What Are We To Make Of The Sign of Jonah?

38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, ‘Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.’ 39 But he answered them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth. 41 The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here! 42 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! (Matthew 12:38 – 42).


In one of Jesus’ more interesting speeches, he tells us that the sign he will give to us to validate his ministry is the sign of Jonah. Following his initial remarks about the sign, Christians tradionally interpreted it as a prophecy of Jesus’ death and subsequent resurrection. While certainly correct, I have often pondered whether or not this answer is a bit too simple, and we have not fully understood what Jesus was telling us.

Indeed, what Jesus said about Jonah should tell us that there is more to the story than Jonah's journey at sea. Jonah had been given a warning to deliver to the people of Nineveh: repent or face destruction. Because they repented, the predicted doom did not occur. We do not see Jonah as a false prophet because what he said did not come to pass. He was a preacher of righteousness who understood the final consequences of sin. It is self-destructive. If it is left unchecked, it will destroy everything in its path.

Perhaps the sign should be seen within a holistic interpretation of Jonah’s life. It is not only his journey into the belly of the beast, into the abyss as it were, that we need to see as a sign of Christ, but also the final repentance of the people of Nineveh and God’s mercy towards them. Without Jonah’s warning, they would not have turned away from their wickedness.

In his ministry to the people of Israel, Jesus not only came as healer, but as a preacher of righteousness. His morality was the law of love. All other rules, all other regulations, come from the demands of love. Sin as a violation of God’s law is seen as a violation of the law of love. In his prediction of the Last Judgment, Jesus tells us that there will be two classes of people, those who lived out the law of love, the sheep, and those who violated its dictates, the goats.

Many people, when reading this prophecy, see it as if Jesus were giving us a glimpse of future history: what is said in it must come to pass. If Jesus says that there will be people sent to eternal perdition, then that is the end of all debate. Hell exists and people will be sent to there. If not, Jesus is a liar and we should not believe what he tells us.

However, are they reading this prophecy correctly? If Jesus gives us his life as the sign of Jonah, then perhaps, just perhaps, what he tells us about the Last Judgment should be read in this light. Jonah showed what sin does to society: Jesus tells us what sin does to the soul. However, he did not come to bring us a message of doom, his message was a message of hope, “I came not to judge the world, but to save it” (John 12:47b). Perhaps, like Fedorov, we can say:

…we dare to think that the prophecy of the Last Judgment is conditional, like that of the prophet Jonah and like all prophecies, because every prophecy has an educational purpose – the purpose of reforming those who to whom it is addressed; it cannot sentence to irrevocable perdition those who have not even been born yet. If that were the case, what sense, what purpose, could such a prophecy have, and could it accord with the will of a God, who, as already stated, wishes all to be saved, all to come to true reason and not to perish? -- Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov, What Was Man Created For? The Philosophy of the Common Task. Trans. Elisabeth Koutaissof and Marilyn Minto (Lausanne, Switzerland: Honeyglen Publishing, 1990), p.129-30.

Looking at Jonah’s life holistically as a sign of Jesus’ own mission suggests that Balthasar’s daring hope for the salvation of all might indeed come to pass. We do not know the fate of the world. We have only been given possibilities. If it were a certainty that there are souls destined for eternal perdition, how could we pray, “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have the most need of your mercy”?

Holy Father Liberius, Pope Of Rome

Today, on the twenty-seventh of August, the Ruthenians commemorate the memory of Holy Father Liberius, Pope of Rome. Holy Father Liberius? Yes. In a rather strange twist of fate, the first Pope not placed on the Western martyrology is remembered by the East.

While it would be difficult to determine all the reasons for this development, a few important facts can be brought out to help understand how this came about.

Pope Liberius lived in an exciting but tumultuous age. During the time of Constantine, not only had Rome’s official persecution of Christians ended, Christians begun to have an open influence in the affairs of state. What should have been a time of joy became a time of sorrow when it became obvious that there was discord in the Church. In Egypt, Arius contended against Patriarch Alexander of Alexandria on the nature of the Trinity: are the Father and the Son to be seen as equals (the position of Alexander), or is the Son inferior to the Father (the position of Arius). Constantine, directed by Ossius of Cordova (whose feast is also today), tried to restore Christian unity by convening the council of Nicea in 325. At the council, Arius’ position was condemned, and the vast majority of the bishops accepted the Nicene Creed, written by Ossius, as representing the common Christian tradition. Arius and his followers continued to spread their teachings, and Constantine did not establish Christian unity.

Liberius would become Pope in 352, and the conflict between the Nicenes and the Arians continued. Emperor Constantine was dead, and the empire was led by the Arian-sympathizing emperor, Constantius II. The emperor wanted to unite Christianity under an Arian creed, and forced bishops to sign Arian confessions. Pope Liberius, completely orthodox in his beliefs, rejected the emperor, and was sent into exile in 355. Two years later, he was called back. Some writers suggested he fell into the Arian heresy and completely succumbed to the will of the emperor. Others suggested that he had agreed to an ambiguous statement which did not have to be interpreted heretically. Others saw neither of these, and believed he came back to Rome, victorious over the cruel mechanizations of the emperor. While Constantius still lived, it is clear Pope Liberius tried to continue in an orthodox, if somewhat quiet, manner. Once Constantius died in 361, Liberius made it very clear where his sympathies lie. In an act of mercy, he was willing to welcome communion with any of the bishops who, against their will, had signed their names to any of Constantius’ decrees. All they had to do was simply to repudiate any and all heretical decrees they had agreed to.

In the West, not only was there a theological battle being waged against the Arians, there was an internal debate going on the relationship between Christian ethics and ecclesiastical leadership. Under the influence of the legalistic Novatians, some Western Christians thought lapsed Christians could not receive absolution for their error, and even if they were repentant, they could not be welcomed back into the Christian fold. Likewise, under the influence of the Donatists, others questioned whether or not a bishop who erred in the faith or morals could continue their sacramental leadership in the Church. When a leader opposed either of these groups their character was immediately brought into question. Pope Liberius became easy prey – stories were spread about his fall from the orthodox faith. Even those who did not hold to either the Novatian or Donatist position were influenced by these rumors. Liberius was believed by many as being a weak leader who had, out of pressure, momentarily fallen into heresy. Can such a Pope be recognized as a holy father of the Church? Clearly, with his marred reputation, the answer was no.

Things were quite a bit different in the East. Not only was the influence of Novatian and Donatist thought negligible at best, but the fact that many of the Eastern bishops were the ones who lapsed from the faith and were later readmitted to communion with Rome by Liberius’ policies gave them a more benevolent view of the Pope. There was, simply put, a greater fluidity of thought in the East. The East was quicker to fall into the Arian heresy, but the East also provided the theological support which brought about its defeat. The East, without the moralistic legalism of the West, was more open to mercy. Had not St Athanasius himself admitted, like Liberius, that a creed signed under compulsion was not to be held against those Christians who signed it, if in their heart, they denied it? Had not Liberius, throughout his life, throughout his exile, made it clear where he stood? How, then, could his sanctity and leadership be denied, when his voice was one of the voices of orthodoxy in his time?

