Consecrated Virginity in the Face of a Conciliar Ecclesiology and Missiology

[[Hi Sister, could you respond to this excerpt from a blog I ran across? (It is called Sacramentality [Sacramentality] and is by Shana Smith.) I don't think you have done this even though the post was written 2 years ago. Thanks.]]

[[Though Sr. Laurel has definitely brought up some things for me to process, especially the phrase in the homily for the Rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity where the bishop says to the virgin (s) that they are "apostles in the Church and in the world, in the things of the spirit and the things of the world." I can see how this can be read as indicating a distinction between the Church or the the things of the spirit "the sacred" and the things of the world "the secular" and a consecrated virgins call to embrace both these dimensions of life, bringing them together. I need to grapple with this in relation to this gut feeling of mine that a consecrated virgin is called to be given over to prayer and work that directly and inherently forwards the Church's charitable and evangelical mission- in the world. 

For an example I can appreciate a difference between being the manager of a Sears store and being a missionary. It seems that a if a consecrated virgin were hypothetically a manager of Sears her evangelizing would have to be done along side her professional work and not directly through it whereas if she were to work as a missionary of sorts to the poor of her diocese that that work would intrinsically be forwarding the mission of the Church in a more direct way and therefore be more fitting to her vocation to a public form of consecrated life. It will take some time for me to work out how I see all these points relating and to test and hold fast to what I come to believe to be good and true.

Another interesting point to add which Sr. Laurel brought up, is in expressing her desire that "Ms. Cooper...address arguments rooted in Christology (for instance, the notion that Christ was paradigmatically secular in the life he lived even as he incarnated God exhaustively and thus witnessed to transcendence at every moment and mood of his life)." I think this is interesting, though what I would like to see is a treatment of how Christ's more secular work as a carpenter related to his following years of ministry and how this could possibly be significant to this discussion.]]

Hi there! You are right. I never really responded to the blog entry from which you excerpted this. Time simply got away from me (as I recall, the original entry is more complicated than this excerpt and had some stuff about sacred vs profane art which I needed to spend greater time on); anyway time and discussions moved on.

I am honestly not sure what specifically you would like me to respond to in this excerpt that I have not already done indirectly in posts on the vocation to consecrated virginity but let me try to say something somewhat new by focusing on Miss Smith's concern with missiology. Recent events in the Church have underscored changes in the Church's approach to missiology which I have noted before, but it is on my mind not only because Shana mentions it but because a friend also spoke of it today during a conversation recalling what Francis is saying and doing regarding VII, the distinction between evangelizing and proselytizing, and so forth.

My own position on the contemporary vocation of Consecrated Virgin Living in the World is this: 1) the Church herself in her Rite of Consecration of CV's living in the World clearly and unambiguously refers to the vocation as both secular (done in the world and in or with the things of the world) and consecrated (given over to and in fact set apart by God for this secularity in a wholehearted and formal way). She calls CV's living in the world to be Apostles and thus too, to bring the Gospel into all of the nooks and crannies of our world as well as in the ways that nuns and priests cannot, and 2) this is PRECISELY the mission of the Church --- as, I think, we see Francis making so abundantly clear to us in every word and gesture. (Some who complain that he ought not be seen to eat and drink with others seem to ascribe to the notion that there is a separation between sacred and profane --- a position with which Francis apparently does not agree.) Further, it is a mission of the Church that has simply not been adequately undertaken and it is therefore important for consecrated persons living  unashamedly secular lives with the special grace of God to demonstrate how this is done.

What I am saying is that there is to be no artifical divide between Church and world, at least insofar as the Church is missioned to serve as leaven in the dough of the world.  Eventually the two are to be transformed into the Kingdom of God. When the dough has risen one cannot presume to cull out the yeast anymore than one can distinguish the bread and wine from the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. Similarly the Incarnation destroyed the division between sacred and profane caused by sin but we have not worked hard enough to implicate this victory in our own world and lives. Too often we have strengthened it in the name of "protecting" the sacred from taint by the profane. This shows a profound misunderstanding of the power of holiness which transforms and sanctifies what it touches.

The paradox in all of this is that in being "set apart for God" the consecrated virgin is called to live out to this consecration in a way which is profoundly immersed in the world without being or becoming OF the world just as Jesus did in incarnating the Word exhaustively. Instead the world is itself to become consecrated and OF the Kingdom. She is called to transform the world with her presence --- as humble and apparently unremarkable or even relatively invisible as her presence there is. She is called to trust that her ministry produces profound changes and provides a profound witness precisely because and insofar she is both consecrated AND completely immersed.

You see, in my own vocation people do not always see a life of prayer as possible for them --- though of course it is. Instead they see I live the life of a religious and they still think that certain things they will never have or commit to are therefore necessary to live a life of true prayer and holiness, including vows of poverty, chastity and obedience which make my life something other than secular. While I value my vows and vocation more than I can say, and while I believe my vocation is incredibly important in today's world and church, I also understand that these elements of it represent a limitation on my ability to call people to the fullness of Christian secularity. Too often my standing as a religious is thought to suggest that whole-hearted commitment to Christ or the attainment of genuine holiness requires one BE a religious or otherwise separated from the world of ordinary reality (not, by the way, that anyone is accusing me of holiness of course!). On the other hand, the hiddenness of my vocation has sometimes left me tempted to undertake more visible and clearly-valuable ministries than one of  the silence of solitude. I must trust that God knows precisely what he is doing and precisely what  others need in calling me (or anyone else) to this vocation and because I HAVE trusted that I have come to understand the charism of this vocation in ways I never could have otherwise.

A New and Ancient Ecclesiology and Missiology to Which Consecrated Virgins are called to Witness

The Church, however is moving beyond this more exclusive notion of holiness and perfection. She sees and proclaims clearly now that holiness is the universal call of the WHOLE Church, the entire People of God, and that it is possible and necessary for those living secular lives. Further, she clearly says with canon 604 that one does not need to be a religious or quasi religious nor work for the institutional Church directly to fulfill a vocation to holiness. Secular vocations are not a kind of left-over calling for those without a "higher vocation" or direct employment in the church. They are, instead, a very high calling indeed, a calling to an exhaustive holiness --- so much so that some consecrated women are called to demonstrate and witness to this with their lives. The early Church knew this and the vocation of the consecrated virgin was profoundly counter cultural in the way it called the most marginalized to holiness in Christ. Gradually that sense was lost and, along with the ordained priesthood, Religious life became seen as the privileged way to holiness (a piece of this gradual usurpation included crowding out the vocation of secular consecrated virgins in the 12th Century or so; only CVs who were also solemnly vowed monastics remained).

The Church has recovered the universal call to holiness with Vatican II just as she is recovering the notion of catholicity as yeast within dough --- that is, just as she recovered and reclaimed the Greek rather than the Latin sense of catholicity. (cf Reforms Francis is Calling For) The canon 604 vocation is a piece of this reappropriation. Consecrated Virgins living in the world can actually call their lay brothers and sisters to accept their share in this new vision and mission in ways religious cannot do. In other words, it is a profoundly post-VII vocation which furthers the aims, ecclesiology, and missiology of the Council even while it reprises the earliest Church's experience. What it seems really important for CVs and candidates for this vocation to realize is the the Church's theology of secularity is a developing reality. It began with the recognition of the vocation of the laity and shifts in our sense of the meaning of missiology, but is actually developed and strengthened by the call to consecrated secularity with c 604. CV's living in the world represent an ecclesial vocation, not in the sense  that CV's are called to work directly for the Church as employees, nor even merely in the sense that their vocations are mutually discerned and mediated by the Church,  but also because they are persons whose very lives are the new icons of this Vatican II ecclesiology with its shifting sense of universality and a correlative missiology. They are icons of what it means to be yeast within the dough and evangelizing ecclesia pervasively and effectively present within the world.

