showed a in the early morning of Aug. 29, after a are traveling the old-fashioned way with a deserted city and smoke billowing from speeding truck mowed down and killed backpack, plenty of water and a sturdy vehicles in some areas. “The Christian four Muslim youths who were returning pair of shoes. One of the most ancient community is safe,” the Rev. Ignatius home after a religious procession.

September 17, 2007 America 7 Life in the 00s

category that would include journalism in general and writing in particular) benefit Paying Down the Debt‘ from the skill, vision and leadership of American businessmen and women. Still, the notion of a generation forced Private enterprise is not the to the counting house because of crushing college debt ought to give us pause, and answer‘ to financing college education. not just out of sympathy for the debtors. Our knowledge-based economy is as S MILLIONS OF COLLEGE same predatory mentality that led finan- dependent on teachers, scientists, mathe- students settle into the new cial institutions to underwrite subprime maticians and historians as it is on finan- academic year, criminal inves- mortgages may be behind the burgeoning cial advisors, brokers and adjustors. Our tigators across the nation are college-loan scandal. culture requires young artists just as sure- looking into troubling rela- Beyond the issue of our collective fail- ly as our economy requires young tionshipsA between student-loan providers ure to provide more money for govern- entrepreneurs. and financial aid offices. By all indications, ment loans, beyond the questionable Friends tell me of children who wish these relationships have very little to do lending practices and possibly unethical to be journalists or math teachers or with education and lots to do with the relationships between colleges and marine biologists but who are being notion that students are just another lenders, there is this question: What kind encouraged to go to business school or law group of customers, to be catered to when of society are we creating when college school in part so that they can afford to necessary but exploited whenever possible. students leave school burdened with such live an independent, adult life even as they Several months ago, I took note in this huge debt? dutifully pay down their debts. How sad is space of the then-fledgling loan scandal, For all our paeans to the importance that—for them, for their parents, and for and wondered how and why we have of teachers, how many young people can society? allowed college loans to become an indus- afford to return to the classroom if they Making matters potentially far grim- try rather than the government-funded have to write checks of $1,000 or more mer is the near certainty that a long peri- program it ought to be. Since then, an every month just to service their college od of steady economic growth without investigation begun by New York’s attor- loans? For all our professed reverence for inflation seems destined to end soon. ney general, Andrew Cuomo, has spawned marriage and family, how many young Thanks to low-cost imports and other similar inquiries in several other states. people can even think about settling efficiencies, increases in the cost of living Prosecutors are trying to determine if col- down when they are so deeply in debt? have been held in check (except, of leges have improperly steered students to How many young people with six-figure course, in housing) for more than two lenders, some of whom may have engaged student loans can afford to rent a living decades. in predatory lending practices. space of their own, never mind handle the But, as anybody knows who has put a While official inquiries still are in a additional burden of a mortgage? How child through college in recent years, our preliminary stage, media investigations many would-be writers, artists, social collective chokehold on inflation has not have uncovered horror stories about workers, musicians, public servants and extended to higher education. Tuition recent college graduates struggling to pay research scientists will have to give up increases have outpaced inflation since the back six-figure loans, a task made even their dreams at the age of 26 because they Reagan administration. What will happen more burdensome by double-digit interest cannot live on the less-than-munificent if, or when, the cost of daily life begins to rates. In some of the reports I read, more salaries such careers provide? spike—accompanied, as would seem than a few hard-pressed graduates sported Were I of a conspiratorial mind, I inevitable, by even larger increases in the degrees from Catholic institutions. Six- might be inclined to believe that the cost of nonpublic higher education? figure debt is hardly restricted to students financial services industry, with the tacit It is becoming clear that private enter- with predictably expensive Ivy League cooperation of higher education, is prise simply is not the answer to financing degrees. attempting to turn a generation of stu- college education. As the horror stories Apparently many students, being students away from liberal arts and the from recent graduates indicate, private dents, did not read all the fine print in humanities by making it financially lenders are far too eager to view students their loan documents, and they were sur- impossible to pursue anything but a as just another exploitable market. prised when their adjustable interest rates career in business, financial services and Forget our dependence on oil—our ballooned to 12 percent and higher. The the industries that support them. Not that prosperity depends on the energy and cre- there’s anything wrong with being a com- ativity of our young people. And we will TERRY GOLWAY is the curator of the John modities trader, or a public relations exec- have precious little of either if their first Kean Center for American History at Kean utive, or a corporate attorney—far from and overriding concern is paying down University in Union, N.J. it. Some of us in the non-profit world (a their debt. Terry Golway

8 America September 17, 2007 September 17, 2007 America Vol. 197 No. 7, Whole No. 4785

ALEJANDRO GARCIA-RIVERA KEVIN BURKE ROBERT P. IMBELLI JOHN R. DONAHUE WILLIAM THOMPSON-UBERUAGA ROBERT A. KRIEG What Are Theologians Saying About Christology? “CHRIST THE STUDENT”

Editor’s Note: After the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a notification March 14 on some works of the liberation theologian Jon Sobrino, S.J., the editors wondered how we might inform our readers about the questions at stake. We concluded that the most useful approach would be to set the issues in the context of contemporary Christology, explaining what major theologians, Scripture scholars and schools of theology are saying regarding the six questions about Jesus to which the congregation drew attention in its notification: method, divinity/humanity, incarnation, the kingdom of God, Jesus’ self-consciousness and soteriology (explanations of how Jesus achieved our salvation). We have asked six theologians to explain what the tradition and their colleagues are saying today about the AT THE NAME OF JESUS. church’s confession of Jesus as Christ and Son of God (Pages 11 to 20). Two additional commentaries follow.

asked him what he thought of the we now use. For it is…but a Faith and recent Vatican notification on the stone by nature; but become works of Jon Sobrino, S.J. Bishop holy because it receives Christ’s the Poor Ware smiled, thought for a minute body: but that is holy because it Alejandro Garcia-Rivera and quoted this famous passage from is itself Christ’s body…[which] St. John Chrysostom: you may see lying everywhere, ECENTLY I HAD THE HONOR in the alleys and in the market- of listening to Metropolitan Would you see his altar?... places, and you may sacrifice Kallistos Ware as he gave a This altar is composed of the upon it anytime…. When then talk on the Orthodox under- very members of Christ, and you see a poor believer, believe Rstanding of the Holy Spirit. During the body of the Lord becomes that you are beholding an altar. the question-and-answer session, a an altar. This altar is more ven- When you see this one as a

young Roman Catholic seminarian erable even than the one which beggar, do not only refrain ART ON PAGES 11 TO 24 BY MICHAEL O’NEILL MCGRATH, O.S.F.S., FROM

September 17, 2007 America 11 from insulting him, but actual- logical currents ly give him honor, and if you that have little witness someone else insulting interest in faith. him, stop him; prevent it. Indeed, Sobrino’s Homily 20 on method of taking 2 Corinthians the social context as the ecclesial Wisely Bishop Ware refused to matrix from elaborate on the quotation and left us which Christ to ponder its meaning. Its relevance to emerges may the Sobrino notification, however, has lead to an become more and more evident as I unabashed theo- have studied the text by the logical pluralism Congregation for the Doctrine of the where the one Faith. The notification questions first Lord can become the methodological presuppositions of a Christ of a Sobrino’s Christology. Father Sobrino thousand faces, emphasizes the social setting defined each depending by the “church of the poor”; the notion its own social fication identifies the proper context setting. as the “faith of the Church.” Such a sce- The C.D.F. apparently thinks nario might be Sobrino is playing fast and loose with one reason this the nature of the church. By identify- notification was ing the church with the poor instead of issued. Sobrino’s with the faith, the C.D.F. warns that method opens up “GOOD SHEPHERD” Sobrino’s Christ is being wrenched a postmodern from his ecclesial matrix. What is Pandora’s box of theological specula- particular quote from Sobrino’s Christ feared, I suppose, is a Christ who tion. To ask if Jon Sobrino’s Christ is the Liberator: “While these texts are emerges out of a social setting instead too postmodern is to ask if the C.D.F.’s useful theologically, besides being nor- of a communion of faith. Such a Christ primary concern is the role that truth mative, they are also limited and even could be subject to political and ideo- plays in theological reflections. The dangerous, as is widely recognized notification, referring to Donum today.” While recognizing the limited Authors Veritatis, suggests as much: “Thus the character of dogmatic formulation, the Alejandro Garcia-Rivera is a professor of truth revealed by God himself in Jesus notification insists that “there is no systematic theology at the Jesuit School of Christ, and transmitted by the foundation for calling these formulas Theology in Berkeley, Calif. Church, constitutes the ultimate nor- dangerous, since they are authentic Kevin Burke, S.J., is academic dean of the mative principle of theology.” Trust in interpretations of Revelation.” Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif. the normative power of truth claims is Here the wisdom from the The Rev. Robert P. Imbelli, a priest of at odds with the postmodern zeitgeist, Orthodox tradition and the relevance the Archdiocese of New York, teaches sys- which questions not simply the truth- of Chrysostom’s text become evident. tematic theology at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass. fulness of statements but truth itself. The Orthodox warn against making Such faith and the deep value it holds dogmatic claims with too much confi- John R. Donahue, S.J., is the Raymond E. Brown Distinguished Professor of New can legitimately be offended by the dence. While truth is behind all such Testament Studies (emeritus) at St. Mary’s skepticism over normative claims so claims, the ecclesial setting for truth is Seminary and University, Baltimore, Md., and prevalent today. Does the notification not objectivity but love. Truth is not was author of America’s The Word column from 1999 to 2002. assert that Sobrino’s Christology falls simply about objectivity but also soli- prey to such skepticism? There is rea- darity. And this is one of the lessons I William Thompson-Uberuaga is a professor of systematic theology at Duquesne son to think so, namely, the concern learned from Chrysostom’s text. The University in Pittsburgh, Pa. for “the manner in which the author Christ the church worships at its altar Robert A. Krieg is a professor of theology treats the major Councils of the early is also the Christ found at the altar of at the University of Notre Dame. Church.” The notification lifts out this the world’s poor. In this sense both

12 America September 17, 2007 Sobrino and the C.D.F. appear to of my first theology teachers, Brian affirms the full divinity and full human- speak truthfully and accurately. Daly, S.J., emphasized this point in a ity of the one person, Jesus Christ, Christ’s ecclesial matrix is the church course tellingly entitled “The “without confusion, without change, that worships in faith. It is also the Christological Controversies.” He without division, without separation.” church of the poor. This is the famous noted how every orthodox And even this profound and balanced both-and that marks the church as Christological claim tends toward one definition is not the end of the matter, Catholic. or another heresy and needs to be for inquiring minds want to know: Having a both-and Christology is complemented by other claims. How do we make sense of this? not the same as postmodern skepti- Moreover, this process of comple- In the effort to make sense of the cism. It is the very nature of a faith that menting and balancing involves more language of faith, the choice of where proclaims that God is one and three, than rehearsing the facts of church to begin is crucial because it shapes the that Jesus is human and divine. There doctrine, for the language of faith way we imagine Jesus. This, I believe, is something more dangerous to the often explodes like a riot of color in a represents the key difference between faith than a Christ who can only be wild garden or a true poem. As such, the Christology of Jon Sobrino, S.J., grasped through multiple views; it is a Christology involves evocation. Its and the logic of the Vatican notifica- view of truth as either-or. arguments turn on the subtlest of tion that criticizes his work. The noti- “Definitive” truth that is not lov- metaphors. fication implies that theology should ing can bring only despair to an And the work is always unfinished. start “from above,” with the Nicene already nihilistic world. Theology itself has to grow to stay Creed’s affirmation of Jesus’ divinity Postmodernism thrives precisely alive. Theologians betray their voca- (“one in being with the Father”). because it sees the suffering of this tion if they simply repeat word-for- Sobrino, by contrast, begins “from world as having reached horrendous word definitions taken from Scripture below” where the synoptic Gospels and senseless proportions. A church or doctrine, as if formulas could con- begin, with Jesus as he appeared to his that is methodologically indifferent to tain faith or words exhaust mystery. contemporaries (“Is this not the car- senseless suffering is at odds with the Every age, every culture needs to find penter’s son?”). The one approach methods of Jesus himself. Only a Jesus access to Jesus Christ from within its starts with doctrine. The other begins who belongs to a church that is not own distinctive language and world- in history. afraid to identify itself with the suffer- view. But the future of theology does On the surface, starting from doc- ing of this world can have any rational not undermine the importance of its trine appears to be the strongest way claim on the world itself. In other past. Theological growth needs direc- to safeguard the faith. But throughout words, the normative character of the tion to remain authentically alive. It Christianity’s history, it is the return to truth of the church’s faith is protected, needs Scripture (the normative witness Jesus that consistently protects theolo- defended and nurtured by a praxis that to apostolic faith) and the gy from the greatest danger of all—the will not regard as normative the sense- Christological dogmas formulated by temptation to use its own logic to mis- less suffering of billions. The church the theologians of the early church. represent God. Concern for this dan- has two altars. The C.D.F. points However, the teachings of ger lies behind the commandment for- rightly to one; Sobrino points to the Scripture and tradition are not self- bidding false images of God: God can- other. interpreting. For this reason, not be described by analogy to what Christology is not only complex but we think a god ought to be like. For dangerous. Even devout believers can his part, Sobrino is wary of the lose their way in the thickets of assumption that “we already know Balancing Human Christological reasoning. Even clear what divinity is” when we apply the and apparently unambiguous state- term to Jesus. Rather, Jesus reveals and Divine ments like “Christians believe in the what divinity means. Starting with divinity of Jesus Christ” need to be Jesus and moving from there to an Kevin Burke interpreted in relation to other state- interpretation of his being the eternal ments. Taken in isolation, without ref- Word of God unmasks the temptation HRISTOLOGY IS A COMPLEX erence to the full humanity of Jesus, to manipulate his image (and thereby discipline. It requires an this statement is misleading and God’s image) for our own ends. intricate balancing act potentially harmful. In contrast, the Furthermore, Sobrino begins with among assertions perenni- classic formula developed at the Jesus precisely to “make sense” of allyC in tension with one another. One Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451, Christian faith in a world burdened by

