Faith & Reason: November 2009 Archives

As you are aware, the Pope is assisted by various departments as pastor of the Church. Without naming all of them, the significant ones are Faith, Worship, Saints, Clergy and Evangelization. The latter department is headed by the Indian cardinal, Ivan Dias. As "Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples" he works with the world's bishops and other competent folk in sharing the Good News. Each year all the departments meet with the full body of members and experts to deal with the significant issues identified by the Pope and the Cardinal. In the case of this address, one can't help thinking of the work of the of new lay movements in the Church and some of the new religious orders doing the hard work of being in the marketplace. I for one, can't help remember the Pope's address to the Benedictine Oblates of St Frances of Rome where he praised them for keeping a religious life with a particular focus of being in the center of the city as a witness to Christ while helping the poor. 

What follows is the Pope's address to the plenary session of Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Note the points emphasized.

On the occasion of the plenary assembly of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, I wish to express to you, Lord Cardinal, my cordial greeting, which I happily extend to the archbishops, bishops and all those taking part in this assembly. I also greet the secretary, the assistant secretary, the under-secretary and all the collaborators of this dicastery. I add the expression of my sentiments of appreciation and gratitude for the service you render the Church in the area of the mission ad gentes [to the peoples].

The topic you are addressing in this meeting, "St. Paul and the New Areopagi" -- also in light of the Pauline Year concluded a short while ago -- assists in reliving an experience of the Apostle to the Gentiles while in Athens. After having preached in many places, he addressed the Areopagus and there proclaimed the Gospel using a language that today we could describe as "inculturated" (cf. Acts 17:22-31).

That Areopagus, which at the time represented the center of culture for the refined Athenian people, today -- as my venerated predecessor John Paul II would say -- "can be taken as a symbol of the new sectors in which the Gospel must be proclaimed" (Redemptoris Missio, 37). In fact, the reference to that event is an urgent invitation to know how to value the "Areopagi" of today, where the great challenges of evangelization are addressed.

You wish to analyze this topic with realism, taking into account the many social changes that have occurred: a realism supported by the spirit of faith, which sees history in the light of the Gospel, and with the certainty that Paul had of the presence of the Risen Christ. Resonating and comforting for us also are the words that Jesus addressed to him in Corinth: "Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack and harm you," (Acts 18:9-10).

In an effective way, the Servant of God Paul VI said that it is not just a question of preaching the Gospel, but of "affecting and as it were upsetting, through the power of the Gospel, mankind's criteria of judgment, determining values, points of interest, lines of thought, sources of inspiration and models of life, which are in contrast with the Word of God and the plan of salvation" (Insegnamenti XIII, [1975], 1448).

It is necessary to look at the "new Areopagi" with this spirit; some of these [areas], with present globalization, have become common, whereas others continue to be specific to certain continents, as was seen recently in the special assembly for Africa of the synod of bishops. Therefore, the missionary activity of the Church must be directed to the vital centers of the society of the third millennium.

Not to be underestimated is the influence of a widespread relativistic culture, more often than not lacking in values, which enters the sanctuary of the family, infiltrates the realm of education and other realms of society and contaminates them, manipulating consciences, especially those of the young. At the same time, however, despite these snares, the Church knows that the Holy Spirit is always acting. New doors, in fact, are opened to the Gospel, and spreading in the world is the longing for authentic spiritual and apostolic renewal. As in other periods of change, the pastoral priority is to show the true face of Christ, lord of history and sole redeemer of man.

This demands that every Christian community and the Church as a whole offer a testimony of fidelity to Christ, patiently building that unity desired by him and invoked by all his disciples. The unity of Christians will, in fact, facilitate evangelization and confrontation with the cultural, social and religious challenges of our time.

In this missionary enterprise we can look to the Apostle Paul, imitate his "style" of life and his apostolic "spirit" itself, centered totally on Christ. With this complete adherence to the Lord, Christians will more easily be able to transmit to future generations the heritage of faith, capable of transforming difficulties into possibilities of evangelization.

In the recent encyclical Caritas in Veritate, I wished to emphasize that the economic and social development of contemporary society needs to renew attention to the spiritual life and "a serious consideration of the experiences of trust in God, spiritual fellowship in Christ, reliance upon God's providence and mercy, love and forgiveness, self-denial, acceptance of others, justice and peace. Christians long for the entire human family to call upon God as 'Our Father!'" (No. 79).

Lord Cardinal, while thanking you for the service that this dicastery renders to the cause of the Gospel, I invoke upon you and upon all those taking part in the present plenary assembly the help of God and the protection of the Virgin Mary, star of evangelization, while I send my heartfelt apostolic blessing to all.

From the Vatican, November 13, 2009

BENEDICTUS XVI PP

A Jew came into the office of The Catholic Worker the other day and sat around and read for a while. He nosed through Cahill's Christian State and condemned it for its anti-Semitism. Then he looked at a missal for a while and hummed through some of the Gregorian plain chant.

"I cannot," he said, "be a Communist because I believe in God." And he said it sadly because he believed that the Communists were nearer to social justice in their efforts to bring about a proletarian state than were the believers in God.

When he left he took with him the apocryphal books of the Old Testament and the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila.

People have been calling the office of The Catholic Worker and asking us if we had anything to do with the street meetings which were going on over at Long Island Station in Brooklyn. Our paper was being distributed over there, after rabid anti-Jew speeches. The men who spoke to us over the telephone said that they could find no race antipathies in The Catholic Worker, but they wanted to know what right Jew-baiters had to take over our paper as literature to distribute.

