examples theAmerican Jewish novelist Philip 25 atitsmaincampus intheBronx. He choseas university’s Manhattan campus and on April and SocietyatFordham, spokeApril 24atthe the Lawrence J. McGinley Professor ofReligion Fordham University inNew York. Father Ryan, in his spring McGinley lecture at Jesuit-run Patrick J. Ryan, whotookupthisquestion selves asothersseethem, saidJesuit Father People offaithsometimesneedtoseethem What canbelievers learnfrom atheists? Father Patrick J. Ryan, SJ Muslims and Christians Challenge forJews, Imagination: A The Atheistic

CNS documentary service “There is in recent“There years Times. Theologians do not.” and reviewed in The New York The New Atheists get advertised describing oneself as an atheist. something fashionable in - Roth, hesaid, “intends toexpose thecrueltyof Muslim faithmightlearnfrom thosecritiques.” rogate what peopleofJewish, Christianand criticize abouttheirancestral faithandtointer Indian writerSalmanRushdie to “see whatthey Roth, Irish writerColmTóibínandtheBritish begin thislecture withajokelikethatbut I a sage.” His text follows. absolute mercy atthecenterofitsmes ofGod said Father Ryan, “the Quran proclaimed the Islamic tradition ever evolved legaltraditions, central to that religious tradition.” Before the obscure thetruthofGod’s mercy andlove so a religion of law” that has “done much to critique ofarigoristicview ofIslam as “purely writers inhisabsoluterejection ofGod, offersa haps themostprofoundly atheisticofthethree Iran’s Imam Ruhollah andisper Khomeini Verses” famouslyearnedhima “fatwa” from in faith.” Rushdie, whose novel Satanic “The way ofknowing andreaching God outtoGod tant nottounderemphasize theaestheticasa said Father Ryan, areminder that “it isimpor even as he expresses his alienation from it, an aestheticattachmenttohisancestral faith its teaching on sexuality, nonetheless shows who isgayandcriticalofCatholicism and of suchdarkness —pauseandreflect.” Tóibín, expressed faithneedstopauseinthepresence we live,” hesaid. It isadark vision, and “glibly God, thecapriciousnessofworld inwhich

of minehassuggestedthat I walk into a bar. …” A friend atheist andaMuslim atheist Jewish atheist, a Christian continued onpage 18 - - - - contents 32 26 17 32 30 27 Ad Limina The AtheisticImagination: On File Datebook Protect thePoor, Promote The Catholic SJ by FatherPatrickJ.Ryan, Christians andMuslims A ChallengeforJews, Number 2 Volume 42 May 17,2012 Blaire by BishopStephenE. the CommonGood Roberson, CSP by FatherRonaldG. Ecumenism Understanding of by PopeBenedictXVI Catholic Education U.S. CatholicBishopson Addressto continued from page 17 novels. Between 2006 and 2010 Roth pub- Respondents to Father Patrick cannot complete it. Perhaps it is sufficient- lished four short novels to which he has Ryan’s McGinley lecture were ly funny that one could describe atheists as assigned a Greek common title: Nemeses, the Rabbi Daniel Polish, spiritual leader of Congregation Shir either being Jewish, Christian or Muslim. English plural of the Greek word nemesis. Chadash in Poughkeepsie, Many atheists might be happier sim- Nemesis in Greek mythology is the hyposta- N.Y., and Amir Hussain, pro- ply to describe themselves as atheists pure sis or goddess of revenge, the fury who repays fessor of theological studies at and simple, without any notice given to the the hubris of human beings, their overween- Loyola Marymount University faith they or their ancestors once professed. ing pride. Three of these novels are excellent; in Los Angeles, Calif. There is in recent years something fashion- about the third and shortest, The Humbling Rabbi Polish argued that able in describing oneself as an atheist. The (2009), the less said the better.2 I will com- Philip Roth’s “atheism” needs New Atheists get advertised and reviewed in ment mainly on two of the three excellent to be understood in a wider context. Jewish identity is The New York Times. Theologians do not. On novels in this series, Indignation (2008) and not fully analogous to either the whole I don’t know whether I find the Nemesis (2010), among the best ever written Christian or Muslim identity. New Atheists or the New Apologists who have by Roth. He explained: taken them on more tiresome. “For both Christian and In this evening’s lecture I want to reflect on Muslim identity depends the work of three very nontiresome writers of “Roth has seldom, if ever, writ- upon faith. … And if one does imaginative fiction in English, all of them liv- not have that faith, or no ten positively about Judaism, but longer has that faith, or aban- ing, each of them distinctly reacting against dons that faith, then one is no the faith of his fathers — and against the faith these two novels prove more than longer Muslim or Christian. of their mothers as well. Those three writers eloquent in their expression of But Jewish identity is not built are the American, Philip Roth, the Irishman, along the same lines. … Colm Tóibín, and the British Indian, Salman rage not only against Judaism but “The religion of that people Rushdie. is Judaism. But the identity also against God.” All at one time or another have outraged is conferred by being part of that people or participating their former co-religionists. I wish to examine in that civilization. So though some of the writings of each of these con- In both of these novels the leading charac- it is conventional to speak temporary writers to see what they criticize ter’s life is reviewed, starting from his child- of Jews as a religious group about their ancestral faith and to interrogate hood in a lower middle-class urban setting in analogous to Christians or what people of Jewish, Christian and Muslim New Jersey. Each character has a tragic flaw Muslims, we are also what faith might learn from those critiques. To this or makes a series of strategic mistakes that can be called an ethnic group … an identity that is full of point, let me quote the Scottish poet Robert lead to his downfall. These novels are not rep- secular implications.” Burns: etitious; the accounts of how the main char- This reality puts Philip Roth acters meet their respective nemeses prove in a different category from O wad some Power relentless. Tóibín or Rushdie, he said. the giftie gie us In each novel the hero (if I may use an old- “So yes, as Father Ryan notes, To see oursels as ithers see us!1 fashioned term) cries out against God and the Roth has written forcefully whole structure of a life based on the faith against G-d, and against the religion of the Jews. But here is The authors involved might question the tradition of Israel. Roth has seldom, if ever, where it gets asymmetrical — existence of that Power, but they can still “gie written positively about Judaism, but these and interesting. I would argue us” that “giftie” themselves. Men and women two novels prove more than eloquent in their that from the very beginning of faith — Jewish, Christian and Muslim — expression of rage not only against Judaism Roth has written as a proudly sometimes need to “see oursels as ithers see but also against God. self-affirming Jew, and lov- us.” Indignation (2008) narrates the brief life of ingly about Jewish life — and not in any sense of former a young man from Newark, Marcus Messner, identity.” Philip Roth: Imagination the son of a kosher butcher and his wife, who Rabbi Rosen said Roth’s Born and Bred in Newark in 1951 escapes the increasing paranoia of engagement with his Philip Milton Roth was born 79 years ago in his father by transferring from a local com- Jewishness and the life of Newark, N.J. Since 1959 he has published 29 muter college in Newark to Winesburg College the Jewish people “runs like a bright thread” through his career. ISSN 0093-609X, Origins, CNS Documentary Service, is published weekly (except biweekly during July, August and December's last week) by Catholic News Service, 3211 4th Street N.E., Washington, D.C. 20017-1100. Copyright © 2012 “What I am arguing,” he said, by Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Periodical-class postage paid at Washington, D.C. “is that from the beginning Editor, Edmond Brosnan; Associate Editor, Mary Esslinger; Layout, Emily Thompson; Director of CNS, Tony Spence. of his career issues of Jewish Editorial: (202) 541-3284. Circulation: (202) 541-3290 - www.originsonline.com. life never seem far from Roth’s mind. Does any of this make Subscriptions: One year, $114; two years, $199; three years, $284; foreign postage additional. Single copy: $8. Back issues: Inquire for availability and rates. Attach mailing label to change of address requests and subscription corre- Roth a theist? Obviously not. spondence. Postmaster: Send address changes to Origins, CNS Documentary Service, 3211 4th Street, N.E., But it does make Roth recog- Washington, D.C. 20017-1100. nizably Jewish in an impor- tant way that Jews under- Documentation in Origins is selected on the basis of interest and usefulness in reference to current issues. Publication does not signify endorsement by Origins or its sponsoring body, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