September 17, 2007 America 13 Jesus in his And the Word became flesh humanity, they and made his dwelling among might remain us, and we saw his glory, the there, with a glory of the Father’s only Son, “merely human” full of grace and truth. Jesus. Of course, a corresponding risk The Word, the eternal Son of the exists for those Father, who precedes and “pre-con- who start with the tains” all creation, became part of cre- Nicene Creed and ated reality, entered into human histo- utilize a dogmatic ry, lived a complete human life, imagination. This became one of us—even unto death. approach can lead So stupendous is this mystery that simple believers already in the first century some into a heretically demurred. Surely it was unseemly for high Christology the divine to enter into the muck of like Docetism, in humanity, confined in a body, subject which Jesus, the to the indignities and torments to Son of God, only which flesh is heir. So began the appears to be perennial Gnostic revulsion against human. the flesh, and especially against the Christology flesh-taking of the Holy, Immortal wrestles with diffi- One. cult questions. In- The First Letter of John stands at deed, its own use the origin of the ecclesial tradition of

“HIGH PRIEST” of reason can be discernment of spirits. It reiterates dangerous. But with insistence: “Beloved, do not trust “senseless” suffering, especially the not every danger can be addressed by every spirit, but test the spirits to see suffering that results from inhuman authoritative pronouncements. More- whether they belong to God, because poverty and violent oppression. over, while it may be prudent to warn many false prophets have gone out Starting with Jesus and his scandalous believers about the possible dangers of into the world. This is how you can love for the poor provides the best way Sobrino’s Christology, it seems equally know the Spirit of God: every spirit today to lead people to authentic faith necessary to call attention to corre- that acknowledges that Jesus Messiah in Jesus Christ. It empowers sponding dangers in Christologies that has come in the flesh belongs to God” Christians to live as disciples of Jesus begin with Jesus’ divinity. At the very (1 Jn 4:1-2). The incarnation of the while confirming their claim to be least it is a mistake to think that Word is not adventitious to God’s sav- advocates of a universal, integral jus- Christologies “from below” pose the ing action; it is the very heart of salva- tice. Finally, it provides a credible way only or the greatest danger to tion. of holding the tension between the Christian faith. The Letter to the Hebrews sealed divine and the human natures of Jesus. the canonical New Testament’s incar- Sobrino directs the imagination to that national conviction. “In the days of his which is most easily imaginable: Jesus flesh, Jesus offered prayers and suppli- as he appeared to his contemporaries. Word Incarnate cations with loud cries and tears to He then leads it beyond its normal God who was able to save him from limits, as theology must, in order to Robert P. Imbelli death, and he was heard because of his give a complete account of Christian reverence. Son though he was, he hope. RESSED TO CHOOSE but one learned obedience from what he suf- The Vatican notification warns New Testament verse to fered; and having been made perfect, that Sobrino’s method might scandal- recapitulate the Good News, he became the source of eternal salva- ize believers who are not sophisticated the Gospel within the tion for all who obey him” (Heb 5:7-9). Gospel,P one might opt for the climax enough to follow his subtle theological Almost 400 years later, the great ascent. If people begin by imagining of the Prologue of St. John (1:14): Christological Council of Chalcedon

14 America September 17, 2007 articulates, in the language of its cul- Moreover, he also judged that some of sion in the Jewish religious-cultural ture and time, this core discernment what was said in standard textbooks world of his time, has become an and persuasion of the New Testament. and in popular preaching was, often indisputable given (see Elizabeth Jesus the Christ is “perfect [Greek inadvertently, not consonant with Johnson, Consider Jesus; N. T. Wright, teleion] in divinity, perfect in humanity, Chalcedon’s measured doctrine. In Jesus and the Victory of God; Gerald truly God and truly human, of a ratio- particular, Rahner discerned a “cryp- O’Collins, Christology: a Biblical, nal soul and body.” In a famous for- to-monophysitism” that emphasized Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus). mulation the council confesses the one the divinity of Christ to the virtual New archeological findings continue Lord Jesus Christ “in two natures with exclusion of his full humanity. to “flesh out” the flesh of Jesus of no confusion, no change, no division, In retrospect, this article (pub- Nazareth (see James H. Charlesworth, no separation...the property of both lished in German in 1954 and in ed., Jesus and Archeology, Eerdmans, natures is preserved and comes togeth- English in 1961) anticipated the direc- 2006). The present danger may lie, er into a single person and a single tion of much of post-Vatican II rather, in an inclination to present a subsistent being.” Here the mystery of Christological reflection by Catholic Jesus who is fully, but only, human: a the Incarnation is neither explained theologians. It stressed the need to do “Christology from below” that never nor reduced, but confessed and cele- full justice to the humanity of Jesus, to quite manages to get off the ground. brated. Chalcedon enunciates the return anew to the canonical range of The church’s foundational faith in the “deep grammar” that governs the New Testament witness rather than incarnation of the only Son risks being church’s preaching, catechesis and the- relying, almost exclusively, on the reduced to a vague avowal of the ological reflection. Gospel of John. It advocated comple- divine inspiration of one who is a Fast-forward 1,500 years. As part menting a “Christology from above” provocative prophet. Indeed, some of the commemoration of the anniver- with a “Christology from below,” one even hint that the church’s dogmatic sary of Chalcedon, Karl Rahner, S.J., that takes with utmost seriousness “the tradition distorts the reality of the wrote an essay that stands at the origin human experience of Jesus.” first-century Jewish figure. of renewed Christological reflection in Rahner already anticipated that I read the recent notification of the the Catholic tradition. The essay, in this commitment would entail not C.D.F. on some writings of Father Jon revised form, appears in the first vol- only a focus on the human nature of Sobrino as a call to accountability to ume of his Theological Investigations the Word in some abstract, timeless the grammar of Chalcedon, even as under the title “Current Problems in fashion, but a consideration of the theologians probe new insights and Christology.” In the context of the “flesh-taking” in its concrete histori- forge new language. In the spirit of 1 Catholic theological world of the cal, religious and social setting. This John, it offers guidelines for discern- 1950s, these sentences rang like a commitment, supported and promot- ment. I do not think Karl Rahner manifesto: ed by the experience and teaching of would object in principle to this admo- Vatican II, led to a profusion of works nition, though he might differ, of We shall never cease to return in Christology: from Hans Küng to course, with regard to the congrega- to this formula [of Chalcedon], Edward Schillebeeckx, from Hans Urs tion’s specific findings. because whenever it is neces- von Balthasar to Walter Kasper, from The challenge before us all, not sary to say briefly what it is that Jon Sobrino to Elizabeth Johnson. only theologians, but preachers and we encounter in the ineffable Though the works of these authors parents, artists and educators, is to truth which is our salvation, we certainly differ among themselves, all rekindle in our day and place the shall always have recourse to its would echo Rahner’s claim that Christic imagination: to appropriate modest, sober clarity. But we Chalcedon marks not only an end, but and extend Vatican II’s confident con- shall only really have recourse also a beginning of the church’s never- fession that Jesus is “the light of the to it (and this is not at all the ending reflection on the mystery of its nations” (Lumen Gentium, No. 1), that same thing as simply repeating Lord. he is “the mediator and fullness of all it), if it is not only our end but In the present situation of Catholic revelation” (Dei Verbum, No. 2) and also our beginning. theology, at least in its university set- that the Holy Spirit offers to everyone ting, I think few would contend, as “the possibility of being associated Rahner lamented that there was far Rahner did 50 years ago, that there with Christ’s paschal mystery” too much mere repetition of creedal flows “an undercurrent of mono- (Gaudium et Spes, No. 22). formulae, rather than genuine appro- physitism.” The acknowledgement of In pursuing this inexhaustible priation of the council’s insight. the humanity of Jesus, of his immer- blessing and mission, we can do no

September 17, 2007 America 15 better than take as a sure guide the associations rather than a single refer- teaching. The kingdom is “of God,” Letter to the Hebrews, which so ent. The proclamation has a clear both as gift and challenge; despite forthrightly celebrates the humanity of eschatological dimension—the final common parlance, nowhere does the the Lord. For it also, with equal bold- and definitive rule of God is at hand. New Testament speak of “building the ness, proclaims his unsurpassable A host of problems accompany kingdom of God.” For his part, Jesus uniqueness (Heb 1:1-2): interpretation of this proclamation. speaks often of the kingdom in para- There are three principal groups of bles drawn from the ordinary lives of In times past, God spoke in sayings. The first stresses the presence his hearers. Human experience is the partial and diverse ways to our of the kingdom; the second, its future path toward the transcendent. ancestors through the coming; the third, its demands on peo- Future expectation is also strong. prophets, but in these, the days ple who wish to accept or enter it. A Disciples are to pray that the kingdom of fulfillment, God has spoken seemingly endless debate centers on will come, just as they pray for God’s to us through a Son, whom he which sayings are closest to the actual will to be be done on earth as in heav- has made heir of all things and statements of Jesus (his ipsissima vox). en (Mt 6:10). Other sayings of Jesus through whom he created the Advocates of the presence of the king- reflect Jewish apocalyptic thought, universe. dom interpret Jesus primarily as a with its emphasis on the end of the prophet of reform (John Dominic world, when the exalted Son of Man Crossan), while the future sayings will reign as king to judge evildoers form the basis of interpreting Jesus as and restore justice to the elect (the Jesus and the an apocalyptic preacher (Albert sheep and the goats, Mt 25:31-46). Schweitzer). Current exegesis leans According to Paul, eschatological ful- Kingdom of God toward some version of the thesis of fillment of the reign of God will come Joachim Jeremias, that Jesus proclaims when at the end time the risen Jesus John R. Donahue God’s reign as already at work in his will hand over his kingdom to “his ministry, while anticipating its fullest God and Father” (1 Cor 15:24). HE KINGDOM OF GOD realization in the future. The radical challenge of the king- assumes a central place in Evidence for both positions is dom is crystallized in a series of say- the notification on the ample. Jesus inau- works of Jon Sobrino, S.J., gurates his public Tas it does in contemporary New ministry by pro- Testament scholarship. A wide spec- claiming that the trum of New Testament scholars of all kingdom of God is denominations significantly agrees at hand and sum- that the central theme of the public moning people to proclamation of Jesus was the arrival reform and renewal of God’s powerful reign. Beyond this (metanoia, Mk 1:16- consensus is a virtual storm of scholar- 17). Jesus also pro- ly discussion and debate. The king- claims that the kingdom is a major topic in three recent dom is “among scholarly tomes: Jesus: A Marginal Jew, you” (Lk 17:21), not Vol. 2, by John P. Meier (reviewed in “within you,” a America, 4/8/95); Jesus and the Victory translation that of God, by N. T. Wright (Am. 3/8/97); spawns many inac- and Jesus Remembered, by James D. G. curate appropria- Dunn (Am. 12/3/03). tions. His mighty The Greek term itself, basileia tou works of healing, theou (literally, “kingdom of God”), confrontation with expresses the power of God active in demons and his the ministry of Jesus, but it also power over nature implies a spatial or local dimension, as are the signs of in “United Kingdom.” The expression God’s power now at is a tensive symbol, evoking a host of work in his life and “BREAD FROM HEAVEN”