There were three Catholics speaking over in Brooklyn and by appealing to the baser instincts in their audience they were getting a huge crowd, a cheering crowd, which stood around for three hours listening to speakers who pointed out how red-blooded and 100 percent American they were, how filled with intestinal integrity, and how some scum parasites of Europe had come over here and taken over the country. The great danger was the Jew. All evils came from the Jew. Jewish materialism was the cause of all our ills. It was the Jew who brought about the revolution in Russia. It was Jews who ruined Germany. Hitler was merely trying to restore law and order.

We have consistently tried to avoid discussion of European questions in the paper we are getting out. We feel that we can't take up the subject of Spain, Italy, Germany, Mexico, let alone China. (One time on a bitter cold night last winter I was walking down Eighth Street and there was a cheering Communist parade coming around the corner. On all sides there was hunger and evictions, strikes and lockouts. Millions, fifteen or seventeen millions of men out of work. Forty-five millions dependent upon relief of some kind or another. But the Communists in their world-wide altruistic frenzy were not at that moment engaged in protesting present and near-at-home evils. Their banners bore the slogans, Down with Chiang Kai Chek!)

I repeat, we the editors of The Catholic Worker had decided not to venture on world affairs. But when Catholics get up on New York streets and arouse race hatred in their Catholic listeners, then it is time for us to take a stand.

We believe that Hitler owes his success to the fact that it is easier to arouse a people against something concrete like a race than against an idea. It is not just the idea of materialism that the German people are fighting. They have made the Jew as a race the scapegoat. They have fastened on it the ills of present-day society. They have blamed Jews for defeat during the war, for the inflation after the war, for the present ills of the capitalist system. And even though individuals of the race, even though large masses of the race are guilty of the sins with which they are charged, the animus aroused against them is singular in that it is not an animus against the evils attendant on their actions, but against the Jews themselves.

To criticize the Jews for the protest which Jews have organized in this country and to say, as I heard them say at Long Island Station, "Are the Jews a sacred race that this enormous protest should have been organized?" is to be manifestly unfair. If no protests were organized on account of the persecution in Mexico or Spain, it is the fault of the Catholics themselves in that they are not naturally vociferous. Why didn't all the Knights of Columbus, all the St. Vincent de Paul men, all the Holy Name men, all organizations in fact, hire Madison Square Garden themselves, form a parade that would block traffic for some ten hours and broadcast a huge protest against what was and is going on in Mexico?

Another thing, horrible as the persecution of the Catholics is, it is not a persecution of a race or people. It is all Catholics, of whatever nationality, that are having to put up a struggle for a position. The Times tried to point this out when they said that in Spain it was ex-Catholic against Catholic. What they should have said is that it was Spaniard against Spaniard. The persecution in Germany is actually a persecution of the Jews as a race. A stiff-necked generation. Not because they are Communists especially. Not because they are materialists. Many of them are not Communists and some of the most religious-minded men are Jews. But it is all Jews who are being fought and excoriated. It is the old pogrom spirit being revived. It is comparable only to the persecution of the Negro because of his race. It seems to be easy to arouse people to a concrete hatred of race. It is easy for children to fall into contemptuous attitudes because of race differences. And I believe that Hitler could never have gotten the following he has if he had not given to his fellow Germans someone, not something, to hate. It is a hatred primitive, fundamental, base.

For Catholics--or for anyone--to stand up in the public squares and center their hatred against Jews is to sidestep the issue before the public today. It is easier to fight the Jew than it is to fight for social justice--that is what it comes down to. One can be sure of applause. One can find a bright glow of superiority very warming on a cold night. If those same men were to fight for Catholic principles of social justice they would be shied away from by Catholics as radicals; they would be heckled by Communists as authors of confusion; they would be hurt by the uncomprehending indifference of the mass of people.

God made us all. We are all members or potential members of the mystical body of Christ. We don't want to extirpate people; we want to go after ideas. As St. Paul said, "we are not fighting flesh and blood but principalities and powers."

In addition to getting out a paper, the editors of The Catholic Worker are engaging in a fight against the Unemployed Councils of the Communist Party. To combat them they are doing the same thing the Communists are doing, helping the unemployed to get relief, clothing, food and shelter. But we are cooperating with the Home Relief instead of obstructing them. Two or three times a week we have eviction cases. When a desperate man or woman comes in asking for help, we have to call the Home Relief to find out about getting a rent check. Then we have to find a landlord who will accept the voucher. Usually they won't. There is only one landlord in our entire block who will take them. Over on Avenue B there is an Irish landlord willing to cooperate. On 17th Street there is a Jew. He is a Godsend because he has three houses.

After we have found an apartment, we have to commandeer a truck and men to do the moving. The sixteen-year-old boys in our neighborhood have been most helpful. Then there are always unemployed men coming into the office who are eager to help.

The other day we had a German Protestant livery stable man, giving us the use of a horse and wagon to move a Jewish family, and five Catholic unemployed men assisting their brother the Jew in getting transferred.

It is a situation which typifies the point I wish to make, that we are all creatures of God and members or potential members of the Mystical Body. This is something which those Catholics who bait the Jews lose sight of.

Servant of God Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was the cofounder with Peter Maurin of the Catholic Worker movement in 1933. Charles Gallagher, S.J., a visiting fellow at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations, found in the correspondence file in the Dorothy Day-Catholic Worker Collection at Marquette University this previously unpublished, unknown text.  The text was  published in America Magazine (Nov. 9, 2009) and has been lightly edited.