Thus the Latins and Greeks developed differing attitudes towards Liberius. The Latins, who had more literature that condemned him, in the end, did not list him in their official martyrologies. The Greeks, who probably did not know of this discrepancy with the Latins, placed Liberius, with many other of the bishops who had been forgiven momentary lapses in faith, in their lists of Saints, and continue to commemorate him as one of the many holy Popes of Rome.

Drawing Near The Light

Lo, when we wade the tangled wood,

In haste and hurry to be there,

Nought seem its leaves and blossoms good,

For all that they be fashioned fair.

But looking up, at last we see

The glimmer of the open light,

From o'er the place where we would be:

Then grow the very brambles bright.

So now, amidst our day of strife,

With many a matter glad we play,

When once we see the light of life

Gleam through the tangle of to-day.

Poem: William Morris.

Picture: Taken in The Effigy Mounds Park, 07-15-2006.

On Science and Religion

One of the fundamental myths preached by the positivists, and readily accepted without dispute by their heirs, is the myth that religion and science are in a constant struggle, one against the other, for our hearts and minds. The positivists understood science as the principle of rational progress and religion as the principle of irrational, dogmatic superstition: the two can never meet, they can never work together. To prove their point, positivists gave to us the example of Galileo, but the Galileo they show us is not the Galileo of history, but the manufactured Galileo of positivistic superstition, a Galileo martyred by religion instead of the Galileo rejected by the scientific establishment of his day.

Before I started my graduate studies in theology, I considered the possibility of studies in the history and philosophy of science. My love for the truth is one which searchers for it wherever it can be found, even in the sciences. I am fascinated by the history of their progress: it is a story which goes back to the dawn of time and continues to be written in our day. Sadly, those who study the sciences do not get told this story, and most are not given the philosophical tools to understand the implications of their endeavors. They are trained to be scientific technicians, nothing more, nothing less. They might be well trained in their little slice of the sciences, but they are not expected to see the big picture, and so they cannot offer us a proper model of the universe. Such a model, while it incorporates the sciences, is not exhausted by them. Most scientists seem to accept the myth given to them by the positivists without question, and if they preach any philosophy, it is the philosophy of scientism: the philosophy of scientific reductionism. They offer their technical achievements as what establishes the validity of their shared myth: they fail to remember that such practical validity can be found even with religion.

Without question, my studies have shown me that this “received truth” is overwhelmingly false. Not only do the sciences create their own brand of superstitious dogmatism, history shows us that it is usually one generation of scientists, with their rigid understanding of the universe, who contends with and opposes the next generation with their new, innovative, yet unproven hypotheses, not religion.

Galileo, that hero of scientific positivism, is actually a case which shows this point. Galileo’s theories, while supported by some of his peers, went against the accepted scientific views of his time! More importantly, he wanted people to believe him based upon his own personal authority! He proclaimed his vision of the universe as infallible: the sun is the center of the universe, and everything else revolves around it. If only he had understood what Nicholas of Cusa had written in the fifteenth century, his view of the universe would not have been so erroneous: “The world-machine,” Nicholas tells us, has “its center everywhere and its circumference nowhere…” Nicholas of Cusa, On Learned Ignorance. Trans. Jasper Hopkins (Minneapolis: The Arthur Banning Press, 1990), p. 117. Nicholas believed that the sun could relativisitically be said to be the center of the universe, but so could the earth, because the universe is infinite, and each point in the universe could be seen, relative to the rest, as the center. Nicholas predated Einstein by several centuries with this theory of relativity! (In an absolute sense, Nicholas believed the only real center lies with God). The Catholic Church did not condemn his view: rather, he was made a Cardinal and more than once, he was almost elected Pope.

Why was Nicholas acceptable to the Catholic Church and Galileo condemned? Was it to do with science? No, it was due to Galileo’s erroneous theological interpretation of his scientific ideas, and his unwillingness to consider the possibility that his scientific and theological interpretations were in error. If he had even accepted that one possibility and overcame his own personal hubris, he would have had far fewer enemies. It was not as a scientist, but as an amateur theologian, that Galileo made his greatest mistake. It was also as a theologian that he made enemies within the Church. He proclaimed the Bible was in error, and only his interpretation of the Bible was valid. Contrary to the positivistic myth of the opposition of religion to science, it must be remembered that Galileo had many supporters of his beliefs from within the leadership of the Catholic Church, just as a scientist, he was rejected by his peers. As a group, the scientists of his era continued to follow a Ptolemaic model of the universe. As it happens with many such scientific debates, both sides of the dispute held aspects of truth while proclaiming an incomplete, and thereby false, model of the universe

Today the heirs of Galileo’s accusers are found not only within the religious sphere, but within the scientific establishment as well. Unfounded, simplistic dogmatism reigns with practitioners of both now as it ever did.

What science offers is of tremendous practical benefit to society. What many of its students fail to offer is a reasoned analysis of the phenomena they study, because they have not been trained to do this. Scientist after scientist readily accepts the norm they have been given by the positivistic mythology, without realizing the problems inherent in this worldview. They have forgotten that it is the fundamental mystery behind the phenomena of the universe which should lead them in a non-dogmatic search for truth as the basis of their experiments. Perhaps the reason why so many scientists are not taught this is simple: once it is accepted that the universe and its contents remain to us primarily a universe of mystery, we enter into the religious sphere of meaning, and it is that sphere which their positivistic teachers want them to deny.

Inculturation Through the Ages IIB: The Russian Mission to Alaska

Catholics are not the only ones who have inculturated the faith. What might surprise many, but should not, is that Orthodox missionaries attempted to transmit the faith according to the needs of the peoples they encountered. Even before Vatican II, Orthodox tradition was that the liturgy should be prayed in the every day language of the people. The Orthodox undersand that the liturgy is not only the work of the people, bringing the people together as they worship God in common, but also that the liturgy, as the prayer of the people, is the primary place where we join in with our theological and spiritual heritage. The Christian East holds an old understanding of what it means to do theology: it is the experience we receive when we speak with and pray to God. Our prayers show what it is we believe, and in our communal prayers, we show what it is that the Church has been taught about God and the Christian faith. The Divine Liturgy can be seen as the purest act of Christian theology. How is this possible if we do not understand the words we speak?

Early in the 18th century, Russians discovered Alaska, and by the end of the 18th century, Russia had established a trading colony in Alaska and the scattered island surrounding the mainland. The Russian Orthodox Church saw the need to send priests and monks to Alaska, not only to meet the spiritual needs of the Russian traders, but also to evangelize the natives. The first group of eight religious priests and monks to go to Alaska founded the Kodiak Mission, and saw, to their horror, that the natives were being mistreated by the traders. They sided with the natives against their own kinsmen. By 1796, Hieromonk Makarios returned to Russia with some Aleuts in order to launch a complaint against the way the traders were abusing the natives. Disaster struck the first mission, and either by accident or by martyrdom, one by one most of the eight missionaries were killed. The last survivor was St Herman of Alaska, who developed a close, loving relationship with the Aleuts. He created the New Valaam hermitage on Spruce Island, and continued for more than forty years in his mission with the Aleuts, adapting himself as he could to their culture and tradition, teaching them in their language, and defending them and their rights against the Russian colonists.