16 America September 17, 2007 ings on conditions for “entering” the jectory that leads to the councils of of Jesus the Christ. His person, kingdom. Rather than scandalize a Ephesus and Chalcedon. It is an inter- according to Christian doctrine, pos- child or commit other sins, one should pretation, rather than a description of sesses two natures, divine and human. be willing to enter the kingdom of the historical Jesus. The communion between Jesus’ God blind (Mk 9:47). Those who wish divinity and humanity, as a true com- to enter the kingdom should be pow- munion, would entail an exchange of erless like children (Mt 19:14); riches attributes between the two: God truly provide an overwhelming obstacle to sharing the human condition. All of entering (Mt 19:23-25). Disciples who Jesus’ Self- this is attested to by Scripture and seek the prestige of sitting at the right taught by church councils. But does hand of Jesus in the kingdom are Consciousness his divine identity and nature affect urged instead to become servants and Jesus’ human consciousness? If so, in slaves (Mt 20:21-25). William Thompson-Uberuaga what way(s) can this happen without The powerful reign of God is not tampering with an integral human otherworldly, but embodied in history. EGARD FOR JESUS’ HUMAN nature and human mind, and so risk Its arrival brings special hope to the identity and consciousness is being inconsistent with the doctrines poor, the suffering and the marginal. not new. Luke 2:52 tells us of Chalcedon and Constantinople When Jesus calls the poor happy that Jesus grew in wisdom. III? because “the kingdom of God is RThe Gospels attest to threshold The question is difficult and yours” (Lk 6:26), he is declaring that moments in which Jesus’ conscious- brings us to one of the fault lines God’s reign is on their behalf. After ness unfolds, such as his baptism among theologians today. We might the rich young man fails to heed Jesus’ (which brings a heightened awareness argue a case deductively, based on a call to give his wealth to the poor, of his relationship with his Father and view of how God would act. God Jesus comments to his disciples about his mission, tutored by John the would never do anything to harm the young man’s reluctance, “How Baptist), his desert experience (when Jesus’ consciousness, we might say, hard it is for the rich to enter the king- he confronts his “demons” and readies but rather would create it and sustain dom of God” (Mk 10:23). himself for the struggles to come), his it. That position uses the theological Jesus’ personal consciousness of anointing by the Spirit (bestowing the principle that God as the creator the reign of God constitutes an endur- gift of bringing good news to the always enhances rather than curtails ing problem. Though, apart from poor), his transfiguration (opening up creation. We cannot do much with- John 18, Jesus never refers to “his further depths of his particular person out general principles like that from kingdom” and does not accept the title and mission) and his struggle in which to make deductions. “king,” he has a unique relationship to Gethsemane (about the will of God for But we reach a limit here. For how God’s reign. For decades scholars have him unto death). well do we know who God is and how called attention to Origen’s descrip- In the second century Irenaeus God should act? Some early heretics tion of Jesus as autobasileia (literally wrote that the Son established a gen- thought they knew God’s being well “himself the kingdom”). Recent mag- uine communion with us through enough to argue that it would be inap- isterial statements have frequently passing “through every stage of life” propriate for Jesus to have a truly appealed to this text. While reflecting (Against Heresies). Still, early church human intellect and will, because that on Matt 18:23-35, Origen says that councils found that they had to defend would diminish the sovereignty of his “king” refers to the Son of God. He Jesus’ authentic human soul, intellect, divine nature, giving too much inde- goes on to ask: Since Jesus is “wisdom will and vital energy against some who pendence to his humanity. This itself” (autosophia), “justice itself” would deny them, so counterintuitive sounded reasonable. Yet the church, (autodikaiosyne) and “truth itself” did it seem that God would come following Scripture, could not accept (autoasphaleia), is he not also auto- among us as a human being. such a view. The Word truly became basileia “the kingdom itself” (In Mt. Since the connection between human in Jesus, and being human Hom., 14:7)? persons and their consciousnesses is entails the presence of a fully function- Origen prefers the spiritual sense an intimate one, it is reasonable to ing human intellect and will. over the literal, and his commentary is think that any special qualities of per- Apparently God was trying to reveal to allegorical and Christological. The sonhood would also shape one’s con- us a different view of who he is and phrase “the kingdom itself,” therefore, sciousness. Such thinking brings spe- how he acts. is a theological expression on the tra- cial challenges to our understanding Other theologians take an induc-

September 17, 2007 America 17 fetus in the womb one of the more developed analyses of all that he would the types of faith manifested by Jesus, know after the that of trust and that of believing cer- resurrection? tain truths, such as those about God Was Jesus the taught him as a Jew. only human ever My impression is that the magis- able to see the terium reflects the spread of views Father continual- noted among the theologians. ly creating his Reflecting the reserved, inductive ten- humanity, thus dency, the Catechism of the Catholic making it easier Church, so far as I can tell, rather than for him to be attributing the beatific vision to Jesus, faithful to his speaks of his knowledge of everything Father’s will in pertaining to God, such as an “inti- accepting his mate” and “immediate knowledge” of death, as Bertrand the Father and a full understanding of de Margerie those plans of God he had come to holds (“The reveal (Nos. 472-74). This knowledge Double Con- of his Father entails his knowledge of sciousness of his own unique sonship (No. 444), of Christ”)? When course. The catechism also attributes does the divine to Jesus a “trusting commitment” to enhancement go the Father (No. 2600), which seems to too far, reducing be faith-as-trust. By contrast, the Jesus’ humanity “Notification” sent to Jon Sobrino

“CHRIST THE TEACHER” and leaving him reflects a maximalist perspective, with only one attributing the beatific vision to Jesus tive approach, led by the witness of nature, the divine nature? and arguing that it obviates the need revelation. Scripture teaches that Jesus Other theologians choose to be for any faith by Jesus. was sinless (Heb 4:15), for example. reserved about the divine effects, The views expressed on both sides Sinlessness is one of the special ways in unless compelled by revelation. Jesus, of the fault lines fall within a legitimate which Jesus’ divinity enhanced his they suggest, enjoyed some vision of spread of interpretations of the humanity. It coheres with Jesus’ mis- his divine nature and of his Father and Catholic faith. From time to time we sion, too, which is to be the way out of the Spirit, but not the full, beatific theologians may go too far, but doing humanity’s sinful condition. Scripture vision of the resurrection state. Jesus’ so results in error rather than heresy in teaches that Jesus possessed an earthly vision likely started out dim faithful theologians. Occasionally extraordinary ability to discern the and grew in clarity as he passed “some magisterial documents might depths of the human heart, like the through threshold experiences and not be free from all deficiencies” hearts of Judas, Peter and the matured. These theologians suggest either, as Cardinal Ratzinger has writ- Samaritan woman at the well. that along with his special visionary ten (Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation Sinlessness and deep discernment of knowledge as the Son in obedience to of the Theologian, 1990, No. 24). the human heart exemplify the his Father, Jesus still was a person of exchange between Jesus’ divine and faith, albeit of a unique kind. Such rea- human natures. soning can be found in the work of Overlapping the fault line is the Karl Rahner (Theological Investigations, Jesus as Savior theologians’ tendency either to maxi- Vol. V), Hans Urs von Balthasar mize the ways in which Jesus’ divinity (Theo-Drama, Vol. III) and Walter Robert A. Krieg enhances his human consciousness or Kasper (Jesus the Christ) as well as Jon to understate them, in a more reserved Sobrino (Jesus the Liberator: A OW DID/DOES CHRIST way. For example, did Jesus enjoy the Historical-Theological View and Christ bring about our salvation? “full” beatific vision from the moment the Liberator: A View from the Victims). The question comes to he was conceived—did he know as a Gerald O’Collins (Christology) offers H mind when reading the 18 America September 17, 2007 recent notification by the death and thereby “tying up the strong in Jesus Christ is a mystery, a reality Congregation for the Doctrine of the man,” Satan (Mk 3:27). Matthew por- that we can increasingly understand Faith concerning the theology of Jon trays Jesus’ passion as the death of an but never fully fathom. For this reason Sobrino, S.J. In the C.D.F.’s judgment, “innocent” and hence truly “righ- it is best understood by means of a Sobrino’s writings contain an inade- teous” person (Mt 27:19; Wis 2:12; variety of metaphors and models. In quate account of the “salvific value” of 3:1). Luke perceives Jesus’ death and the Second Vatican Council’s Jesus’ death. resurrection as the releasing of the “Pastoral Constitution on the Church In theology an entire subdiscipline, Holy Spirit into history (Lk 24:49; and the Modern World” (Gaudium et called soteriology, is devoted to such Acts 2:4). John presents Jesus’ entire Spes), four distinct “theories” of how matters. Soteriology means critical, life, culminating in his suffering and Christ saved us occur all within the systematic reflection on the mystery of death, as the revelation of God’s love same article (No. 22). Jesus Christ God’s saving activity on our behalf. In (Jn 10:11). saved us because he is “the very revela- particular, it inquires into the redemp- 4. The Christian tradition in the tion of the mystery of the Father and tive significance of Jesus’ life, death West similarly contains at least five his love” (sacramental model); he is and resurrection by examining Jesus’ different types of models or “theories” also identified as the “new Adam,” own proclamation as found in the concerning the salvific value of the who “has restored in the children of New Testament and as interpreted and cross. The Christus-Victor view of St. Adam that likeness to God which had transmitted in the Christian tradition, Gregory of Nyssa (d. 395) speaks of been disfigured ever since the first sin” in specific church teachings and in the Jesus Christ freeing us from Satan’s (representative model). Moreover, witness of contemporary Christians. grasp. The “satisfaction theory” of St. Christ “merited life for us by his Today six widely held convictions Anselm (d. 1109) presents Jesus Christ blood, which he freely shed” (satisfac- shape soteriology. initiating the restoration of right relation model), and he united us with 1. Jesus saw his suffering and death tionships in creation. According to the God by “freeing us from the bondage as the price he would need to pay for “penal-substitution” theory of John of the devil and of sin” (Christus- remaining faithful to his proclamation Calvin (d. 1564), Jesus Christ deliber- Victor Model). of the coming of God’s reign (Mk ately became the victim of the wrath of As the C.D.F. rightly states, 1:14-15). He judged his passion to be God that we all deserve. The sacra- Catholic theologians must uphold part of his mission and, along with his mental view of Abelard (d. 1142) per- “the normative value of the affirma- entire life and ministry, it had redemp- ceives Jesus’ cross as the tive significance (Mk 8:31-33). definitive revelation of 2. Jesus did not, however, explicit- God’s love. And the rep- ly offer a complete explanation, much resentative theology of less a doctrine concerning the salvific St. Irenaeus (d. 200) value of his life, death and resurrec- holds that Jesus Christ tion. Rather, he spoke of his passion brought about the cos- using such images as a “ransom” (Mk mic breakthrough of 10:45), a “grain of wheat” that dies human faithfulness and and “bears much fruit” (John 12:24), love in response to the “beloved son” sent by his father to God’s grace. reclaim the vineyard (Mk 12:6), and 5. Although God’s his body “that is for you” and his saving activity in Jesus blood “poured out for many” (1 Cor Christ happened once 11:24; Mk 14:23). and for all, it is at the 3. To elucidate the redemptive same time an ongoing meaning of Jesus’ life, death and resur- reality. Thus it can be rection, the New Testament writers mediated through the employ a wide range of metaphors. sacraments, the act of Paul speaks of Jesus Christ as the “new faith, participation in Adam,” who lived and died in the life of the church unswerving faithfulness to God, bring- and care for people in ing grace “for the many” (Rom 5:15). need. Mark depicts Jesus as succumbing to 6. God’s redemption “KING OF THE JEWS”

