Franciscan at Home

Pope Francis has declared an Extraordinary Jubilee, a Holy Year of Mercy (December 8, 2015–November 20, 2016) that “the Church might make clear its mission of being a witness to mercy” by living the Lord’s words, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”[i] This is no surprise: Francis i

The remarkable number of Baptisms, First Communions, and Confirmations among Hispanics/Latinos in Catholic parishes across the nation is perhaps the most eloquent statement about their emergence as a majority population within the Catholic Church in the United States.

The idea that “cultural capital,” in the sense of cultivated dispositions of mind and body, might play a role in catechesis is often resisted from two extreme positions. First, there are those who argue that faith formation is merely propositional. We simply need to teach people the Catechism. This we might call the opposition from the right. Second, there are those who instinctively tie the concept of “cultural capital” to the class-war and are aggressively hostile to the idea that some cultures and what we call “cultural formation” might be superior to others. This we might call the opposition from the left. It is often found in liberation theology circles where, for example, knowledge of more than one language or an ability to play a musical instrument, is associated with having had a bourgeois education.
In my first book Culture and the Thomist Tradition,[i] I was critical of the opposition from the right and did not really address the opposition from the left because I thought that battle had been won by Josef Ratzinger in the 1980s. The central principle of my book, which might be called a synthesis of the philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre with the theology of Josef Ratzinger, is that if you want to catechize people, you need to give them an experience of a fully functional Catholic culture and not merely present them with doctrinal propositions (though these are important and have their place) and certainly not try to market the Catholic faith to them by transposing it into the idioms and practices of contemporary popular culture. Ratzinger described the latter practice, which was hugely popular in the 1960s and 70s and has been making a come-back among liberation theologians, as treating the Church as if it were a haberdashery shop with its windows needing to be re-dressed and decorated with each passing fashion season. What MacIntyre and Ratzinger have both argued, in different ways, is that the ethos of Christian institutions needs to be governed by practices that embody a Christian logic or meaning. If you feed people doctrine but the whole realm of praxis is running on a different logic (for example, a utilitarian logic or an economic rationalist logic), then the Holy Spirit can’t breathe, grace is suffocated, because there is a logical disjunction between the theory and the practice. God created us in such a way that even a five-year-old can sense that something is not quite adding up, even if the five-year-old is unable to explain the problem in terms of the relationship between logos and ethos. In theological language distinctions are often made between the “logos of love” (which is inherently Christian) and the logos of the machine (which is inherently atheistic). So, a preliminary MacIntyrean point is that if you want to catechize people it helps to expose them to a milieu where the set of social practices are running on the logos of love.

In the previous issue, we explored St. John Paul II’s theology of the body as a theological and doctrinal work rather than a treatise primarily on sexual morality. In fact, these 133 Wednesday catecheses could be summed up in one word: identity. John Paul II explores two of the most fundamental questions of reality: “Who is God?” and “Who is the human person?” For John Paul II, humanity’s dramatic encounter with Jesus Christ, the Word Incarnate, is the medium for answering these two questions. This means that faith has a sacramental flare—it is communicated through the concrete, tangible, and personal. As a result, the new evangelization must awaken in Catholics of the third millennium an encounter with the living Christ, and more! This is where the theology of the body is indispensable, especially as it pertains to four central aspects of the faith: the Trinity, gift, the body, and sacramentality. Building on the image of the traditional skate vs. the in-line skate introduced in Part 1, the Trinity, gift, the body, and sacramentality can be thought of as the four wheels of the traditional skate realigned in a new way for the new evangelization. The first and most visible “wheel” is the Trinity. Jesus’ mission is always to lead us to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. While we are indeed Christians, we must also be good Trinitarians. The Catechism of the Catholic Church declares: “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them.” John Paul II’s goal is to present not just a Christocentric understanding of the human person (anthropology), but a Christocentric-Trinitarian anthropology. If “the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith” and if we are made in God’s image and likeness (cf. Genesis 1:27), then who we understand God to be determines our understanding of the human person. Therefore, one of the most critical tasks of the new evangelization is to help all people have a proper, dynamic, and even intimate image of a Trinitarian God.

