Full text of Cardinal Stafford's Nov. 13 remarks
Nov 30, 2008
For 51 years of priestly ministry I have been attentive to res sacra in temporalibus in American culture, i.e., “to the elements of the sacred in the temporal life of man” or, in a more Heideggerian idiom,“to man as the sacred element in temporal things”.
Full text of Cardinal Stafford's Nov. 13 remarks
All Things Catholic By John L Allen Jr
Created Nov 21 2008 - 09:26
John Allen’s “All Things Catholic” column this week [1] concerns remarks made by Cardinal Francis Stafford, who heads the Apostolic Penitentiary in Rome, about the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. Allen’s column was written before receiving the full text of Stafford’s remarks, delivered during a Nov. 13 lecture at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, D.C.. That text appears below. In a footnote, Stafford writes, “Due to the lack of time the above discourse was given substantially as it appears here although in a somewhat abbreviated form from written notes and typed materials.”
Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II: “Being True with Body and Soul”
For 51 years of priestly ministry I have been attentive to res sacra in temporalibus in American culture, i.e., “to the elements of the sacred in the temporal life of man” or, in a more Heideggerian idiom,“to man as the sacred element in temporal things”. In 1958 John Courtney Murray, S. J. was my guide. With further guidance from the Church over the years, I have learned that the nucleus of this principle, enunciated by Pope Leo XIII, maintains that the sacred element in secular life, especially our use of language, escapes the undivided control of the supreme power of the State. The secular life of man is not completely secular, nor totally encompassed within the State as the highest social organism, and subject ultimately only to the political power. The sacred word within man in secular life transcends the control of the supreme power of the State. A person’s public life is not encompassed within the State as the highest social organism, and not subject ultimately only to the political power.
President Thomas Jefferson’s celebrated 1802 letter to the committee of the Danbury Baptist Association asserting “a wall of separation between Church and State” formally denied the reality of res sacra in temporalibus. He introduced a latent and powerful virus which would eventually be used to diminish and then to wound mortally a theology of discourse in the public arena. It has led to the increasingly secularized states of the American union and their active hostility towards the Catholic Church. Some of these governments are threatening Roman Catholic adoption agencies because of their refusal to select same-sex couples as potential adoptive parents. They are forcing Catholic hospitals to accept medical procedures which are contrary to the dignity of the human person. They are insisting on hiring practices which will destroy the Catholic identity of health and social services under Catholic Church auspices. They have not refrained from coercing the individual conscience. Here the federal and state governments are enshrining the primacy of secular laws over against religious principles. These decisions are the legal and moral progeny of Jefferson’s insistence on debarring personal faith from the public forum. And this is only a beginning. Their seeds can be found in the 1787 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom sponsored and promoted by Jefferson. His self-proclaimed epicureanism and crypto-utilitarianism furnish the hermeneutical keys for interpreting the opening paragraph of his 1776 Declaration of Independence.
This evening. I will cover the following areas: 1) the narrow, calculative, mathematical mind and its manipulation of the humanum and, more specifically, of human sexuality since 1968; 2) the response of the Church’s magisterium in the encyclical letter of Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae and teachings of later Popes; 3) other Catholic philosophical and theological responses to what John Rawls calls the “embedding module”, namely the increasingly disenchanted world in which we work and pray.
Furthermore, since this month, November, is the time in which the liturgy of the Church reflects on the final things - heaven, hell, purgatory and death, I will be attempting to strengthen the Catholic faithful, as St. John did in the Book of the Apocalypse, against the ever increasing pretensions of the state making itself absolute. For the next several weeks the Book of the Apocalypse will be read at daily Mass. The theme of that final book of the Bible is that the Battle of the Logos has always already been won on Calvary. In the immense conflicts associated with the teaching of Humanae Vitae, the overarching task of the Church is to make manifest for the faithful the apocalyptic victory of the Lamb in our historical time. The Church, the bearer of revelation, insists that the mysterious beginning and earthly end of every member of the human race is illumined by the light of the divine Logos. [“Every human being] comes from the source of light that irradiates him”. Finally, I will be using the word “apocalyptic” in the Christian sense of “expressing the fundamental law of post-Christian world history: the more Christ’s kingdom is manifested as the light of the world......the more it will meet determined opposition.”