One clarification, when I spoke of Jesus' life as profoundly secular (and wholly Divine too!), I was not speaking of his work as a carpenter as though some pieces of his life were secular and others were not or some were more secular than others. Neither am I doing so with CV's living in the world.  My point was simply that Jesus' most profound ministry was undertaken in a secular context (and apart from the specifically religious context of his day). He lived a life of complete union with God as he lived a wholly secular life, eating and drinking with sinners, overseeing the financial and other affairs of his band of disciples, moving from house to house, etc. Except that he routinely went apart to pray and was itinerant, his life was a secular one, that is, one lived in the world subject to all of its rules, etc. We simply cannot say he came down from the mountain occasionally. The opposite is true. We cannot call his carpentry more secular than his preaching and teaching either. Both were profoundly sacred aspects of his life sanctified by his union with the one he called Abba. Thus I am saying that these two dimensions of his life are so intimately intertwined in Jesus as to be wed in him. He is the one who makes all things holy with his presence. I believe CV's as icons of a similar espousal are called to this very thing. 

Another example who might be edifying to consecrated virgins living in the world is Saint Paul --- "the least of the Apostles" as he put it. Remember that he worked as a tent maker everywhere he went. Despite the fact that he was a mystic, an Apostle, a theologian and a founder of local Churches, Paul lived a secular life. He is very clear about this and in fact, it seems clear that he dislikes anyone who tries to divvy things up in artificial ways, whether by Enthusiasts, those expecting the parousia momentarily so that they neither worked nor contributed to the life of the community, or whomever! For Paul there was no conflict between being wholly consecrated to and by God and living an entirely secular existence where authentic mission was ALWAYS a central concern.

Two movies about Sisters

The Robert Gardner Film



We have heard a lot about LCWR Sisters in the past year or more which suggest they have left the essence (or "essential elements") of religious life behind. Some suggest they don't pray, others that they bring nothing to their ministries that a good social worker couldn't bring, and so forth. The movie provided above gives a good sense of who these Sisters REALLY are, what they do and WHY! It is the story of women whose lives are given to Christ and who have journeyed beyond the first idealistic and relatively naive flushes of Religious life into the deserts and through the storms and crises which any seriously committed life of love of God involves; more, they are those who have come through this journey thus far with a faith and hope clearly tempered and illuminated by the certainty of Christ's abiding and merciful presence.

These are TYPICAL contemporary Women Religious, and especially they are typical of the members of LCWR congregations. I find them typically extraordinary and an undoubted gift to the Church and our world. In each case I think you will find a contemplative core energizing an amazing woman of God and an amazing ministry in Christ. In these women we see mature prayer lives, mature witness to the incarnate Lord, and the wisdom of experience. They have renewed their lives in accordance with Vatican II and in some ways represent a newer expression of religious life than many are used to.

  The Imagine Sisters Film

A second film, also out just recently is composed of a similar format and Sisters mainly (or perhaps all) of the CMSWR congregations. I offer it here because it contrasts with but also helps complete the picture of contemporary ministerial or apostolic religious life today. It is apparently a kind of recruitment film for young women and so, that may account for a sort of focus on youthful idealism as well as the camaraderie that is more typical of college sports teams and sororities than of the more tried friendships of religious community.

I admit that I am not impartial here. These Sisters tend to speak a "language" I have not spoken since initial formation --- and one I am personally no longer entirely comfortable with; that is especially true with the language of specialness which sometimes seems elitist, and the objective superiority of religious life which, I and others would argue, cannot be maintained in the face of Vatican II's universal call to holiness. (Here chosenness is not merely a matter of answering one's call as it is in the Gospel; instead it accompanies  a sense of privilege and bespeaks preference on God's part.) Evenso, while I think that these young Sisters need the wisdom and experience of the Sisters of the LCWR congregations to help them grow in their vocations it is also true that the LCWR congregations can be challenged by them and by the fresh idealism with which they approach the adventure of religious life. In other words, in these two films we have two expressions of religious life today; both are valid and they complement and challenge one another.

I hope you enjoy them. (P.S., be sure and click on the fullscreen buttons to the right of HD. The resolution is excellent that way.)

What Reforms is Francis Calling For? A Beginning.

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I am not a scholar of Vatican II, but you seem to glow with enthusiasm over the potential for the Church in implementing more of its substance. I was wondering if you could say what else we might expect to evolve from the reforms begun? I would like to catch some of that glow for myself, though Pope Francis has already warmed my heart.]]

Many thanks for your question. It gives me a chance to reflect on precisely why I am so excited about the papacy of Francis and what kind of Church I do hope for precisely because of the reforms of Vatican II and the promise of their continued implementation in the future. We are used to thinking about Vatican II as a past event and already implemented. We celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Council this year and in many parishes there have been presentations on the council, on what was achieved and what was left to be achieved. For many attending those presentations what was clear was there was a tremendous excitement in the 60's and 70's, huge idealism and energy for a Church which could be the vehicle for the proclamation of the Gospel to a world truly yearning for it, a Church which really walked with people in their everyday situations and was more than a sacred oasis in the midst of chaotic profanity. However, what was also clear was the disappointment of the past 40 or so years as Vatican II's promise and challenge for reform was countered, eroded away, betrayed, or allowed to wither and die on the vines of  either a "hermeneutic of continuity," or a "hermeneutic of rupture."

General Comments on the Ecclesiology of Vatican II:

You see, this Church was the one which took the humanity of Jesus seriously as well as his divinity and learned its lessons from his own accompanying of people, his profound listening to and understanding of them, his teaching in stories which allowed them the privileged space to make a decision for or against him and the Kingdom he proclaimed but who, at the same time therefore continued to teach the unremitting mercy of God who would not relent from loving and calling them all of their lives.

This was the Church whose Lord was the One characterized by kenosis (self-emptying) and asthenia (weakness), the One who died for them while they were YET sinners; for that reason he is the one whose servants, therefore, were characterized by the same things. Note well that there was no denigration of God's greatness in any of this, and no diminishment of Jesus' Lordship. (Some today are complaining that Francis' penchant for dressing simply, wearing no cuff links or a pectoral cross of a base metal, as well as addressing Cardinals while standing on the same level or being seen eating or drinking anything other than the Eucharist "denigrates the papacy" so this is an issue.) Instead it gave us a God and Lord whose authority was shown as countercultural, powerful and creative as love and mercy are always powerful and creative, and compelling precisely because it raised everyone up in the truly humble recognition of their true dignity --- something authority and power in the Constantinian model never does.

This Church was Catholic in the more Greek sense of the term "katholicos" than the Latin sense of "universalis". What I mean by this is that this Church was catholic in the sense of leaven in bread dough; there is nothing left untouched by its presence, no bits of unleavened bread remaining while the majority of the loaf is leavened. The Latin sense of universalis had more the sense of a gigantic circle into which people were brought; the problem though was that no matter how large one drew or expanded that circle there were always persons that stood outside it, and perhaps, were left to stand outside it because, for whatever reason, they did not hear the Gospel from which it supposedly lived. I am convinced that when Francis spoke recently of the solemn nonsense of proselytizing and distinguished that from evangelizing, coupled with his insistence on a church which is not turned in on itself, he was encouraging us to see and be the church which was truly Catholic in the more Greek sense of the term. It is a Church which knows that with Christ the veil between sacred and profane was definitively rent in two and that there is no place from which the Word of God or its servants cannot and should not go. Christ, after all, descended into hell so that God might be implicated there and transform reality with that presence. The Church must act in no less a Christlike way in her own missionary character.