September 17, 2007 America 19 tions of the New Testament as well as endeavor. It requires analyzing the C.D.F. notes, “Let it be said from the those of the great Councils of the early scholar’s entire use of redemptive start that the historical Jesus did not Church” (Explanatory Note, No. 3). metaphors and classic theories, and interpret his death in terms of salva- Yet the C.D.F. neglects to clarify that then locating this theological configu- tion....” This statement by itself is theologians serve the church by ration within the spectrum of soterio- inadequate. When it is completed by exploring the soteriological implica- logical positions contained in Scripture, its subordinate clause, it becomes tions of these “affirmations,” especial- tradition and church teachings. more acceptable, but remains ambigu- ly since the church possesses no com- On the one hand, Sobrino’s work ous: “Let it be said from the start that plete and final doctrinal formulation contains some soteriological state- the historical Jesus did not interpret concerning the theological value of ments that are inadequate or ambigu- his death in terms of salvation, in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. ous, especially when they are extracted terms of the soteriological models An evaluation of an individual the- from their texts. For example, Sobrino later developed by the New ologian’s soteriology is a complex wrote in Jesus the Liberator, as the Testament, such as expiatory sacrifice or vicarious satisfaction” (P. 201). Also problematic, as the C.D.F. has observed, is the following statement concerning Jesus’ death: “This saving efficacy is shown more in the form of an exemplary cause than an efficient cause” (P. 230). Is Jesus Christ no more than an example or role model of a life of love? On the other hand, the notification understates the merits of the Jesuit theologian’s critical, systematic reflections on salvation in Jesus Christ. In Jesus the Liberator Sobrino unites three of the classical “theories” of Jesus Christ as redeemer—Christ the victor who remained faithful to the true God amid “the battle of the divinities and their mediators,” and thereby overcame death by “bearing the evil from which we have to be redeemed” (Pp. 219, 217); Jesus the new Adam, “the revelation of the homo verus, the true and complete human being...depicted by the New Testament as one who ‘goes about doing good,’ who was ‘faithful and merciful,’ who came ‘not to be served but to serve’” (P. 229); and the cross as sacramental: “Jesus’ cross is the expression of God’s love.... And God chose this way of showing himself, because he could not find any clearer way of telling us human beings that he really wills our salvation” (P. 231). Taken as a whole, Sobrino’s writings express a rich—though not flaw- less—Catholic soteriology. Father Sobrino deserves the church’s grati- tude, not its suspicion. A

20 America September 17, 2007 Commentary

Mutually Enriching The work of bishops and theologians JOHN J. STRYNKOWSKI

S A SEMINARIAN the historical condition from 1960 to that affects the expres- 1964 and as a sion of Revelation.” The priest from congregation describes as 1969A to 1971, I studied conditions that affect theology at the teaching: the limitations Gregorian University of the language and cul- in Rome. One of the ture of a particular era lessons I learned from and the need in a partic- several of the Jesuit ular time to address a professors there was the specific question or error. importance of attend- Another lesson I ing to the historical cir- learned from our profes- cumstances surround- sors was that no theolo- ing the doctrinal pro- gian works in the nouncements of ecu- abstract. Every theolo- menical councils. gian comes from a theo- It was important, logical tradition and is first of all, to know the influenced by predeces- conflict that led to an sors in both positive and issue being debated at a negative ways. A theo- council and resolved logical tradition can be there. Knowing the called a school, not nec- theologies of the parties essarily in the sense of a involved offered an specific building but in invaluable background the sense of methodolo- for such debates and the gy and emphasis. A the- factors that led to cer- ologian may be molded tain words being used “SUFFERING SERVANT” by that school and work to settle them. For more recent coun- and at the formal sessions of the coun- within its framework or react against it cils there were records of the proceed- cils themselves. All of this study helped and perhaps become the founder of ings and discussions in commissions to clarify the meaning and intention of another school. In the early church, the council with respect to a particular Origen was a formidable influence on MSGR. JOHN J. STRYNKOWSKI, former statement. later generations, as were Thomas executive director of the U.S. This approach to dogmas was rati- Aquinas, Bonaventure and Duns Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office fied by the Congregation for the Scotus in the Middle Ages and of Doctrine and Pastoral Practice, is rec- Doctrine of the Faith in 1973 with its beyond. In the early 19th century tor of St. James Cathedral-Basilica in declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae, which there was the Tübingen school, and Brooklyn, N.Y. notes the “difficulties [that] arise from the 20th century gave us such great

September 17, 2007 America 21 theologians as Karl Rahner, S.J., and the rise of a militant atheism in the credible ways the understanding of the Bernard Lonergan, S.J., participants Soviet Union and a philosophical truth proclaimed. Some bishops have in a broader stream of transcendental atheism in Western Europe. had and have the charism of being the- theology, whose work continues in Theologians also have to work with ologians as well, but it is not intrinsic countless numbers of disciples today. the faith, as the people of God “pene- to the office of bishop to be a theolo- These are only a few of the schools of trates it more deeply through right gian in the sense of a rigorous and theology that have existed in the his- judgment, and applies it more fully in scholarly pursuit of the history of tory of the church. daily life” (“Dogmatic Constitution on church teaching and its application Every theologian also works in the the Church,” No. 12). The experience today. That is why the magisterium context of the contemporary culture and faith of God’s people lead theolo- turns to theologians for assistance in and the current pastoral needs of the gians to articulate that experience and formulating teaching. church. While the teaching of the faith by drawing on the depth and Theologians, of course, bring their church is the fundamental given on breadth of the Christian tradition. own limitations. The genius of the which the theologian works, questions That articulation, in turn, further bishops at Vatican II was to listen to all come from the world and the life of deepens our understanding of the tra- the schools of theology at that time, the church that frequently provoke dition. The massive poverty of the which is reflected in the documents of the theologian’s inquiry into the people of Latin America, for example, the council. That makes the docu- Christian tradition and dogmas. It can led to liberation theology and the ments more difficult to interpret, but be easily shown that much of the pro- church’s preferential option for the it also respects the diversity in unity ductive theological output of the peri- poor, embraced as a formulation of the characteristic of the Catholic Church. od between World War II and the church’s mission by both Pope John It is not surprising, then, that docu- Second Vatican Council was prompt- Paul II and Benedict XVI. ments of lesser magisterial weight, ed by the challenges that people of Just as no theologian works in the dependent on a smaller circle of the- faith had to address as a result of the abstract, so too no exercise of the mag- ologians as consultants, will provoke violent wars of the 20th century and isterium occurs in the abstract. That debate. was already clear from Mysterium No one knew that better than Ecclesiae. The C.D.F. notes, for exam- Cardinal John Henry Newman. In his America ple, that truths enunciated by the mag- Apologia pro Vita Sua Newman isterium may bear traces of “the described the relationship between TO SUBSCRIBE OR RENEW changeable conceptions of a given authority and reason in the church as a ❑ New subscription ❑ Renewal Yearly rates are $48 for each subscription. epoch,” and so theologians “seek to “noisy process.” He wrote: “Every Add $22 for postage, handling and GST on define exactly the intention of teach- exercise of Infallibility is brought out Canadian orders. Add $32 for foreign subscriptions. Payment in U.S. funds only. ing proper to various [dogmatic] for- into act by an intense and varied oper- ❑ Payment enclosed ❑ Bill me mulas.” But theologians are involved ation of the Reason, both as its ally and On occasion America gives permission to other organizations to use our list for pro- in the very formulation of teaching as as its opponent.” Theologians are motional purposes. If you do not want to receive these promotions, contact our List well. John Courtney Murray, S. J., and involved in the work of the magisteri- Manager at our New York offices. Msgr. Pietro Pavan, for example, were um at every level of preparation and

W706 principal contributors to Vatican II’s authority, but they are also involved FOR “Declaration on Religious Liberty” afterward in the work of deepening CHANGE OF ADDRESS (Dignitatis Humanae). Earlier Pavan understanding, opening new avenues AND had been the major adviser for Pope of discussion and linking particular RENEWAL: John XXIII’s social encyclicals, Mater teachings to the larger context of Please attach the et Magistra (1961) and Pacem in Terris church tradition and teaching. mailing label from the front cover (1963). The participation of theolo- Our Jesuit professors at the when writing gians in the formulation of church Gregorian in the 1960s honored about service or change of address. teaching has always been the case and always the deposit of faith, but they Allow 3 to 4 is still the case today. also taught us that the truth comes to weeks for change of address to take Bishops are called to the office of us in the fragile forms of human lan- effect. Thank you. teaching for the ultimate discernment guage. To pursue the truth in its frag- Name Address City State ZIP E-mail Mail to: America of the truth to be proclaimed, and the- ile forms is necessary, demanding, P.O. Box 693, Mount Morris, IL 61064-7578 or call 1-800-627-9533 ologians are endowed with the controversial, but never without divine or visit www.americamagazine.org charism to deepen and articulate in surprise. A

22 America September 17, 2007 Commentary

A Challenge for Theologians Three puzzling positions GERALD O’COLLINS

N ITS NOTIFICATION of Christ the property on two works by Jon of mortality and to the Sobrino, S.J., the human nature of Christ Congregation for the the property of IDoctrine of the Faith omnipotence. The recalls and re-affirms some meaning of the utterly basic Christian exchange of properties teachings about Jesus is entirely different. We Christ—above all, that can name the person of Jesus was truly divine and Christ with reference fully human. Such doc- to one nature (“the Son trines, embodied in the of God”) and attribute Nicene-Constantinopoli- to his person some prop- tan Creed of A.D. 381, erty due to the other which is accepted by all nature (“died on the Christian communities, cross”). Such attribu- require a firm assent from tion justifies the lan- any Catholic theologian guage of Christmas car- worthy of the name. ols, for example, in There are, however, which the Christ Child several particular positions is described as “the cre- adopted by the notification ator of the sun and that seem less than con- stars.” This language vincing and have puzzled names the person in commentators. Let me reference to one nature give three examples, two of (his humanity) and them theological and one attributes to his person of them biblical. a property (the power First, the notification “SON OF DAVID” to create) that belongs takes up a point of theology that might ertheless, lie at the heart of the teach- to his other nature (his divinity). The seem somewhat arcane but does, nev- ing of the Councils of Ephesus (A.D. communicatio idiomatum is not an 431) and Chalcedon (A.D. 451). This optional extra or a game to be played GERALD O’COLLINS, S.J., taught for 33 is the communicatio idiomatum, or by theologians alone. It essentially years at the Pontifical Gregorian exchange of properties (No. 6). By serves to defend the unity of Christ (at University (Rome) and is currently a describing the exchange of properties the level of his person) and his duality research professor at St. Mary’s as “the possibility of referring the (at the level of his two distinct but not University College in Twickenham, properties of divinity to humanity and separated natures). One may not gloss England. He is the author or co-author of vice versa,” the notification could be over the fact that attributions are 47 books, the latest of which is Jesus misleading. It gives the impression attached to the person of Christ and Our Redeemer: A Christian Approach to that we would, for example, be justi- go on to describe the communicatio Salvation (Oxford University Press). fied in attributing to the divine nature idiomatum as a matter of “referring the