(1) The apparent triumph of what has been described as “the manipulable arrangement of the scientific-technological world and of the social order proper to this world” over the past several generations.
1968 was the year in which Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae (HV); it was the long-delayed and long-awaited encyclical letter on transmitting human life. It met with immediate and unprecedented opposition. American theologians were its choral directors. The encyclical arrived in Washington, D. C. in late July 1968. It had to contend with the chaos of assassinations, overseas wars, the conflicts surrounding the Democratic/Republican national conventions, indiscriminate killings, university strikes and riots, growing use of barbiturates, and ubiquitous insurrections within the cities. It preceded by one year An Aquarian Exposition, the for- profit, rock-music event staged on a Woodstock dairy farm in New York State. Since then, the chaos has become chronic, more insidious because partially hidden. If 1968 was the year of the year of “America’s Suicide Attempt”, 2008 is the year of America’s exhaustion.
In the intervening 40 years the United States has been thrown upon unlit roads. There have been few, if any, “clearings” (Heidegger’s Lichtung). In 1973 alone the U. S. Supreme Courts’ pro-abortion decision was imposed upon the nation. Its scrupulous meanness has had catastrophic effects upon the identity, unity, and integrity of the American republic. It has undermined respect for human life. We have been horrified and uncomprehending witnesses for over two generations to America’s decline from “a mansion to a dirty house in a gutted world” . Yet honesty compels me to admit that this decision against human life is in historical continuity with the pragmatism on the part of the Fathers of the 1787 Constitutional Convention for the recognition of Black slavery and, following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, in continuity with the same meanness toward Native Americans on the part of the politicians, entrepreneurs and settlers. The 1803 event was a meanness enshrined shortly in the doctrine of Manifest Destiny.
The 1973 Court’s alteration has even more radically transformed the way we think about others, especially the least among us. Its inexcusable evasions about the dignity of human life, and their prolongation to the present, have condemned those of us who oppose it to disillusionment and bitter isolation. Both Republican and Democratic partisans have abused rhetoric on this issue. The President-elect is a skillful rhetorician. Civic life has been invaded with an anti-humanism so toxic that it is proving mortal to the body politic.
Nothing has been left untouched by the court’s lethal wand. Social engineering and the price-systems have infected all Americans with a pervasive, technological mind-set. Economics, administration, sexuality, language and, above all, human life are being manipulated by complex strategies of power. “Politics in turn becomes an arena for contention among rival techniques.” Obama’s campaign raised over $600 million, a record, and McCain’s over $300 million. An uncritical, unspoken “metaphysics of presence” dominates American life, both private and public. This new way of thinking has led to the creation of a worldwide colossus, America’s military. It is generally acknowledged that nothing in the nation’s economic, social, or political institutions approaches its influence. Freedom itself has been reduced to power.
Part II of Humanae Vitae, called “Doctrinal Principles”, ends with a description by Pope Paul VI of the “Serious Consequences of the Use of Artificial Methods of Birth Control”. His apocalyptic vision has been prophetic of the epoch we have entered. After 40 years of widespread contraceptive practice, the consequences appear now as the Horsemen of the Apocalypse ravaging what St. Paul described as the “ten logiken latreian hymon - “the humanly proper worship” (Rom 12: 1) of the baptized. The demonic four are the following: marital infidelity; disrespect for woman, governmental despotism in the regulation of births, and the human body manipulated and destroyed as a technological artifact. The four horseman have been responsible for the calamitous meltdown in Western demographics and in real development. Sexual aberration has become a way of life for many. These four shades are insinuating their deathworks upon whole nations and cultures. The Middle East is an obvious example.