Finally, therefore, this Church is the Pilgrim People of God. Most fundamentally it is not that there is a Church to which people are then added. Most fundamentally the Church IS the called and assembled People. It has a structure, yes, forms of governance, ways of doing business (many of which may change), and so forth, but it IS the people who are continually called by Christ and for this reason it is always learning and teaching, alway moving forward, always in need of reform, always seeking to respond to and serve its Lord with greater fidelity and sensitivity, always finding ways to be that People from which the entire "sense of the Faith" comes. Another way of saying this is to note that the Church is NOT the Kingdom of God here on earth. The Church is a privileged means towards the Kingdom, a proleptic expression of the Reign of God, but it is NOT the Kingdom. Instead the Church lives from and for the Gospel of God and the Reign it announces. She serves that Gospel and awaits the day when God will truly be all in all --- when there will be a "new heaven and new earth". Again, she is a privileged servant in this but she does not confuse herself with God's reign, nor her servants with Christ himself.

Specific reforms we will see continued or initiated:

At this point I see a few central reforms coming with Pope Francis. The first is the primacy of the Gospel in the life of the Church and therefore in the life of every individual Christian. Vatican II's reception and the liturgical changes made recovered the primacy of the Word of God and there is no doubt that today's Catholics are more steeped in the Scriptures than ever before. But Scripture is a living thing requiring us to grapple with it daily. For many it is much easier to turn to doctrine and dogma as the measure of their lives and "Catholicity." What we see in Francis are clear examples of the Gospel acted out; we see what I wrote about earlier as "enacted parables" which have the power to draw in those who would hear the message being proclaimed. (Some, like the Pharisees in the Gospel a couple of Fridays ago, will see Francis doing good and claim it is by the power of  the devil; others will see evil being done. But those with eyes to see will hear the good news of the Kingdom of God in a way they have not been enabled to do before.) Those who live from the power of the Gospel know it is the power to embrace the whole world with God's love and to recognize the hitherto unknown God wherever he is.

The second change stems from this. Without losing our identity as Catholic Christians we will embrace ecumenism more whole-heartedly because our God is bigger than the Church and his presence is found outside her as well. Hebrews speaks of knowing God prior to Christ in fragmentary and partial ways. We will be called to be a Church with the gift of God's definitive revelation in Christ, but without diminishing the truth of God's presence in other faiths or in other forms of Christianity. Ecumenism seems to me to be particularly important in a world where religion is routinely used to divide people. In our own faith we know well that not every difference is significant enough to divide us because we proclaim the same Christ, know the same God in prayer, read the same Scriptures and, with whatever limitations we have, hearken to the same Holy Spirit.

We codified this conclusion in the Joint Declaration on Justification, a document with far-reaching conclusions we should remember in determining what truly divides and what more fundamentally unites denominations. Vatican II taught this and we have a far piece to go before we begin to achieve what it had in mind. I think we will become a Church which more and more truly dialogues with others because that IS the way of evangelization. (Lecturing, apodictic pronouncements are the way of proselytization.) Only in this way will we also be the learning AND teaching Church the world needs us so very badly to truly be. What we cannot be is a Church with nothing to learn nor a Church with nothing to teach. Both of these have been tried and failed. The first corresponds in many ways to those teaching a hermeneutic of continuity (in the sense the SSPX understood this term, for instance), and the second by those embracing the hermeneutic of rupture.

Another change we will see is greater collegiality including deliberative synodality on the part of Bishops. Vatican II allowed for synods of Bishops with deliberative power, but this has never been implemented. Doing so, however will help in our efforts to come to unity with our Eastern brethren for whom a particular model of Petrine ministry is problematical just as it will help us all move from the monarchical model of the Church which gained ascendancy in the Middle ages and was strengthened during the Counter Reformation or Early modern period of Catholicism. From this will also flow a less centralized Church and therefore, one which is more sensitive and responsive to the needs and gifts of local Churches. It will be a Church where the papacy protects unity but does not impose uniformity in its place. This is tremendously challenging but it allows deeper unity and authentic diversity as expressions of unity. It counters papering over profound differences with an externally imposed "Catholic culture" and then being surprised when the fruit rots from within, the souffle deflates at the slightest perturbation, or the whole reality explodes from built up tensions hidden by uniform language, praxis, piety, etc. (You can see why it becomes so important that we truly become a People for whom the Word of God is our lifeblood and the source and measure of all we are and do. It will always be Christ who holds us together despite our differences, nothing less and nothing other.)

Beyond this we will see a Church in which the caste or class system is at least allowed to die away. By this I mean  first of all that vocations will not be seen as higher or lower than others. Vatican II leveled a death-blow to this way of perceiving vocations with its teaching on the universal call to holiness but we have not truly accepted its implications. Every person is called to an exhaustive holiness and for that reason, no vocation can be "superior" or "inferior" to another one. Each one will be seen to have different gifts, and need the accompanying and completing gifts of others if the Gospel is to be fully proclaimed in the life of the Church; each one will have different rights and obligations but again, this does NOT mean one is "superior" or "inferior" to another in the way I believe Aquinas' theology has been commonly misinterpreted to mean. My own commitments will witness to celibate love and its importance in the Kingdom, but others' commitments will witness to the place of sexual love in the life of the Church and (as does my own celibate witness) as an icon of the eschatological spousal union with God to which we are all called.

And similarly we will see, I think, a Church in which other forms of that caste system is destroyed. Increasingly we will see a Church which embodies the truth Paul articulated so long ago:  [[26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free,nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.]] At the very least that will mean women in positions of influence and authority and, after some experience of what women bring to such positions and the life of the Church as a whole, a new "theology of women" as Francis has called for. It will mean the laity as such are granted a full place in the life of the church. With marginalized groups of all sorts I think we will increasingly become a Church which sees first of all that they are clothed in Christ and that most fundamentally, there is NO distinction.

Listening to Francis:

There are more specific reforms no doubt; I have not come close to even mentioning the majority of them. What is necessary for all of us I think is to listen to Francis really carefully. When he first began his papacy he began with symbolic acts and folks wondered if substantive change would follow. What we are finding is that those symbolic acts BROUGHT substantive change with them, called for further change, and challenged us each to see the enacted parable for what it was --- a world shaking and breaking language event. Similarly Francis has spoken of really key changes in his two interviews and his homilies. Certain phrases are code words for profound changes in mind and heart which, like yeast in dough, eventually leave nothing untouched or unchanged. Evangelizing vs Proselytizing is one of these. "A Church which risks mistakes rather than being turned in on itself" is another. A Church with a preferential option for the poor and "a poor church" are others. But we must take the time to really penetrate these code words, these bits of leaven, and implement them in whatever ways we personally are called to do.

Sometimes when New Testament scholars think about the importance of certain pieces of the Scriptures they recognize that had a single story been the only one to have survived until today it would have been enough. If Luke's writings, for instance had been lost but his parable of the Prodigal Sons/Prodigal Father survived we would still have Luke's' entire version of the Gospel in nuce. The Lord's Prayer functions the same way, but for that to be the case we must do more than repeat it unthinkingly. With Francis we have been given a clear charter of the way he desires to lead the Church and the Gospel life he wishes us each to model for others. If he never gave another interview, wrote another encyclical, rode another bus with people he considers his very own, or gave that brilliant smile which screams the joy of a man who knows the mercy of God, we have already been given a clear vision of the courageous and catholic Church VII called for. Vatican II was a beginning. Now we must implement it in the ways Francis is clearly indicating to us. A poor church, a joyful church, a church which lives from and proclaims the mercy of God universally and without qualification --- a truly Catholic Church which will set the world on fire with God's love and make all things new --- that is the vision Vatican II had and which Francis has already made QUITE clear he shares completely.

The Reforms of Vatican II Lie before Us, not Behind

Archbishop Marini: 'The Council is not behind us. It still precedes us' (PA)

From the Catholic Herald

[[The reforms launched by the Second Vatican Council are not behind us but ahead of us, Archbishop Piero Marini has said.

Archbishop Marini, president of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses, made the comments during an address at the annual national meeting of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Archbishop Marini said he arrived in Rome in September 1965, only a few months before the close of the Council. Bishops and theologians began gathering in 1962 for the first of four three-month sessions to address more than a dozen aspects of Church life, ranging from inter-religious relations to greater lay participation in the liturgy, from social communication to relations between the Church and the modern world.