September 17, 2007 America 23 properties of the divinity to the been dropped by the majority of the- 10:45: “The Son of Man did not come humanity and vice versa” (of the ologians and biblical scholars. to be served but to serve, and to give humanity to the divinity). Aquinas’s view does not appear in sev- his life as a ransom for many.” Many Second, the section where the eral documents issued during the mainstream scholars agree that the notification deals with the self-con- 1970s and 1980s by the International first part of this saying goes back to the sciousness of Jesus seems less than Theological Commission and the words of Jesus. Few, however, main- clear about the position that it intends Pontifical Biblical Commission. These tain that “giving his life as a ransom for to maintain (No. 8). On the one hand, texts assemble the information that many” derives directly from Jesus it expounds “the filial and messianic can be gleaned from the Gospels about himself. These words appear, rather, consciousness of Jesus” and “his inti- Christ’s consciousness of his personal to be a formulation stemming from mate and immediate knowledge” of identity and redemptive mission. the Evangelist Mark or his sources in the Father—a doctrine that is well These highly relevant documents the church tradition; they express, of supported by the Gospels and by the from two official commissions fail to course, a perfectly justified theological theology of Karl Rahner (which this make an appearance in the notifica- interpretation of the significance of section echoes in passing). On the tion. To be sure, Aquinas’s view of the Jesus’ violent death. other hand, the section appears to beatific vision as experienced by the With reference to Isaiah 53, the advocate a return to the view of St. human mind of Christ was endorsed in notification holds that “Jesus himself Thomas Aquinas—namely, that from passing by a 1943 encyclical of Pope explained the meaning of his life and the very first moment of his human Pius XII, Mystici Corporis. But that death in the light of God’s suffering conception, Jesus enjoyed in his earth- encyclical was primarily concerned Servant” (No. 10). Beyond question, ly mind the beatific vision. This view with the doctrine of the church. It cer- the New Testament authors frequent- was not included in the 1992 Catechism tainly did not intend to determine ly echoed or cited this fourth and final of the Catholic Church. It had already once and for all a position on the con- “Song of the Servant.” But many rep- sciousness of Christ inherited from utable scholars hold the view that Jesus Aquinas. himself did not necessarily have in Does the Congregation for the mind this remarkable Old Testament Our future depends Doctrine of the Faith ask Father passage when he recognized the saving Sobrino and other theologians to value of his own passion and death. It on you. agree with the already widely accepted was one thing for Jesus to indicate the Please remember position that Jesus, during his earthly redemptive and expiatory value of his life and in his human mind, enjoyed a imminent death. America unique, intimate knowledge of the It was another for him to do so Father and consciousness of his per- precisely in terms of Isaiah 53. There in your will. sonal identity and saving mission? Or are some biblical scholars who do hold does the C.D.F. require a return to the this view, but one cannot say that there view that from the very first moment is a consensus among mainstream bib- of his conception, Jesus enjoyed in his lical experts that Jesus explicitly human mind the vision of God invoked Isaiah 53. enjoyed by the saints in heaven—a In sum: With the basic concerns view that would rule out the possibili- that lie behind the C.D.F.’s notifica- ty of recognizing the perfect faith tion there can or should be no argu- exercised by Jesus during his earthly ment. Jesus was truly divine and fully pilgrimage (see Hebrews 12:2)? human. But there is clearly room for Third, apropos of the redemptive some respectful quibbles over the value of the crucifixion and resurrec- description offered of the “exchange of tion, the notification rightly wishes to properties” (communicatio idiomatum), establish the significance that the the proposed return to a “maximalist” Our legal title is earthly Jesus ascribed to his coming view of St. Thomas Aquinas on the America Press, Inc. death (No. 9). It appeals to relevant human consciousness of Jesus and the 106 West 56th St. texts from the narratives of the Last use of Isaiah 53 to support a thorough- New York, NY 10019 Supper in support of this conclusion. ly justified position on the saving www.americamagazine.org But the notification also cites Mark intentions of Jesus. A

24 America September 17, 2007 Faith in Focus The Peculiar Grace of Failure A year of teaching, a lifetime lesson learned BY VALERIE SCHULTZ

HAVE ALWAYS BEEN a reasonably successful person: a long marriage, beautiful children, published clips on demand,I no criminal record, no bankruptcies. I’ve been a hard worker at every job I’ve had. I’ve been O.K.—until this past year, which I have spent as an English teacher in a public high school. That was not O.K. I was ineffective, unsuccessful and miserable. I have been writing bits of this essay for months, on scraps of paper and in my head. Writing time surren- dered to teaching and, to my horror, failing. The writer George Bernard Shaw once said, “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches,” which is the most egregiously false maxim ever perpetuated. It is misguided to consider teaching as a fallback career, a back-up plan, which is what I did. My husband is a gifted educator. He has been a teacher of just about every elementary grade, a site admin- istrator, an educational technology director and a consultant. He has devoted his career to education. He earned his doctorate with the plan to teach at the university level, and an opportunity soon arose. The only problem was that the new position, while on a tenure track, meant a 30 percent cut in pay. This was serious money to a man with four daughters and a wife working as a sporadically paid writer. But the professorship was his dream, a chance to educate new teachers, so we decided that I could

VALERIE SCHULTZ, who lives in Tehachapi, Calif., is an occasional

ART BY DAN SALAMIDA contributor to America.

September 17, 2007 America 25 make up the difference in income by from true discernment. God may very well teenage faces, some expectant, some working full time. I had been a substitute have wanted me somewhere else, because bored, some impassive, I had to face my teacher, and had taught classes at church. God surely wanted me to use the brain he own inadequacy. I found that I did not So I often figured that if it became neces- gave me. In a year’s time, I have learned have the soul of a teacher, because rather sary, I could always teach. some difficult lessons, like the importance than being consumed with my students’ I could always teach. Don’t we all fig- of searching one’s intellect to make a education and well-being, I watched the ure that, Mr. Shaw? We assume that if our sound decision. The next most obvious clock until each period was over. real lives don’t work out, we can always lesson is that not everyone can teach, or at Things went very wrong. From class- settle for the security of a job for which least teach well. In order to teach well, one room management to grading to making there will always be a demand, as long as must commit to far more than a six-hour- grammar palatable, I was clueless. In people insist on procreating. I could teach, a-day job. Teaching is a life commitment. Room Six, the inmates were running the having watched my husband do it for Of the scores of teachers we have all had, asylum. A kid came to class drunk, and I years. most of us really remember only those didn’t even recognize the signs; I believed Through the friend of a friend, I three or four who reached us and some- he had a migraine. I lost two kids during a heard of an opening in a small, out-of- how touched us, who taught us, whom we fire drill. Several pointed out that I did not the-way district. Classes were going to credit with forming our lives in significant seem to know much about teaching. Kids start in a week, and the administrators ways. Teaching, I have finally understood, who refused to do any work faced me were desperate for an English teacher. even though I have always known it in my down. They hired me as soon as the interview heart, is an all-consuming undertaking, a The experience took its toll. I lost was finished, with the stipulation that I passion, a gift, a holy calling. This should weight. I became a chronic complainer. I enroll in an intern program at the very not be taken lightly, nor, I came to realize, rarely prayed. I developed insomnia, the university where my husband was now a can it be faked. nocturnal despair of which I had never professor, in order to earn my clear cre- I thought that liking kids and liking to experienced. When I did manage to sleep, dential under California’s stringent write would be enough to make me a good I had nightmares about poor lesson plans requirements. English teacher. Rubbish. Liking and tests not arriving in time. I had This must be where God wants me, I teenagers and understanding how their strange dreams. In a word, I was a mess. figured, as I signed the contract against my brains learn, how best to reach them and I was taking two college courses in better judgment. In retrospect, I realize how to engage them in a subject are com- addition to teaching full time and trying to that I panicked, took the first job I was pletely different activities. Face-to-face keep my writing career alive. My teaching offered and blamed it on God, in a far cry with five different groups of assorted advisor, whose job was to observe me and

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26 America September 17, 2007 then spell out everything I was terrible at, Everyone laughed. But I froze, I knew then I was never going back. as if it weren’t painfully evident, asked me stunned. He was right! Here I was, teach- Getting an F, let alone two, was about the rest of my life. I began to tell ing for the money. I was doing the teach- painful. But it was also strangely liberat- him: I had four daughters; wrote two ing profession a huge disservice by passing ing. In failing, my initial horror gave way columns, one weekly, one to a creeping sense of peace. For monthly; I taught confir- the first time ever, though mation classes at my cloaked in failure, I did not church; volunteered at the Teaching is an all-consum- internalize another’s disap- state prison.... “Stop, proval. I was somehow, wicked- stop!” he said, covering his ly, calm. I was learning how to ears. “You’re making me ing undertaking, a holy call- wear failure, but with style. tired just listening to this!” Anyone who has ever tried He told me that if I ing. It should not be taken to do something for which he or expected to complete the she is not suited has my under- credential program I lightly; nor, I came to realize, standing and sympathy. Before I would have to give it all tried to be a teacher, I would up—well, except for the can it be faked. have been judgmental and impa- daughters. tient with such a person. But fail- I was unconvinced. I ing has shown me that trying is had no wish to give up any of these parts myself off as a teacher. I was a fraud. I was not always enough, and that it is difficult of me. I slogged on through the first quar- in the wrong place. And I knew it. to recognize our shortcomings—and then ter, publishing what were essentially It was downhill from there. I failed accept them gracefully. rough drafts of columns, teaching, grad- both of my college classes and dropped My “teaching” year of failure oddly ing, going to classes, neglecting my fami- out, an embarrassment to my poor hus- strengthened me; it was a long, profound ly. One evening, during the beginning band, who could not imagine that anyone, lesson in humility and led to my recogni- teaching seminar, my advisor said to especially his wife, would not love being a tion that those who can teach must do so another student, offhandedly, “No one teacher. My district determined that I with passion and purpose. Those of us goes into teaching for the money. If that’s would finish out my year’s contract by tak- who fail merely ask God to pick us up, why you teach, you should not be a teaching a “leave of absence” from the intern dust us off and send us on our grateful, er.” program. humble way. A You’ve always wanted to Study in Jerusalem... So come to the TANTUR ECUMENICAL INSTITUTE IN JERUSALEM for a

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September 17, 2007 America 27 Faith in Focus Horace McKenna, Apostle of the Poor BY KEVIN O’BRIEN

LINE STILL FORMS outside the high school for affluent boys in Manila, With the blessing of his superiors, Father McKenna Center at St. Philippines. Far removed from his com- Father McKenna made his way to south- Aloysius Church in fortable upbringing and the insular world ern Maryland, where for over 20 years he Washington, D.C. People come of studies, served as a pas- toA the cramped but homey church base- Horace felt his tor. Horace ment looking for food, clothing, housing mind and heart thrived in his and personal support. They still tell stories stretched. He sacramental about Father McKenna, who died 25 years remembered and pastoral ago. To know the story of Father particularly duties, travel- McKenna is to enter into the lives of the how an elderly ing around poor whom he loved as a father. “You Filipino Jesuit southern can’t understand me if you don’t under- would regularly Maryland in stand my people,” Horace liked to tell his canvass the his old car. friends as he brought them for a walk school play- Walter Burg- around the neighborhood. ground for hardt, S.J., then In his lifetime, as they do today, peo- scraps of food a young priest, ple freely called Father McKenna a left over by the recalls driving “saint.” His father, Charles, had a sense of privileged stu- with Horace things to come. In his insightful biogra- dents. The and stopping phy, Horace: Priest of the Poor, John S. brother would frequently so Monagan recounts how Charles insisted then bring the that Horace that his son be baptized with the name food over to the could say hello Horace. The priest protested: There is no school wall, to people along St. Horace. “He’ll be the first,” Charles where hungry the way, usually replied. Thus was Horace McKenna bap- children anx- addressing tized in a New York City church in the iously waited them by their winter of 1899. for the delivery. last name as a Horace met the Jesuits at Fordham According to Horace McKenna sign of respect. Preparatory School in the Bronx. As war Monagan, the During the raged in Europe, Horace entered the tran- Jesuit brother’s kindness and the children’s Great Depression, Horace set up a food quil confines of the Jesuit novitiate over- desperation made a lasting impression on distribution system and over the years pro- looking the Hudson River near Horace. vided assistance to struggling farmers. Poughkeepsie, north of New York City. When he returned to the United Inspired by other Jesuit trailblazers like There he immersed himself in Jesuit ways States to study theology at the Jesuit sem- John LaFarge and Richard McSorley, who of praying and benefited from a learning inary in Woodstock, Md., not far from worked in southern Maryland at one time that was, by his own account, “deep, broad Baltimore, Horace taught Sunday school or another, Horace vigorously advocated and accurate.” After professing his first to African-American children who were for racial integration in churches and vows, he studied humanities and philoso- not permitted to attend the segregated schools. phy, growing in “confidence in thought, parochial school. Like his experience with Horace could become impatient (a truth and love.” the poor in Manila, his contact with those “passionate impatience,” Horace admit- Horace was then assigned to teach at a children transformed his understanding of ted) with a too-cautious approach to racial his priesthood. After Horace was ordained integration. His zeal won him many KEVIN O’BRIEN, S.J., is an associate pastor in 1929, he asked his superiors to send him friends and a fair number of adversaries, of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in to work with African-American families even among his fellow Jesuits and priests

Washington, D.C. suffering under segregation laws. who argued for a more gradual approach PHOTO COURTESY GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