18 origins in Ohio.3 Winesburg College, once a Baptist series: Nemesis (2010). The narrator, speaking seminary, is by 1951 a secular college, but in 1971, is a survivor of a 1944 polio epidemic stand what Jewish is.” undergraduates are still required to attend in Newark. He and many of his schoolmates “Nemesis,” can be read as Wednesday chapel services. This regulation, probably contracted polio from a carrier who a profound and principled atheist manifesto, he said. along with roommate problems and roman- was eventually to come down with polio him- “But we can also see Roth in tic complications, make coexistence with self, Eugene “Bucky” Cantor, the main charac- ‘Nemesis’ not so much reject- Messner’s paranoiac father in Newark begin ter of this novel. ing G-d as arguing with G-d, to look easy. An elementary school gym teacher who enraged at G-d, calling G-d We learn early in the novel that Marcus is works for the summer supervising a play- to account for the tragedies narrating the story of his life from the grave, ground for children in a Jewish section of and horrors of this world, the undeserved suffering. … Such a life story that he calls “the series of mishaps Newark, Cantor — deferred from service in arguing, raging, calling G-d 4 ending in my death at the age of 19.” Even World War II because of poor eyesight — to account is a theme reach- though his parents make their living as kosher thinks that he is waging a battle against the ing back in Jewish literature butchers, Marcus has no use for any religious polio epidemic without realizing that he him- all the way to the Bible. We tradition, beginning with the Jewish tradition self is a source of the epidemic. When he with- find it in many of the psalms. the family business serves. draws from that battle in Newark, he brings And of course it is the issue at the very heart of the Book of The other students at Winesburg College, the virus with him to a summer camp in the Job. And we find this theme Jewish and gentile, are willing to get through Poconos. articulating itself afresh in so college without confronting the system. Not Cantor’s poor eyesight, much emphasized many modern Jewish writers,” Marcus: In a fiery interview with the dean of by Roth, parallels symbolically the blindness he said. men Marcus objects to mandatory chapel: of Oedipus to the facts of his origins, even The theme of unconventional “I objected,” he says, “not because I was an before the king of Thebes eventually tears his religiosity in Jewish writers observant Jew but because I was an ardent eyes out when he realizes he has killed his “provides a wonderful win- dow on the unique nature atheist” (p. 80). father and married his mother. of Jewish identity,” he said. To sustain him through the one Wednesday Long before Cantor realizes the horror of “It includes the freedom to chapel service he ever attends, Marcus sings what he has inadvertently caused, he seethes abandon G-d altogether or, at to himself the communist Chinese nation- with rage against any attempt by the Jewish the least, to be deeply disap- al anthem in English translation, itself the community in Newark to seek refuge in God. pointed with G-d, to argue source of the novel’s title: “China’s masses The Kaddish, the famously objective mourn- with G-d, to call G-d to the docket as the accused.” have met the day of danger./Indignation fills er’s prayer in the Jewish tradition, offers little What can religious people the hearts of all of our countrymen” (p. 82). or no consolation to mourners, insisting rath- learn from an authentically Messner, drafted into the army when his er on the absolute sovereignty and holiness of atheistic perspective? Rabbi student exemption expires after his expulsion God. Bucky Cantor will have none of it. Polish said the experience from Winesburg College over the mandatory At the funeral of the first of his playground of God’s absence “imposes a chapel problem, dies of wounds sustained in children to die of polio, Bucky rages against moral imperative on us. … a Chinese attack in the Korean War. God and his worshipers at that graveside, who If there is no G-d, then how much is expected of us? If What was the nemesis of Marcus Messner? are characterized as “praising God’s almighti- we cannot depend on G-d to Like his father, he gradually descended into ness, praising extravagantly, unstintingly, the prevent another Auschwitz, paranoia: lashing out at his family, his room- very God who allowed everything, including then we have to take that mates, the regulations of the college he him- children, to be destroyed by death.”5 responsibility on ourselves. If self had picked out for his escape from home. Cantor’s own polio leaves him partially we cannot depend on G-d to The Chinese whose revolutionary indignation handicapped and deeply angry for life, and feed the hungry, then we have to do it ourselves.” he sang finally undid him on what came to be especially angry with God. He refuses to When Pope Benedict XVI called Massacre Mountain in Korea: “He’d not marry Marcia Steinberg, the doctor’s daughter said nonbelievers challenge been encircled by so much blood since his with whom he had been almost engaged, even believers not to consider days as a boy at the slaughterhouse, watch- though she wants to marry him. “Whoever God their own property, as if ing the ritual killing of animals in accordance she married, let them and their children be he belonged to them, at the with Jewish law” (p. 226). happy and enjoy good health. Let’s hope their Vatican-sponsored interreli- From his place among the dead Marcus merciful God will have blessed them with all gious pilgrimage to Assisi in 2011, he identified perhaps regrets all the wrong turns of his first 19 that before he sticks his shiv in their back” the greatest specifically theo- years. But still he feels, even in death, that “he (p. 254). logical lesson — spiritual couldn’t believe like a child in some stupid Marcia had tried to reason with him, humility — to be drawn from god!” (p. 230). Marcus Messner looks back- defending God the way God defended him- nonbelief or atheism, con- ward at his life with a deep regret but without self in the Book of Job: “You have no idea what cluded Rabbi Polish. “They any hope of something better in the world to God is! No one does or can!” (p. 261).6 The stand as reminders to us all that we know less of G-d than come. As an ardent atheist he repudiates all narrator, himself an atheist, catches Bucky we would aspire to; perhaps such hope. Cantor in a certain contradiction: “You speak than we pretend to,” he said. The last and longest of these four relatively of God. You still believe in this God you dis- “They remind us that much as short recent novels of Roth has for its title the parage?” Bucky replies: “Yes. Somebody had we are on the journey toward singular form of the Greek word for the whole to make this place” (p. 264). But Bucky has

origins 19 no love for this Creator or for the place he more coming out every year. Since September G-d, we have not arrived at created. 2011 he has been a professor of creative writ- the destination and we need Bucky Cantor sees himself imaged in a ing at the University of Manchester. to be more modest in the claims we make for ourselves campfire story told to children in the sum- Like Philip Roth, Tóibín is a master stylist, and more forgiving of those mer camp to which he had carried the polio but he has, even more than Roth, taken on who have less insight into the virus. “The Indians believed that it was an evil the mantle of public intellectual, especially, impenetrable infinite than we being, shooting them with an invisible arrow, but not exclusively, in his native Ireland. He have achieved — or different that caused certain of their diseases” (p. has not been afraid to take up subjects that insight. From the vantage of 271). The narrator refuses to accept Bucky’s embroil him in controversy, including contro- that modesty we can greet one another and embrace description of himself as that invisible arrow: versy with the Catholic Church. one another in peace, respect “Don’t make things worse by scapegoating Openly gay, Tóibín has in his nonfiction and love.” yourself” (p. 272). written not a few things critical of the faith Easier said than done. The narrator finally of his ancestors, and especially things critical In his remarks Amir Hussain accedes to Cantor’s terrible sense of his own of the Catholic Church’s teaching on sexual- focused on the work of responsibility for the summer camp polio ity. But is Tóibín an atheist? I am not entirely Salman Rushdie and his outbreak: “Maybe he was the invisible arrow” sure of the answer to that question, although novel ‘The Satanic Verses,’ (p. 275). it must be admitted that some of the voices who he said “is one of my The narrator refuses to end his story of captured in his fiction, especially his more favorite writers … one of the two or three greatest living Bucky Cantor on such a tragic note. The last recent fiction, lean in that direction. writers in English.” five pages of this powerful novel evoke the nar- Key to understanding Rushdie rator’s lyrical memory of Bucky Cantor, before and his book, he said, is that the polio outbreak, teaching his wards how “But is Tóibín an atheist? I am he writes about his own to shoot a javelin. “The first javelin thrower not entirely sure of the answer to multiple identities as English, was said to be Hercules, the great warrior and Indian, born in Bombay, edu- slayer of monsters, who, Mr. Cantor told us, that question, although it must be cated in England but now liv- was the giant son of the supreme God, Zeus, ing in the United States. This admitted that some of the voices theme of migration and of and the strongest man on earth” (p. 276). hybrid identity is one Hussain But the myth of Hercules the javelin throw- captured in his fiction, especially said he shares with Rushdie er narrated by Bucky Cantor possibly hints his more recent fiction, lean in and “often wonder who I am.” as well at other and more tragic elements in A further connection with the story of that quintessential athlete, and that direction.” Rushdie, he said, is that “our experiences of Islam are as especially his fiery death caused by the shirt members in a minority com- stained with toxic blood that the centaur munity. For most of our lives, Nessus, once defeated by Hercules, had given In his earliest book of nonfiction, Walking we have lived in countries like as love magic to the jealous wife of Hercules, Along the Border (1987), Tóibín gives an India, Canada, England and Deianira.7 The athletic heroism of Bucky account of the journey he took in the sum- America, where as Muslims Cantor — including his battle with polio mer of 1986, largely on foot, along the bor- we have been religious minorities.” among his charges — brought down on him der that separates the Irish Republic from “If there is one difference that the nemesis that destroyed the rest of his life. the six counties of northeastern Ireland still I have with Rushdie,” said The moral universe of these novels of under British rule. At the time, the Republic Hussain, “it is his under- Philip Milton Roth is Greek and tragic. He of Ireland was preparing for a referendum on standing and use of the word has no desire to embrace the transcendent the article in the 1937 Irish Constitution that ‘secular.’ He seems to confuse purpose of the poet from whom he takes his forbade divorce under any circumstance. At it with the term ‘atheist.’… I middle name, attempting “to justify the ways the same time, the six counties under British would argue that secularism, 8 at least in the context of North of God to men.” On the contrary, this great rule were still wracked with periodic out- America, does not mean the novelist intends to expose the cruelty of God, breaks of violence between the Provisional same thing as atheism. When the capriciousness of the world in which we Irish Republican Army, the Royal Ulster we say that North America is live. Roth’s is a dark vision, imaginatively and Constabulary and the occupying British forc- secular, we do not mean that superbly conveyed in these two recent novels. es. we are a society consisting Glibly expressed faith needs to pause in the Preoccupation with both of these realities mostly of atheists. We are much more religious, for example, presence of this darkness — pause and reflect. dogged Tóibín on his journey. Two chapters on any measure of religiosity, in Walking Along the Border narrate contrast- than Europeans. What we Colm Tóibín: Imagination Born ing visits made by Tóibín to islands with long mean by secular is that there and Bred in Wexford religious histories, St. Patrick’s Purgatory is no official state religion. … Born 57 years ago in Enniscorthy, County on Station Island in Lough Derg, Country This secularism is very dif- Wexford, Colm Tóibín has published since Donegal, within the Republic of Ireland, and ferent, for example, from the disestablishment of religion in 1987 at least six novels and two books of short a Hiberno-Romanesqe church ruin on White Europe, expressed for example stories as well as 11 works of collected jour- Island in Lough Erne, Country Fermanagh, as ‘laïcité’ in France. nalism, literary criticism, a memoir as well as within Northern Ireland. some poetry and pieces for the theater, with The penitential pilgrimage to St. Patrick’s

