The Church’s Chief Ecumenist
Christian ecumenism has been revolutionized from the time that the Second Vatican Council irrevocably committed the Catholic Church to seek reunion proactively with separated Christians rather than merely waiting for their “return” to the true fold of Christ. Among other developments since then, the Church more or less has taken over the leadership of the world ecumenical movement. Most ecumenical activity today either is inspired by or involves the Catholic Church. Although it is forty years after the Council and there are as yet hardly any instances of actual reunion—centuries of separation can hardly be reversed in a day, or, it seems, even in forty years—progress in clearing away past misunderstandings among Christians has been enormous.
Some Catholics still nevertheless mistrust the very idea of ecumenism: If the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of truth, as we know that it does, what is there to dialogue about? Understanding better what that and other faith propositions mean is one answer to that question. But the main reason that the Church feels obliged to engage in ecumenical dialogue and other ecumenical efforts regardless of any immediate results is that Christ himself prayed “that they may all be one” (John 17:21). This prayer haunted the Council, as it did Pope John Paul II.
Since 2001, German Walter Cardinal Kasper has been president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the agency of the Holy See through which the Church pursues nearly all its official ecumenical efforts at the summit. As the Church’s chief ecumenist, Kasper could not be in a better position to assess where Christian ecumenism stands today from the point of view of the Catholic Church. Essentially this is what he does in this book.
The book is a concise, quite readable survey of the major topics concerning ecumenism today, beginning with a chapter on what the cardinal shows is the “binding nature” of Vatican II’s Unitatis Redintegratio. Here and throughout the book, Kasper adheres closely to the text and meaning of Unitatis Redintegratio. He also makes frequent reference to Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical on the Church’s commitment to ecumenism, Ut Unum Sint (“That They May Be One”).
Subsequent chapters cover contemporary ecumenical theology, ecumenical dialogue, communio (the principal Catholic concept guiding the Church’s ecumenical quest today, according to Kasper), ecclesiology, pneumatology (concerning the Holy Spirit’s role in ecumenical endeavors), spiritual ecumenism, and pluralism.
In another chapter, the author is particularly illuminating on all the problems surrounding the question of papal primacy, or, as many today (including Kasper) prefer to call it, “the Petrine ministry.” It is well understood all around that there is no way the Catholic Church is ever going to give this up—or could. How, then, can the issue be managed in dialogue with the Church’s ecumenical interlocutors, who are committed to a non-Petrine view of Christ’s Church? It may surprise some readers how favorably the papacy has come to be viewed in some quarters as a result of the ongoing ecumenical dialogues and other initiatives. .asper’s informed ideas on how the stalemate might be overcome are quite interesting too, even tantalizing.
The author in yet another chapter explains the Joint Declaration on Justification (which the Catholic Church signed with the Lutheran World Federation in 1999) as well as this has been done anywhere.
For a former German university professor—he taught systematic theology at Tübingen—Kasper generally writes with admirable clarity. Some of the subject matter is complex, though, and requires close attention. Some of the chapters bristle with footnotes and references to mostly German sources, but it is not necessary to follow up on these in order to get the benefit of the book’s message. Other chapters seem to have been delivered as speeches.
As many people are aware, Kasper, as bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, was publicly associated with a questionable position on Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. As head of the Pontifical Council, he made statements about the claimed “salvific” character of the Old Covenant that had to be withdrawn. He also has debated the present Holy Father, Benedict XVI, on the nature of the universal Church and the particular churches. It must be said, though, that in this book he adheres closely in all essentials to—and defends where necessary—the Church’s authentic teaching and practice.
In short, if you want to know where Christian ecumenism stands today from an authentic Catholic Church standpoint, this book is a good place to start.
— Kenneth D. Whitehead
That They All May Be One: The Call to Unity Today
By Walter .asper
Continuum (2005)
202 pages
$22.95
Paperback
ISBN: 0860123790
Passion Fruit
When an artist is faithful to his subject, his art can contain depths he never sought to incorporate. Such is the case with Mel Gibson and his 2004 film The Passion of the Christ. As screenwriter and film critic Barbara Nicolosi notes in her preface to Monica Migliorino Miller’s The Theology of The Passion of the Christ, even Gibson himself found that he had difficulty explaining to skeptical viewers the significance of certain scenes in his film. “Explaining why the image [of the ugly baby] affected us all so strongly is the job of the theologian,” Nicolosi comments.
In undertaking that job, Miller examines various theological themes of The Passion, particularly the uniquely Catholic Marian and eucharistic themes. Reading Miller’s observations on these themes will enrich future viewings of the film by those who, like Gibson, know there is rich meaning to the film’s images but have difficulty explaining exactly what they are seeing.
Gibson’s Mary, in contrast to other cinematic portrayals of the Blessed Mother, is actively involved in her Son’s Passion, to the extent that one chagrined Evangelical Protestant pastor sarcastically noted that “they should have named the film The Passion of Jesus and Mary” Such a thought obviously horrified him, but a Catholic would nod in agreement and find the suggestion apt. As the prophet Simeon predicted (Luke 2:34–35), Mary suffered alongside her Son, a detail finally fully captured on film by Gibson and noted by Miller. Among the powerful scenes used to show Mary’s suffering are her presence at Christ’s scourging, her retrieval of his eucharistic blood spilled by the scourging, her accompaniment with him on the via dolorosa in counterpoint to Satan, and her active participation at the foot of the cross that culminates in her pleading with her Son to allow her to die with him.