28 America September 17, 2007 to racial equality. With a blend of friend- ever money he had in his pocket. Father close to the Lord that he could speak with liness and righteous persistence, Father McKenna did not hesitate to eat or sleep authority and we could reasonably believe McKenna always spoke his mind. After overnight in the city’s homeless shelters, that this was the divine word.” one tense, emotionally raw town meeting, because he “wanted to see how my broth- Horace’s most difficult time as a priest Horace approached a man in the hostile ers in Christ are treated.” came in 1968, after Pope Paul VI issued audience, extended his hand and said, “I On most days, hope there are no hard feelings.” The man Horace amiably responded by looking up at the rafters and greeted people in saying, “There’s where you should be the line that formed ‘My greatest cause for hanging from.” outside the church As racial tensions continued to flare, basement. As thanksgiving is that I am Father McKenna was transferred in 1953 Horace’s reputation from his beloved southern Maryland to St. for generosity grew, involved with God’s poor.’ Aloysius Church in the District of so did the line. Columbia. Except for a six-year stint at a Gonzaga High parish in Philadelphia, Horace would School students, many of whom came his encyclical Humanae Vitae. He publicly spend the rest of his life ministering just from Washington’s affluent suburbs, dissented from the archbishop of blocks from the U.S. Capitol. “It’s the would walk by the line every day. One of Washington, Cardinal O’Boyle, who had same work,” he said, “chasing sheep; those students was Martin O’Malley, now issued guidelines for priests to apply the except that the ground is harder.” The St. governor of Maryland. He recently told teaching prohibiting the use of artificial Vincent de Paul Society office in the base- The Washington Post: “So you’d come in birth control. Horace, who had great per- ment of the church became a center for from the lily-white suburbs and you’d see sonal affection for the cardinal, joined a Horace’s charitable work. the nation’s Capitol looming in front of group of priests in protesting a literal Just as he had driven around the coun- you and then...you’d walk by the morning application of the encyclical. Relying on ties of southern Maryland, Horace walked line of homeless and poor and jobless men more than 40 years experience hearing the streets around the church, getting to who were waiting in line at Father Horace confessions, Horace argued for some pas- know his neighbors by name. By the mid- McKenna’s. That was not lost to many of toral accommodation for married couples 1960s, St. Al’s, once mostly white, had us walking into school by that line every who as a matter of conscience found the twice as many black parishioners as white. day: how lucky we were, how much we teaching unduly burdensome. Because of The once residential neighborhood was had.” this dissent, Cardinal O’Boyle, who had changing. White families were moving to Horace was an avid fundraiser and equal esteem for Horace, restricted him the suburbs and office buildings were ris- communicated news of his work to well- from hearing confessions. Being kept from ing. The redevelopment around North connected friends along the East Coast. the “peace box” pained Horace deeply. Capitol Street caused a shortage of afford- He tried to educate the privileged about After two-and-a-half years of canonical able housing for the urban poor. the plight of the poor. Accolades and hon- appeals and personal pleas, Horace and Responding to this need, Horace and his orary degrees came his way. He courted other dissenting priests expressed assent to friends established a new housing com- politicians in the name of the poor. With a series of statements of doctrine, after plex. They named it Sursum Corda, a his charming personality, simplicity of which O’Boyle restored their faculties to Latin expression from the Mass that lifestyle and selfless zeal, Horace easily hear confessions. means, “Lift up your hearts.” won over benefactors. As he approached his 80th birthday, Horace’s work was ecumenical at its In the late 1960s and 70s, marches and Horace encountered physical limits to core: he partnered with other churches protests were common in the District of his once boundless activity. Though his and served anyone in need, regardless of Columbia. Horace walked down to the mind remained sharp, he started to lose their religion. In 1970, with the help of mall and befriended the protesters. He his sight and needed help getting friends at Georgetown and other religious marched against the Vietnam War. By the around. Talk of his saintly character leaders, Horace founded S.O.M.E. (So end of his life, as the nuclear arms race grew. When Washingtonian magazine Others Might Eat), an organization that continued unabated, Father McKenna named Horace a “Washingtonian of the provided hot meals to the hungry not far described himself as a pacifist. year,” the editors commented, “He is from St. Al’s. Amid all his social work, Horace said to be the closest thing we have to a Horace could not turn away anyone remained faithful to his ministry as a saint.” Mayor Barry of Washington, needing help, including a man who gave parish priest. His prayer and preaching D.C., declared July 15, 1979, “Horace his legal address as “the back seat of Father grounded his activism. Celebrating Mass McKenna Day” and named him “Apostle McKenna’s car.” On one occasion, his car was the center of his day. He earned a rep- of the Poor.” Governor Hughes of was stolen. The thief was caught in West utation as a succinct, engaging homilist Maryland awarded Horace a special cita- Virginia. When Horace arrived there to and as a wise, compassionate confessor. tion for his service in southern retrieve the car, he refused to press He called the confessional the “peace Maryland. He was given his fourth hon- charges and even gave the thief a ride box,” because people found peace there. A orary degree, this time by Fordham home to D.C. If asked, he gave away what- fellow priest commented, “He was so University. Of his many honors, Horace

September 17, 2007 America 29 treasured most of all the celebration of somewhere for half an hour and is shaken and discouraged, and his 50th anniversary as a priest, hosted by sit down and cry because the whose children can’t read. his Jesuit brothers. strain is off, the work is done, On May 11, 1982, Horace suffered a and I haven’t been unfaithful or The Church of St. Aloysius was packed massive heart attack and died. Years earli- disloyal, all these needs that I for Horace’s funeral: rich and poor, black er, Horace had imagined what would hap- have known are in the hands of and white, men and women from all walks pen after his death: Providence and I don’t have to of life. He was laid to rest in the Jesuit worry any longer who’s at the cemetery on the Georgetown University When God lets me into heaven, I door, whose breadbox is empty, campus, buried in a simple coffin, befitting think I’ll ask to go off in a corner whose baby is sick, whose house both his lifelong vow of poverty and his faithful accompaniment of the poor. Kevin Gillespie, S.J., recalls an encounter with Horace one cold winter Poem night just months before he died. Kevin was a young Jesuit teaching at Gonzaga High School. Father McKenna, partially blind and using a cane, asked Kevin to drive him to a homeless shelter. “I want to be where Jesus is tonight,” Horace Chewing explained. Arriving at the shelter, a group of men came out to greet them. Kevin helped Horace get out of the car and entrusted him to the arms of the men of I chew. the street who loved him as a father. They carefully led Horace into the shelter, the I chew about this. door shutting behind them. Their saint I chew about that. had come home to them one last time. One testament to a saintly life is the I chew about them. vigor with which the holy person’s work is All that chewing, I’m still not satisfied. carried on. On the first anniversary of Horace’s death, Archbishop James Hickey I’m still not full. of Washington, D.C., dedicated the newly I chew some more. renovated basement of St. Al’s in honor of Horace. The Father McKenna Center has I chew about what they do. since expanded to include a small shelter I chew about what they don’t do. for men. S.O.M.E. now offers food, clothing, health care, job training and housing I masticate. to thousands of people each year. Sursum In the end I discover Corda continues to operate, but its future as publicly supported housing is precari- I have eaten away the best part of my life. ous. Horace’s old neighborhood is changing rapidly. The gentrification of the area and development of more office buildings have further squeezed poorer families out of the neighborhood. Anne Fleming To those facing present-day challenges and opportunities, Horace would undoubtedly offer his encouragement. ANNE FLEMING, a graduate of Loyola University During his lifetime, he would often inter- Chicago, has worked for years commercially as a ject at meetings a question pertinent to visual artist. those carrying on his mission today: “And what about the poor?” A single-minded focus characterizes those special people we call “saints.” For Horace, the focus was always the poor and powerless. In them, he glimpsed the face of Christ; in them, he always found a home. A

30 America September 17, 2007 thought him a “dilettante,” “damn fool” or Book Reviews Son of Privilege, “stage dandy” in 1910) and his reformist ideas needed grounding in the realities of She taught at the Todhunter School in Common Man’s Tammany Hall politics. Trading his piano New York and campaigned for Al Smith. salesman for the “astute tactician” Louis And by the time F.D.R. returned to President Howe, F.D.R. set out to fulfill his political Washington, this time as president, he was predictions. relying on her to FDR This is a quell political By Jean Edward Smith familiar story, and fears. When veter- Random House. 880p $35 Smith calls upon ans encamped in ISBN 1400061210 myriad Roosevelt- the capital, she era historians, joined their lunch Jean Edward Smith, the renowned biogra- memoir writers, line and lent a pher of Ulysses S. Grant, John Marshall political analysts, sympathetic ear to and Lucius D. Clay, now graces our book- critics, journalists their complaints— shelves with his encyclopedic work on and letter writers a “buffo perfor- Franklin Delano Roosevelt. “Sixty years to tell the saga mance,” according after his death,” Smith announces, “it is once again. The to Smith. One of high time Roosevelt be revisited”—and reader will wel- the men later revisit he does. In his FDR, a straightfor- come Smith’s rev- remarked: ward chronological biography, Smith erence for such “Hoover sent the draws upon the writings of Roosevelt historians as Frank Army, Roosevelt cronies and historians, traipses across con- Freidel, Arthur sent his wife.” troversial issues and keeps the reader Schlesinger Jr. and Within days the engaged in his narration of the serious and James MacGregor veterans disband- the humorous. Burns, as well as ed. The events are familiar. Born in 1882, his homage to F.D.R. fol- the patrician Roosevelt had toured Europe contemporary his- lowed his wife’s eight times before he was 14 years old and torians and those actions with his then matriculated at Groton and Harvard. like Doris Kearns own. He offered Never letting law school “interfere with Goodwin and Michael Beschloss, with some 2,600 veterans positions in the his personal life,” he nevertheless mapped whom 21st-century television audiences Civilian Conservation Corps and paid the his future: New York Assemblyman, assis- are especially familiar. fare home for the rest. By 1933, he had tant secretary of the Navy, governor and Interwoven with the political is the honed his political acumen, broadened his then, as one law school friend remem- personal, a command performance these inner circle of strategy wonks to include bered, he thought he had a “good chance days for any Roosevelt biographer. Sara, policy mavens like Raymond Moley and to be president.” In his first political out- “the most important figure in Roosevelt’s Rexford Tugwell and used effectively his ing, his 1910 bid for the New York State life,” Lucy Mercer, “the woman he loved” ability to make a “nimble response to cir- Senate, F.D.R. set the tone for the next 35 and whose affair had “an equally profound cumstances.” Congress and the nation years. With one month in which to cam- effect” on F.D.R. as his struggle with responded and the New Deal was paign, Roosevelt rented a “fire-engine red, polio, and Missy LeHand, “the woman launched. open-top Maxwell touring car,” hired a who loved him,” Smith suggests, were as In this powerful story, Smith brings piano salesman who knew all the back crucial to the shaping of F.D.R.’s together the mundane and the monumen- roads and, “wheezing along at the dazzling strengths as Eleanor Roosevelt. Yet those speed of twenty miles an hour,” shook who know better (followers of Joseph The Reviewers hands, addressed all who would listen Lash and Blanche Weisen Cook, to say Constance M. McGovern, emerita profes- (including buying drinks for a crowd in a nothing of the writings of Eleanor herself) sor of history at Frostburg State University, Sharon, Conn., saloon where his will point out that besides bearing six chil- in Maryland, is currently at work on a study entourage had inadvertently crossed the dren in her first 10 years of marriage, of African-Americans in western Maryland state line), ordered 2,500 campaign but- Eleanor launched her own activist life in before the Civil War and an analysis of the tons and was swept into office in the Washington (under the savvy tutelage of role of race in late 19th-century psychiatric Democratic landslide. He had “outspent” Louis Howe) while F.D.R. was busy at the practices at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. his opponent and “outcampaigned and Navy office. outorganized him.” At first, like so many women of her Gale Swiontkowski is a professor of But his natural buoyancy needed class and era, Eleanor volunteered at St. English at Fordham University, New York City. refining, his aristocratic mannerisms Elizabeth’s Hospital, but soon was forging John Savant is emeritus professor of needed softening (Frances Perkins her own contacts with women activists in English at Dominican University of California, remembered that many of his colleagues the labor movement and other feminists. in San Rafael.