20 origins Purgatory demands a great deal of the pil- 11th century, most of them rather dour-faced grim, who is to fast from midnight on the day figures with croziers who seemed to Tóibín “In 1990, Rushdie became a Muslim. It’s quite clear that he of arrival and is only allowed tea or coffee and his companions “to be joining the rest of has left that religious commu- and hard brown bread or toast while on the the population, North and South, in saying nity and taken up the mantle island. Shoes are removed immediately on ‘No.’ Their mouths on the word for eternity. of atheism. In describing the disembarking, and the pilgrim remains bare- ‘No, No, No.’”13 horrors of the massacres in footed, rain or shine, while making the many One solitary archaeological relic preserved Gujarat in 2002, Rushdie circumambulations in the stony penitential in the ruins seemed to originate from pre- wrote: ‘Religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion “beds” that each pilgrim must complete while Christian Ireland, a female figure (possibly a intervenes, mere innocence is on the island. fertility image), usually called a síle-na-gig. no excuse. … So India’s prob- The first night is spent in sleepless com- This síle-na-gig does not strike me as much lem turns out to be the world’s mon prayer, much of it involving numer- more attractive to the eye than the dour-faced problem. What happened ous repetitions of the Our Father, the Hail ecclesiastics, but in the mood of that weekend in India, happened in God’s Mary and the Apostles’ Creed. Participation after the failed divorce referendum, Tóibín name. The problem’s name is God.’ … is expected at Masses three times during the saw the “fixed grin on her face” as an invita- pilgrim’s stay as well as at other devotions. tion to an encounter with an ancient Molly “Here, I would argue, is perhaps for the first time a 14 Although Tóibín seems to have started off Bloom: “’Yes,’ she was saying, ‘yes, yes, yes.’” narrowness or a meanness in in earnest on the pilgrimage, having fasted In an article published in 2005 by Michael Rushdie’s vision. He rightly from midnight of the day of his afternoon Böss of the University of Aarhus in Denmark, praises the fabulous work of arrival, he began to become disenchanted as the scholar analyzes, especially in terms of Gabriel García Márquez but the first evening developed, especially when these two essays in Walking Along the Border, reads the Bible in a surpris- ingly literal fashion. he discovered that he was expected to go to the ambiguities of Tóibín’s relationship to confession, a practice of the universal church Ireland and to the Catholic Church. Böss put “At the University of Toronto, I had the extraordinary privi- today that owes much of its shape to the prac- words into Tóibín’s mouth in a 1994 interview lege of knowing Northrop tice of purgatories like Station Island in first- with him when he asked him “why he, as an Frye, whose last book was millennium Ireland. atheist and a liberal intellectual, had not sim- titled ‘The Double Vision: “Praying was one thing,” Tóibín writes, ply decided to reject religion and church.”15 Language and Meaning “and singing hymns was fine, but telling my Tóibín does not bite readily at the fruit in Religion.’ Professor Frye sins to a priest was something I hadn’t done offered by Böss: “Well, you see,” Tóibín would remind us that when the Bible is historically accu- since I was 15.”9 Although he considered flee- replied, “one gets used to people. Many rate, it is only accidentally so. ing the island immediately, Tóibín finally per- priests and many Catholic people in Ireland “In the same vein, with sisted through the whole experience, cutting may still not be liberal, but they are also my respect to the teaching of sci- corners on the penitential “beds” and other neighbors, also my family. One gets fond of ence in Kansas, none of my rigors of the three-day experience, but he people, personally.”16 Jewish friends think that the admitted that he did take the opportunity to For a man who feels alienated from the Bible, important as it is, is a renew his baptismal promises, “renouncing Catholic Church, Tóibín manifests a continu- very good science textbook. It is, however, much more the devil, which I was glad to do.”10 ing interest in the church. In a 1994 book of important than history or But in the long run Tóibín found him- travel essays, The Sign of the Cross: Travels science. It tells us about our self alienated from the central intent of the in Catholic Europe, Tóibín covers, among place in the world. It gives us rigorous pilgrimage and especially from the other topics, pilgrimages to Medugorje and not facts but something much preaching he heard at one of the Masses, more Santiago de Compostela as well as the 1991 more important, truths. Or or less subtly aimed against passage of the visit by Blessed Pope John Paul II to Poland, to quote from Professor Frye: ‘What “the” truth is, is not divorce referendum the following Thursday.11 and especially a deeply moving vigil of prayer available to human beings Tóibín’s experience a week later, when he and reflection led by the pope at the Marian in spiritual matters: The goal traveled with a group of friends to White Island shrine of Czestochowa. There, Tóibín notes, of our spiritual life is God, on Lough Erne, contrasted vividly with his the pope had preached at length and “had not who is a spiritual Other, not previous weekend on Station Island. During mentioned sex or sin. He had not hectored a spiritual object, much less a the intervening week the electorate in the us. His words had been suggestive, at times conceptual object. That is why the Gospels keep reminding Irish Republic had rejected by a substantial poetic.”17 us how many listen and how majority the possibility of amendment of the The most unusual essay in this collection, few hear: Truths of the Gospel prohibition on divorce in the Constitution. however, and the source of its title, is not a kind cannot be demonstrated Famously, the opponents of the passage of travel essay at all but an account of an inner except through personal the amendment had campaigned with the journey Tóibín undertook under the direc- example.’” Hussain said that slogan that “a woman voting for divorce is like tion of a psychiatrist friend who specializes with the double vision refer- enced in Frye’s title, “we see 12 a turkey voting for Christmas.” in helping clients confront blocked past psy- the spiritual and the physical Tóibín and his friends, appalled at the chological traumas. The psychiatrist aided world as simultaneously pres- outcome, distracted themselves with a far this process along with the use of ketamine, ent. It is that imagination, from ascetical boat trip to Lough Erne. In the a drug that has effects both analgesic and not the atheistic one, which I ruined church on the island they saw weath- anestethetic and that sometimes causes hal- would wish for us all.” er-worn images from the ninth through the lucinations. All too often ketamine has been

origins 21 employed as a so-called “recreational attachment to Catholicism, combined Cambridge. drug.” with his distaste for the church’s teach- No “Slum Dog Millionaire,” Rushdie The psychiatrist who urged this pro- ing on sexuality. The online version of was dubbed a knight bachelor for ser- cess on Tóibín did so because he felt the British weekly the Catholic Herald, vices to literature by Queen Elizabeth that the writer had never faced up to the featured in September 2010 a thunder- II in 2007. But despite the great class effects the death of his schoolteacher ous blog headlined “Colm Tóibín wants and educational differences between father had had on him when he was 12 the church to be beautiful and exotic. Rushdie and many of his Indian Muslim years of age. Tóibín admitted earlier that But she has to impart truth too.”22 contemporaries, much of his fictional he had entertained some ambiguous output has been characterized as magi- feelings about his father, who was likely cal realism, and it bears a strong family to become his class teacher a year or two “Tóibín has been criticized by resemblance to Bollywood films. He is later, had he lived. currently university distinguished pro- some Catholics for the aes- Eventually, however, as a result of the fessor at Emory University in Atlanta. drug-induced inner journey, Tóibín felt theticism of his attachment to Rushdie established his reputation as himself “overwhelmed by a compulsion a writer of fiction with his second novel, Catholicism, combined with to thank my father for life,” but he also winner of the Booker Prize, Midnight’s felt that the expression of such a senti- his distaste for the church’s Children (1981), the story of a child born ment “sounded like the sort of thing you at the stroke of midnight on the day that teaching on sexuality.” hear at a bad funeral service.” Finally India gained its independence. But it Tóibín “wanted to bless” his father and was Rushdie’s fourth novel, The Satanic eventually did so: “I made the sign of Let me conclude this too brief over- Verses (1988), which mainly accounts for the cross in the air, over and over. I had view of Tóibín’s imaginative struggle the author’s fame or infamy, depending no choice.”18 with faith with an account of a meeting on who is evaluating him. It brought This inner journey of Tóibín’s “in he had in the late 1980s with a British down on his head not only a great deal Catholic Europe” gives the entire book journalist who told him that she col- of obloquy from Muslims in many parts its title and rightly so; it stands head and lected rosary beads. “She had convert- of the world but also a fatwa, or legal shoulders over the other chapters. ed some into bracelets and necklaces pronouncement, calling for his death The death of the writer’s mother in ... but others she just kept as antiques. emanating from Iran’s supreme guide September 2000, 33 years after his father The problem was, she went on, that old at the time, Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, passed away, has returned as a theme ladies in Ireland insisted on being buried who died a year later. in several of Tóibín’s recent writings, with their beads, which was a nightmare In actual fact, very few Muslims took including a brief memoir of his upbring- for the serious collector.”23 Tóibín found that fatwa seriously, although there ing that was published by Penguin as an himself in the unlikely role of defender were enough entrepreneurial types audiobook in 2011.19 of the faith when talking to this trivial- who might have vied for the bounty The 2010 collection of short stories izing aesthete: “Catholicism and all its promised for the assassination that the called The Empty Family opens with an trappings, somehow, belonged to me.”24 author felt it necessary to go into hiding exquisite story of an Irish writer teach- The aesthetic affection of Tóibín for for nearly a decade. Nowadays, however, ing in Texas recollecting in 2006 the the faith of his fathers and his mothers Rushdie seems to be everywhere, as a anniversary of his mother’s death six over many generations in Enniscorthy, recent article in the Fashion & Style sec- years earlier. While remembering the County Wexford, remains with him, tion of The New York Times sardonically events of her funeral he wants to call a even if his Catholicism does not mea- noted.25 lover in Dublin who had come to be with sure up to the standards of some blog- A brief outline of the novel, better him on that occasion. gers for the Catholic Herald. known for its title than for its contents, “The moon hangs low over Texas,” is in order. The two main characters the narrator thinks. “The moon is my Salman Rushdie: Imagination are Indian Muslims, neither of them in mother. She is full tonight. ... I have Born and Bred in Bombay any sense devout: Gibreel Farishta, a never seen a moon so low and so full of Ahmad Salman Rushdie was born in Bollywood actor originally born with the her own deep brightness. My mother is Bombay of highly educated Muslim name Ismail Najmuddin, and Saladin six years dead tonight, and Ireland is six parents less than two months before Chamcha, a Bombay-born entrepre- hours away and you are asleep.”20 the division of British India into India neur originally named Salahuddin The narrator goes on to tell his and Pakistan in 1947. He is distinctly Chamchawala, now established in absent lover that “you know that I do a Bombay, not a Mumbai person, a England. not believe in God. I do not care much British Indian rather than an Indian The names of the two characters about the mysteries of the universe, pure and simple, and he holds British translate as Gabriel Angel and Saladin unless they come to me in words, or in citizenship. After his primary and early Spoon, the latter term in Hindi and music maybe, or in a set of colors, and secondary schooling in India he moved Urdu referring in a vulgar fashion to a then I entertain them merely for their to England in the 1960s where he com- sycophant.26 Gibreel, for his part, has beauty and only briefly.”21 pleted his secondary schooling at the spent his Bollywood career playing Tóibín has been criticized by some Rugby School, and from there proceed- roles in what he calls “theologicals,”27 Catholics for the aestheticism of his ed to King’s College of the University of films about the Hindu gods, the sort