Mary Eberstadt in a recent article entitled, “The Vindication of Humanae Vitae”, commented on the prophetic vision of Paul VI, “Contraceptive sex.......is the fundamental social fact of our time.” She continues, “In the years since Humanae Vitae’s appearance, numerous distinguished Catholic thinkers have argued, using a variety of evidence, that each of these predictions [of Pope Paul VI] has been borne out by the social facts.” Human life has been conceded to the arbitrary will of the state.
Governments are dissolving religious and philosophical values and remaking them into the distortions of a dominant, cybernetic model. Franz Kafka’s 1915 novella, Metamorphosis, is not far off the prophetic mark. The good has been drained of ontological content; it has become “a mere cipher, a monadic carrier of information, a unit of cybernetic science” . The British government has recently set as a national goal the manufacture of human life by technology. Its reductive anthropology allows the unprecedented to happen: the radical manipulation of the substance of the biological heritage of the human race. It has allocated £40 million of public monies for stem cell research. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair envisions Britain to be leader of the world in cloning human embryos for research. Potential benefits, he claims, will be huge. Furthermore, a consortium of leading British bankers and scientists have launched a £100 million fund to finance stem cell research. Plans are being made for a national stem cell research institute, costing £16 million. In 2005, the British Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt announced that the Government would spend more than £1 billion on biotechnology by 2008. 'We want to send a signal to scientists that Britain is open for business in some of the most controversial areas,' she said. It is not simply a coincidence that economics and technology dominate. Bankers, financial investors, and MBA executives are mentioned consistently with the scientific midwives of this cultural monstrosity, the nub of which is the forgetting of the question of God.
In the United States President - elect Barack Obama and the Vice-President-elect Joseph Biden, a Catholic, campaigned on a severe anti-life platform. Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, analyzed America’s descent since 1968-1973 into deathworks by summarizing Obama’s vision. George’s analysis appeared in the journal, Public Discourse. “[Obama] has co-sponsored a bill.....that would authorize the large-scale industrial production of human embryos for use in biomedical research in which they would be killed. In fact, the bill Obama co-sponsored would effectively require the killing of human beings in the embryonic stage that were produced by cloning.”
The assumption undergirding the positions of Barack Obama, Joseph Biden, and Tony Blair results from a technological mind-set. Such technologically-driven men eventually may assert that human nature, until recently acknowledged to be a unitary composite of two polarities, body and soul, must not only be changed by technology, but, if necessary, be suppressed. It has proven to be the next logical step after the decision to control and manipulate technologically the origins of human life.
But ‘phusis - nature’, has been essential in Western metaphysics for describing the truth of beings. Martin Heidegger writing about the radical reduction of the goals of medicine to what is technologically possible, and its relation to human phusis, asserted that, in the past even until very recent times, “techne can only cooperate with phusis, can more or less expedite the cure; but as techne it can never replace phusis and itself become the arche of health itself. This could happen only if life as such were to become a ‘technically’ producible artifact. However, at that very moment there would also no longer be such a thing as health, any more than there would be birth and death. Sometimes it seems as if modern humanity is rushing headlong toward this goal of producing itself technologically. If humanity achieves this, it will have exploded itself, i.e., its essence qua subjectivity, into thin air, into a region where the absolutely meaningless is valued as the one and only ‘meaning’ and where preserving this value appears as the human ‘domination’ of the globe. ‘Subjectivity’ is not overcome in this way but merely ‘tranquilized’ in the ‘eternal progress’ of a Chinese - like ‘constancy’. This is the most extreme nonessence in relation to phusis-ousia”
A similar technological mind-set has contributed to the recent economic turmoil. Hedge funds were heavily invested in the technology bubble. The October 21, 2008 issue of The Financial Times read, “Blame it on Harvard: Is the MBA culture responsible for the financial crisis?” Technology and operations represent a major component of the MBA imagination at work at Harvard. The news story described the 100th anniversary celebration of the pre-eminent Harvard Business School. “You would have to have a heart of stone not to be amused by this piquant accident of timing. Here, at the spiritual home of the Masters of the universe, distinguished graduates could only look on as that same universe threatened to collapse.”