Father Michael J. Oleksa, in his online text, The Alaskan Orthodox Mission and Cosmic Christianity, shows us how the early Orthodox missionaries saw the Christian faith as the fulfillment and not the annihilation of the native beliefs:

In Alaska the Valaam monks reported that the Aleuts believed that the which animated the sea mammals they hunted was a sacred reality which had to be treated reverentially. Their Eskimo and Indian neighbors to the north and east shared this belief. The Church could affirm rather than condemn this humble, respectful attitude toward life, for Christ is the life of not just all people. The Church blesses by putting His Name, proclaiming His sovereignty, not just over human life, but over the entire cosmos. It is at this deeper, essentially spiritual level, that the Christian Gospel, proclaimed and celebrated liturgically and sacramentally within Eastern Orthodoxy, converged with the pre-Christian spiritual tradition of ancient Alaska. Christ comes not to condemn but to save the world, and this salvation is a cosmic process inaugurated on Pentecost, continuing to the end of .the age, and fulfilled only in the Second Coming, when He comes not to annihilate but to renew;, purify, and sanctify the world He so loves.

This same remarkable spirit continued in Alaska under St Innocent of Alaska. Born as John Evseyevich Popov-Veniaminov in 1797, he was married in 1817, and ordained a priest in 1821. He volunteered in 1823 to go with his family as missionaries to Alaska. In nearly fifty years of mission work, John was constanlty on the move around Alaska, and he encountered several different native peoples, learned more than six different dialects and local customs, and translated hymns and scriptural texts into the local languages. His interest in the native languages led him to writing the Notes on the Kolushchan and Kodiak Tongues As Well As Other Dialects of the Russo-American Territories. His education of the natives did not end with the proclamation of the Gospel. He took an interest in their welfare, as can be seen in the vaccination program he created for the Tlingits. His wife died in 1838 and by 1840 took monastic vows and changed his name to Innocent. On December 15, 1840 he received the honor of being consecrated the Bishop of Kamchatka and Kuril Islands in Russia and the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. St Innocent, like St Herman before him, loved the natives, and worked for their betterment, while preserving the elements of their culture which he believed were compatible with his Christian faith. To be sure, he took a criticial view on certain aspects of the native religious traditions, and sought to eleminate shamanistic rituals from among the Aleuts. But the Aleuts did not take his action as condemnatory of their people. They saw the love and zeal he had for their people, and welcomed him amongst their own and worked with him in producing a envigorating combination of Russian Orthodox and Aleutian traditions. Some of his works are freely available on the internet at the Alaskan Orthodox Texts website. Even after Russia had sold Alaska to the United States, and many of the Russians traders moved back to Russia, the work started by Sts Herman and continued by St Innocent allowed for the Christian faith to take hold upon the natives, and provided for the foundation by which the natives continued to follow their inculturated Orthodox faith, and even to this day, a majority of the Orthodox in Alaska come from the native peoples.

The Beauty of Catholic Certainty Part I

Thomas Aquinas held that faith is the most certain of all forms of knowledge, even more certain than the first principle of human reason (e.g., De Veritate q.14, a.1, ad.7, Scriptum super libros sententiarum q.1, a.3, qc.3, ad.1). There are two avenues upon which we can illuminate the beauty of such a claim. The first avenue concerns the notion of faith, while the second concerns the notion of certainty.

Faith is a term that, like beauty (cf. Beauty’s Long Road to Calvary on this blog), has suffered at the hands of modern thought, overly driven as it was with concern for human knowing at the neglect of human ‘being’. Again, for the sake of balance, we must admit that Descartes, and Kant especially, bequeath to us a legacy of insightful analysis and synthesis focusing upon the nature of human thought and understanding. However, it is no great secret that their influence tilted things too much in the direction of the mind, and as that splendid philosopher Etienne Gilson remarked, “once you start philosophizing in the mind, you can never get out” (“Vade Mecum of a Young Realist,” Philosophy of Knowledge, Roland Hande and Joseph P. Mullally, (eds.) (Chicago: J.B. Lippenott co., 1960).

This may be why it is so very difficult for the person of today to conceive the nature of faith in any terms other than ‘what I myself believe.’ This not only reduces faith to mere subjective assent, but it goes further insofar as it de facto neglects those ‘objective’ propositions that are necessary for any assent: all assent is a willful commitment to truths, or Truth, that precedes and exceeds the individual mind. There can be no purely subjective assent because there can be purely subjectively conceived notions (a truth that was, with a certain irony, especially illuminated by none other than Kant himself).

Oddly, though, many today are quick to claim that there is no need for assent when it comes to the truths involved in the natural sciences. With a dogmatic mindset arguably more intense than anytime in history, many people today seem to affirm, with a virtual religious faith, that science provides the highest truths, and as such is the most certain kind of knowledge. This affirmation is so prevalent that it is identified with the assurance of a self-evident proposition free of any need for critical examination: ‘this is science,’ the claim can be overheard, ‘how can we possibly refute this?’

Here we can detect a first point. To the extent that the reception of all knowledge involves assent to principles beyond that knowledge itself, it requires an element of trust and belief, elements more associate with the notion of faith. Now, lest we be accused of committing fideism, we should briefly remark that the degree of trust is primarily determined by the kind of object that beckons our knowledge of it. Aquinas, following Aristotle, maintained that there are exhaustively three categories of objects, which then generated the three exhaustive categories of the sciences: natural philosophy (what today is called 'natural science') investigates objects that require sensible matter both to exist and to be understood (e.g. a tree); mathematics investigates objects that require sensible matter to exist, but not to be understood (e.g., a number); and metaphysics investigates objects that never require sensible matter, though matter may sometimes be involved (e.g., potency).

But both Aquinas and Aristotle also held that no science could be the source of its own principles (truths which guide its inner logic), and therefore must borrow from higher sciences. This fact points to an always present element of uncertainty whenever knowledge is driven by its natural curiosity to know the end and cause of things. Of course, the degree of uncertainty is minimized when this natural curiosity is eliminated, as when a scientist, for example, is content merely to discover the parts of a cell, and ceases to wonder how they emerged or why they are thus. But as a multitude of examples demonstrate, this elimination of uncertainty leads to a rationalism that elevates reason to a divine status. And so to avoid either rationalism or fideism we must declare, in union with Church teaching, that reason and faith constitute a harmony of human knowing. But we can also add that because the principles of the faith come from a source not stained with original sin, they are superior to our faculty of reason, which is everywhere burdened by the weight of original sin. (The skeptic could certainly prod: how could you possibly have certainty that faith comes from such a source? But this question, because it is asked within a context that already assumes the superiority of reason, is itself undermined by its own skeptical assumptions: the skeptic wants a rationally certain proof for all truth claims, but fails to see that he himself is incapable of granting rational certainty to human reason – it must be always assumed.)