22 origins of thing a devout Muslim would never connected with the role of Mecca as an Rushdie’s Mahound finally makes do. Through such films, according to entrepôt for Arabs of every variety and the compromise on grounds somewhat Farishta, “every god in the pantheon got even some non-Arabs; everyone was parallel to the prophet Muhammad’s his or her chance to be a star” (p. 24). welcome to exchange goods in Mecca, long opposition to the destruction of Saladin Chamcha, on the other hand, and the central shrine of that town wel- unwanted female infants in pre-Islamic had dedicated himself to business con- comed the religious imagery connected Mecca: “In the old days he wanted to cerns in Britain; in the process he had with each of the communities who came protect the baby daughters of Jahilia; become alienated from the father who there to trade. why shouldn’t he take the daughters of originally sent him there to study: “I Allah under his wing as well?” (p. 121). accuse him of becoming my supreme Finally, however, Rushdie’s Mahound, being,” Saladin declares, “so that what “In actual fact, very few like the historical Muhammad, repu- happened was like a loss of faith” (p. 41). diates the satanic verses and, perse- Muslims took that ‘fatwa’ Neither of these Indian Muslims seems cuted by the Meccan elite, migrates to have any form of faith by the time seriously, although there from Jahilia to Yathrib, the oasis later they are involved in an airplane hijack- renamed Medina. Gibreel, however, were enough entrepreneurial ing by militant Sikhs.28 is left to suffer the wrath of the three In the novel Farishta and Chamcha types who might have vied for spurned daughters of Allah, harpies survive the plane bombing, landing none too happy about their demotion: the bounty promised for the unharmed on the coast of England. “They fall upon him from the night sky Chamcha, a British citizen, is almost assassination that the author ... flapping around his head, clawing immediately arrested for illegal immi- at his eyes, biting, whipping him with felt it necessary to go into gration, but Farishta, the Indian actor, their hair, their wings” (pp. 128-129). In passes himself off as a Briton. In the hiding for nearly a decade. their revenge the demoted goddesses process of their fall from the sky Gibreel resemble some of the women who have Nowadays, however, Rushdie becomes an angel and Saladin a devil. bedeviled the life of Gibreel Farishta. Part II of the novel, the section that seems to be everywhere.” Much more could be said about the prompted most of the outrage in the atheism of the main characters in The Muslim world, is a fantastic dream of Satanic Verses, but it must also be added Gibreel’s, much of it parodying events of At one point of his Meccan preach- that their atheism reflects that of the the Prophet Muhammad’s life in Mecca, ing career, Muhammad seems to have author. In a 1999 article in the British especially the early years of his expe- received a revelation indicating that daily The Guardian, Rushdie wrote one rience of revelation (610-622 CE). The at least three goddesses, the so-called of a series of letters to the 6 billionth point of view is that of Farishta, a totally “daughters of Allah” (al-Lat, al-’Uzza human being estimated to have been secularized or lapsed Muslim, whose and Manat), prominent in certain born in October of that year. The letter version of the life of Muhammad owes locales of strategic importance, might suggests that no room for faith of any more to the tradition of English music be venerated by Muslims on a subordi- sort should be given. hall than to the Quran and the early lives nate level. The temptation to give subor- “As human knowledge has grown,” of Muhammad. dinate divine status to these goddesses Rushdie writes, “it has also become plain To symbolize this comedic intent, soon passed, and Muhammad recog- that every religious story ever told about the Prophet Muhammad appears in the nized the spuriousness of the verses how we got here is quite simply wrong. dream sequence as “Mahound,” a name he had supposedly received from God; This, finally, is what all religions have in created by medieval Christian polemi- these repudiated verses are called “the common. They didn’t get it right.” Later cists writing anti-Muslim propaganda,29 satanic verses.”30 on he asserts that “religion, even at its and he is also described as “that busi- Rushdie’s Mahound sounds very like most sophisticated, essentially infan- nessman on the hill” (p. 94), a reference a Bombay entrepreneur when he tells tilizes our ethical selves by setting infal- to Muhammad’s meditative seclusion his closest disciples that he has been lible moral Arbiters and irredeemably on Mount Hira after he had withdrawn “offered a deal” (p.107) by the faithless immoral Tempters above us: the eternal from active mercantile life. Much of this leadership of Jahilia, the novel’s name for parents, good and bad, light and dark, of section reminds me of the sort of thing pre-Islamic Mecca.31 Mahound’s closest the supernatural realm.”32 undergraduates write when they are try- disciples discourage any compromise In a 2002 interview with Irshad Manji, ing to be amusing. Muslims generally do on monotheism, urging Mahound to a believing Canadian Muslim of very not find this novel funny. consult with the angel Gibreel, the inter- liberal opinions, currently director of One incident in Muhammad’s life, locutor of God. the Moral Courage Project at New York much satirized in Farishta’s Bollywood But in Farishta’s dream he himself is University, Rushdie admits that “I’m not dream sequence, provides the title the angel Gibreel, and none too happy a person of religious belief” and that “I for the entire novel. Muhammad had about his position: “Mahound comes to have the religion of a flea.” When Manji struggled for nearly a decade to purify me for revelation, asking me to choose went on to ask him if he found “any- Mecca and its sacred shrine, the Kaaba, between monotheist and henotheist thing redeeming about religious faith,” from the rampant polytheism enshrined alternatives, and I’m just some idiot he admitted that “I can see it being valu- there. That polytheism was intimately actor” (p. 111). able to other people, like a consolation

origins 23 in difficulty. For myself,” he continued, Sun than to submit to a supreme being colours”39 leaves the door of faith, aes- “I don’t feel the urge. There’s no hole in for whatever atrocious crime it pleases thetically perceived, slightly ajar. me that it needs to fill.”33 him to perpetrate.”36 Undoubtedly Christian faith also There is not much room for dialogue The majesty of God — most com- entails stringent moral demands, but it with an atheist who says things like monly symbolized in the Jewish tradi- is important not to underemphasize the that, and, alas, it must be admitted that tion by God’s unutterable name — can aesthetic as a way of knowing God and Rushdie is not alone today in this abso- leave the mourner feeling bereft. Not a reaching out to God in faith. The late lute rejection of God. The flashy colors few Holocaust survivors have claimed Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar of Bollywood seem to bring him no inti- that they can no longer put their faith famously meditated on four transcen- mations of the transcendent. in God in the wake of Auschwitz. But dentals, four overarching ways of char- is infinitely exalted majesty the only acterizing being in general. “That which Reflections From the Deck presentation of God in the tradition of is truly true,” Von Balthasar writes, “is Of a Sinking Ship ancient Israel that continues down to also truly good and beautiful and one. We have just passed the centenary of the present day in Judaism? A being appears, it has an epiphany: in the sinking of the Titanic. Were I to find Orthodox Jews sometimes seem less that it is beautiful and makes us mar- myself on the deck of a sinking ship than totally familiar with the prophetic vel.”40 with either Roth, Tóibín or Rushdie, tradition and its presentation of a pas- Pope Benedict XVI, a man with a deep what (briefly) could I say that I have sionate God37 who suffers for and with and abiding appreciation for music and learned from them? I would like them his people. Hosea portrays God as a hus- the arts more generally, in a 2011 allocu- to say more, but the ship has struck an band taking pity on his faithless spouse, tion meditated in this vein: iceberg and we are beginning to sink. the Northern Kingdom called in this “Perhaps it has happened to you at Furthermore, what (again, very briefly) context Ephraim: one time or another — before a sculp- would I like to say to them? The end ture, a painting, a few verses of poetry or is near and I have to be more succinct I have had a change of heart, a piece of music — to have experienced than this topic deserves. All My tenderness is stirred. a deep emotion, a sense of joy, to have I will not act on My wrath, perceived clearly, that is, that before Will not turn to destroy Ephraim. you stood not only matter — a piece of “Orthodox Jews sometimes For I am God, not man, marble or bronze, a painted canvas, an The Holy One in your midst; ensemble of letters or a combination seem less than totally famil- I will not come in fury (Hos 11:8-9). of sounds — but something far great- iar with the prophetic tradi- er, something that ‘speaks,’ something The extrabiblical Jewish tradition capable of touching the heart, of com- tion and its presentation of depicts God suffering with Israel in its municating a message, of elevating the a passionate God who suffers vicissitudes; it even goes so far as to por- soul.”41 tray God’s sympathy with the Egyptians There are many ways of recognizing for and with his people.” drowned at the time of Exodus. In two the divine in a sublunary setting, and different tractates of the Babylonian not every one of those ways is purely First of all, what have I learned from Talmud God is said to have rebuked logical, in a mathematical understand- the bleak vision in the late novels of angels who wished to sing the divine ing of logic, or purely rational, in a ratio- Philip Roth? You can see Philip Roth praises on that occasion: “My handi- nalistic understanding of reason. Blaise on YouTube telling an interviewer that work [the Egyptians] is drowning in Pascal understood this very well when “when the whole world doesn’t believe the seas; would you utter song before he wrote in his Pensées that “Le cour in God, it will be a great place.”34 The me?!”38 A passionate God, pitying both a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît God in whom Marcus Messner puts Israelites and Egyptians, still has no ulti- point.”42 That is a notoriously difficult no faith, the God whom Bucky Cantor mately satisfying answers for those who sentence to translate, but I offer this simply despises, seems a very exalted suffer, but perhaps that passionate God possibility: “The heart has its own types Sovereign of the Universe, the God can evoke some spark of compassion for of reasoning that rationality can never praised in the Kaddish. God in us as well. understand.” Colm Tóibín can readily Roth quotes that great mourners’ I must move on to Colm Tóibín, understand what Von Balthasar, Pope prayer in part in Nemesis: “May His who has (happily) managed to get up Benedict and Blaise Pascal intend. great Name be blessed forever and ever. on deck from steerage. I must admit The waters are rising to the main deck … . Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, to Tóibín that his aesthetic feeling for and I must get on to Salman Rushdie. extolled, ... mighty, upraised, and lauded Catholic Christianity, or for Christian I have to admit to him that he makes be the Name of the Holy One, ... Blessed faith more generally, needs no defense, some very good points in his conversa- is He.”35 in my opinion. Even that anonymous tion with Irshad Manji, maintaining that For Bucky Cantor, listening to the narrator in a recent short story who says all too many Muslims in modern times recitation of the Kaddish at a child’s that he did “not believe in God” and did have fallen under the rigoristic sway of burial, it would be better to worship the “not care much about the mysteries of Wahhabi-Deobandi-Salafi madrasas in sun as a god: “Better to sanctify and pla- the universe, unless they come to me in south Asia, the Middle East and parts cate the unrefracted rays of Great Father words, or in music maybe, or in a set of of Africa. Even in the state-supported