2) The response of the Church’s magisterium.
The issues now facing us are all entwined within the above-developed linguistic and actual deathworks informing Rawl’s “embedding module”. The response of the Church’s magisterium has been based on the ancient Catholic imagination recaptured happily by Pope John Paul II in his now famous phrase,”the nuptial meaning of the human body created as male and female.” The response includes “being true with the body and the soul.” The title of my talk has been taken from Francois Mauriac. He struggled for many years to overcome the unbending austerity and narrow rigidity resulting from the theological pessimism of the Jansenism of his childhood. In 1931 he overcame this heritage. Thereafter life became a creative drama that engages the fullness of the person by being true with body and soul. Mauriac’s “clearing” was where he discovered the dramatic convergence of form and content. The wholeness of two polarities is manifested within the unity of body and soul in the human person. David L. Schindler in a recent paper on human sexuality summarized his first principle supporting the differentiated unity of body and soul: “The Soul as it were lends its spiritual meaning to the body as body, even as the body then, simultaneously, contributes to what now becomes in man, a distinct kind of spirit: a spirit whose nature it is to be embodied”.
The Church’s response to the technological/scientific hegemony just described has not involved any condemnation of technology or of science as such. Rather is based on her recognition of the present spiritual climate for what it is: A New Ice Age. The great American poet and convert to Catholicism, Wallace Stevens, coined the image. “‘America was always North ....... ‘ where God was in hiding.” . We must turn south and even return to our origins, the desert. How? By recovering the structure of truth in its relation to goodness and beauty. Only a linguistic imagination that is analogical - and ultimately liturgical and sacramental - is capable of such rediscovery. In her devastating critique of the deconstructionism of Jacques Derrida, Catharine Pickstock has recaptured the apostrophic voice of Catholicism’s high desert origins, the responsorials first heard in the Sinaitic and Judean wildernesses. The poiesis of the Catholic imagination finds itself in the title of Pickstock’s book, After Writing: the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy.
In his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (27), Pope Benedict XVI echoes what is partially anticipated by Pickstock, “The Eucharist, as the sacrament of charity, has a particular relationship with the love of man and woman united in marriage. A deeper understanding of this relationship is needed at the present time. Pope John Paul II frequently spoke of the nuptial character of the Eucharist and its special relationship with the sacrament of Matrimony: ‘The Eucharist is the sacrament of our redemption. It is the sacrament of the Bridegroom and of the Bride.’ Moreover, ‘the entire Christian life bears the mark of the spousal love of Christ and the Church. Already Baptism, the entry into the People of God, is a nuptial mystery; it is so to speak the nuptial bath which precedes the wedding feast, the Eucharist.’ The Eucharist inexhaustibly strengthens the indissoluble unity and love of every Christian marriage. By the power of the sacrament, the marriage bond is intrinsically linked to the Eucharistic unity of Christ the Bridegroom and his Bride, the Church (cf. Eph 5:31-32)”. In Familiaris Consortio, Pope John Paul II called for the celebration of the Sacrament of Marriage within the Eucharistic sacrifice to demonstrate the living connection between the two Sacraments. He thereby made more visible “the rich analogy between the una caro of the Eucharist and the una caro of the spouses through which their gift to one another becomes a particular form of participation in the Body ’given’ and the blood ‘poured out’ of Christ that becomes for the Christian family the inexhaustible font of its identity (with) its missionary and apostolic dynamism” . Here we sense the flavor of Karl Barth’s analogia fidei in explaining the origins and meaning of linguistics.