Once we can get past the assumption, widespread as it is erroneous, that faith is merely subjective belief, we can begin to see how faith, in the Catholic tradition, has been understood as ‘that which is proposed for assent.’ This objective pole can only be legitimated as certain when it acts in harmony with the subjective dimension: the principles of the faith (objective) draw the assent of the believer (subjective) in the always-arriving harmony of the Church, which consists of the entire community extended over time constituting a living narrative. It is this narrative logic, or perhaps we might say narrative logos, where the notion of certainty finds greatest illumination.

Like faith, certainty is a concept that today suffers from the tyranny of the mind. Modern thought won a number of benefits for humanity, but it also generated a deep suspicion and fear of all things mysterious and unknown. In the face of such fear, it is hastily assumed that one must find a rational foundation of certainty in order for any belief system to prove worthy of our assent. This would explain why so many turn to science, even though it comes with the high price of denying those realities that do not fall under its purview (what we Catholics in the creed refer to as the “things unseen” cf. also Rom 1: 20).

Still others have opted for a mathematical sort of logic believed capable of refuting anything that contradicts the first principles of reason (e.g., the principle of non-contradiction, the principle of identity etc.). This option, itself not without plausibility, has tended to move its proponents in a very defensive and largely reactionary direction. The result is that its potential for light is tragically eclipsed by shadows of suspicion: suspicion of subjectivity, suspicion of the role of the subject, and especially suspicion of anything even slightly connected to the notion of relativity. This further tends toward a reduction of all things religious and theological to moral propositions, where anything even remotely relative is burned like a Salem witch, judged as it is by the solid certainty of the first principles of human reason. But where does that leave us when we read the words of Aquinas, for whom faith is more certain than even these?

Many label the current era with the (highly overused and hardly understood ) term ‘postmodernity’. As a reaction to the tenets born from modern thought, tenets that can be described as the will to solid foundations and the espousal of the universal over and against the particular, its hallmark claim is that all absolute claims to truth are merely disguised wills-to-power because no one can legitimately claim a privileged position on truth. A simplistic way out of this would be to point out the obvious logical inconsistency: how is this postmodern claim itself not guilty of the very criticism it levels? This kind of rebuttal only returns us to the mathematical certainty provided by the principles of logic. And a simple glance at the western world reveals that this kind of certainty, rather than stimulating attraction to the faith, seems to turn people into disciples of the almighty microscope.

In our next post, we will suggest how an aesthetic logic, energized by the beauty of the faith given in and through Christ, is capable of illuminating the certainty of the Catholic faith beyond the mathematical certainty that many faithful Catholics too easily adopt. To be sure, this is not a declaration that apologetics and solid logical thinking are to be eschewed. It is, rather, to reinvigorate a sense of logic that once, in premodern eras, lived inside beauty, and served an apologetics of redemption that hearkens back to the dawning of the Church: defense of the faith was not about being right, but about illuminating its beauty, even if it led to death, in order to extend the attraction of the Lord to those who have not yet fallen in love with him.

Inculturation Through the Ages II: The Gospel Among The Native Americans

Our first examination of inculturation takes us to North America, to the work and accomplishment of Catholic missionaries with Native Americans.

Today, it is recognized that inculturation plays an integral part in the survival of Catholicism among Native Americans. Cardinal Arinze in his 1993 Letter to the Presidents of Episcopal Conferences in Asia, the Americas and Oceania pointed out that, “The Church respects the religions and cultures of peoples, and, in its encounter with them, wishes to preserve everything that is noble, true and good in their religions and cultures. To the extent that Traditional Religions are better understood, Christianity will be more suitably proclaimed.” Following Arinze’s recommendation, the United States Conference of Bishops not only founded the Lakota Inculturation Task Force in 1995, but undertook a survey among the Native Americans, trying to find their spiritual and physical needs, and released the results of their findings in the text, Native American Catholics at the Millennium.

It must be pointed out that this is only the continuation of a long, difficult process which begun with the first Catholic missions among the Native Americans. The missionaries had, to be sure, a variety of responses to the Native Americans. Some of them looked upon the Native Americans as savages whose cultures held no redeeming features, and the best way to evangelize them was to force them to adapt European standards. However, a greater number of missionaries, especially among the Jesuits, believed quite differently. They saw sophisticated religious practices and beliefs which often mirrored or complemented Christian beliefs. They actively sought to preserve the varied Native American cultures, recording Native American histories, myths, and rituals while preserving their languages. In part, many Native American customs and traditions continue to this day due to the efforts of these missionaries.

Native American leaders took notice to the respect that Catholic missionaries gave to them, and they in turn asked for a Catholic presence among their reservations. Red Cloud, for example, fought long and hard with United States authorities in order to get a Catholic mission founded upon the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The missionaries struggled to determine what aspects of the Native American traditions could be followed by converts. Could they, for example, partake in the Sun Dance? Some believed that these traditions were superstitious and would have to be given up. Others argued differently, believing that many of the native rituals could be baptized into the Christian tradition. Could not the Sun Dance, for example, be seen as a reflection of the work of Jesus Christ, who, like the dancers, undertook suffering for the wellbeing of his community, the Church?

While the work of the missionaries among the Native Americans actively engaged the same questions that are being asked today about the relationship that can be had of the Native American culture with the Gospel, perhaps it is more telling to note that the Native Americans themselves undertook this question seriously and lived it out in their daily lives.

One of the most inspiring examples of practical inculturation lies in the life and work of Nicholas Black Elk (c.1863 – 1950). From his youth, he was a Wichasha Wakan, an Oglala holy man, visionary, and healer. He learned, and was devoted to, the seven holy Oglala rites (The Sweat Lodge, The Vision Quest, Ghost Keeping, The Sun Dance, “The Making of Relatives,” The Girl’s Puberty Ritual, and The Throwing of the Ball). After his baptism on December 6, 1904, Black Elk continued to be a religious leader, this time undertaking the role of catechist and missionary among his native people. He did not turn his back upon his religious heritage, but saw that God had been at work among the Native Americans before Christianity had arrived, and that the two traditions should be seen as complementing each other. Near the end of his life, he discussed with Joseph Epes Brown about the Oglala traditions, and hoped that by telling about their practice, centered around the sacred pipe, he could be of help in bringing peace to the world, and show how God had been at work among the Native Americans:

Most people call it a “peace pipe,” yet now there is no peace on earth or even between neighbors, and I have been told that it has been a long time since there has been peace in the world. There is much talk of peace among the Christians, yet this is just talk. Perhaps it may be, and this is my prayer that, through our sacred pipe, and through this book in which I shall explain what our pipe really is, peace may come to those peoples who can understand, as understanding which must be of the heart and not of the head alone. Then they will realize that we Indians know the One true God, and that we pray to Him continually. -- Joseph Epes Brown. The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), p.xx.