24 origins 18 Muslim schools of England, accord- societies characterized by matrilineal Ibid., p. 137. 19 Colm Tóibín, A Guest at the Feast: A Memoir (Penguin 45 ing to Rushdie, an atmosphere prevails descent and affinity groups, patrilin- Press audiobook, 2011). which “in a way denies the reality of the eal social patterns prevailed, especially 20 Colm Tóibín, “One Minus One,” in The Empty Family (London and New York: Viking, 2010), p. 1. world outside the school.”43 after the rise of Islam. To connect the 21 Ibid., 4. What I have characterized as the mercy of God with feminine character- 22 Francis Phillips in www.CatholicHerald.co.uk (Sept. Wahhabi-Deobandi-Salafi version of istics is to understand God’s perfection 9, 2010). 23 Islam originated in the 18th-century as including all that is most tender in The Sign of the Cross, p. 250. 24 Ibid. Arabian Peninsula and south Asia as a created reality, including the generative 25 Laura M. Holson, “From Exile to Everywhere,” The reaction, at least in part, to Ottoman and and loving characteristics of mothers. New York Times (March 23, 2012). 26 Mughal decline and European colonial A famous hadith or quotation attrib- This explains why Gibreel (“Giboo”) so often refers to Saladin (“Salad”) as “Spoon-O.” invasion. The rigoristic vision of Islam uted to Muhammad narrates that he 27 Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses: A Novel (New as purely a religion of law with no room restrained a companion from engaging York: Viking, 1977; repr. New York: Random House, 2008), p. 16. All further references to the text of this in it for elements of the Sufi or mystical in battle precisely because his mother novel will be given in parentheses in the text. tradition has done much to obscure the was still alive. That companion would 28 The incident referred to, but with changed details, was an Air India Flight taking the Montreal-London- truth of God’s mercy and love so central not attain heaven by a martyr’s death New Delhi route on June 23, 1985; the plane was to that religious tradition. but by filial devotion to his mother: blown up in Irish airspace and resulted in the death of all 329 people on board. The hijackers were Sikh “Then stay with her and look after militants based in Canada. her needs. Your heaven lies under her 29 G.K. Chesterton uses this name for Muhammad in “To connect the mercy of God feet.”46 My great shaykhah in the ways of his decidedly Eurocentric poem, “Lepanto” (1915): “Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star.” Islamic mysticism, the late Annemarie 30 with feminine characteristics The abrogation (naskh) of these verses in the Quran Schimmel, used that very quotation and the substitution of other verses I have described in an earlier McGinley lecture as an example of is to understand God’s perfec- from Muhammad on the memorial card divine critique and revision, and therefore pro- for her mother when that good Lutheran phetic critique and revision “The Prophetic Faith tion as including all that is and the Critique of Tradition: Jewish, Christian and woman went to her eternal reward. Muslim Perspectives,” Annual Fall McGinley Lecture, most tender in created real- The orchestra is playing “Nearer My (Fall 2010; published in booklet form by Fordham University), pp. 13-14. God to Thee,” the violin players’ feet are 31 ity, including the generative “Ignorance” in Arabic, particularly applicable to pre- getting wet and it is time to dive into the Islamic ignorance or paganism. 32 and loving characteristics of waves. There is much more that I would Salman Rushdie, “Imagine No Heaven” (Oct. 15, 1999), available online at www.guardian.co.uk. like to say on this topic, but I will leave 33 mothers.” “Interview conducted by Irshad: Salman Rushdie” the rest to my respondents. (Sept. 20, 2002) available at www.irshadmanji.com. 34 See, for this clip, among other places, www.atheist- media.com (Oct. 26, 2002). Before the Islamic tradition ever Notes 35 Nemesis, 76. 1 evolved legal traditions, the Quran “To a Louse” (1785) in The Poetical Works of Robert 36 Ibid., 75. Burns, ed. J. Logie Robertson (London: Oxford 37 See Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets (New York/ proclaimed the absolute mercy of God University Press, 1904, 1936), p.139. 2 Evanston: Harper & Row, 1962), especially Chapt. 12: at the center of its message. The bas- Critics have not been kind. For example, Kathryn “The Pathos of God.” Harrison writes in The New York Times Sunday Book 38 See Tractate Sanhedrin 39B and also Tractate mala, the invocation “In the name of Review: “A lazy work, The Humbling lacks its author’s Megillah 10B. genius — all that would help us, as it has so many God, the Compassionate and Merciful 39 times before, to forgive him his prejudices and blind See Note 19 above. 40 One,” begins every sura of the Quran spots.” (New York ed.: Nov. 15, 2009, BR11.) Hans Urs von Balthasar, “A Résumé of My Thought,” but one and precedes many activities in 3 Winesburg College is a fictitious institution. But there tr. Kelly Hamilton, available at www.ignatiusinsight. is a real Winesburg, Ohio, which gives its name to com. 41 the Muslim world. That invocation gives Sherwood Anderson’s lection of short stories with Pope Benedict XVI, “On Beauty as a Way to God,” us a key to what Islam can really say to this title. (Aug. 31, 2011) available at www.zenit.org. 4 42 people on a sinking ship. Philip Roth, Indignation (Boston/New York: Blaise Pascal, Pensees 4.277 (1669). Houghton Mifflin, 2008), p. 54. All further references 43 See interview with Irshad Manji cited above in Note Both of the words pointing to God in to the text of this novel will be given in parentheses 32. in the text. 44 See B. Carra de Vaux and Louis Gardet, “Basmala,” the basmala, al-Rahman and al-Rahim, 5 Philip Roth, Nemesis (Boston/New York: Houghton The Encyclopedia of Islam: New Edition [EI 2] which I have translated as “compas- Mifflin Harcourt, 2010), p. 74. All further references to (London: Brill, 1960): I: 1084b-1085a. sionate” and “merciful,” derive from the text of this novel will be given in parentheses in 45 See W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina the text. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956), pp. 378-388. See also the same triconsonantal root in Arabic, 6 See Job, Chapts. 38 and 39. W. Montgomery Watt, “Women in the Earliest Islam,” R-H-M. The former, al-Rahman, seems 7 Ovid, Metamorphoses IX. Studia Missionalia 40 (1991), pp. 162-173. 46 to have been a name for the supreme 8 Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk. 1, l. 76. This hadith of the Prophet can be found in Ahmad 9 al-Nas’i (d. 303 A.H./916 C.E.), Sunan al-Sughra. ■ God presiding over a hierarchy of lesser Colm Tóibín, Walking Along the Border (London: Queen Anne Press, 1987), p. 43. gods in pre-Islamic south and central 10 Ibid., 44. Arabia.44 Consequently, al-Rahman 11 Ibid., 43. 12 (“compassionate”) as a term can only be Ibid., 48. It was eventually amended with a very slight majority of votes in a 1995 referendum and went into used for God, but al-Rahim (“merciful”) effect in 1996. can also be used to describe human 13 Ibid. 14 beings. Ibid. 15 Michael Böss, “’Belonging Without Belonging’: Colm The root of both words connotes ten- Tóibín’s Dialogue With the Past,” Estudios Irlandeses, derness and points imagistically to the No. 0 (2005), p. 23. 16 Tóibín as quoted, ibid. womb (rahim or rihm). Although some 17 Colm Tóibín, The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Arabs of the pre-Islamic period lived in Europe (New York: Pantheon Books, 1994), p. 74.

origins 25 both human and devine.” He said culti- essential resource for the new evangeli- Ad Limina Address vating a genuinely Catholic intellectual zation, and the significant contribution culture involves a renewal of apologetics that they make to American society as to U.S. Bishops on and an emphasis on Catholic distinc- a whole ought to be better appreciated tiveness but must be ultimately aimed and more generously supported. Catholic Education at “proclaiming the truth of Christ and On the level of higher education, stimulating greater dialogue and cooper- many of you have pointed to a grow- Benedict XVI ation in building a society ever more sol- ing recognition on the part of Catholic idly grounded in an authentic human- colleges and universities of the need ism inspired by the Gospel and faithful to reaffirm their distinctive identity in Providing young people with a sound to the highest values of America’s civic fidelity to their founding ideals and education in the faith constitutes the and cultural heritage.” The pope spoke the church’s mission in service of the “most urgent internal challenge” facing in English. His speech follows, copyright Gospel. Yet much remains to be done, the Catholic community in the United ©2012 by Libreria Editrice Vaticana. especially in such basic areas as com- States, Pope Benedict XVI told a group pliance with the mandate laid down in of U.S. bishops at the Vatican May 5. I greet all of you with affection in the Canon 812 for those who teach theo- The pope acknowledged efforts being Lord and I offer you my prayerful good logical disciplines. made to preserve “the great patrimony” wishes for a grace-filled pilgrimage ad The importance of this canoni- of America’s Catholic elementary and limina apostolorum. In the course of cal norm as a tangible expression of high schools, which he said remain “an our meetings I have been reflecting with ecclesial communion and solidar- essential resource for the new evange- you and your brother bishops on the ity in the church’s educational apos- lization” and ought be better appreci- intellectual and cultural challenges of tolate becomes all the more evident ated and more generously supported, the new evangelization in the context of when we consider the confusion cre- before turning his attention to Catholic contemporary American society. ated by instances of apparent dissi- colleges and universities. Speaking to dence between some representatives of bishops from Colorado, New Mexico, Catholic institutions and the church’s Arizona and Wyoming making their “All too often, it seems, pastoral leadership: Such discord harms periodic “ad limina” visits to the Vatican the church’s witness and, as experience Catholic schools and colleges to report on the state of their dioceses, has shown, can easily be exploited to he noted a growing recognition among have failed to challenge stu- compromise her authority and her free- Catholic colleges and universities of dom. dents to reappropriate their the need to reaffirm their distinctive It is no exaggeration to say that Catholic identity but added that much faith as part of the exciting providing young people with a sound remains to be done, particularly in com- education in the faith represents the intellectual discoveries which plying with the canonical requirement most urgent internal challenge facing that teachers of theological disciplines mark the experience of higher the Catholic community in your coun- hold a “mandatum.” The importance of try. The deposit of faith is a priceless education.” this requirement “becomes all the more treasure which each generation must evident when we consider the confusion pass on to the next by winning hearts to created by instances of apparent dissi- In the present talk, I wish to address Jesus Christ and shaping minds in the dence between some representatives of the question of religious education and knowledge, understanding and love of Catholic institutions and the church’s the faith formation of the next genera- his church. pastoral leadership: Such discord harms tion of Catholics in your country. It is gratifying to realize that in our the church’s witness and, as experience Before all else, I would acknowledge day too the Christian vision, present- has shown, can easily be exploited to the great progress that has been made ed in its breadth and integrity, proves compromise her authority and her free- in recent years in improving cateche- immensely appealing to the imagina- dom,” the pope continued. The ques- sis, reviewing texts and bringing them tion, idealism and aspirations of the tion of Catholic identity means more into conformity with the Catechism of young, who have a right to encounter than merely teaching about religion or the Catholic Church. Important efforts the faith in all its beauty, its intellectual providing chaplains, he said. Students are also being made to preserve the richness and its radical demands. newly away from the family, school and great patrimony of America’s Catholic Here I would simply propose several community support systems that previ- elementary and high schools, which points which I trust will prove helpful ously sustained their faith need new and have been deeply affected by chang- for your discernment in meeting this effective networks of support as well as ing demographics and increased costs, challenge. teachers who inspire them with their while at the same time ensuring that the First, as we know, the essential task “evident love of Christ, their witness of education they provide remains within of authentic education at every level is sound devotion and their commitment the reach of all families, whatever their not simply that of passing on knowl- to that ‘sapientia Christiana’ which inte- financial status. edge, essential as this is, but also of grates faith and life, intellectual passion As has often been mentioned in shaping hearts. There is a constant need and reverence for the splendor of truth our meetings, these schools remain an to balance intellectual rigor in com-