September 17, 2007 America 31 tal. The reader chuckles over the poker follow. Smith freely admonishes “muffed” some negotiations with the games where F.D.R. preferred Roosevelt for his Supreme Court and Japanese, yet the author concludes, “there “Woolworth’s,” a free-wheeling wild card party-purging blunders and his moments is absolutely no evidence that he was com- game where no one curried favor with the of petulance, yet excuses F.D.R.’s inaction plicit in the events of December 7, 1941.” president, and smiles at the audacity of and lack of ingenuity when confronted And although F.D.R.’s comprehension of F.D.R. on a sailing expedition to with reports of Hitler’s final solution. the civil war in China and the potential Campobello, during which he purposely Smith explains that because of the 1920s menace of the postwar Soviet Union was steered his yacht into waters far too shal- immigration legislation, F.D.R.’s “hands deficient, his relations with Churchill and low for the Navy flotilla of two destroyers, were tied.” As others have done before Stalin were “statecraft at its finest.” three Coast Guard cutters and a cruiser to him, Smith acknowledges that Roosevelt On the other hand, Michael Beschloss (Presidential Courage, 2007) has recently praised F.D.R. because he announced his unprecedented third term run for the presidency even as he advocated the peace-time draft and lend-lease policies to an isolationist nation. His aide Harry Hopkins remembered that Roosevelt had no clear idea of how to implement lend- lease, but “there was not a doubt in his mind that he’d find a way to do it.” And he did. Constance M. McGovern

Visit America Connects at From Dark to www.americamagazine.org for online-only content: The Good Word blog, Light podcasts and more! Earlier Poems By Franz Wright Knopf. 272p $26.95 ISBN 0307265668

In 2004, Franz Wright won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for Walking to Martha’s Vineyard. In 2006, Wright followed this success with God’s Silence, about which James S. Torrens, S.J., poetry editor of America, has written in these pages (4/9), and which I consider brilliant—many of its poems works of genius. But do not read God’s Silence first. That volume is a culmi- nation of Wright’s work to date, his spiritual work, as well as his poetic work. If you are new to Wright’s poetry, turn first to Earlier Poems. These confessional poems present honestly and sometimes brutally the experience of spiritual suffering, the fruits of which appear in God’s Silence.

But when I cut myself I have to say: this is my blood shed for no one in particular. —“Blood”

Don’t misunderstand me; these early poems are good—much more than good—but they are the utterances of a

32 America September 17, 2007 some bad luck.

Whatever it is I was seeking, with my tactless despair: it has already happened. ...How happy I am! There’s no hope for me. —“At the End of the Untraveled Road”

In an interview in the fall 2006 issue of the journal Image, Franz Wright recounts some of his struggles. His father, the poet James Wright, left the family when Franz was in early adolescence, and his stepfather was physically abusive. “By the time I was eighteen, I felt like a broken person. I was terrified of the world.” Wright subsequently struggled with alcohol and drugs, and he credits poetry in part with enabling his recovery: “I can say that writing gave me a reason to try to be man struggling sometimes just to be, and well as much as possible.... I had the good then to be good, and of a poet seeking his fortune to have this second infinity, this voice and his subject, only just becoming second universe, inside of me, which I car- aware he has already found them. ried around with me...writing poetry [is] Consider these lines from “Heaven”: an attempt to be part of that company of people who made this reality possible in There is a heaven. the world.”

These sunflowers—those dark, wind- The answering cold, like a stepfather threshed oaks... to a silent child

Heaven’s all around you, And the light if that’s what it is though getting there is hard: The steplight it is death, heaven. No

Earlier Poems collects verse from four the light that’s always leaving volumes—The One Whose Eyes Open When —“Untitled” You Close Your Eyes (1982), Entry in an Unknown Hand (1989), The Night World & Just as Wright sought to join the com- the Word Night (1993) and Rorschach Test munity of poets, he yearned to enter “the (1995), all previously collected in Ill Lit. early Christian communities...people who The epigraph of that earlier volume, from believe something is possible, who refuse Søren Kierkegaard, reads in part: “One not to believe it,” and eventually he joined must never desire suffering.... If a man the Catholic Church. Wright speaks of desire suffering, then it is as though he one parallel between creative inspiration were able by himself to solve this terror— and spirituality: “...to get to them you that suffering is the characteristic of God’s must go through long, arid, terrible, love....” Many of the poems in Earlier painful periods.” Out of the acceptance of Poems show what suffering is for, what suffering comes joy; Mass becomes “an confessionalism can bring about, if the experience of participation in the human poet works at it and is lucky. And some- family.... This new sense of unqualified times, in the realm of spiritual experience, acceptance and love was the most moving being lucky may be a question of having experience of my life. It made me want to

September 17, 2007 America 33 write again.” Wright seems to believe that our and observation; and the Reformation, For Wright, putting suffering on a humanity is dependent upon our con- with its emphasis on the “priesthood” of page is not only a metaphorical act but sciousness of our own suffering and mor- the individual, and, in America especially, also a spiritual one: “We are all words tality, our participation in the Crucifixion, with its co-option of the secular myth of made flesh.... It is the greatest accomplish- and that poetry should preserve and progress within the religious myth of ment of human beings to see this possibil- enhance this awareness. And I am very God’s kingdom come. ity, to recognize the figure of Christ. No glad he does. Gale Swiontkowski The desired product of this “idea” was human endeavor can go beyond the to be a different kind of citizen—a “new achievement of seeing the possibility of Adam,” innocent of old-world corruption the infinite participating in our pain and and free of its restrictive institutions. This terror and failure.” Wrestling With idea, furthermore, was given a perfect lab- oratory for its evolution—a new Garden I see the one walking this road Religion of Eden, some 3,000 miles and several I see the one whose coat is thin whose months removed from the powers and shoes need mending There Before Us conventions of mother Europe; and some who is cold it’s a very cold day Religion, Literature, and Culture 3,000 miles also of rich, unsettled land for stopping beside this dead cornfield From Emerson to Wendell Berry spreading into the mysterious West. and basking one’s face in those gray Roger Lundin, editor Given the religious motivations of so Rorschach clouds Eerdmans. 250p $18 (paperback) many of its first settlers, it is no wonder I see the one whose lips say nothing ISBN 9780802829634 that this new Adamic society in its new I see through his eyes I see the buried Eden would be imagined and celebrated in radiance in things Critics of American culture like R. W. B. a rhetoric and imagery correspondingly the one who isn’t there Lewis note the tremendous importance of religious. —“The Road” America’s origins in the shaping of her In There Before Us, nine participants in self-perception, her sense of national char- the American Literature and Religion For this reason, Franz Wright acter and destiny. Whereas cultures gen- Seminar (sponsored by the Pew despairs somewhat of his post-Pulitzer erally, says Lewis, grow out of the long Charitable Trust and the University of success: “You can never get your private, gestation of history, expressing their Notre Dame) examine the effects of these anonymous love back.... If fame comes, emerging identities in myth and custom, origins upon our subsequent literature and there’s an element of self-consciousness America, uniquely, was the product of an culture; the various gyrations by which that can never be eluded after that.... But idea; and that idea was very much the crea- writers from the mid-19th century on nothing is going to stop this feeling of fail- ture of several forces: the Enlightenment, wrestled with, incorporated or dismissed ure and pain at not writing what I think of with its emphasis on individual reason and this religious heritage; and, especially, the as a real poem today.... And that pain is all autonomy; the emerging rule of science, strange reluctance of critics to address its I have.” with its emphasis on individual research pervasive and continuing influence on our literature and culture. The volume editor, Roger Lundin, who is Blanchard Professor of English at Wheaton College, Illinois, asks in his introduction, “How are we to explain the fact that so many academic observers of the literature of the United States have, in effect, expatriated themselves from one of their culture’s most vibrant and fascinating provinces?” Chronological in sequence, the essays trace effects of the freedoms mentioned above on subsequent religious thought and literature. Beginning with the strong- ly individual transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, the essays examine, among other topics, Charles Dickinson’s passionate wrestling with belief, and Herman Melville’s with the “absence of God”; the role of the Bible as a source of power in African-American culture (and of “justifi- cation” in pro-slavery circles); the gradual shift from specifically theistic themes

34 America September 17, 2007 toward a more secular and “impersonal indifference?” She cites Alexis de Melville and Roger Lundin on Dickinson nationalistic faith in America itself,” espe- Tocqueville, who, finding Americans zeal- are compelling studies of individual cially manifest in Mark Twain; the rise of ous mainly in the pursuit of wealth and wrestlings with faith outside the context of a liberal individu- noting “a great traditional institutional teachings or con- alistic tradition in depth of doubt solations. William and and indifference,” Especially pertinent today, Lawrence Henry James, in concluded that in Buell’s concluding essay, pondering our whose writings America “faith is wilderness and pastoral heritage against “categories bor- evidently inert.” In the individualistic thrust of private rowed from the John Gatta’s study enterprise, cites one environmental Christian past are of Thoreau’s philosopher who argues for religion’s pressed into the “sacred space,” pre-eminent role in creating an environ- service of the one can find mental counterculture because it is “the political present”; strains of British only form of discourse widely available at century’s turn, romanticism in his to Americans…that expresses social the movement of “project of reach- interests going beyond the private inter- literary mod- ing beyond the ests articulated…and institutionalized in ernism into the desacralizing ten- the market.” world of the dencies of post- These selections are representative of “social gospel” as Enlightenment the themes and theological questions that variously civilization to run throughout There Before Us, demon- expressed by Ezra recover a spiritual- strating what a study of religion in Pound, H. D. ly archaic or ‘origi- American culture can bring forth. If, (Hilda Doolittle) nal relation to the indeed, our vaunted tolerance has become and T. S. Eliot. universe.’” As indifference, rendering religion more a The concluding Thoreau locates quaint artifact (or political pawn) than an essay, examining the sacred—the integral player in American governance the interplay of religious belief with envi- “wholly other” than ourselves—in the and policy, we must ponder ways to ronmental responsibility, ranges, appro- numinous world of nature and in our pri- restore its relevance in a world that tends priately, from Thoreau to such contempo- vate encounters with it, one wonders what to prefer utility to value, individual inter- raries as Thomas Berry, Barry Lopez, this implies for men and women who, as ests to communal need and quantitative Annie Dillard and Mary Oliver. social animals, must seek God in the sacra- answers to problems calling for the more If you are looking for a systematic ment of community. complex human sensibilities of imagina- study of the interplay of religion and cul- The essays by Michael Colacurcio on tion and faith. John Savant ture, this collection will not meet your expectations. But as a sustained literary con- without guile versation given point and particularity in the varied interests of its scholar- authors, this collection is, for me, much more invit- ing—and provocative— than a more formal treatise. A few examples may show why. Discussing Emerson’s “signing off” (with numer- ous others) from organized religion, Barbara Packer asks a question we may well ask today: “Had the tolera- tion forced upon Americans by political necessity acted to quench the zeal of the true believer? Would the final fate of American toler- “The first thousand years are all paperwork.” ance be complete religious CARTOON BY PAT BYRNES