“Fifty years later, I feel a great nostalgia and a desire to understand more fully and to experience anew the spirit of the Council,” said Archbishop Marini.

Clergy, religious sisters and lay people in charge of Catholic worship in dioceses across the United States came together on October 7-12 to conduct routine business. But the larger purpose of this year’s meeting was to mark the 50th anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium, one of the best-known documents of Vatican II.

The week-long conference allowed participants to explore the theological principles of the document and its place in the world today. Issued on December 4 1963, the document ordered an extensive revision of worship so that people would have a clearer sense of their own involvement in the Mass and other rites.

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Archbishop Marini told the audience, was really “a matrix for other reforms” and possible changes yet to come. It is not enough, he said, to look at the written document as a manual for reforming the Church’s rites.

“It was an event that continues even today to mark ecclesial life,” the archbishop said. “It has marked our ecclesial life so much that very little of the Church today would be as it is had the council not met.”

Archbishop Marini, who was master of liturgical ceremonies under Blessed John Paul II, told the liturgists that Vatican II did not give the world static documents. In an ever-evolving culture, the Catholic liturgy is incomplete unless it renews communities of faith, he added.

“The Council is not behind us. It still precedes us,” Archbishop Marini said.

Two other archbishops attended the national meeting, co-sponsored by the federation and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship. New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Divine Worship, reviewed the workings of the various committees, and Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver spoke on the sacraments of initiation as a source of life and hope.

Also speaking was author and Scripture scholar Sister Dianne Bergant, a Sister of St Agnes, who is a distinguished professor of Old Testament studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

All speakers referred to Vatican II as only the beginning of reforms within Catholic liturgy and the Church as a whole. The traditions of the Church, Sister Dianne added, are kept alive through contemporary culture.

The best way the Church can share Jesus’s story, she said, is if it follows the lead of Pope Francis, who has opened his arms to the suffering, the outcast, the poor and the marginalised. For Jesus, there were no “outsiders”, she added, saying the church needs to rid itself of the notion that if someone doesn’t fit certain standards then they can’t be part of the faith community.. . .]]

Hermits giving Property to Dioceses?

[[Dear Sister, I want to become a diocesan hermit and turn over my house to the diocese. I would still continue to live here and even pay rent but after I was finished with the house, they could use it for another hermit or small retreats, etc. I read where another online hermit did that or tried to do that. Unfortunately, my own diocese seems  reluctant to accept my offer. Why would they not want to take over property in this way? It would certainly make my own detachment from material goods more complete and would be good business for the diocese as well.]]

Thanks for your questions.Although I cannot say with any certainty why your own diocese decided as they did, I can point to some elements which may have or likely did come into play. The first thing is you are NOT a diocesan hermit and may never be one. For a diocese to accept such an arrangement and then, some time later, agree to admit you to profession, they would find they are open to charges that there was an element of quid pro quo here rather than simple and honest discernment. One cannot purchase admission to profession nor barter for it nor should one ever give the appearance of having done so. This could only hurt the church in both short and long term and it would certainly cast the credibility of your own vocation and possibly the solitary eremitical vocation into doubt. I am sure you do not want people in the diocese saying that you were professed because you gifted the diocese in this way; neither would you ever want to hear, "Well, that other candidate was every bit as qualified, but she did not have any property, so they refused to profess her." I am not approving gossip but such a gift prior to your being admitted to profession and living the life for some time can give unfortunate appearances which could be disedifying to all concerned.


The situation could become even more difficult if the diocese accepted the arrange-ment and then failed to admit you to profession. What happens if you decide to move to another diocese? The house belongs to the diocese you are leaving; it cannot be sold by you, used as a source of your own upkeep in the future, etc. Beyond this, how might you feel in such a situation? How might the diocese feel or what complications could this cause for them? And even further, how might you feel if, besides failing to admit you to profession, the diocese decided at some point they had to sell the property or use it for other purposes (for instance for the hermitage of a publicly professed diocesan hermit who needs a more suitable hermitage than what she has already)?

You see, I am afraid if another Bishop came in or something serious happened and the diocese needed to sell off assets to take care of the situation, you would find yourself needing to find a new place to live. It has certainly happened to convents of nuns and so forth. With the high level of parish closings today and dioceses often strapped for money selling off lesser assets is something which is simply required. Unless you turn the property over to your diocese with strings attached, contingency clauses, conditions which assure your right to live there permanently, there is no way you could really protect yourself in such a matter. Yet, were contingency clauses added I think you would need to give up any notion of becoming a diocesan hermit because you could no longer convincingly affirm for people that the gift of  your property was not an element in your admission to vows. Again, that would be harmful to the vocation generally, to you, and to the diocese and its people.

Secondly, while there is a clear tension involved in diocesan hermits who need to care for themselves financially and also live contemplative lives of poverty in the silence of solitude, it is important that the vocation not be seen to be a sinecure where a diocese provides a place to live, etc. The hermit (and this includes the hermit candidate) really does need to be independent of the diocese in certain ways. This is good for both parties and for the vocation more generally. Dioceses certainly don't want folks showing up on their doorsteps saying, "X is living in  a house that belongs to the diocese; I want to do the same and I want to do it as a diocesan hermit!!"

A diocese is going to be very cautious in doing anything which could contribute to such a situation. Discernment needs to be as open to the Holy Spirit as possible and people need to be able to believe this is the case. Should you ever be finally or perpetually professed as a diocesan hermit, you will be able to revisit the issue of giving your property to the diocese. Still, you should know that a diocese might not want to do this even several years after perpetual profession because a hermit needs to maintain her ability to support herself. Selling her property at some point in later life may be a primary way of ensuring she has the resources to continue her independence as she moves to low income housing, a care facility, or something similar.  A diocese is not going to want to be complicit in a situation where they are somehow coerced or leveraged into feeling morally obligated to support a hermit in later life. (What they choose to do freely is a very different matter.)

Finally, I would suggest you consider that your own concern with detachment from material things needs to be resolved in other ways just as all hermits or hermit candidates do. Sometimes  it is the way we keep our possessions which tests our detachment and helps it grow. Sometimes giving stuff away is less a sign of true detachment than it is a signal that we are attached to a particular vision of ourselves, to some stereotype, to a tendency to impulsivity rather than to actual generosity, etc.

You see, it is possible that the desire to give something like this to the diocese, especially before one is established as a diocesan hermit, is linked to the sense that this is a way of really "belonging to" the diocese in a special way, or perhaps a way of gaining their gratitude for one's life and presence there, or simply to convince oneself of how generous, detached, or committed to poverty one really is. (While I do not think this is true of you, I do know of one case where I personally believed it to be true and where I was fairly convinced there was at least subconscious "bartering" going on on the would-be hermit's part. In any case this person was not yet a diocesan hermit and his offer was entirely premature.) While none of this last situation likely applies to your own situation, these are some of the reasons a diocese is unlikely to accept such a gift by someone who is discerning a vocation as a diocesan hermit.

Francis as Enacted Parable

Because of the conjunction of the Feast of St Francis and the first months of the thus-amazing papacy of his name-sake it is hard not reflect on the similarities and differences between them. At the same time I am impressed with the people who have asked me about the Pope, commented on his interviews, spoken of the changes in the Church, mentioned possibly returning to the Church, asked about the roles open to them as adults in the Church, expressed an excitement they have not felt for a long time, etc etc. What is doubly surprising to me are the number of these people who are not Catholic, who have felt entirely alienated from the Church for a variety of reasons, who rarely speak to me about religion per se or their stance regarding the Church. Then too there are the Catholics waiting to see if the Pope REALLY does anything besides "empty gestures" or "meaningless words." Because of all this and more I was thinking about Pope Francis as a parable, a living parable-in-act who is challenging the whole Church to be what the Church is commissioned by her Lord to be. With Francis' papacy we (and here I mean EVERYONE) have a new chance to enter into this huge and complicated story of the mercy of God and choose between the visions of reality we find there.