What are the philosophical/theological foundations for such assertions? What are the meta-anthropological presuppositions for this vision of linguistics, of reality? Two elements should be highlighted: the biblical image of God and the biblical image of man. In his first Encyclical Letter, Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI proposes that the Bible presents us with new image of God - his Trinitarian self-oblation, the self-surrender characteristic of immanent Trinity - and with a new image of man, of which the most sublime sign is the Eucharist. “The Eucharist draws us into Jesus’ act of self-oblation. More than just statically receiving the incarnate Logos, we enter into the very dynamic of his self-giving. The imagery of marriage between God and Israel is now realized in a way previously inconceivable: it had meant standing in God’s presence, but now it becomes union with God through sharing in Jesus’ self-gift, sharing his body and blood” (13). The Eucharist builds up man and woman from within in the image of the Triune God and man learns the complexity of love: St. Augustine’s insight is helpful here: “Capit ut capitur. One grasps in being grasped.” Preeminently in marriage, the Eucharist draws with the cords of love each spouse in the depths of their interiority toward a mutual, total, integrally human, and fruitful self-oblation. The total giving of the Word in the Eucharist is the mirroring of the real language of the human body as created as male and female.
In his Wednesday audiences during the early 1980s Pope John Paul II called spouses to a deeper understanding of the theology of the body. When he described the prophets’ of the Old Testament use of marriage as an analogy of God’s relation to man, the Pope expressed the astonishing insight about the specific “prophetism of the body” . In interpreting this prophetic language, he indicated, one must “reread” the language of the body for “it is the body itself which ‘speaks’; it speaks by means of its masculinity and femininity, it speaks in the mysterious language of the personal, it speaks ultimately -and this happens frequently - both in the language of fidelity, that is of love, and also in the language of conjugal infidelity, that is of ‘adultery’”. A correct rereading must be done “in truth”. The human body speaks “a ‘language’ of which it is not the author. “Its author is man, who as male and female, husband and wife, correctly rereads the significance of this ‘language’. He rereads therefore the spousal significance of the body as integrally inscribed in the structure of the masculinity or femininity of the personal subject.” In other words, the human body as created by God as masculine/feminine is the Ursprache, the primordial utterance from the beginning. The “nuptial meaning” of the human body originally was the Adamic language.
All of these texts from John Paul II and Benedict XVI refer to the inner dynamic of the relationship between the two spouses. The subject of moral acts is each person, a dual unity of body and soul, a psychosomatic whole. Anything that smacks of a body-soul dualism is firmly rejected. One cannot attempt to free the soul from the body. When a human being seeks the truth and the good, his body is not an afterthought or an accident or a ‘tomb’ for the soul. The language of the human body, rightly reread, is a language by which “the likeness with God shows that the essence and existence of man are constitutively related to God in the most profound manner. This is a relationship that exists in itself, it is therefore not something that comes afterwards and is not added from the outside.” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church [CSDC] 109). In the words of the International Theological Commission, “Human bodiliness participates in the imago Dei.” They echo the ancient teaching of St. Irenaeus, “”the flesh ....was formed according to the image of God” .
As Archbishop of Denver, in 1996 I addressed a Pastoral Letter to the people of northern Colorado on the historical importance of a culture formed by the medieval Anglo-Saxon Sarum Rite and by the even more ancient Gregorian Sacramentary. Peoples in such a culture intuitively interpreted reality through the covenantal and bridal relationship of God and creation and of Christ and the Church. Consequently, they would find absolutely inapprehensible the acceptance and promotion of homosexuality activity as a valid moral option. Such activities are a direct assault not only upon the Sacrament of marriage but also upon the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
In light of all of the above realities, I cannot accept the judgement of Fr. Martin Rhonheimer, who in attempting to prevent the passing on of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, morally justifies the prophylactic use of condoms in a marriage in which one of the spouses is so infected. He summarizes his argument, “The immediate (or proximate) object of one’s choice in such a case is to engage in marital intercourse” and not “to ejaculate into a condom”. I agree with the conclusion of Bishop Anthony Fisher (and many, many other moral theologians) that Rhoneimer’s arguments are not only unconvincing but philosophically untenable and contrary to the Catholic theological and canonical tradition. Bishop Fisher writes about his agreement with the conclusions of [Janet ?] Smith, “Not only is condomized intercourse not a reproductive type of act, it can also be argued that it is not apt for uniting a couple ‘as one flesh’. In the first place the condom places a barrier to complete physical union: while this looks like ordinary sexual intercourse the couple fail, in fact, to touch in the most intimate way; arguably, they do not become ‘one flesh’.”
