CrossCurrents A Catholic Reflects on Faith in Our Times

Bernard F. Swain, Ph.D. www.CrossCurrents.us

Benedict: the Heart of Faith

Last week I said Benedict XVI’s first encyclical letter, “God is Love,” offers a “back to basics” view of Christian faith written from an angle no Pope before Vatican II could have taken. This is even more true of the letter’s second part.

Part II: The Practice of Love by the Church, as a “Community of Love.”

For Benedict, the impact of believing that “God is Love” is obvious: “The entire activity of the Church is an expression of the love that seeks the integral good of man [sic].” The Church’s purpose is to manifest the Trinity: energized by the Spirit, it gives world-wide witness to the Father’s love, who aims “to make humanity a single family in his Son.”

The Church expresses its nature as an expression of God’s love in three ways: (1) in proclaiming the Word of God, (2) in celebrating the Sacraments that signal God’s saving grace, and (3) in practicing the love of neighbor that Jesus preached: “Love is therefore the service that the Church carries out in order to attend constantly to men’s suffering and his needs, including material needs. And this is the aspect, this service of charity, on which I want to focus.”

The Book of Acts depicts the life of the Church being organized into two main elements: “koinonia” and “diakonia.”

First, koinonia is the “communion” that forms when the Eucharist makes all one body of Christ. For the first Christians, this communion meant “holding all things in common” with no private possessions. Benedict acknowledges that this “radical material union” did not (perhaps could not) last, but he argues that “its essential core remains: within the community of believers there can never be room for the poverty that denies anyone what is needed for a dignified life.”

But Acts also describes how Christians organized to put this principle into practice, by choosing seven members to serve as deacons:

The social service which they were meant to provide was absolutely concrete, yet at the same time it was also a spiritual service; theirs was a truly spiritual office which carried out an essential responsibility of the church, namely a well-ordered love of neighbor. With the formation of this group of seven, “diakonia” – the ministry of charity organized in a communal, orderly way – became part of the fundamental structure of the church.

It’s worth noting here that, since the Vatican II restored the permanent diaconate, many Catholics have seen deacons as “back-up” priests, to be pressed into priestly duties (like running parishes) where priests are short. Benedict instead pinpoints the real, essential role of deacons: ordering the social service ministry of the church.

Indeed, for Benedict the social mission of the church can never be seen as “optional equipment” for Catholics – it is, rather, an essential part of Catholic life:

The Church’s deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility: of proclaiming the word of God.., celebrating the sacraments.., and exercising the ministry of charity. These duties presuppose each other and are inseparable. For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, but is a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being.

Moreover, he says, the parable of the Good Samaritan depicts a love of neighbor extending beyond the church community itself. Within the faith community, “no member should suffer through being in need.” But beyond that is “a standard which imposes universal of towards the needy whom we encounter ‘by chance,’ whoever they may be.”

Benedict acknowledges that since 1800 “charity” has become controversial: “The poor, it is claimed, do not need charity, but justice.” Industrialization made “charity” a tool of the rich, who could use “almsgiving” to keep the poor docile while maintaining an unjust status quo. The Pope admits the Church was “slow to realize that the issue of the just structuring of society needed to be approached in a new way.”

But then he cites how five Popes between 1891 and 1991 (Leo XIII, Pius XI, John XXIII, Paul VI, and John-Paul II) produced eight major documents to build a body of Catholic social doctrine which “has become a set of fundamental guidelines offering approaches that are valid even beyond the confines of the church.”

Benedict is quick to clarify that the Church “cannot and must not replace the state” as a vehicle for building a just social order. But he stands firmly against the opposite extreme: the Church “cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice.”

How many Catholics, I wonder see their church engaged in “the fight for justice”? How many see that fight as one of the basics of their faith? And how many seen this Pope placing the fight for justice at the core of Catholic life?

Our times, in this era of globalization, “call for a new readiness to assist our neighbors in need.” The Church’s political place is indirect, he says—not to set policy but to promote the “reawakening of those moral forces without which just structures are neither established nor prove effective in the long run.” But this also requires “Christians to speak with the united voice” in promoting their rights and needs of all, especially “the poor, the lowly, and the defenseless.” This might involve partnership with the state, with other organizations, and with other faiths helping those in need.

Yet amid such cooperation, Benedict believes, Catholic social service should preserve three distinctive features.

First, it should stress immediate relief of suffering – what Catholics traditionally call the “corporal works of mercy.” And such charitable services must be heartfelt, aiming not only to “merely meet the needs of the moment,” but also to enable those in need “to experience the richness of their humanity.” This requires personnel who, beyond their professional training, also received a “formation of the heart.”

Second, Benedict wants charitable service that stands “independent of parties and ideologies.” Specifically, he rejects any impulse to avoid helping individuals on the grounds that it makes an unjust status quo more tolerable and postpones its transformation into something more humane: “one does not make the world more human by refusing to act humanely here and now.”

Third, Benedict bluntly insists that Christian service must have no conversion strings attached:

Charity, furthermore, cannot be used as a means of engaging in what is nowadays considered proselytism. Love is free; it is not practiced as a way of achieving other ends… Those who practice charity in the Church’s name will never seek to impose the Church’s faith upon others. They realize that a pure and generous love is the best witness to the God in whom we believe and by whom we are driven to love. The Christian knows when it is time to speak of God and when it is better to say nothing and to let love alone speak.

This is a far cry from the days when missionaries routinely proselytized as part and parcel of their healing or teaching missions. The very idea that sometimes “it is better to say nothing” rings a note of prudent modernity that Catholicism seldom sounded before Vatican II. Once again, this Pope shows himself to be a product of the Council’s renewal.

And whose job is such service? Benedict believes “the true subject of the…ministry of charity is the Church herself—at all levels, from the parishes, through the particular churches [that is, dioceses], to the universal Church.” He repeats that such service is not “optional equipment” for Catholics—and never has been: “the exercise of charity is an action of the church as such and…has been an essential part of permission from the very beginning.”

Overall, I find Benedict’s XVI’s “Back to Basics” encyclical deceptively simple. Part I identifies the crux of Catholic Faith in “The unbreakable bond between love of God and love of neighbor.” And Part II names the heart of this faith, the Church’s charitable service and struggle for justice as “a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being.”

I say “deceptively,” because Benedict’s clear message is easier said than done. Amid widespread controversies that divide Catholics from each other and from others, can this simple message spark a new spirit of unity? Time will tell, but for now Benedict has delivered on his promise to promote unity, not division.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2006

Send Your Comments and Questions to bfswain@juno.com

Dr. Swain’s opinions do not represent the views of this parish or any other official body.

Bernie Swain has devoted more than 30 years to adult spiritual formation in dioceses in the US, Canada, and France. Since 1991 he has maintained a private practice as trainer, teacher, and consultant to leaders in parishes and other religious organizations. He holds degrees in theology and political science from Holy Cross, Harvard, The University of Paris, and The University of Chicago.

His writings include Liberating Leadership (Harper & Row, 1986) and more than 200 articles in periodicals such as The National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, The Miami Herald, The Catholic Free Press, The Pilot, Harvard Theological Review, and Liturgy.

A lifelong layperson, he lives in Boston with his wife and three children. Visit his website at:

http://www.CrossCurrents.us

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