26 origins municating effectively, attractively and demands a constant and all-embrac- truth of Christ and stimulating greater integrally the richness of the church’s ing conversion to the fullness of truth dialogue and cooperation in building a faith with forming the young in the love revealed in Christ. He is the creative society ever more solidly grounded in of God, the praxis of the Christian moral Logos, in whom all things were made an authentic humanism inspired by the and sacramental life, and, not least, the and in whom all reality “holds togeth- Gospel and faithful to the highest values cultivation of personal and liturgical er” (Col 1:17); he is the new Adam who of America’s civic and cultural heritage. prayer. reveals the ultimate truth about man At the present moment of your nation’s and the world in which we live. history, this is the challenge and oppor- In a period of great cultural change tunity awaiting the entire Catholic com- “Faith’s recognition of the and societal displacement not unlike munity, and it is one which the church’s our own, Augustine pointed to this educational institutions should be the essential unity of all knowl- intrinsic connection between faith and first to acknowledge and embrace. edge provides a bulwark the human intellectual enterprise by In concluding these brief reflec- appealing to Plato, who held, he says, tions, I wish to express once more my against the alienation and that “to love wisdom is to love God” (cf. gratitude and that of the whole church fragmentation which occur De Civitate Dei, VIII, 8). The Christian for the generous commitment, often commitment to learning, which gave accompanied by personal sacrifice, when the use of reason is birth to the medieval universities, was shown by so many teachers and admin- detached from the pursuit based upon this conviction that the one istrators who work in the vast network God, as the source of all truth and good- of Catholic schools in your country. To of truth and virtue; in this ness, is likewise the source of the intel- you, dear brothers, and to all the faithful sense, Catholic institutions lect’s passionate desire to know and the entrusted to your pastoral care, I cor- will’s yearning for fulfilment in love. dially impart my apostolic blessing as a have a specific role to play in Only in this light can we appreciate pledge of wisdom, joy and peace in the helping to overcome the crisis the distinctive contribution of Catholic risen Lord. ■ education, which engages in a “diako- of universities today.” nia of truth” inspired by an intellec- tual charity which knows that leading It follows that the question of others to the truth is ultimately an act The Catholic Catholic identity, not least at the uni- of love (cf. address to Catholic educa- versity level, entails much more than tors, Washington, April 17, 2008). Faith’s Understanding of the teaching of religion or the mere recognition of the essential unity of all presence of a chaplaincy on campus. knowledge provides a bulwark against Ecumenism All too often, it seems, Catholic schools the alienation and fragmentation which and colleges have failed to challenge occur when the use of reason is detached Father Ronald G. students to reappropriate their faith from the pursuit of truth and virtue; in as part of the exciting intellectual dis- this sense, Catholic institutions have a Roberson, CSP coveries which mark the experience of specific role to play in helping to over- higher education. The fact that so many come the crisis of universities today. What is the Catholic vision of ecumen- new students find themselves dissoci- Firmly grounded in this vision of ism? It’s all about mission, said Paulist ated from the family, school and com- the intrinsic interplay of faith, reason Father Ronald G. Roberson, associate munity support systems that previously and the pursuit of human excellence, director of the U.S. bishops’ ecumeni- facilitated the transmission of the faith every Christian intellectual and all the cal secretariat. “It’s not about unifor- should continually spur Catholic insti- church’s educational institutions must mity. It’s not about unquestioning sub- tutions of learning to create new and be convinced, and desirous of con- mission to authority for its own sake. effective networks of support. vincing others, that no aspect of reality … The more divided Christians are, the In every aspect of their education, remains alien to, or untouched by, the weaker our witness. The more united students need to be encouraged to artic- mystery of the redemption and the risen we are, the stronger our witness. It is ulate a vision of the harmony of faith Lord’s dominion over all creation. these things that really lie at the heart and reason capable of guiding a lifelong During my pastoral visit to the of the Catholic understanding of ecu- pursuit of knowledge and virtue. As ever, United States, I spoke of the need for menism today,” he said. In early May an essential role in this process is played the church in America to cultivate “a Father Roberson presented a brief over- by teachers who inspire others by their mind-set, an intellectual culture which view of the Catholic understanding of evident love of Christ, their witness of is genuinely Catholic” (cf. homily at ecumenism to a meeting in Chicago of sound devotion and their commitment Nationals Stadium, Washington, April members of the Bishops’ Committee on to that sapientia Christiana which inte- 17, 2008). Taking up this task certainly Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, grates faith and life, intellectual passion involves a renewal of apologetics and tracing its development from Pope Pius and reverence for the splendor of truth an emphasis on Catholic distinctive- XI’s 1928 warning about the dangers of both human and divine. ness; ultimately, however, it must be associating with other Christians to the In effect, faith by its very nature aimed at proclaiming the liberating Second Vatican Council’s historic decree

origins 27 on ecumenism and the many interna- with a vote of 2,137 to 11. This decree series of international dialogues with tional and national dialogues that have represented an extraordinary about-face various churches, including Anglicans, resulted from it. “These conversations in Catholic attitudes toward ecumenism. Lutherans, Reformed churches, have made enormous headway in clear- The Decree on Ecumenism begins Methodists, Disciples of Christ, Eastern ing away the debris of misunderstanding with praise for the modern ecumenical and Oriental Orthodox, the World and caricatures of one another that grew movement and notes approvingly that Baptist Alliance, and certain groups of up between us over the centuries, and in these days all Christians, “though in Pentecostals and evangelicals. some extremely important theological different ways, long for the one visible These conversations have made agreements have been reached,” he said. church of God, a church truly univer- enormous headway in clearing away He noted the strong support recent popes sal and set forth into the world that the the debris of misunderstanding and have given this ecumenical engagement, world may be converted to the Gospel.” caricatures of one another that grew up including Pope Benedict XVI, who in his The decree also laments the fact that between us over the centuries, and some first papal speech said that rebuilding many divisions among Christians have extremely important theological agree- the full and visible unity of all Christ’s taken place over the centuries. Often ments have been reached. followers was “his primary task.” It is enough, the document says, “both sides This whole process of ecumenical clear, he said, that “for Catholics, ecu- were to blame.” It goes on to say that engagement has been strongly support- menism … is absolutely central to the in spite of our divisions, Christians are ed by recent popes, including John Paul II Christian life, both in terms of the church still united by virtue of our baptism and during his 26-year pontificate. In his 1995 becoming who she is and terms of the that therefore we are in a real if imperfect encyclical Ut Unum Sint, he examined church’s mission.” Father Roberson’s text communion with one another. the progress of the dialogues, gave thanks follows. to God for their many steps forward and listed the many fruits of these dialogues, It is well known that the Catholic “Ecumenism demands the which he describes as a mutual exchange Church was a little slow getting involved of gifts. Among these fruits he mentioned ‘continual reformation’ of the in the ecumenical movement. Pope Pius a renewed sense of brotherhood among XI even issued an encyclical in 1928 pilgrim church as it moves Christians, a greater sense of solidarity in called Mortalium Animos in which he the service of humanity, convergence in through history and the con- criticized the movement and warned liturgical matters and the increased pos- Catholics about the dangers of associ- tinual personal conversion of sibility for sacramental sharing, which he ating with other Christians. In fact, he described as “a source of joy.” every Catholic.” wrote: “It is clear that the Apostolic See But perhaps most important, Pope cannot on any terms take part in their John Paul reaffirmed the contents of the assemblies nor is it in any way lawful It also says that the one church Decree on Ecumenism and even said that for Catholics either to support or to of Christ extends beyond the visible the promotion of unity is “the way of the work for such enterprises; for if they do Catholic Church because outside of it church.” He wrote that “this unity, which so they will be giving countenance to a there exist “elements and endowments the Lord has bestowed on his church and false Christianity, quite alien to the one which together build up and give life to in which he wishes to embrace all people, church of Christ.” the church itself.” It uses strong words to is not something added on but stands at But alongside this official position, describe our state of division, saying that the very heart of Christ’s mission. Nor is a number of Catholic theologians were this “openly contradicts the will of Christ, it some secondary attribute of the com- working quietly in the background to scandalizes the world and damages ... the munity of his disciples. Rather, it belongs change attitudes toward ecumenism. proclamation of the Gospel.” to the very essence of this community.” To this was added the personal experi- Unitatis Redintegratio also deals Pope Benedict XVI has committed ence of Archbishop Angelo Roncalli who, with the practice of ecumenism. It says himself to following this same ecumeni- before he was elected Pope John XXIII in clearly that everybody in the church cal path. On the day after his election, 1958, had positive experiences with other must be involved, clergy and laity alike. on April 20, 2005, when the new pope Christians when he served as Vatican Ecumenism demands the “continual addressed the cardinals in the Sistine representative to Turkey, Bulgaria and reformation” of the pilgrim church as it Chapel, he said that rebuilding the full Greece. As a result, he became a pas- moves through history and the continual and visible unity of all Christ’s followers sionate advocate of Christian unity. And personal conversion of every Catholic. was “his primary task.” In fact, he said when he decided to convoke the Second Indeed, the document says, the “very that in the end, each and every Christian Vatican Council, he insisted that it focus soul of the ecumenical movement is the must come before Christ, “the supreme on Christian divisions and try to find change of heart and holiness of life.” It Judge of every living person, and render ways to overcome them. also talks about the need to understand an account to him of all we have done One of the documents that came each other’s traditions, the importance or have failed to do to further the great out of Vatican II was the Decree on of ecumenical meetings and dialogues, good of the full and visible unity of all his Ecumenism, known by its Latin title and the value of giving common witness, disciples.” Unitatis Redintegratio. It was finalized on especially with regard to social issues. So, from all of this it is clear that for Nov. 21, 1964, with the firm support of the In the years that followed the coun- Catholics, ecumenism — the building whole body of bishops, who approved it cil, the Vatican became engaged in a up of the visible unity of Christians — is