On October 11, 1992, Pope St. John Paul II declared the Catechism of the Catholic Church “a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion.”[i] Let us examine the key terms in this statement. They help us to understand the character of the Catechism. In the previous article I wrote of the Catechism as an instrument that would help us to reconnect the fragments of the faith back into a living whole.[ii] In other words, it is an instrument fitted for bringing about ecclesial communion. In the situation of the new evangelization, many whom we catechize live without a strong awareness of the organic wholeness of the Catholic faith, its beauty, symmetry, and coherence. They have even less recognition that this organic wholeness of the faith flows from the living Body of Christ, having God the Son as its Head. Many of the baptized and confirmed members of the Body of Christ, therefore, have only a partial understanding that the life of Christ, as Head of the Body, is available to them—his strengths, his virtues, his faculties. As St. Gregory the Great put it, “Our redeemer has shown himself to be one person with the holy Church whom he has taken to himself.”[iii] We long for the Holy Spirit to lead those whom we catechize into a lively consciousness of this loving union that God has established with them in his Church. This union is the “marvelous exchange” that we celebrate in the Christmas season when the Creator of all became man, born of the Ever-Virgin, making us “sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share our humanity.”[iv] Only in this way, we know, through living in the light of these truths, can the lives of those we catechize be more perfectly formed into the likeness of Christ. We long for the Holy Spirit to “indoctrinate”[v] those whom we teach—to imbue them with the teachings, the doctrines, of Christ. The Catechism is given to us precisely for the sake of enabling such an indoctrination to make the teachings of the Church accessible and available to every member of Christ’s Body so that each can become “fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself.”[vi] We saw in the previous article how the Catechism has been carefully designed specifically to reach out to bring the saving doctrine of the faith to the “edges” and “peripheries” of the Church. This happens when we attend to those still holding to “fragments” of faith in order to gather and bring them into communion with the living whole.

Without a doubt, Pope Francis can draw a crowd. He catches people’s attention. He continues to intrigue and interest people. He moves them to think and share—people of all backgrounds and persuasions, young and old alike, inside and outside the Church. However, he remains in some ways an enigmatic pope whose words and gestures, priorities and preferences can cause a bit of a stir and some confusion—regularly and from day one. To some degree, his appeal is simply due to the fact that he is the pope. Interest in the pope has been on the upswing for decades from John Paul II to Francis, drawing large crowds to papal events inside and outside the Vatican. Whether the world admits it or not, the Vicar of Christ is a leader, is looked at and listened to—even by mockers. The fact that this pope draws the daily attention of so many outsiders, including non-believers, is undeniable. Why? What is his pope appeal that is likewise creating so many waves? For one, Pope Francis tweets regularly. We also see and hear Pope Francis more often than we did his predecessors thanks to his daily homilies. He preaches every morning at a Mass that resembles a weekday Mass at a neighborhood parish. The preacher pope almost always delves into the scripture readings of the day, connecting them to everyday life. Much like Jesus, when preaching in his day, Pope Francis addresses both the haughty and the humble—with harsh and kind words, respectively. His preaching style is shocking to some and refreshing to others. He weighs in on a variety of current issues in newsworthy ways, not unlike many of his predecessors. He speaks openly with reporters and even grants unusual interviews—to liberals and conservatives, atheists and Catholics, Protestants and secular media outlets. He stimulates thought and discussion, even debate and headache. He is continuously novel, speaking of old things in new ways and of new things in stimulating ways. Without a doubt, his words and gestures can barely go unnoticed, and his Franciscan communication style is unique. This is by design. He is a man on a mission, a purpose-driven padre. He arrived on the Catholic and world scene as a new communicator for a new evangelization.