Rhonheimer dismisses a meta-anthropological objection as a “psychological and perhaps aesthetic” concern, not a moral one. His body/soul dualistic rupture is enunciated with the repulsion he expresses over integral human copulation, “[I find it] intuitively repulsive to make the consummation of marriage dependent upon factual insemination of the woman’s vagina”. Should the wholeness of marriage in its consummation be considered repulsive? The human spirit finds its inner completion only as something honestly externalized, since the human spirit in this life is always already embodied. The body is the externalization of the spirit. The highest expression of human love is embodied in the total self-giving and self-oblation of a couple as “one flesh”.
What renders such repulsion intuitive? A meditation of the “one flesh” found Genesis two? But God described that unity as “very good” in Genesis one. A repulsive intuition before the image of man and woman integrally united as ‘one flesh’ is not only at odds with the biblical revelation but also with the Church’s reflection on that revelation. Pope John Paul II insists on the need for “a correct rereading in truth......of the spousal significance of the body as integrally inscribed in the structure of the masculinity and femininity of the personal subject .”
3) Other Catholic philosophical and theological responses to the “embedding module” of John Rawls.
I cannot speak highly enough of the reflections on these issues and others by those engaged in the Communio project. According to von Balthasar, Communio’s conversations with the American secularized culture is the project of the Church in the United States. It calls for “the greatest possible radiance in the world by virtue of the closest following of Christ”. Over the decades I have followed and benefitted enormously from reading your quarterly journal. I owe a special indebtedness of gratitude to David L. Schindler, a theologian, and his son, David C. Schindler, a metaphysician and theorist of knowledge. Their clearings have included signs marked “Where we are going!” and “Where we have come from”. I have already cited their works earlier. In these concluding remarks they appear again because they give light for one’s gaze on the mystery of “Being true with Body and Soul”.
David C. Schindler writes that “drama is the structure of being” . From that splendid insight it is reasonable to conclude that the conjugal act itself is a drama that reveals who each individual is and who each is to become. Its principle revelation is not who the individual always was. The meaning of the sacramental act - the summit of the sacrament of marriage in facto esse, is revealed only in the activity of the two spouses. The marital act in its wholeness is a fundamental interpretation or unfolding of the sacrament of marriage.
Each spouse is an actor of truth. Truth has its terminus ad quem, not in the mind of the knower, but rather in a tertium quid, a Gestalt, a structure resulting from the encounter between the appearance of the depths on one hand and the transportation of the seer into the depths on the other. Truth is profoundly relational. It involves the tension of various parts of the whole, the movement from horizontal appearance to the vertical depths. David L. Schindler describes it in this fashion: “The body, always-already informed by soul and spirit and actualized by esse, exhibits an order of love: the body bears within it, already in its creaturely nature as body, the sign of the human being’s constitutive relation to God and to others in God, the sign thus, of a communion of persons and the promise of the gift itself.”
As I mentioned earlier, one of the contested areas of pastoral life today is the predicament of a married couple one of whom has a mortally threatening disease which may be transmitted through the conjugal act. The confusion over this matter is becoming increasingly serious from a pastoral point of view. Fr. Martin Rhoneimer’s position undermines the anthropological teaching of Pope John Paul II and undercuts a coherent Catholic response to the crisis affecting human sexuality.