28 origins absolutely central to the Christian life, It issued a report in December 1971 Principles and Norms on Ecumenism.” both in terms of the church becoming that recommended membership. In the It says that this kind of ecumenical who she is and in terms of the church’s end, however, this proposal was never cooperation among the various church- mission. acted upon. (It should be noted that the es and ecclesial communities “can help Back in 2007, the Congregation Catholic bishops never voted against the them to overcome the barriers to full for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a proposal nor was it ever discussed at any communion and at the same time to document titled “Responses to Some of their plenary meetings.) put together their resources for building Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of There were two main reasons for this Christian life and service and the com- the Doctrine of the Church.” It posed five lack of action: 1) both organizations were mon witness that it gives, in view of the questions on the nature of the church focused on other priorities during the mission they share.” and responded to each of them. And it’s tumultuous 1970s, and 2) issues around In his address at the plenary meet- quite interesting that in their response the relative size of the Catholic Church in ing of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council to the fourth question, after saying that relation to other NCC members. for Promoting Christian Unity in 2001, there is something lacking in churches Cardinal Walter Kasper addressed the or ecclesial communities that are not in usefulness of such structures and called full communion with Rome, it goes on “The Catholic Church as it for new institutional forms and struc- to say that “on the other hand, because tures appropriate to the contemporary exists in the world today is of the division between Christians, the situation: fullness of universality, which is proper incomplete; the church cannot “This can be undertaken in partic- to the church governed by the successor ular through councils of churches on be fully itself as long as these of Peter and the bishops in communion the regional and national level. They with him, is not fully realized in history.” divisions remain. So, as far as do not constitute a superchurch, and In other words, the Catholic Church they require none of the churches to the Catholic Church is con- as it exists in the world today is incom- abandon their own self-understand- plete; the church cannot be fully itself cerned, other Christians are ing. Responsibility for the ecumenical as long as these divisions remain. So, as journey ultimately remains with the family; we feel their absence far as the Catholic Church is concerned, churches themselves. But they are an other Christians are family; we feel their and the pain of not being able important instrument and a forum for absence and the pain of not being able to cooperation between the churches and to share with them fully in the share with them fully in the Christian life. instrument for the promotion of unity.” This is the background to the devel- Christian life.” In view of the fact that by 2000 the opment of ecumenical relations in the NCC represented only about one-third United States in recent decades. Since of the Christians in the U.S. and was the Vatican Council, the Holy See has As Father John Hotchkin (execu- facing organizational and financial encouraged the establishment of nation- tive director of the Secretariat for challenges, there was an increasing al dialogues to parallel the international Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at awareness of the need for something ones. And I think it’s fair to say that these the USCCB from 1971 until his death new, a new ecumenical structure that national dialogues have been the most in 2001) wrote in a 1994 report about would include a much broader range of productive here in the United States, the 1971 proposal, “The Roman Catholic Christian churches. In September 2001 in part because of the substantial pres- Church membership in the U.S. is about Cardinal William Keeler hosted a meet- ence of so many qualified representa- equivalent to the combined member- ing of church leaders in Baltimore that tives of all the major Christian traditions ship of the present NCC members. When called for the formation of a new ecu- on our soil. There have been a number one is as large as 32 together, there is an menical forum that would eventually of instances where ecumenical work inescapable artificiality about speaking become known as Christian Churches done in the United States has been taken of that one becoming simply the 33rd Together in the USA. To a large extent up later by the international dialogues member. Getting the elephant to step this grew out of a felt need to find new and contributed in a significant way to into the boat without capsizing it is a ways for Christians to speak with a sin- progress at that level. Another aspect of major organizational challenge as well gle voice on some of the major issues this overall ecumenical engagement has as a challenge to our ecumenical imagi- facing our society today. been the possibility of participating in nations.” In a June 2004 letter to the BCEIA national ecumenical structures. Nevertheless, the U.S. Catholic bish- chairman, Cardinal Kasper commented Indeed, in the years immediately ops have had a generally cooperative on the value of Catholic participation in after Vatican II, there was a high level relationship with the NCC over the CCT: He said one advantage would be to of cooperation between the National years, most notably in Faith and Order. provide a forum for greater contact with Conference of Catholic Bishops (now In principle, the Vatican encour- evangelical and Pentecostal Christians. the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) ages Catholic participation in ecu- He added: and the National Council of Churches. menical structures of this type. This “The purpose of CCTUSA, ‘To enable In fact, in 1969 a joint study commit- was laid out clearly in the Pontifical churches and national Christian organi- tee was set up to examine the possibil- Council for Promoting Christian Unity’s zations to grow closer together in Christ ity of Catholic membership in the NCC. 1993 “Directory for the Application of in order to strengthen our Christian wit-

origins 29 ness in the world,’ is good, especially group hopes to issue a formal “response” in light of the broad range of Christian to Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Protect the Poor, families and organizations which, it is Birmingham Jail on its 50th anniversary hoped, will be involved in it. But as we on April 16, 2013. Promote the know, even if not mentioned in the draft When CCT came into existence, it text, this purpose cannot replace the became the fourth ecumenical struc- Common Good deeper goal of full communion in the ture in our country, the others being the one apostolic faith, sacramental life and National Council of Churches, Churches Bishop Stephen E. Blaire common ministry (hierarchical com- Uniting in Christ (made up of mainline munion) as the primary goal intended Protestant churches) and the National by the Catholic Church in its ecumeni- Association of Evangelicals. In view of As the House of Representatives prepared cal work. In this sense, the CCTUSA is the substantial overlapping of member- to vote on a reconciliation package for an interim process, even though it is a ship in these groups, especially the first the 2013 federal budget, Bishop Stephen fresh and creative initiative to broaden three, a Christian unity summit took E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., asked mem- the ecumenical table.” place at the invitation of Cardinal Keeler bers to “do no harm” by ensuring that at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore last all policies meet the moral criteria January. It brought together 27 heads established by the U.S. Catholic bishops “These national dialogues of communion and ecumenical officers to create “a circle of protection around from a wide range of Christian tradi- programs that serve poor and vulner- have been the most produc- tions from around the country to dis- able people and communities.” Members tive here in the United States, cuss the present state of ecumenism should evaluate every budget deci- in the United States and the extent to sion “by whether it protects or threat- in part because of the sub- which these four ecumenical structures ens human life and dignity”; by how it stantial presence of so many best serve our current needs. affects those who are hungry and home- There was no consensus about alter- less, without work or in poverty; and qualified representatives of ing these structures at present, but there whether it promotes the common good all the major Christian tradi- was also a commitment to meet again in of all, including workers and families a year’s time to continue to re-evaluate struggling in difficult economic times, he tions on our soil.” those structures as we move into the wrote in a May 8 letter sent on behalf of future. One can see in these discussions the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops In November 2004, the Catholic a desire to look at new possibilities to Committee on Domestic Justice and bishops of the United States voted with further the visible unity of Christians in Human Development. Blaire heads the an overwhelming majority — about the United States. committee. His letter voiced strong oppo- two-thirds — to participate in CCT. So Catholics should welcome these sition to proposals to exclude children of when CCT officially came into exis- developments because we have always immigrant families from the child tax tence in 2006, one of the five “fami- insisted on the importance of the vis- credit; eliminate an estimated 2 million lies” of churches that had been set up ible unity of Christians. For us, it isn’t families from a federal food assistance to guarantee diversified representation enough simply to get along, to cooper- program while cutting the benefits of all on the steering committee was reserved ate when we can and otherwise go hap- others; and eliminate a social services to the USCCB. The other families are pily in different directions. Above all, for block grant program. Legislators must Orthodox, historical Protestant, African Catholics unity is crucially important for make difficult decisions in difficult eco- American and evangelical/Pentecostal. the sake of evangelization, for the sake nomic times, but “deficit-reduction and CCT has been meeting annually in of fulfilling Christ’s command to go out fiscal responsibility efforts must protect plenary session, and the steering com- and baptize all nations. and not undermine the needs of poor mittee meets twice a year apart from the On the night before he died, Jesus and vulnerable people. The proposed plenary. The BCEIA chairman has been prayed his followers might be one, cuts to programs in the budget reconcili- serving as the Catholic president of CCT. with one shepherd and one sheep- ation fail this basic moral test,” the letter So far CCT, which is still a very young fold, “so that the world may believe.” concluded. The text of the letter follows. organization with minimal staff, has In the Catholic vision, visible unity of been focusing on issues where there is a Christians with one vigilant shepherd As you vote on a reconciliation pack- good possibility of reaching consensus at the center is not about power. It’s not age for the fiscal year 2013 budget, I among the participants. Its first major about uniformity. It’s not about unques- would like to affirm the principle con- focus was on poverty in our country, and tioning submission to authority for its tained in the committee report that the it issued a common statement on this own sake. For Catholics, visible unity “budget starts with the proposition that topic at the plenary in Pasadena, Calif., is all about mission. The more divided first Congress must do no harm.” In in February 2007. Christians are, the weaker our witness. this light, I urge you to ensure all poli- It has also looked closely at evange- The more united we are, the stronger cies meet the moral criteria established lization, and at the continuing reality of our witness. It is these things that really by the Catholic bishops of the United racism in our churches, especially at the lie at the heart of the Catholic under- States to create a circle of protection two most recent plenary meetings. The standing of ecumenism today. ■ around programs that serve poor and