Black Elk preserved not only the religious and cultural legacy of his people, but sought to unite them to the Christian faith and show how the two traditions could penetrate each other. This he did in the early parts of the twentieth century, representing not only the fruits of the missionary activity among the Native Americans, but also as the first representation we have of how inculturation took place before Vatican Council II. Let us listen one last time as Black Elk speaks:

We should understand well that all things are the works of the Great Spirit. We should know that He is within all things: the trees, the grasses, the rivers, the mountains, and all the four-legged animals, and the winged peoples; and even more important, we should understand that He is also above all these things and peoples. When we do understand all this deeply in our hearts, then we will fear, and love, and know the Great Spirit, and then we will be and act and live as He intends. Ibid.

An Ode To Modern Thought

Descarted him away, he knew not the reason,

From pluralism and personalism’s once bright season,

He could smell the Bacon, though he be Locked away,

Behind bars where the sense of Hume’s heirs play.

Leibniz assured him, ‘tis the way it should be!’

For only a tail-Spinoza-rationality.

'Diderot a boat ever as sure?'

‘Hobbes on in!’ they yelled, ‘no water’s more pure!’

‘But I Kant!’ he explained, with judgment unclear

‘Such a Kant-tickle to freedom makes it hard to steer!’

It all seemed Kantumelious right from the start,

‘With the mind so Kantingent, I’ve lost sight of my heart!’

‘It’s the world outside where one should lay blame!

Let us dive deep in the mind, and Darwin the game!

Reality’s held by a subjective union of all,

And the objects beyond took a Schelling to fall.’

They told him, ‘Comte on, think positive my friend!’

But Hegel-erred with eyes of Fichte-hated contempt.

‘Why do we Nietzsche be so sure?

Are we not guilty of losing irrationality’s cure?!’

Husserl-ly man, who’s Brentano-wing the facts,

Can ill afford to look beyond the phenomenon’s acts.

So we’ll dig to new heights, with great vigor and vim,

And find even Christ had a Heidegger in him!


"...are we having 'pun' yet"...sorry

Defining Catholicism

Many years ago, while working with the Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults, I became very curious about what defined a Catholic. In particular, I reflected upon what the Church asks of those who seek to join her at the most profound and intimate level. Since then, I’ve had extensive discussions with theologians and canonists of various degrees of expertise. A common position is that Catholicism is defined by her teachings, in particular, by her dogmatic statements. That is, those elements of doctrine (teaching) which have been officially stated as crucial (dogmatic) to the Faith are often considered the definition of Catholicism. It makes a bit of sense, too, for definitions are typically a series of key points, and doctrine seems to state clearly the key points.

Another common understanding of what defines a Catholic revolves around the moral code. Catholics are among the groups of Christians who have quite a few rules and regulations on what constitutes appropriate behavior and what does not. The field of moral theology seems to be quite developed and quite important for Catholics. There are many who think the essence of being Catholic lies somewhere in the kind of life you lead, even more than the doctrine you profess. This, too, has a common sense appeal to it, for a definition is often a series of rules that describe how a thing is supposed to work.

There are, of course, the great many Catholics who feel somewhere deep inside them that they are Catholic and can’t really be anything else. Nevertheless, they don’t feel a need or really much desire to participate in regular Sunday Mass or other activities of parish life. Perhaps on great feast days or for important family celebrations they seek the larger Church community. Basically, their position is that they were raised Catholic, Baptized Catholic, even Confirmed Catholic. What has happened cannot be taken away. This has a very easy and comfortable feel to it, as well, for being Catholic is something being a man or a woman-it usually just happens to you, and there’s not much you can really do about it but accept it.

As an aspiring professional theologian, I cannot reasonably claim that doctrine is unimportant. The battles fought over creedal statements, even things we take as common sense Christianity (such as the Trinity or the Resurrection) were and continue to be a cause of disagreement and even martyrdom. The Creeds and the surrounding doctrine are important, but I do not think they define a Catholic at the very core of Catholicism. In a similar manner, the moral life is not the sum or defining characteristic of Catholicism. Not that one can disregard the Commandments and remain hopeful for eternal salvation, but rather, that one can genuinely hope to be changed, to find himself with a will that is united to God-this is the sphere of morality in Catholicism. Yet, even this kind of hope for a better existence does not define a Catholic. The case, as I see it, remains similar with the mentality of “once a Catholic, always a Catholic.” This perceptively and correctly understands what theologians have long called the permanent character of certain sacraments, but it still fails to grasp the heart of Catholicism as I have come to understand it. One need not understand the depths of the mysteries of the Church and the Resurrection, which depend upon the ultimate and primordial mystery of the Trinity, in order to be Catholic. The Church exists for the sinners to become saints. Sacraments are essential and often permanent, but they are not static.

I suggest that Liturgy is what defines Catholics. By “Liturgy,” we mean the public act of worship in which the community gathers and acts as the Body of Christ. The Creed, you will note, exists first and foremost as a liturgical reality. The most grave penalty for teaching contrary to orthodoxy (which literally means something like “proper worship”) is excommunication-to no longer be part of the Liturgical action. The source and summit of the moral life is the Liturgical action of gathering with the people of God and being nourished by the Sacred Scriptures and the Sacraments. Indeed, the Sacraments only occur within the context of Liturgy, however small that Liturgy may seem.

But the ubiquity of Liturgy as a theological theme is not why I think Liturgy defines Catholicsm. In the end, I think the ultimate theological formula for Catholics is the appeal to the theological virtues, the triad of Faith, Hope, and Love. Liturgy is the action of the faithful: Liturgy is the action of the hopeful: Liturgy is the action of lovers; For it is in Liturgy that we gather, sometimes even when we know not why. When we come to Liturgy, especially the Mass and the Eucharist, we say with our very presence that we genuinely want to experience the God who saves us, especially from our own deepest, most secret fears and failings. We say, by our presence in the pew, “I need not understand; I need not always enjoy; I need not even be certain; I simply must be. And I chose to be here with this community, in this place of worship, at this time of God’s presence.” This is both why and how Liturgy defines the Catholic.

Note that it is very much the same for how a lover is defined. A lover is not defined by expensive gifts or by profound understanding. A lover is defined by presence. A true lover is known by where he sits, stands, and kneels. This is something we know even without much reflection. To be friends, to be lovers is to be together. It is not necessarily to be happy or to understand. Lovers stand beside lovers and say “I cast my lot with you.” In Liturgy, we say to God, “I cast my lot with you,” and God says to us, “I cast my lot with you.” This, I think, is the meaning of being “God’s people.” This is how we follow Christ. This, I submit, is what defines Catholicism.

Good Christian, Be Free In Christ!

In the story of the Grand Inquisitor (found within The Brother's Karamazov), Dostoevsky imagines a meeting between Torquemada and Jesus Christ. While one can dispute his understanding of Torquemada, the words could be put in the mouth of the present secular state, and they would be just as effective.

Today, many Christians are willing to turn aside from the Gospel of Life and the way of Jesus Christ for the sake of imagined security. Instead of praying for their enemies, they seek vengeance; they are willing to become the monster they seek to overcome.

Can any words be more prophetic than these?