When Jesus told stories his hearers entered into them alone to meet Jesus and the God he proclaimed face to face. Sometimes they carried personal baggage into the story and, for whatever reason, left with it once again apparently untouched by the encounter except for a hardening of their hearts following an initial disorientation perhaps. Sometimes they brought similar baggage into this holy space and found that Jesus' touch healed them of their woundedness and lifted the burden they carried from their shoulders even as it offered them a yoke of a different sort altogether. They left with a renewed step and determination to journey on with this man. Some found the story they were living was one they regretted and discovered Jesus' offered them a place in a new one with a new future and the hope they thought they had lost forever. Some discovered that the cost of entering the "Kingdom" Jesus offered in his stories was simply too high, demanded too much in terms of worldly status and prestige, required too much in terms of self-honesty or humility, paid far too little in terms of power or temporal security, offered only the company of other sinners --- and other disciples of God's Christ. Some of these simply walked away but others saw the danger of these stories clearly and became implacable enemies of the man Jesus and his entire project.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now known to the world as Francis is another living or "enacted" parable. (He is not a Christ but a Christian; he is what we are each called to be.) He is busy telling the story of the mercy of God, of a Church which is open to sinners (in fact it is ONLY open to sinners!) and to modernity with all the messiness such an encounter will involve. He is telling his own story, that of a sinner set free by the mercy of God; it is, as he knows very well, the story of a Gospel with a preference for the poor and  a God whose love is unconditional and inescapable (though we may choose to live our lives rejecting and trying to flee from it). He tells this story with his own gestures and words; he tells it in ways which are inviting and convincing, expansive and inclusive, humble and extravagant, and which therefore open up the reality of God's Kingdom to all of those who have felt disenfranchised for any reason whatsoever. For those in positions of privilege Francis' parable-actions are not so welcome perhaps. Putting a ring on the finger of the younger son and a robe around his shoulders also meant an unwelcome change for the older son --- despite the Father's reminder that all he has is the elder Son's and he is with him always.

I remain surprised at folks who say Francis has not yet done anything substantive. In fact he has changed the horizon of all of our hopes and expectations for the institutional church; he has reminded us all that we are the ones responsible for proclaiming the Gospel with our lives. He has offered us a living parable we can engage at any time just as we engage the Word of God in the Scriptures. He has begun to signal to people that the Church can be a home, that they too can come back from their travels to "far places" and be welcomed back as men and women of genuine authority, Sons and Daughters whose place is at the head of the table not mere servants groveling for the crumbs fallen from the feasts of their "betters". He has done more to evangelize the world around us in six and a half months of ministry than many have done as "soldiers of Christ" with their raging judgments and militant attempts to condemn and proselytize the contemporary world. As a result people are talking about their faith, their hopes, their excitement and their past disappointments and yearnings as well --- and they are doing so in ways I have not heard in more than 4 decades.


Francis is not perfect (thank God!). He is not Christ. But he is Christlike and he is that in a convincing way. He is creating a sacred space much as Jesus' own parables did and people can enter into that space whenever they desire to and at any one of many entrances. Dogma and doctrine, as fascinating as they may be to systematic theologians and as truly indispensable as they are in the life of faith, do not function this way. For those denying substantive change is actually occurring look at what happened because Jesus told homely stories about weeds and wheat, prodigal sons and fathers,  lost and found coins, wedding feasts, and turning the other cheek or walking the extra mile. Look what happened because he ate with sinners, overturned tables in the Temple, called tax collectors to let him share a table with them. He was not crucified because he was doing nothing substantive but because he was overturning reality in an unimaginable way! He was crucified because he inflamed people's imaginations and unleashed long-suppressed hopes and vision. So too with Francis who has unleashed an energy I associate with the Holy Spirit. That Spirit recreated Francis and we must allow him to do the same to us so that we in turn can become Christ's Body and Blood broken and poured out for the world.

Hermits and Recluses

Dear Sister Laurel, what is the difference between a hermit and a recluse? I read the following regarding two recent professions and it seems to conflict with what you have written. Is the Bishop wrong? [[In his homily, Bishop Taylor said it is important to understand that a hermit is not the same thing as a “recluse." “You can’t just be married ‘in general;’ in marriage you are always bound to a particular person. Well, in the religious life, that’s the difference between being a hermit and being a recluse. Both separate themselves from the world to a degree, but only the hermit is bound by vows to the person of Jesus.” (See Bishop Taylor’s complete homily on page 15. ]]

Bishop Taylor's usage can be mistaken and misleading but I suspect we are in profound agreement nonetheless. I think what he is trying to speak of is the difference between a person who lives alone and may be reclusive for selfish or otherwise inadequate reasons --- inadequate that is, for a hermit, especially for a diocesan hermit --- and one who lives solitude because of love of God and others.  (I am guessing here because I have not seen the whole homily and actually could not access it.) Hermits, as I have said many times here, are not simply people who live alone, nor are they folks who are failures at living with others, are misanthropic, narcissistic, individualistic, etc. They are separated from others to the extent the silence of solitude demands they be because they love God and all that is precious to God; this is their primary relationship and witness. They allow it to be the foundation of their lives as well as the gift they live for others. Their relationship with the whole of creation is conditioned by their solitary relationship with God. It allows them to exercise a prophetic presence in the world which desperately needs lives of silence, solitude (a form of communion and relatedness) and loving commitment which are not simply rooted in roles or productivity but instead in BEING. (Together these represent what canon 603 refers to as "the silence of solitude")

David Menkhoff and Judith Weaver

Where the Bishop seems to have gotten the language wrong (and I say "seems" because, 1) newspapers don't always get things right in what they report, and 2) context makes meaning clear!), is to neglect the fact that recluses are also a legitimate form of eremitical life. As I have said here, every hermit must be open to the possibility that God is summoning or will summon them to greater and greater degrees of reclusion at some point in their eremitical lives. In the history of eremitical life two congregations have been given permission to allow recluses, the Camaldolese and the Carthusian. Even so, every diocesan hermit might find they are called to reclusion --- though providing for daily needs might be more difficult than for those living in community. It would take some organization and the cooperation of the hermit's diocese and parish to really allow for full time reclusion.

In my own writing I tend to reserve the word recluse for this form of eremitical life while I use misanthrope (or narcissists, etc) for the person who is reclusive for those less worthy reasons than a hermit's life both requires and nurtures. (I do tend to use the term "reclusive" in an almost universally negative sense however; for hermits I would speak of their tendency to solitude --- not entirely satisfactory I guess --- or to anachoresis (withdrawal for valid reasons.)) There is an overlap here in the meaning of the term recluse which makes it easy to misunderstand without sufficient context. I am sure Bishop Taylor's context makes his usage clearer than this one snippet does.

I would also disagree with the statement about vows in some ways though again we may be in essential or deeper agreement than those disagreements indicate. What I believe Bishop Taylor was getting at in this statement is that canonical eremitical life in the Church is a publicly committed form of consecrated life, and one of love centered on the person of Jesus Christ. It should also be clear that he sees it in terms of espousal or marriage. If I am correct that this was what he was saying, then I think he is profoundly correct. A publicly vowed life centered on Christ, and in fact publicly espoused to Christ, is vastly different from a reclusive life undertaken in woundedness, selfishness, and/or the absence of any real commitment. The first is the life of the silence OF solitude, the other is the life of the inner "noise" and unease of isolation.