30 origins vulnerable people and communities: Assistance Program (formerly known as people with disabilities, children living 1. Every budget decision should be food stamps), provides vital food secu- in poverty and abuse victims. We should assessed by whether it protects or threat- rity to families during tough economic prioritize programs that serve “the least ens human life and dignity. times. It is estimated that cuts proposed of these,” not eliminate them. 2. A central moral measure of any in this bill would deny assistance to The Catholic bishops of the United budget proposal is how it affects the 2 million families and cut the benefit States recognize the serious deficits our lives and dignity of “the least of these” for everyone else. No poor family that country faces, and we acknowledge that (Mt 25). The needs of those who are receives food assistance would be unaf- Congress must make difficult decisions hungry and homeless, without work or fected, constituting a direct threat to about how to allocate burdens and sac- in poverty, should come first. their human dignity. If savings in agri- rifices and balance resources and needs. 3. Government and other institutions cultural programs need to be achieved, However, deficit-reduction and fiscal have a shared responsibility to promote subsidies and direct payments can be responsibility efforts must protect and the common good of all, especially ordi- reduced and targeted to small and mod- not undermine the needs of poor and nary workers and families who struggle erate-sized farms. vulnerable people. The proposed cuts to live in dignity in difficult economic to programs in the budget reconciliation times. fail this basic moral test. A just framework for future budgets “A just framework for future The Catechism of the Catholic cannot rely on disproportionate cuts Church states it is the proper role of budgets cannot rely on dis- in essential services to poor persons; it government to “make accessible to each requires shared sacrifice by all, includ- proportionate cuts in essen- what is needed to lead a truly human ing raising adequate revenues, elimi- life: food, clothing, health, work, educa- tial services to poor persons; nating unnecessary military and other tion and culture, suitable information, spending, and addressing the long-term it requires shared sacrifice the right to establish a family and so on” costs of health insurance and retirement (No. 1908). Poor and vulnerable people by all, including raising ade- programs fairly. do not have powerful lobbyists to advo- I reiterate our strong opposition to quate revenues, eliminating cate their interests, but they have the an unfair proposal that would alter the most compelling needs. unnecessary military and child tax credit to exclude children of As you pursue responsible deficit hardworking immigrant families. The other spending, and address- reduction, the Catholic bishops join other bishops’ conference has long supported faith leaders and people of good will urg- ing the long-term costs of the child tax credit because it is pro- ing you to protect the lives and dignity of work, pro-family and one of the most health insurance and retire- poor and vulnerable families by putting a effective anti-poverty programs in our circle of protection around these essen- ment programs fairly.” nation. Denying the credit to children of tial programs and to refrain from cutting working-poor immigrant families — the programs that serve them. ■ large majority of whom are American The social services block grant is an citizens — would hurt vulnerable kids, important source of funding for pro- increase poverty and would not advance grams throughout the country that the common good. serve vulnerable members of our com- The Supplemental Nutrition munities — the homeless, the elderly,

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documentary that pre-empts all claims of faith.” “A Catholic university rejects a faith that trumps all claims of CNS reason and rejects a rationalism contents describe her mission today”: fi rst, the

documentary that pre-empts all claims of faith.” principle that “knowledge is good in 277 The Role of a Catholic etc. This online archive — some 7,700 texts itself and should be pursued for its own University by Father John Jenkins, CNS sake”; second, that “there is a deep har- CSC contents mony between faith and reason”; third, describe her mission today”: fi rst, the 281 Statement on the Love principle that “knowledge is good in 277 The Role of a Catholic that “the role of community and the call University Holy Trinity Blessed itself and should be pursued for its own by Father John Jenkins, to service are central to Christian life.” sake”; second, that “there is a deep har- Mission CSC The university “must send forth gradu- by Archbishop Jerome mony between faith and reason”; third, that “the role of community and the call 281 Statement on the Love ates who will be intellectual and moral Hanus Holy Trinity Blessed to service are central to Christian life.” leaders for our time,” said Jenkins, and Mission 282 Statement on the Love now — expands with each week’s Origins The university “must send forth gradu- by Archbishop Jerome it “must continue to advance in research Holy Trinity Blessed ates who will be intellectual and moral Hanus and become a more signifi cant leader Mission leaders for our time,” said Jenkins, and 282 Statement on the Love by Cardinal Francis it “must continue to advance in research Holy Trinity Blessed in expanding knowledge and under- Mission George and become a more signifi cant leader standing.” Jenkins said that “every in expanding knowledge and under- by Cardinal Francis George department, college and institute must, 283 Theology of the Body standing.” Jenkins said that “every The Role of a by Bishop Robert Baker department, college and institute must, 283 Theology of the Body The Role of a by Bishop Robert Baker wherever possible, fi nd dimensions of wherever possible, fi nd dimensions of Catholic University their research agenda that refl ect our 292 Datebook Catholic University their research agenda that refl ect our 292 Datebook Catholic character and values.” And, he 292 On File Catholic character and values.” And, he 292 On File issue. Father Jenkins, CSC said, “as we affi rm the Catholic identity said, “as we affi rm the Catholic identity Father Jenkins, CSC of Notre Dame, we acknowledge and of Notre Dame, we acknowledge and “My presidency will be driven by a embrace the many non-Catholics who “My presidency will be driven by a embrace the many non-Catholics who wholehearted commitment to uniting are deeply committed to this university and integrating these two indispensable wholehearted commitment to uniting are deeply committed to this university and its principles.” Jenkins’ text follows. and wholly compatible strands of high- and integrating these two indispensable and its principles.” Jenkins’ text follows. er learning: academic excellence and his college will be one of the most and wholly compatible strands of high- religious faith,” Holy Cross Father John powerful means for doing good in Jenkins said in his inaugural address this country. er learning: academic excellence and his college will be one of the most Sept. 23 as president of the University So wrote Edward Sorin to his religious faith,” Holy Cross Father John powerful means for doing good in of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. “The rteligious superior, Father Basile Moreau in Jenkins said in his inaugural address this country. world needs a great university that can France, just nine days after arriving at the Sept. 23 as president of the University So wrote Edward Sorin to his address issues of faith with reverence snow-covered site that would become Notre and respect while still subjecting reli- Dame. of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. “The treligious superior, Father Basile Moreau in October 6, 2005 gion to intellectually rigorous, critical For 163 years it has fallen to the men and Volume 35 world needs a great university that can France, just nine days after arriving at the discussion,” Jenkins said. He discussed women of Notre Dame to fulfi ll this commit- Number 17 + address issues of faith with reverence snow-covered site that would become Notre three “Catholic principles that inspired ment. Today we renew it, and we expand it. the founding of universities” and that and respect while still subjecting reli- Dame. October 6, 2005 “still defi ne Notre Dame’s character and continued on page 278 gion to intellectually rigorous, critical For 163 years it has fallen to the men and Volume 35 discussion,” Jenkins said. He discussed women of Notre Dame to fulfi ll this commit- Number 17 three “Catholic principles that inspired ment. Today we renew it, and we expand it. the founding of universities” and that “still defi ne Notre Dame’s character and continued on page 278 print online

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origins 31 Periodicals datebook U.S.Postage CNS documentary service PAID Washington DC June 1-3 3211 Fourth Street NE - Washington DC 20017 National Solidarity Conference: “Haiti: One Table, Many Partners.” Sponsors: Catholic Relief Services and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Catholic University of America. Washington, D.C. http://onetable.crs.org

June 3-6 Annual Catholic Health Assembly. Sponsor: Catholic Health Association. On File Theme: “Leadership for Healing: The Business of Health Care, the Faithfulness The Obama administration has bers agree that they disagree about of Ministry.” Philadelphia Downtown issued guidelines for how federally homosexuality. Homosexual church Marriott. Philadelphia, Pa. members pleaded to be recognized for www.chausa.org funded faith-based programs should be administered, ranging from expla- their “sacred worth” while those who June 7-10 nations of what is considered “explic- disagreed said changing the church’s Catholic Theological Society of itly religious” activity to how organi- stance would cause confusion and a America Annual Convention. Theme: zations can preserve their religious departure from traditional doctrine. “Sacrament/s and the Global Church.” Hyatt Regency St. Louis. St. Louis, Mo. identities while using federal funds. The United Methodist Church has www.ctsa-online.org The guidelines say that faith organi- about 12 million members worldwide zations are not required to remove and 8 million members in the United *June 10-13 crucifixes, icons and other religious States. The General Conference is its Joint Conference: “Intercultural Competency: Multicultural Assessment, material from rooms where federal- top policymaking body and meets Treatment and Understanding These ly funded services are provided, and every four years. Dynamics in Formation.” Sponsors: St. when clients request it, they should be Charles Borromeo Seminary and St. John Vianney Center. Marriott West, referred to a nonfaith-based organiza- Vatican Council II’s teaching, partic- Philadelphia, Pa. www.sjvcenter.org tion if one is available. The guidelines ularly on Judaism and other religions, say Alcoholics Anonymous programs is rooted in traditional Christian the- *June 13-15 are considered “explicitly religious” ology and the Bible, and the Catholic Joint Conference: “A Necessary Church should not offer concessions Conversation: A Gathering of Experts; and therefore ineligible to participate. Intercultural Competency.” Sponsors: St. Employees of most federally funded to those who do not accept it, said an Charles Borromeo Seminary and St. John programs must remain neutral regard- Israeli-born Franciscan who serves as Vianney Center. St. Charles Borromeo a judge on a top Vatican court. Msgr. Seminary. Wynnewood, Pa. ing religion but are free to express www.sjvcenter.org their faith, including by prayer, they David Jaeger, a Roman Rota judge, say. Possible exceptions are programs described as worrying “a tendency … *June 11-14 that fund some work of prison chap- to look leniently upon stray groups that Association of U.S. Catholic Priests are marginal but well-publicized who Inaugural Assembly. Theme: “Keeping lains. The guidelines say an organiza- Alive the Vision and Passion of Vatican tion’s religious character may neither denounce the doctrine of the council,” II.” St. Leo University. St. Leo, Fla. favor nor count against its application including the church’s relationship to www.uscatholicpriests.org for funding. non-Christian religions. Msgr. Jaeger, *June 13-15 who grew up in a Jewish family, spoke International Eucharistic Congress. Delegates attending the United during a May 3-5 conference at Rome’s Sponsors: Pontifical Committee for Methodist Church’s General Con- Holy Cross University. “While often International Eucharistic Congresses ference in Tampa voted May 3 against presented as if it were absolutely new,” and Irish Catholic Bishops Conference. Theme: “The Eucharist: Communion changing the wording in the church’s he said, Nostra Aetate “perfectly corre- With Christ and With One Another.” book of laws and doctrines that says sponds to the most ancient intuitions Dublin, Ireland. www.iec2012.ie homosexual acts are “incompat- of Christian theology” when it affirms *signifies new entry ible with Christian teaching.” After “there can be, and in particular cases, much debate, delegates also defeated are elements of truth and holiness” in a proposal stating that church mem- other religions.

32 origins