Receiving bread from us, they will see clearly that we take the bread made by their hands from them, to give it to them, without any miracle. They will see that we do not change the stones to bread, but in truth they will be more thankful for taking it from our hands than for the bread itself! For they will remember only too well that in old days, without our help, even the bread they made turned to stones in their hands, while since they have come back to us, the very stones have turned to bread in their hands. Too, too well will they know the value of complete submission! And until men know that, they will be unhappy. Who is most to blame for their not knowing it?-speak! Who scattered the flock and sent it astray on unknown paths? But the flock will come together again and will submit once more, and then it will be once for all. Then we shall give them the quiet humble happiness of weak creatures such as they are by nature. Oh, we shall persuade them at last not to be proud, for Thou didst lift them up and thereby taught them to be proud. We shall show them that they are weak, that they are only pitiful children, but that childlike happiness is the sweetest of all. They will become timid and will look to us and huddle close to us in fear, as chicks to the hen. They will marvel at us and will be awe-stricken before us, and will be proud at our being so powerful and clever that we have been able to subdue such a turbulent flock of thousands of millions. They will tremble impotently before our wrath, their minds will grow fearful, they will be quick to shed tears like women and children, but they will be just as ready at a sign from us to pass to laughter and rejoicing, to happy mirth and childish song. Yes, we shall set them to work, but in their leisure hours we shall make their life like a child's game, with children's songs and innocent dance. Oh, we shall allow them even sin, they are weak and helpless, and they will love us like children because we allow them to sin. We shall tell them that every sin will be expiated, if it is done with our permission, that we allow them to sin because we love them, and the punishment for these sins we take upon ourselves. And we shall take it upon ourselves, and they will adore us as their saviours who have taken on themselves their sins before God. And they will have no secrets from us. We shall allow or forbid them to live with their wives and mistresses, to have or not to have children according to whether they have been obedient or disobedient- and they will submit to us gladly and cheerfully. The most painful secrets of their conscience, all, all they will bring to us, and we shall have an answer for all. And they will be glad to believe our answer, for it will save them from the great anxiety and terrible agony they endure at present in making a free decision for themselves. And all will be happy, all the millions of creatures except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For only we, we who guard the mystery, shall be unhappy. There will be thousands of millions of happy babes, and a hundred thousand sufferers who have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil. Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in Thy name, and beyond the grave they will find nothing but death.

The very ones who tell us terrorists desire to take away our freedoms are the same ones who tell us our freedoms must be taken away in order to be secure. Who is it that hates our freedom? Safe, you might be, locked away as a child in a padded cell. But don’t tell me one is free just because they are allowed to play with a few scattered toys placed in their tiny room.

The Light Shineth In The Darkness

The Sun of Righteousness has come upon the land,
Revealing the glory of the Lord’s bountiful earth.
From the bottom of the well to the top of the mountain,
The light of Tabor radiates with joy and mirth.

From the law and the prophets to the philosophers and saints,
We join with the cloud of witnesses ascending Jacob’s ladder.
Reaching up to the unseen depths of Christ’s accomplishments,
We are enlightened by the grace which permeates all matter.

The dawn has come, the aeon everlasting.
The Sun shines in the kingdom with no end.
From glory to glory, we are ever progressing,
Further and further to where it doth us send.

For What Good Is The Good If It Is Not A Joy?

St. Augustine noted that the cause of sin is the joy we expect to receive in its execution. What we desire, what we seek, is not the sin, but the pleasure, the good that we associate with it. The problem of sin is not that what we desire lacks all goodness, but that what we desire is disordered: we seek to tear what is good in and of itself out of its proper context.

Yet goodness itself is attractive. Those who are holy gain our admiration. What is the cause of this? Like Florensky, "I ask myself, Why are the common folk, in their pure immediacy, involuntarily drawn to the saints? Why in their mute sorrow do the common folk find comfort in these saints as well as the joy of forgiveness and the beauty of the heavenly celebration?" Pavel Florenseky, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth. Trans. Boris Jakim (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1997), p.5.

The answer lies in the nature of what it means to be good – that is, to be truly good. Goodness in its proper element will always be beautiful. Goodness and beauty are actually visions of the same spiritual life taken from different perspectives.

Understanding this reveals to us something about the nature of moral theology, its many failures in the past, and the way it should be practiced.

In seeking to explain how we should live our life, moralists often forgot the unity between goodness and beauty. They wanted a simple, logical explanation which they believed will summarize the fullness of what it means to be good. They wanted lists which they could give out and say if you do X, you did good, and if you did Y, you did bad.

While there is indeed value in this perspective (for the good is also that which is true), it ignores the organic whole which is needed to clarify what it means to be good. A simplified logic which quickly divides everything into that which is good and evil creates a dualistic ideology and quickly forgets that what is behind any evil is some lesser, perverted good.

When asked why something was bad, the only answer this perspective could be offer was a simple, legalistic answer: because it is.

Why then did people find joy in what is bad and desire it above that which is good?

Moral theology to be consistent to itself must be a holistic theology which recognizes the unity of goodness, truth and beauty. It must seek to draw people to holiness not through compulsion and laws but through desire and beauty. While it is true that laws are needed and are justified by the logical dimension of goodness, this cannot be the end. If it is, what we have is an evil, tyrannical system. It is evil because it is a lesser good, a perversion of the fullness of what it means to be good. Moreover, it is evil because it drives people away from what is good. Its inherent ugliness confuses us, makes us wonder if what is proclaimed good has any real goodness at all.

For what good is the good if it is not a joy?

Pope Commemorates Taizé Founder's Death

Jesus prayed for Christian unity before undergoing the passion, saying, "Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one" (John 17:11). The ecumenical movement desires to bring back this unity, not by rejecting sound Christian doctrine or ignoring the doctrinal differences which separate Christian communities from one another, but by the movement of the Holy Spirit to effect the love and grace needed to overcome these divisions and bring back a common and single understanding of the Christian faith.

Under Pope John Paul II, the Catholic Church showed its commitment to Christian unity in many ways. Not only did we get the beautiful encyclical, Ut Unum Sint, we saw commissions of the Catholic Church establishing elements of doctrinal agreement with many non-Catholics, as for example in The Joint Declaration on Justification between the Catholic Church with the Lutheran World Federation. This is not to imply there has been full theological agreement between Catholics and the Lutheran World Federation on justification. Rather, they have found areas of concord which can be used to help bring the two closer together.

Paragraph 22 of the Directory For the Application Of Principles and Norms On Ecumenism, published in 1993, states:

The ecumenical movement is a grace of God, given by the Father in answer to the prayer of Jesus and the supplication of the Church inspired by the Holy Spirit. While it is carried out within the general mission of the Church to unite humanity in Christ, its own specific field is the restoration of unity among Christians. Those who are baptized in the name of Christ are, by that very fact,
called to commit themselves to the search for unity. Baptismal communion tends towards full ecclesial communion. To live our Baptism is to be caught up in Christ's mission of making all things one.