Meanwhile, my sincerest congratulations to the two new diocesan hermits who were recently perpetually professed: Brother David Menkhoff and Sister Judith Weaver. Both were professed at the same liturgy in the hands of Bishop Anthony B Taylor on Sept 10th, 2013 in the Morris Hall Chapel, Little Rock, Arkansas. Both have lived as hermits for a significant period of time before making this commitment. Menkhoff has done so under private vows for at least 10 years, and Weaver first as a Benedictine nun (4 years or more) and later as diocesan (about 8 years). They have "begun" a great adventure --- "begun" because perpetual profession does indeed change everything even while a great deal remains exteriorly the same! I am excited for them and for their diocese and parish.

Followup Question on Dissent from Vatican II

[[Dear Sister Laurel, [in light of your earlier response on "how we get on with it" I wondered:] 

How do you feel about consci-entious dissent from Church teaching? If you affirm that right, do you affirm it also for say members of the SSPX who dissent in conscience from the teachings of Vatican 2? It's just a question that popped up in mind whilst reading your excellent response to my question. Thanks. ]]

Hi there,

A few introductory comments first. The Bishops of Germany and later those in the US noted at least two kinds of dissent, one legitimate and one not. To be legitimate these Bishops said that three conditions needed to apply: 1)  one must have striven to give positive value to the teaching and to personally make it one's own; 2) one must ask seriously whether one has the theological expertise to dissent responsibly from ecclesiastical authority; and 3) one must examine one's conscience for possible conceit, arrogance, selfishness, and other negative motives. With regard to noninfallible teaching (which means it is reformable and might actually be in error --- though the chance is not strong) the US Bishops laid down the same essential conditions but expanded the third one to include the condition that this dissent did not give scandal and the second one to specify that such dissent was not to impugn the authority of the church.

Too often folks do not take the care needed in their dissent and for that reason, while the position they hold may be held in good conscience, they actually will act imprudently and possibly in ways which are disedifying or even scandalous. Both German and American Bishops agreed that dissent can be responsible but that this does not excuse one from also conscientiously teaching the authentic teaching of the church if one is in such a ministry or office.

Beyond these two kinds of dissent these Bishops also looked at whether such dissent was public or not. They realized that sometimes one's legitimate dissent must actually be made public, that that is indeed the responsible thing to do in limited cases. My answer to your question really has to do with this public vs private distinction (though SSPX involves reformable vs irreformable teaching as well as public vs private). The rest is for background because I do not hold the position that says NO dissent is ever licit or that ALL dissent is irresponsible so the Bishops' thinking on this is important. So is Vatican II's teaching in regard to the hierarchy of truths. Since Vatican II enunciated a category of teaching which was noninfallible calling for "obsequium animi religiosum" and which itself includes a range of meanings all centered on the sincere attempt to accept the teaching, Vatican II clearly foresaw that there COULD be responsible dissent. However, the corollary is also clear here: if one dissents one must continue to try to think with the Church in this matter, and will continue to form and inform one's conscience appropriately. One may continue to dissent but in this too she will try to serve the Church and the Truth.

Your questions:

In any case,  in a situation where one honestly dissents and has made a conscience judgment on the matter, the Church's own teaching on the primacy of conscience teaches the person has the right and indeed the obligation to act in accord with this conscience judgment. (Nothing the Bishops put forward as conditions changes this in any way whatsoever except to sharpen the situation perhaps.) At the same time a person must bear the consequences of her decision and the actions that flow from it. If the dissent is private then there is very little risk of consequences being damaging (unless prudentially the person SHOULD have made the dissent public as the responsible thing to do), nor of the Church taking action in some way. However if the dissent is public then while the person is still obligated to act in good conscience, the risks of scandal and other damages are very much greater and for that reason the consequences too may have much greater or far-reaching import.

The members of SSPX can and may well be dissenting from the teaching of Vatican II in good faith. If so, they are obligated to follow their consciences. To do otherwise is SINFUL, always and everywhere. (It is always better to err in a conscience judgment and act in good faith than to simply act in bad faith and contradict one's conscience judgments.) The problem comes not from that original decision but from the multitude of weighings and examinations of conscience that have (or should have) come after this. Have they met the conditions the Bishops in Germany and the US laid out? Have they acted in ways which respect the teaching authority of the Church (namely an ecumenical council verified and validated now by six Popes) or which do not impugn that authority? I think the answers to these and many others are unclear and differ from person to person. I also think that as time goes on it is easier to fail in one's duties to the truth by failing to reassess matters (including one's own motives, openness, humility, etc).

Still, the simple answer to your question is the members of SSPX have the same obligation we all have to form, inform, discern, make a conscience judgment, and act on that judgment. In doing so they are acting in conformity with Church teaching.The corollary in cases of dissent also holds for them: they are required to continue to form and inform their consciences in such an undeniably serious matter, to discern what the values and disvalues are they must preference as time goes on, and then they must make a new judgment and act on that conscience judgment. They must continue to strive to think with the Church and thus give at least "obsequium animi religiosum" in these matters even if they cannot give an assent of faith (assuming faith is the level of assent ultimately called for), for instance. They will also need to accept the consequences of their conscience judgments --- whatever those are --- up to and including excommunication.

I hope this helps.

Homily of Pope Francis for the Feast of St Francis

HOMILY OF POPE FRANCIS

MASS ON THE FEAST OF ST FRANCIS OF ASSISI

BASILICA OF ST FRANCIS

4 OCTOBER 2013

I give you thanks, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and revealed them to babes” (Mt 11:25).

Peace and all good to each and every one of you! With this Franciscan greeting I thank you for being here, in this Square so full of history and faith, to pray together.

Today, I too have come, like countless other pilgrims, to give thanks to the Father for all that he wished to reveal to one of the “little ones” mentioned in today’s Gospel: Francis, the son of a wealthy merchant of Assisi. His encounter with Jesus led him to strip himself of an easy and carefree life in order to espouse “Lady Poverty” and to live as a true son of our heavenly Father. This decision of Saint Francis was a radical way of imitating Christ: he clothed himself anew, putting on Christ, who, though he was rich, became poor in order to make us rich by his poverty (cf. 2 Cor 8:9). In all of Francis’ life, love for the poor and the imitation of Christ in his poverty were inseparably united, like the two sides of a coin.

What does Saint Francis’s witness tell us today? What does he have to say to us, not merely with words – that is easy enough – but by his life?

1. His first and most essential witness is this: that being a Christian means having a living relationship with the person of Jesus; it means putting on Christ, being conformed to him.

Where did Francis’s journey to Christ begin? It began with the gaze of the crucified Jesus. With letting Jesus look at us at the very moment that he gives his life for us and draws us to himself. Francis experienced this in a special way in the Church of San Damiano, as he prayed before the cross which I too will have an opportunity to venerate. On that cross, Jesus is depicted not as dead, but alive! Blood is flowing from his wounded hands, feet and side, but that blood speaks of life. Jesus’ eyes are not closed but open, wide open: he looks at us in a way that touches our hearts. The cross does not speak to us about defeat and failure; paradoxically, it speaks to us about a death which is life, a death which gives life, for it speaks to us of love, the love of God incarnate, a love which does not die, but triumphs over evil and death. When we let the crucified Jesus gaze upon us, we are re-created, we become “a new creation”. Everything else starts with this: the experience of transforming grace, the experience of being loved for no merits of our own, in spite of our being sinners. That is why Saint Francis could say with Saint Paul: “Far be it for me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal 6:14).

We turn to you, Francis, and we ask you: Teach us to remain before the cross, to let the crucified Christ gaze upon us, to let ourselves be forgiven, and recreated by his love.

2. In today’s Gospel we heard these words: “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart” (Mt 11:28-29).

This is the second witness that Francis gives us: that everyone who follows Christ receives true peace, the peace that Christ alone can give, a peace which the world cannot give. Many people, when they think of Saint Francis, think of peace; very few people however go deeper. What is the peace which Francis received, experienced and lived, and which he passes on to us? It is the peace of Christ, which is born of the greatest love of all, the love of the cross. It is the peace which the Risen Jesus gave to his disciples when he stood in their midst and said: “Peace be with you!”, and in saying this, he showed them his wounded hands and his pierced side (cf. Jn 20:19-20).