September 17, 2007 America 35 Letters

Classified person to kindle, light and sustain a fire in the A Great Mitzvah hearts of parents, enabling parents to share their In “Lovingly Observant” (6/18), Susannah faith with their children, making faith an intrin- Heschel beautifully expressed why her Cards sic part of our young people’s lives. Needed is a NOTE CARDS for pastoral ministry. Free shipping well-experienced, forward-thinking, enthusiastic father’s writings touched the hearts and to continental U.S.; www.smallsmallacts.com. leader with big-picture mentality. Are you our minds of so many people—Jews and ideal candidate? Christians alike. If ever there was a crys- Fundraising Responsibilities include, but are not limited talline example of what Hans Urs von FUND-RAISING with family-friendly DVDs for to: comprehensive faith formation process for Balthasar called “kneeling theology,” it churches, schools, religious education and other children ages 3 through 6th grade; R.C.I.A., was Abraham Joshua Heschel’s. I am only groups. Go to www.billybuddfilms.com for more R.C.I.A. for children, preparation programs for information. Do well while doing good. Renew baptism, first reconciliation and first Eucharist; sorry that Professor Heschel or America acquaintances with classic stories that have stood preparation for adult confirmation, adult educa- failed to mention his last work, Heavenly the test of time. Be not afraid to have your chil- tion and Bible study groups; as well as recruit- Torah as Refracted Through the Generations dren raised up on eagle’s wings. ment, training and formation for volunteer cate- (Continuum, 2005; disclosure: I am a vice Parish Missions chists; planning programs and evaluating curricu- president and senior editor at Continuum la on all levels; and acting as a parish resource per- Internationl). Booklist and Library INSPIRING, DYNAMIC PREACHING. Parish mis- son in methods and catechetical theology. Close Journal gave it starred reviews. Choice sions, faculty in-service, retreats for religious. work with our Liturgical Committee and liturgist Web site: www.sabbathretreats.org. is necessary. Strong leadership, collaborative and named it one of the 10 top books in reli- organizational skills are the characteristics of a gion for 2005. And Daniel Harrington, Positions successful candidate. Bachelor’s degree in theolo- S.J., in your pages (3/13/06) called it CARROLL COLLEGE, Helena, Mont., an indepen- gy or religious education highly preferred, or at Heschel’s “masterwork...an astonishing dent Catholic diocesan liberal arts college, least five years’ experience in the development accomplishment of historical and theolog- announces a tenure-track faculty position at the and/or refining of a parish faith formation pro- ical scholarship.” But this is a small matter rank of ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN HIS- cess. Additional responsibilities would include cat- TORICAL/SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY echizing, coordinating, leading, training and indeed. If your interview leads some new beginning August 2008. The position requires a empowering of volunteers. In addition to daytime readers to Heschel’s work, it will have doctoral degree in theology and a willingness to hours, evening and weekend work is required. been a great mitzvah! join our faculty team in curriculum development Full-time, 12-month position with benefits. For Frank Oveis and assessment. We seek candidates with exper- an application, please call the parish office at (720) New York, N.Y. tise in historical theology and spirituality, and 348-9700 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (M.D.T.). with interest in developing courses to comple- ment our program (e.g. mysticism, women in the LIVING PEACE IN L’ARCHE GREATER WASHING- Call and Identity Christian tradition). We seek an enthusiastic, TON, D.C. People with and without developmen- In your issue of July 30, Mary Alice Piil, effective teacher who can bring students to under- tal disabilities practice peacemaking by sharing C.S.J., states in her book review of The stand and appreciate the Roman Catholic tradi- daily life of work, prayer and holy leisure in inter- Permanent Diaconate, “Nor is there any tion and who can nourish Carroll’s mission. denominational Christian community. Room, question that the deacons themselves find Please submit: 1) letter of application, 2) curricu- board, stipend, insurance, spiritual formation, it difficult to articulate a clear personal lum vitae, 3) copies of graduate school transcripts, professional trainings. Résumé to: L’Arche, P.O. 4) written response to Carroll’s mission statement Box 21471, Washington, DC 20009; e-mail: dkel- identity.” This is a tangential statement that incorporates reflection on teaching and [email protected]; Web site: that may or may not come from the scholarship, 5) three letters of professional refer- www.larchewashingtondc.org. book, but shows a bias that I simply do ence to: Office of Human Resources, Carroll not believe is true. As a recently ordained College, 1601 N. Benton Ave., Helena, MT Retreats permanent deacon, I object to the 59625-0002. Review of applications will begin BETHANY RETREAT HOUSE, East Chicago, Ind., thought that deacons cannot articulate a Oct. 15, 2007, and will continue until the position offers private and individually directed silent clear personal identity. is filled. Initial invited interviews will be held at retreats, including Ignatian 30 days, year-round in the A.A.R.-S.B.L. meeting (Nov. 16-19). E.O.E. a prayerful home setting. Contact Joyce Diltz, Our identity lies exactly in being part Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. P.H.J.C.: (219) 398-5047; bethanyrh@sbcglob- of both the work world and the ordained To view additional information about Carroll and al.net; www.bethanyretreathouse.org. world. It lies in being visible, ordained the mission statement please visit our Web site at ministers in workplaces that can be hos- www.carroll.edu. SAN DAMIANO RETREAT, Danville, Calif., tile to all God-talk, when others are run- announces the following retreats: 8-day ning for cover. It lies in service to the DIRECTOR OF FAITH FORMATION. St. Mark Franciscan: Oct. 24-Nov. 1; and Sr. Gabriele Catholic Church, a young, vibrant, midsize Uhlein: Jan. 11-13, 2008. Renowned author and poor and the imprisoned and all who parish in Highlands Ranch, Colo. (S. Denver speaker Paula D’Arcy: Jan. 25-27 and 29-31. San have no voice. It lies in the service at the suburb), is currently seeking a Christ-centered Damiano offers a peaceful, prayerful place just 35 altar, in baptizing and conferring the Director of Faith Formation who is on fire for miles east of San Francisco. Call (925) 837-9141, sacrament of marriage. It lies in dedica- our Lord. St. Mark Church (one family, made up or visit www.sandamiano.org. tion to the study of Scripture and to the of 900+ households) deserves the best D.F.F. in living out of Scripture and to bringing this country—one who will always strive for Wills excellence. Our ideal D.F.F. would be proficient Please remember America in your will. Our Scripture to all who will listen. For me, and current in the R.C.I.A. model for total parish legal title is: America Press Inc., 106 West 56th the attraction to the diaconate originated faith formation (womb to tomb) and would be a Street, New York, NY 10019. through other deacons who lived and

September 17, 2007 America 37 loved their diaconal call and identity same challenges as the lay mission orga- the means to do so through the greater daily. They knew who they were and nizations mentioned in this article in support of the church as a whole. Just as what they were called to be. regard to recognition by the wider the church has always supported its Whatever other discussion may need church and financial sustainability. ordained and religious missioners, we to continue concerning the role of the We join in the collaborative efforts believe that it will rise to this new chal- permanent deacon in the larger church, of other lay missionary organizations lenge in the 21st century. Mr. Gragnani's never doubt the clear personal identity and invite interested lay people to con- article is an important step in the process that we have for our call. sider a call to serve abroad. Living a sim- of making the wider church aware of the (Deacon) Phil DiBello ple life close to the poor could be the dedication of lay Catholics to the Billerica, Mass. best years of a person’s life! Gospel’s missionary values. Janice England Pope Benedict XVI writes in his Our World Family Los Angeles, Calif. encyclical Deus Caritas Est, “For the My thanks for the excellent and insightful church, charity is not a kind of welfare article “The New, Lay Face of Indispensable Expression activity which could equally well be left Missionaries,” by Vincent Gragnani I would like to commend Vincent to others, but it is part of her nature, an (7/30). Our church needs to recognize Gragnani for “The New, Lay Face of indispensable expression of her very the value of lay missionaries as it does of Missionaries” (7/30), which brings being.” His is a timely reminder that that clerical and religious ones—and to sup- much-needed attention to the valuable all baptized Catholics—not just priests port lay missionary organizations accord- ministry that lay men and women pro- and religious—are called to service. ingly. Whether as missionary priests, reli- vide the Catholic Church. As executive C.N.V.S. and our affiliated lay mission gious or lay people, we are all proclaim- director of the Catholic Network of organizations seek to ensure there is a ing the Gospel in word and action in our Volunteer Service, a membership orga- place for all whom God calls to serve. world family. nization of nearly 200 lay mission pro- Jim Lindsay Established in Los Angeles in 1955, grams, I have seen firsthand the ministry Takoma Park, Md. the Lay Mission-Helpers Association has of lay missionary service blossom. In trained and sent over 700 lay missionaries 2005, the most recent year for which Collaborative Ministry to 36 countries in Africa, Asia, South statistics are available, 906 lay men and Our suburban parish is enriched by the Pacific, Central and South America for women served internationally in 55 dif- dedication and expertise of our business over 50 years. We are facing many of the ferent C.N.V.S. member programs. And manager/pastoral associate. This wife and as more people mother of a teenage daughter manages become aware of her family’s schedule and her many the opportunity to responsibilities within the parish. This live out the Gospel accomplished C.P.A. with a degree in missionary call in theology is highly respected by our an international parishioners. But this is only one example setting, we antici- of many priest-partner ministries within pate that this num- our archdiocese. In two neighboring ber will continual- parishes, the two on-site administrators ly increase. are known as pastoral life directors. One In his article, is a member of a religious community Mr. Gragnani and the other is a wife and mother. Both rightly points out of these gifted women work with priests the fundraising assigned to provide sacramental ministry and marketing within the parishes. Thomas P. Sweetser, challenges facing S.J., is to be applauded for recognizing our lay mission the many men and women whose collab- organizations. We orative ministry and love for the church trust that just as make the lives of pastors more peaceful God is now calling and the lives of all parishioners more so many lay men aware of the “variety of gifts but the same and women to Spirit” within our church. serve, God will (Rev.) Christopher J. Whatley also provide them Catonsville, Md.

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38 America September 17, 2007 Money and Spirituality Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C), Sept. 23, 2007 Readings: Amos 8:4-7; Ps 113:1-2, 4-8; 1 Tim 2:1-8; Lk 16:1-13 “You cannot serve God and mammon” (Lk 16:13)

HE WORDS “MONEY” and steward’s strategy is so clever that “spirituality” are seldom found even his former employer had to in the same sentence. Yet Luke admire it. The point of the parable and other biblical writers give is that many people in our world aT good deal of attention to money and display enormous intelligence and possessions. In Luke’s own community energy in financial matters in com- there seems to have been some tension parison with the little attention that between rich and poor, and he took a spe- they pay to the state of their souls. cial interest in addressing it. If we define The industry, creativity and tenacity that thy and honest in money matters and not spirituality broadly as how we stand before go into making money and securing one’s to make money into a substitute for God. God and relate to others, then money is an financial well-being often far outweigh the Today’s reading from the prophet inevitable and important aspect of time and effort given to life’s ultimate Amos indicates that greed, exploitation of Christian spirituality. questions: Who am I? What is my goal? the poor and dishonest business practices Jesus was not an economist, and we How do I get there? are not new phenomena and that they cannot expect from the Gospels master The second unit (16:9) urges people to have been and still are sinful in God’s eyes. plans applicable to 21st-century economic use their money wisely (however they The selection from 1 Timothy 2 offers a conditions. What we can expect from might make it), in order to gain good benign view of the Roman Empire (as in Jesus the wisdom teacher are wise princi- friends. If you should lose your money, Rom 13:1-7) and urges prayers for politi- ples that can direct our thoughts and such persons may help you out in your cal leaders and government officials. The actions about money and possessions. time of need. And when you die, they may idea seems to be that political tranquility Today’s text from Luke’s Gospel con- welcome you into their heavenly home. will enhance the possibility of religious sists of four units of varying lengths, all The third unit (16:10-12) suggests practice. A very different (and highly neg- concerned with money and spirituality. that there is some consistency between ative) view of the Roman Empire appears Each unit can (and probably once did) how one handles money and material pos- in the book of Revelation. The summary stand on its own. As in other wisdom sessions and how one handles spiritual of Christian faith embedded in 1 Timothy instructions, they have been joined matters. Those who are conscientious and 2 (“Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ran- together because they deal with the same trustworthy in material matters are very som for all”) features a financial image general topic, not because they develop a likely to be conscientious and trustworthy (“ransom”) and reinforces Luke’s message logical argument on one point. in spiritual matters. that Christians live out their faith in the The first and longest unit (16:1-8) is The fourth unit (16:13) reminds us world of economics and politics. How we traditionally called the parable of the dis- that “no servant can serve two masters…. deal with both reveals much about who we honest steward. He is said to have been You cannot serve God and mammon.” are and how we relate to God and to oth- squandering his employer’s resources. The word “mammon” derives from the ers. The connection between money and The parable concerns the ingenious plan same Semitic root as “Amen.” It refers to Christian spirituality is real. the steward devised to save himself from what one puts faith in or trusts, and so Daniel J. Harrington personal and financial ruin. There are two came to mean money. The saying warns ways to interpret his plan. In one reading against making money or material posses- the steward is simply dishonest. He cheats sions into one’s god, or the ultimate good his employers and involves others in his in one’s life. While few people might actu- Praying With Scripture plot, thus setting up the possibility of ally worship money in theory, in practice • In practice, do you serve mammon blackmailing them in the future. In anoth- many seem to live as if they do. better than you serve God? Do you er reading he forgoes his own commission, The four units that make up today’s use the kind of ingenuity in spiritual Gospel reading remind us that money and matters that you give to money mat- sacrificing a short-term gain for long-term ters? security. In either case it appears that the spirituality do not belong to separate realms. They urge us to apply some of the • Do you use money wisely and well? How do you define those terms? DANIEL J. HARRINGTON, S.J., is professor of intelligence and energy to things of the New Testament at Weston Jesuit School of spirit that we devote to money and posses- • Are you trustworthy and faithful in Theology in Cambridge, Mass. sions, to use money wisely, to be trustwor- both financial and spiritual matters?

September 17, 2007 America 39