Contrary to the unjustified fears of many, this ecumenical opportunity and desire continues to manifest itself in the reign of Pope Benedict XVI. Just this week he commemorated the death of Brother Roger Schutz, founder of the Taizé Community. Perhaps Brother Roger will one day be up for canonization, not only for his life's work, but also because his murder could be seen as a kind of martyrdom! On this, Zenit says:

Pope Commemorates Taizé Founder's Death

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, AUG. 16, 2006 (Zenit.org).-
Benedict XVI remembered Brother Roger Schutz, founder of the ecumenical Taizé Community, one year after his death.

Brother Roger was stabbed to death Aug. 16, 2005, by an apparently mentally-disturbed Romanian woman at an evening prayer service attended by 2,500 people in the Burgundy region in France. He was 90.

The Holy Father said today to the crowds gathered at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo for the weekly audience, that the life of Brother Roger was a "testimony of Christian faith and ecumenical dialogue was a precious teaching for entire generations of young people."

"We pray to the Lord that the sacrifice of his life will contribute to consolidate the commitment to peace and solidarity of all those who have the future of humanity at heart," the Pope added.

A day before Brother Roger's death, Benedict XVI received an affectionate letter from him in which he assured him of his ecumenical community's intention to "walk in communion with the Holy Father."

The Taizé community will mark the one-year anniversary of its founder's death with a Mass presided over by Bishop Gérard Daucourt of Nanterre.

Beauty's Long Road to Calvary

Dostoyevsky believed that beauty would save the world. The poetic richness and intellectual delight of his works are certainly a testament to the initial phases of this aesthetic era of salvation. Heard within our contemporary cultural climate, however, and the great Russian existentialist’s insight only conjures up images of makeover reality shows, bodily worship, dietary fads whose name is legion, liposuction, and pimp-my this or that or the other.

How can the theological relevance of beauty be conveyed in an era where beauty is sacrificed on the cross of mere ornamentalism, cosmetic foundationalism, and bourgeois activism? Whatever the answer to this enigma may be, it must surely involve tracing beauty’s long road to “Calvary.” How have we arrived at a point in history where the metaphysical, anthropological – indeed doctrinal – relevance of beauty has been outcast to the margins where, like a homeless panhandler, its relevance is reluctantly and enigmatically acknowledged but ultimately abandoned for more supposedly worthwhile pursuits? The history is long, very involved, and too complex for a full synopsis here. Still, we might do well to point out in this first installment a major step that carried beauty to its sacrificial mount.

During the Patristic and Medieval periods, beauty was never pursued by a separate scientia called aesthetics. Instead, it was intimately bound up with every pursuit of truth: the world was believed to be everywhere a manifest image of Divine beauty. The world was attractive, a beautiful creature designed to draw desire ever deeper into its hidden realities. Of course, beauty was itself an object of endless contemplation and actively constituted some of the greatest Western thinking still influential today (Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius, Boethius, Bonaventure, Albertus Magnus, to name only a few). Beauty’s call was equally heard in the Eastern world, as witnessed by the work in optics by Al-Hazen, as well as the appropriation of Aristotle by Arabic philosophers like Averroes, Avicenna and Algazel. The great Thomas Aquinas would synthesize a number of thinkers into a metaphysics that abounds with a beauty too often overlooked by some of his loudest disciples. Indeed, contemplation upon the mystery of ‘being,’ theological or otherwise, was the historical home of beauty – metaphysics and aesthetics were one and the same, as Hans Urs Von Balthasar has recently observed.

So we can discover an initial step of beauty’s decline in the history of metaphysics, if we can be forgiven for the rather generalized nature this observation will entail. It is often (perhaps too often) pointed out that the Franciscan medieval thinker Duns Scotus espoused a teaching that would split the progress of Western thought in two directions. He arrived at the conclusion that if God can be known naturally, then ‘being’ must be the same (univocal was the word he used) for both finite, human being, and infinite, divine being. This had a few varying consequences.

First, and most simply, it made ‘being’ a larger category that now includes God as well as the ‘world’ and all of nature. Why? Because now being is broader and more all-encompassing than even God, who is now thought to be a ‘being among beings’ (a 'super being' perhaps, but a being nonetheless). This is the consequence most influential today evidenced anytime a person measures belief in the divine by the standards of human reason. In such cases, reason is made into an ‘idol’ before which all truth and even God Himself must bow. To a large degree, this is the foundational belief beneath many of the philosophical and theological assertions made by proponents of what is commonly called ‘science’ in any form (natural, social, et al.)

Secondly, and at a bit more complex level, Scotus’s declaration had the effect of elevating ‘being’ to divine status where God is now thought to subsume every created thing into Himself. In such a context, philosophy, which studies ‘being’ as its primary object, could now claim a legitimacy beyond theology – for although the task of theology is to approach God based upon the principles of divine revelation, philosophy could claim jurisdiction over all approaches to God based upon the principles of human reason. The claim often made today that metaphysics is really onto-theology can be traced back to this, and with plausibility: where philosophy of any kind believes that its object is divine being, it is indeed guilty of onto-theology and even idolatry. Further, this separation of philosophy and theology would surreptitiously give rise to a number of prevailing dichotomies that overemphasize distinction at the neglect of unity: faith and reason; science and religion; the private spiritual order and the public secular realm; politics and theology, etc.

These two consequences present ultimately the same direction: the first describes what occurred at the level of a general layman’s knowledge, the second what occurred at the more “sophisticated level” of thought. Together, they constitute the first direction of post-Medieval Western thought, and arguably, its more dominant.

The other direction followed the traditional view that ‘being’ itself is a rich harmony of diversity in unity, the evidence of which manifested itself in beauty. Contrary to Scotus’s assertion, in this view being cannot be spoken or even thought in the same way when considering finite and infinite being. Why? Simply because they are not the same, even though in some mysterious manner, being enables a relation between them. And thus, the doctrine of analogy was implemented to open understanding of this relation (the analogia entis). And therein lies the mystery that is necessary to sustain humanity’s relationship to the Creator. For without mystery, there is no truly ‘other’ – there is only the ‘other’ as the extension of the self; the other that is there to be assimilated into the predetermined structures already in place.

The dominant stream of metaphysics after Scotus would come to see the mystery of being as a problem to be solved - rather than a gift to be celebrated - and no one was more haunted by being's otherness than Descartes. He insisted that ‘being’ could be disciplined by the mind, domesticated by the discovery of that which cannot be doubted. His unchecked assumption? That human reason needs a foothold so as not to drift off into unlimited skepticism, which of course assumes that skepticism itself is more certain than that which it is skeptical about. Hume would intensify the Cartesian project by measuring truth with only that which can be observed in sensible experience. Kant would shortly follow by extending all this: no longer should we look ‘out there’ for what objects give to us, but instead we must determine how we grant ‘knowability’ upon all objects outside of us.