Miller, originally mildly critical of the violence in The Passion (see “Flaw of Blood,” This Rock, May-June 2004), has since pondered the film’s bloodiness more deeply and drawn out more completely its theological significance. She cites a reviewer of the film who noted, ” The Passion isn’t just a gruesome movie but a ritual that exalts the blood of Jesus because the release of this blood released humanity from sin.” Skeptical critics of the movie saw the blood as just so much blood. But the faithful recognize that the precious blood of Christ is salvific and eucharistic. Glorying in that blood is the opposite of the “sadomasochism” the film’s critics allege; it reflects instead a deeply Christian joy in the source of human salvation.
Miller explains well, in opposition to the claims of critics, that the movie is biblically based, but she also draws upon the visions of Christian mystics, especially the recently beatified Anne Catherine Emmerich, as recorded in her book The Dolorous [i.e., Sorrowful] Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Although many critics dismissed the movie because of its dependence for artistic detail on the writings attributed to Emmerich, Miller explains that interpretations of the Gospels are common to other Jesus movies and plays, such as The Last Temptation of Christ and Jesus Christ Superstar. What should matter is not that the Gospels are interpreted but whether they are interpreted in a manner faithful to orthodox Christian tradition.
Although Miller is evenhanded in her treatment of the controversial issues surrounding Emmerich—including that Emmerich’s writings were to some extent influenced by the anti-Semitism of her time and culture—it would have been helpful from an apologetics perspective to explain the role of private revelation in the Catholic faith. It is also important to understand that the writings attributed to Emmerich are believed to have been highly embellished, perhaps even falsified, by Emmerich’s secretary M. Clemens Brentano to such an extent that Emmerich’s cause for sainthood was delayed for nearly a century and progressed only when the Church excluded the writings attributed to her from consideration of her life. Thus, though it is unobjectionable for Gibson to have drawn neutral material from the writings to flesh out his adaptation of the Gospel accounts of the Passion, the writings themselves cannot be considered authoritative.
Unlike many movies produced today, Mel Gibson’s The Passion seems destined to become a movie classic that each new generation will experience as a cinematic rite of passage. In contrast to such secular predecessors as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, The Passion may be the first religious movie to attain such a distinction. And when new viewers approach The Passion of the Christ, they will find The Theology of The Passion of the Christ to be a handy guide to the theological meaning of the images they experience in the movie.
— Michelle Arnold
The Theology of The Passion of the Christ
By Monica Migliorino Miller
Alba House (2005)
170 pages
$14.95
Paperback
ISBN: 0818909757
A Front-Row Pew
An example of the spiritual insight offered by Benedictine Father Jeremy Driscoll in What Happens at Mass is this meditation on the Gloria:
This hymn, on the days when it is sung, is an outburst of joy and praise. The liturgy is on the verge of beginning its first major part in the Liturgy of the Word, but it is as if we can hardly get started because of the joy and wonder of Sunday or the feast. So we stand there singing this explosive hymn even though we know God is wanting to address us in his word, and, of course, we are anxious for that. But first, this praise!
The simple title given to the book was suggested to him by a friend. But its simplicity is deceptive. When we ask, “What happened?” we want people to tell us about a series of events that we can see with our eyes. Driscoll takes his reader beyond the physical to that mysterious mixing and interplay between the physical and spiritual that occurs in the sacraments (or the “mysteries,” as the Eastern churches prefer to say).
What is particularly impressive about this book is that Driscoll brings into sharp relief the fact that we are dependent on the apostles for faith in Christ. The Church and Christ are inseparable, he points out consistently. In writing of the necessity that a deacon or priest read the Gospel at Mass, he writes:
It alerts us to the fact that Christ himself is now speaking directly to his assembled Church. Further, the bishop is a successor to the apostles. He ordains deacons to proclaim the Gospel, and this mission remains in those deacons whom he later ordains as priests. Reserving the proclamation of the Gospel to the ordained reminds us that the Gospel expresses apostolic faith in a preeminent way.
While he writes that he does not want to address practical matters in this book, these do, of necessity, come up from time to time. For instance, regarding the homily, he writes:
This defines the preacher’s task: to enable the whole community and each individual believer to say with one’s whole being, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and to cry out ‘Abba, Father!’ to God. This is a task of infinite proportions and inexhaustible wealth. . . . This infinite wealth begins to unfold in the Church from the time of the apostles and is developed in the patristic centuries. Preaching in our own times should be marked by continuity with this apostolic and patristic heritage.
Driscoll has this to say about the Eucharistic Prayer:
We should first of all note the direction of the priest’s language. He is still addressing God the Father. This is important. The priest is not doing something so much for the people to hear and see but more so that the Father may hear and see. He performs his narrative before God at an altar in heaven.
That is a simple observation with practical consequences—the priest should be looking upwards, not out at the people as if they were his audience.
This book is impressive for the way it takes the reader’s mind from what we might see as the routine of Mass to penetrating to its reality: The Trinity is at work to bring about the salvation of God’s people and the renewal of the world; the Church is offering to God what he himself wants offered—our own spiritual sacrifice joined with the perfect sacrifice of Christ on the cross and his Resurrection.
It is clear that Driscoll, who teaches at Mount Angel Seminary near Portland, Oregon, and at the Pontifical University Sant’ Anselmo in Rome, is rooted deeply in the teaching of the Church, its Tradition, the person of Christ, and the truth of the Trinity. He conveys it with an excitement that is tangible.
The book is published by Liturgy Training Publications, the publishing arm of the archdiocese of Chicago. There has been a change in management there since the appointment of Francis Cardinal George. If What Happens at Mass is an indication of things to come, I eagerly await their new titles.
— Tom Szyszkiewicz
What Happens at Mass
By Jeremy Driscoll, O.S.B.
Liturgy Training Publications (2005)
134pages
$10.95
Paperback
ISBN: 1568545630