Living Catholic Faith in a Contentious Age PDF
Preview Living Catholic Faith in a Contentious Age
Living Catholic Faith in a Contentious Age This page intentionally left blank LIVING CATHOLIC FAITH IN A CONTENTIOUS AGE Raymond G. Helmick, S.J. Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London, SE1 7NX 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Copyright © Raymond G. Helmick, S.J., 2010 Raymond G. Helmick, S.J., has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identifi ed as the author of this work. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset by Pindar NZ, Auckland, New Zealand Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group ISBN: 978-1-4411-5219-0 (Paperback) Contents Foreword – James F. Keenan, S.J. vii Preface – Gerard Mannion xv Introduction 1 1 Catholic Faith: How We Relate to God and Church 7 2 The Theologian’s Task: Fides quaerens intellectum 25 3 Orthodoxy: Fidelity to the Spirit’s Leading 45 4 Polarization in the Church: Quest for Power 63 5 Facing the Sex-abuse Crisis: Call for a Council of the Church 85 6 Practice of Faith, Expressed in Word and Sacrament 101 7 Commitment to the Work of Reconciliation and Peace 121 Index 145 This page intentionally left blank Foreword In his wonderful work The Rise of Christianity, Rodney Stark argues that contrary to romanticized notions about the early flourishing of Christianity, the new religion was an urban movement. Christianity rose because urban areas were dreadful. Stark describes their conditions as “social chaos and chronic urban misery.” Sheer population density exacerbated the situ- ation. At the end of the fi rst century, Antioch’s population was 150,000 within the city walls—117 persons per acre. New York City today has a density of 37 persons per acre overall; Manhattan, with its high-rise apartments, registers 100 persons per acre. Contrary to early assumptions, Greco-Roman cities were not settled places, made up of inhabitants descending from previous generations. Given high infant mortality and short life expectancy, these cities required a constant, substantial stream of newcomers simply to maintain population levels. As a result, the cities were comprised of strangers. These strangers were well treated by Christians who, again contrary to assump- tions, were certainly not universally poor. Through a variety of ways, fi nancially secure Christians mercifully welcomed the newly arrived immigrants. Indeed, if mercy is, as I argue, the vii FOREWORD willingness to enter into the chaos of another, the church was merciful from its inception. Moreover, Christianity was new. While ethical demands were imposed by the gods of the pagan religions, these demands were substantively ritualistic, not neighbor directed. And, while pagan Romans knew generosity, it did not stem from any divine command. Thus a nurse who cared for a victim of an epidemic knew that her life might be lost. If she were a pagan, there was no expectation of divine reward for her generosity; if she were a Christian, this life was but a prelude to the next, where the generous were united with God. Although Romans practiced generosity, they did not promote mercy or pity. Since mercy implied “unearned help or relief,” it was considered contradictory to justice. Roman philosophers opposed mercy. Pity was a defect of character, belonging to the uneducated and the naïve. Stark concludes: This was the moral climate in which Christianity taught that mercy is one of the primary virtues—that a merciful God requires humans to be merciful. Moreover, the corollary that because God loves humanity, Christians may not please God unless they love one another was entirely new. Perhaps even more revolutionary was the principle that Christian love and charity must extend beyond the boundaries of family and tribe, that it must extend to “all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1.2). viii FOREWORD This was revolutionary stuff. Indeed, it was the cultural basis for the revitalization of a Roman world groaning under a host of miseries. (212) Christianity has often been known for its merciful generosity. The entire health care system in the west was developed from the hospitable communities of faith. Similarly, education and social services fi nds their roots in early Christian initiatives. The care for the prisoner, the homeless, and the hungry as well as for the widow and the orphan was always a trait of Christianity. Today, Catholic health care, social services, and educational institutions thrive in their service and mission as they have for centuries. As outgoing and caring as Christians are, they can also be contentious. Think for a moment about the early, fi rst century church at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) where the leaders debated the question of circumcision and other Jewish purity rituals. This was not a simple amicable gathering. The debates preceding the council about baptizing Gentiles had to have sown seeds of contention, which inevitably were outsourced by differing forms of authority. Not surprisingly, early com- munities were in themselves contentious; we can think here of Paul addressing the Corinthians about their scandalous fractions that pervaded that local church. Or, think of what early Christian meals must have been like that they required the creation of the offi ce of deacon to serve the neglected widows. The call to be merciful was often well answered by the ix
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