What has all this to do with beauty? It was Kant who would put the finishing touches on the view of beauty that is most dominant today: beauty is a quality determined by the collective agreement of taste. Now, lest we become too anti-modern, it must be stated that Kant offers something very important to the study of beauty. He discovered many previously unrecognized aspects of its subjective dimension, which is necessary for a fuller illumination of beauty, especially when beauty's objective qualities are overemphasized. The problem arises when this subjective dimension is absolutized. When this happens, as is all too often the case today, then even the importance of Kant and the subjective dimension of beauty itself no longer serve their meaningful role.

Thus is a very brief view of the first step beauty would take toward “Calvary” – what we might call the metaphysical step. Perhaps this is why many in the West are turning more and more to the great thinkers in the Eastern tradition for whom such a step never occurred. Such a turning can also serve to give us new eyes through which we can reread our own Western tradition in order to discover that other avenue that still lives today, as made known by some of the great contemporary thinkers like Von Balthasar and De Lubac in theology, and William Desmond in philosophy. For these (and many others) beauty remains a primary constituent of all thought, capable of illuminating theological, anthropological and especially doctrinal concerns.

Inculturation Through the Ages I: The Foundations

As she carries out missionary activity among the nations, the Church encounters different cultures and becomes involved in the process of inculturation. The need for such involvement has marked the Church's pilgrimage throughout her history, but today it is particularly urgent. Redemptoris missio 52.

A common complaint issued by different sectarian groups about Vatican II is that Vatican II opened up the Church too much to the ways of the world, pagan traditions once rejected by the Church have snuck in, and the Church is slowly being undermined when it tries adapt its message and practices to interact with the needs and expectations of the nations at large. Not only have such criticisms forgotten that Jesus Christ is himself the expectation of the nations, but also that the Church from its inception opened itself up to the gentiles, not only blessing the good that could be found in the gentile traditions, but actively seeking to integrate them into the body of Christ.

St Paul converted St Dionysius the Areopagate on Mars Hill not by denouncing the beliefs of the philosophers, but pointing out that the Platonic unknown God, the God beyond the comprehension of the human intellect, was the same God that the Christians worshiped. He did not seek to divide but to unite.

Early philosopher-Saints such as St Justin Martyr defended the Christian faith upon the same grounds. Christianity was not a complete break from all that had come before it. Christianity fulfilled it and all those who, in their own way, sought for truth and lived out that search to the fullest were seen to be as Christians. Early Christians desired to bring the best of the Hellenistic culture they lived in with the fullness of the Christian faith, and they clearly borrowed from both pagan and Jewish traditions to create their liturgical and theological traditions.

There were throughout the centuries many who were skeptical of this practice. Each generation a new group of Christians would reject attempts made by their fellow Christians to adapt the Christian message and practice to the needs of the different gentile nations. Criticism of St Thomas Aquinas, for example, chided him for looking to pagans such as Aristotle. "We have the fullness of the truth in the Church, what need is there for Aristotle?" What need indeed.

Centuries later, St Thomas Aquinas' theological work came to represent the height of Catholic theology and philosophy. As a rather absurd twist of fate, many of those who believe that the Church has harmed itself by inculturation consider themselves to be Thomists. How can this be? They follow the method of Thomas' critics more than the method of Thomas himself! Closed to the world, they try to hide in the dark museums of antiquity, with a belief of a historical reality which never existed.

In a series of posts on inculturation, we will look at many of its examples throughout the ages, showing how Vatican II is not the end of tradition but its standard bearer.

On The House of the Inklings

An astute observer might notice that the name of the blog is The Well at the World's End while the url for the blog calls itself The House of the Inklings. The two do not seem to go hand in hand and one might wonder what is the cause of this discrepancy.

Wonder no longer!

The Well at the World's End is an important and influential novel by William Morris. It tells the tale of one Ralph of Upmeads, the third and youngest son of a king, who searches for the "Well at the World's End" which is supposed to grant those who drink of it immortality. Not only was William Morris a prolific author, but he was one of the founders and main participants of the English Arts and Crafts movement. William Morris was a medievalist influenced by John Ruskin. Most of his novels also contained the foundations of modern fantasy literature.

J. R. R. Tolkien and several of his friends not only enjoyed the works of William Morris, but they also sought to continue to produce works in a similar vein. Early on he created the TCBS, the Tea Club and Barrovian Society, with his childhood friends Christopher Wiseman, Robert Quilter Gilson and Geoffrey Bache Smith. wanted to become a cultural phenomenon following the work of William Morris, the Arts and Crafts Movement, and the Pre-Raphaelites. During World War I two of the major members of the TCBS were killed, leaving Tolkien and Wiseman alive and slowly drifting apart. Tolkien never forgot his earlier TCBS membership and named his son, Christopher Tolkien, after Christopher Wiseman.

The early involvement with the TCBS helped lead Tolkien to develop another long-term friendship and literary society known as the Inklings. Not only would members of the Inklings get together to discuss politics, philosophy, theology, literature, they would share with each other the essays, stories, plays and novels they were currently working on, providing insightful and helpful critique for each other's works. Famous members of the Inklings included C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Gervase Matthew. Tolkien's son Christopher and Lewis' brother Warnie were also important members of this society. Many of them, like Tolkien, enjoyed and were influenced by the works of William Morris.

Several aspects of Tolkien's works echo themes and ideas displayed in William Morris' The House of the Wolflings. Recognizing the aestheticism established by William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites, and continued by Tolkien with the Inklings, this url for The Well at the World's End honors both by calling itself The House of the Inklings. Like the House of the Wolflings, the contributors of this blog seek a common goal, like the Inklings, they seek to enrich the world through their literary, scholarly and aesthetic efforts.

Welcome to the House of the Inklings. May the good, the truth, and the beautiful enrich your life and encourage you to follow with us in the steps of the masters of old.

A World Full Of Beauty

For the beauty of the earth,
For the beauty of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies,
Lord of all, to thee we raise

This our grateful hymn of praise.

Pictured: The Mississippi River viewed from The Effigy Mounds Park in Iowa.

A Beginning Is A Very Delicate Time...

Moreso when one starts a new blog. What is its purpose? What is to be its function? Why should someone be interested in this blog when there are many others out there?

There are many Catholic blogs on the internet. Yet when one looks through them, one finds that many popular blogs tend to be reactionary, mean spirited, and often run by people influence more by their political background than their Catholic faith. A new, twisted form of Americanism has set itself as the guide of all that is Catholic, and bloggers with little or no theological training and no ecclesiatical authority judge the Church and her shepherds in light of their Americanist tendencies. When the Church agrees with them on one issue, they act as if it makes them one with the Church in all issues. When leaders of the Church disagree with them, while claiming to be conservative or traditional Catholics, they find ways to mock Church authority and to dismiss the Church's teachings as irrelevant or unnecessary when they do not suit their Americanist agenda.

Catholics deserve something better. Catholics deserve loyal, intelligent blogs striving to maintain Catholic principles over and above the Americanist Culture of Death. This, then, is the goal of The Well at The World's End. Commentary not only on current world events, but also on current theological debates, will be provided by the four administrators. Each of them have dedicated themselves to being a scholar the theological sciences. The unique blend of their diverse viewpoints, knowledge, and wit should allow for The Well At The World's End to be a blog like no other!