Franciscan peace is not something saccharine. Hardly! That is not the real Saint Francis! Nor is it a kind of pantheistic harmony with forces of the cosmos… That is not Franciscan either; it is a notion some people have invented! The peace of Saint Francis is the peace of Christ, and it is found by those who “take up” their “yoke”, namely, Christ’s commandment: Love one another as I have loved you (cf. Jn 13:34; 15:12). This yoke cannot be borne with arrogance, presumption or pride, but only with meekness and humbleness of heart.

We turn to you, Francis, and we ask you: Teach us to be “instruments of peace”, of that peace which has its source in God, the peace which Jesus has brought us.

3. “Praised may you be, Most High, All-powerful God, good Lord… by all your creatures (FF, 1820). This is the beginning of Saint Francis’s Canticle. Love for all creation, for its harmony. Saint Francis of Assisi bears witness to the need to respect all that God has created, and that men and women are called to safeguard and protect, but above all he bears witness to respect and love for every human being. God created the world to be a place where harmony and peace can flourish. Harmony and peace! Francis was a man of harmony and peace. From this City of Peace, I repeat with all the strength and the meekness of love: Let us respect creation, let us not be instruments of destruction! Let us respect each human being. May there be an end to armed conflicts which cover the earth with blood; may the clash of arms be silenced; and everywhere may hatred yield to love, injury to pardon, and discord to unity. Let us listen to the cry of all those who are weeping, who are suffering and who are dying because of violence, terrorism or war, in the Holy Land, so dear to Saint Francis, in Syria, throughout the Middle East and everywhere in the world.

We turn to you, Francis, and we ask you: Obtain for us God’s gift of harmony and peace in this our world!

Finally, I cannot forget the fact that today Italy celebrates Saint Francis as her patron saint. The traditional offering of oil for the votive lamp, which this year is given by the Region of Umbria, is an expression of this. Let us pray for Italy, that everyone will always work for the common good, and look more to what unites us, rather than what divides us.

I make my own the prayer of Saint Francis for Assisi, for Italy and for the world: “I pray to you, Lord Jesus Christ, Father of mercies: Do not look upon our ingratitude, but always keep in mind the surpassing goodness which you have shown to this City. Grant that it may always be the home of men and women who know you in truth and who glorify your most holy and glorious name, now and for all ages. Amen.” (The Mirror of Perfection, 124: FF, 1824).

Happy Feast of St Francis!!

The above picture was sent to me by a friend, a Franciscan Sister I have known since @1985 when she served as Director of Vocations (or Vicar for Religious) for the Diocese of Oakland. She sent it in celebration of today's Feast of St Francis of Assisi. I think it is truly wonderful and hope you also enjoy it.

Recently I have been reading about St Francis' spirituality and theology. There is a fine series on the Franciscan Heritage available on a number of diverse aspects of Francis' theology and, in case you have not read it, I highly recommend Sister Illia Delio's, The Humility of God. It is theology that is tremendously exciting and very readable too. There are also a number of fine books out by and about Francis, the new Bishop of Rome. One of these is Untying the Knots. Another is a book of homilies and addresses by Francis from before his election to the papacy entitled Encountering Christ.  

In the meantime, all good wishes for a wonderful feast of St Francis. I think we can all agree that in the first months of this new papacy the significance of St Francis for the Church has been renewed for us all, Franciscans and non-Franciscans alike. Let his compassion, joy, and poverty guide us as we allow ourselves to be remade and we reform the Church in the image of the risen Christ Crucified.

How Do We "Get on with it?"

[[Dear Sister, I quite enjoyed your post on Vatican II. I was wondering though as to how we "get on with it" when the documents are not only ambiguous but purposefully written that way. As such, we need a hermeneutic in order to interpret them. . . .For my part, a hermeneutic of continuity with the previous 1960 years of Catholic theology, piety and practice is the only way to understand the Council. Otherwise it becomes an oddity. 

You said that no serious theologian saw a rupture. This might be the case, but in the everyday life of the Church the missive "that's so pre-Vatican II" is repeated almost in a knee jerk manner. In my graduate studies that term was often bandied about.  So when you say "get on with it", what do you mean? Do you mean the restoration of the  pride of place of both Latin and Gregorian chant in the liturgy that the Council document on the liturgy asked for? It seems that people who say this don't mean all of the Council but only the parts they like (that includes conservatives).  I would welcome your thoughts on how we "get on with it" when the Council documents propose no new dogma (as they say quite clearly) but only a matter of approach (which is 50 years old). They are also ambiguous. You can read almost anything into them. Ambiguous documents result in ambiguous implementation which we have clearly seen in the last 50 years. As a person born long after the Council I would like to put this Council in a much broader context of Church history. ]]

Pre and Post Vatican II Churches?

Thanks for your questions. When I say "get on with it" I mean what I heard Francis say: Vatican II and the way it approaches reality in light of the Gospel of an unconditionally merciful God is irreversible. Proclaim and live that out in all the ways Vatican II set forth and perhaps too, ways Vatican II did not imagine or foresee.  Proclaim the Gospel of God's unconditional love and mercy in word and deed. That is the openness and mission we are called to as Christ's own Church. Be that! Thus we must ask ourselves what Vatican II sought to achieve, what were its overarching values and aims, what did it teach us about ourselves and the Church as such? What did it say about the Church in the modern world and the way in which the Church was to approach this world? While Benedict XVI taught rightly that there was only one Church, which was both pre and post Vatican II, if his comments are taken as suggesting there was nothing significantly new with regard to Vatican II or that one cannot rightly distinguish between the counter-reformational incarnation of that church and the post Vatican II incarnation, those comments are being significantly misunderstood. In the case of those asserting what has come to be called "a hermeneutic of continuity" it will be by those who refuse to hear these comments in its various and rich contexts.

Remember that the entire Council was meant to chart a course by which the Church could move away from the counter reformation, anti-modern world stance or perspective which had led to a fortress mentality in every dimension of her life. It was meant to achieve a move away from a highly centralized Church of ecclesiastical princes and effectively disenfranchised peasants which reflected the world and rule of Constantine more than it reflected Christ or the Kingdom of God --- even as it also forgot it was NOT the Kingdom of God but its servant. This was connected with a tendency to harshly assert truth in terms of anathemas, to approach moral theology in terms of manuals which were sin-oriented rather than focused on PERSONS and God's love for them, or in terms of their need for a grace always given gratuitously. It was linked to a notion of a hierarchy of vocations which failed to make clear (or even appreciate) the universal call to holiness, to clericalism, and to a liturgy which was in the main so far from being "the work of the People" as to be a scandalous parody of that term. It was a Church which lived from the catechism rather than the Scriptures and which often forbade or condoned and encouraged those in authority to forbid the laity to read the Bible. It was a Church which was defensive, condemnatory, and even frightened of change or modernity while it treated Divine truth as a possession delimited in dogma rather than as an illimitable gift God bestowed in the Spirit; it forgot that this truth was one which the Church was called not only to discover afresh day by day and submit to humbly, but which it was entrusted to mediate freely to everyone as the Master's steward.

The Significance and Power of "Approach":

Yes, as you say, the Council demanded a new approach. But this is no small matter any more than those symbolic gestures of Francis (bowing and asking for our prayers before blessing us as he first stepped out on the loggia, climbing aboard the bus with the rest of the cardinals, eating daily with everyday people and priests, renouncing the papal palace, making his own phone calls, arranging his own interviews, etc etc) have been small matters in his approach to the papacy. Speaking in terms of something as "only a matter of approach" is similar to saying it is "just a matter of semantics" or "only a symbol." It clearly indicates one has not adequately appreciated the power or significance of these things. If I were to ask you what is most powerful and memorable about Francis' papacy thus far I would bet you would answer in terms of his approach to this office. Further, his approach is consistent with his message and this too was true of Vatican II.