For us catechists, St. John Paul II's "theology of the body" should strike a single, resounding chord in our hearts and minds: "good news!" It is, in essence, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. While St. John Paul II's 133 Wednesday catecheses include a profound application to sexual and marital morality, the application occurs primarily at the end of this series of discourses. As a consummate catechist, St. John Paul II knew that grace perfects nature.[1] It doesn't replace nature nor jump ahead of it. Thus, to truly understand how we should act, we have to first understand who we are and what our purpose is. In other words, the foundation of faith is a correct view of the human person, a correct metaphysics. Before you hurriedly skip to another article because you fear I'm about to launch into the philosophical stratosphere, let me reassure you I am not. Like you, I am a catechist in every pore of my being. I live to communicate the faith to others in a concrete and systematic way. However, I am increasingly convinced that our efforts to pass on the faith often fail to be transformative because we assume others have already adequately answered the key human questions of "Who am I?" and "What is my purpose?" Or, perhaps without realizing it, we have relegated those questions to the realm of psychology and philosophy, as if they are irrelevant to theology and catechetics. In truth, these two questions constitute the core of Christianity. The cataclysmic shock Christianity introduced into history was not its moral teachings; other cultures and religions embraced and taught similar moral norms. Rather, the novelty of Christianity is its illumination of personal identity. Confessions of faith in Jesus' divinity are the highpoints of the Gospels: Peter professes, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God" (Mt. 16:16); the centurion at the foot of the cross concludes, "Truly, this man was the Son of God" (Mk. 15:39); St. John declares the purpose of his gospel to be "that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" (Jn. 20:31).

People involved in the mission of handing on the faith will discover a reliable reference point for content and pedagogy in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This series examines how to make use of this gift of the Church for the task of evangelization and catechesis. A moment at the end of the feeding of the five thousand vividly captures the task of the new evangelization. After all had eaten from the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fish, there was one further task to be undertaken: “And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish” (Mk. 6:43). The image of broken pieces left after a feeding that prefigures the Eucharist—the sum and summary of the faith—is a compelling image. The ecclesial culture that Pope St. John Paul II asked us to mend, as the priority for the new evangelization (a priority on which the mending of a Christian society depends) is a fragmented one: "Without doubt a mending of the Christian fabric of society is urgently needed in all parts of the world. But for this to come about what is needed is to first remake the Christian fabric of the ecclesial community itself present in these countries and nations."[1]

A SURVEY FOR CATECHISTS U.S. Marines have a code of honor: no one gets left behind—not even the fallen on the battlefield. They are bound together in brotherhood. Their commitment to this code enables Marines to act with courage and valor. Similarly, as baptized Catholics we form a bond as God’s family and pledge to accompany any child of God through conversion. In a culture hostile to the faith, we must exercise Marine-strength courage to remain vigilant for those who fall away. How well are we keeping that pledge? Admittedly, too many baptized and confirmed Catholics fall away from the faith without taking hold of the treasure of our faith and its promise of eternal life. They are dying on the battlefield, spiritually speaking. Statistics in this regard are nothing short of alarming, with Catholics experiencing the greatest net loss due to changes in affiliation.[1] An estimated 70% of young Catholics no longer practice their faith by the time they reach adulthood.[2] Do we strategically think about the way in which our “baptismal training” equips people to survive spiritually in a toxic secular culture? Are we praying vigilantly for their return and going in search of them? One of the reasons that many of our baptized people do not survive with their faith intact is that “basic training” for becoming a disciple—personal conversion to Jesus Christ, personal relationship with him—is a neglected dimension of Catholic formation. Children baptized in infancy come to the parish for catechesis, and we work hard to communicate the content of the faith; but we often fail to put them in touch with—in intimacy with—the person of Jesus Christ, which Pope St John Paul II said is the “definitive aim of catechesis.”[3] In our concern to communicate Christian doctrine effectively, we sometimes overlook the fact that baptized people may not yet know Jesus Christ enough to care about what he taught. In this article, I will set forth a small offering of some principles and practices by which we can create conditions that favor personal conversion amidst the secular culture. This is less about developing new programs (though this can be helpful) than about applying these principles and practices in ministries that already exist. First, I will set forth a number of principles drawn from the teaching of recent popes, who are the architects of the New Evangelization. These will be followed by four kinds of practice.

The New Evangelization is a call to each person to deepen his or her own faith, have confidence in the Gospel, and possess a willingness to share the Gospel. It is a personal encounter with the person of Jesus, which brings peace and joy. (Disciples Called to Witness, 3)

Does the New Evangelization make you a little bit uncomfortable? Does it feel as if you are moving out into unchartered water? Does it feel as if some of the tools you are comfortable using aren’t adequate anymore? If so, you may be just where God wants you.