 John XXIII spoke clearly of the medicine of mercy and desired a return to the sources (Scripture and the Church Fathers) of our faith. He was clear that the Church was to be OPEN to the modern world, rooted and trusting in the power of God and his Gospel, and reform itself in continuity with the early Church to be a community of true disciples, a Pilgrim People of God rather than an entrenched triumphalistic and self-satisfied island in the middle of a yearning, needy world. John desired a catholicity which meant a Church which served as leaven within  the dough (the more Greek sense of the term katholicos) instead of a huge circle which still excluded some --- the more Latin meaning of the term "universalis". In short, he desired a listening and loving Church which could engage the contemporary world as ecclesia docens et discens (a teaching AND learning church) and in every way proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, this shift in mindsets was resisted by some (a minority) in the hierarchy who in some cases were the same men who set the draft schemas for the Council which were generally rejected by the Bishops as a whole. This resistance hardened in some ways and this is a significant reason there are ambiguities in the documents.

Thus the struggle to implement this new pastoral "approach" did lead to tensions and ambiguity in the documents themselves. Thus too however, the documents themselves point immediately to their originating linguistic, historical, and theological contexts for keys to interpreting them.  And this is tremendously significant for it points to the fact that the documents cannot be read or understood without reference to the very Council or conciliar event in which they were composed. They cannot be taken out of that context and read fundamentalistically without due regard to the history and struggle (or the overarching Spirit!!) which created them, the language they used, the ways in which they were redacted, the schemas which were rejected and which they replaced, nor even without regard to one another. (In some cases one document will change the way we read another.) They are indeed unlike the documents produced by prior councils in language and tone and they differ significantly from former Councils' preponderance of dogmatic formulas and lists of anathema but I would argue their tensions and ambiguity do not allow us to read anything and everything into them. Instead it demands we read them historically and critically just as we do any significant ecclesiastical documents --- not least as we do with the Sacred Scriptures themselves.

Not a Hermeneutics of Continuity or Discontinuity but one of Reform:

Your own either/or approach to reading these documents, it seems to me, is precisely what Francis was setting aside in his interview. What Benedict XVI himself spoke of as well as these two rather divisive alternatives was a hermeneutic of reform. It is a hermeneutic which is continuous with the deepest and truest impulses and Tradition of the Church but which allows for the change Vatican II called for in so many ways and which the Gospel will always make necessary and empower. It is a hermeneutic which calls the Church to "ressourcement" (return to the sources) and "aggiornamento" (updating in dialogue with the contemporary world) at the same time, just as the Council did. This polarity of Gospel (or sources) and contemporary situation is always what draws the Church forward allowing both newness and faithfulness to the past.

With regard to the accusation that some don't want "the whole Council" I would argue that is not precisely true. Often what some seem to want when they focus on the matters your mentioned is the Council of the minority bent on the post-Tridentine status quo, and what others want is the Council of the majority which desired real reform --- the Reform Council John called for. Some try to diminish the authority of the Council by calling it "merely pastoral" and decrying the fact that it created no new dogmas and was not framed in dogmatic terms. Others recognize that pastoral impulses and needs are more demanding than any dogmatic statement, but also that Vatican II is the highest level of teaching in the Church. PERIOD. One cannot want or work for both of these approaches at the same time.

In the issue you raise re Gregorian Chant and Latin, the simple fact is the Council's emphasis on full, active, and conscious participation of the entire People of God in the liturgy trumps continued use of Latin by clerics and choirs any day. The Council called for parts of the liturgy in the vernacular and quickly found that translation of the whole liturgy into the vernacular was preferable precisely because of the Council's higher aim of full and conscious participation by the WHOLE People of God as well as because of its stress on the universal call to holiness and a rejection of clericalism. Not only is it the case that very few in the Church ever sang Gregorian chant and were made auditors at Mass through its exclusive usage by choirs and clerics, but merely reading the liturgy from a page of translation (for those who acually did so!), much less reciting Latin syllables (not words and certainly not thoughts!) in a rushed, mush-mouth approach (which is what some clergy certainly did) is NOT full, active, and conscious participation in it.

The main point however, is that Vatican II, which is authoritative Church teaching, led in certain directions and created certain overarching trajectories which are identifiable and must guide our reform of the Church and our ministry in and to the world. The Church Fathers did not always foresee these, nor could they have. Pursuing the aims and values of the Council may well have unintended consequences which no one truly or completely anticipated. Liturgy in the vernacular and the demand for full, active, and conscious participation led further than people supposed they might. Calling for the renewal of religious life in light of the charism and spirit of the institute's founders along with the mandate to simplify habits was another area in which this occurred. The brakes which the minority tried to put on some things were insufficient to stop the momentum of the Spirit or the larger aims of the Council. Were mistakes made and missteps taken in implementing Vatican II? Undoubtedly. But when Francis speaks of desiring a Church that allows for accidents rather than one which is closed in on itself and grows sick because of this, this is one of the risks he is speaking of.

Getting on With it:

 So how, indeed, do we get on with it? In fact, Vatican II gave us a good deal to implement. Francis has mentioned several of them and also pointed to a couple we have gotten no where at all on yet. We begin, however, with a clear admission to ourselves and others that the Church is ALWAYS in need of reform, and the post-Tridentine Church undoubtedly had strayed far from its evangelical and spiritual roots. We reject the Church of Constantine and accept that this is to be the Church of Christ, not a Church of worldly power and prestige, but a Church living from and mediating the love and mercy of God to all, a humble Church which spends herself for others and only lives from the continually renewing Spirit of God. We accept in a whole-hearted way that Vatican II is the teaching of the Church, not grudgingly, not looking in small-minded ways for tensions and ambiguities which are of relatively less import than the Council's surpassing aims and trajectories and that can become excuses for refusing, even subtly, to accept the Council. We accept as our own call to mission that "openness to modernity is our obligation" as Francis has affirmed --- not to proselytize but to evangelize!!

For most in the Church this will require renewing our sense of what Vatican II was, what it said and why. It will require renewed study of the documents from a historical and critical perspective. There will be a need for lectures and workshops and study sessions in parishes. It will mean reading up on the work being done today by ecclesiologists like O"Malley, Faggioli, Sullivan, Orsy, and Gaillardetz among others. Pastors will need to be able to provide a way for folks to share a sense of the conciliar background that has made Francis the Pope he is. During this 50th anniversary year it really is time for a fresh commitment to Vatican II --- something which will be very much harder for those disillusioned by the past years of some curial attempts to move back behind it or for those who have built their lives on resisting it whether overtly or covertly by the "ideologization" of the Liturgy, and taking refuge in a "hermeneutic of continuity" which denied VII brought ANYTHING really new. Francis has called the Church to LIVE Vatican II out, but that will assuredly also entail resources allowing folks to identify and reclaim once again the very real SPIRIT of Vatican II as a source of vision and empowerment.

At the same time we must move onto the specific elements mentioned by Francis and others. Among these, collegiality and the multiple levels of reform that requires, a non-political church with a preferential option for the poor,  meaningful roles for women in ministry and in the leadership of the Church, an end to clericalism, ecumenism as a way of living our faith, an approach to morality which is rooted in the mercy and love of God before it is anything else, and an approach to truth which sees it as a Divine gift to be discovered and celebrated WITH others rather than a weapon to be wielded against them. As, and only as we remove the beam from our own ecclesiastical eye and exorcise the demons from our own house, we will be able to minister effectively to the world. We will set aside the "culture wars" and transcend them in the Gospel we proclaim with integrity in season and out. Some will listen, others will not, but we will be a Pilgrim People which trusts that God's mercy is stronger even than death and that the love of God is the ONLY thing which has ever overcome sin and lead to true reconciliation. Idealistic? You better believe it! Demanding? More so than any form of "battle" we might engage in in more typically worldly terms!

I hope this is helpful, at least as a start.