In concluding, I have underscored that the present crisis is ontological/epistemological and linguistic. At its foundations it is a crisis of signs, which means a crisis that is analogical, liturgical, sacramental. It was a constant theme implicit, sometimes explicit, in the discussions at the recent Synod of Bishops in Rome on the biblical word of God. The participants asked how does religious language refer to reality? The modern response since the Enlightenment has been an “inside-out” approach to epistemological foundations, not an “outside-in”. The Catholic religious education establishment in the USA after the II Vatican Council adopted a similarly subjective-experiential methodology based on an “inside-out” epistemology. Widespread religious skepticism was the outcome. Nothing is recognized as definitive and “meaning itself is forever postponed.” A movement toward “a dictatorship of relativism” is the diagnosis which Pope Benedict XVI has given to this phenomenon.
To counter this nihilism, the discovery of the “Gestalt” character of language, of the word, was pioneered by Hans Urs von Balthasar and brilliantly advanced by many, especially by David C. Schindler in his recent book, Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Dramatic Structure of Truth: A Philosophical Investigation.
The following conclusions may be drawn from the foregoing. First, we must assert the rootedness of language, including the language of the human body, in ontology. A solidly unabashed metaphysics of being, founded on the real distinction between essence and existence, is essential for any recovery of truth and its objective structure. Postmodernists have rejected the tradition of western metaphysics, the concept of being since Socrates, and the real distinction between essence and existence. Metaphysics of this type is fundamental to any discussion of truth and its nature. Using Plato’s Phaedrus Catharine Pickstock has offered a devastating critique of Jacques Derrida’s theory of Supplementation by writing. She insists that his account “is tantamount to a metaphysics of presence” .
Secondly, Catholic scholars must explore the nuptial language founded upon the biblical text and upon the Catholic tradition and enriched by the teaching of John Paul II. Pope Benedict XVI affirmed its substance recently, “The Eucharist, as the sacrament of charity, has a particular relationship with the love of man and woman united in marriage. A deeper understanding of this relationship is needed at the present time. Pope John Paul II frequently spoke of the nuptial character of the Eucharist and its special relationship with the sacrament of Matrimony: ‘The Eucharist is the sacrament of our redemption. It is the sacrament of the Bridegroom and of the Bride.’ Moreover, the entire Christian life bears the mark of the spousal love of Christ and the Church. Already Baptism, the entry into the People of God, is a nuptial mystery; it is so to speak the nuptial bath which precedes the wedding feast, the Eucharist."
Thirdly, an exploration of the relationship between the nuptial meaning of the human body and the Eucharist, as the triform Body of Christ, should be made. Its development by de Lubac and Pickstock would be advanced if accompanied by an awareness of the critical role of the Gregorian Sacramentary and the Sarum Rite had upon the West and especially upon Anglo-Saxon culture. That culture was informed with the perception of the nuptial character of reality. The high medieval poem, In a Valley of this Restless Mind illustrates this. The anonymous English Catholic poet had the same spousal vision of life as that of the modern French Catholic novelist Mauriac when he described the human as “being true with body and soul”. I wish to contrast his cultural vision with that of the dominant political and cultural classes today.
Before doing so, some contextual background of my criticism is important. In early 2003 as our country was preparing to go to war in Iraq, I spoke out against the war and on two occasions condemned the policies of the Bush administration for contributing to the lessening of respect for the dignity of the human person by the use of torture. In the same spirit today as a pastor of souls I do not hesitate again to flag some serious abuses against the natural and divine laws. Our own cultural ambience is not dissimilar from the period of the 1920's when European intellectuals were moving ahead with an understanding of something “new”. Graham Ward’s description of that period highlights elements which characterize the vision of today’s President - elect, the Vice-President - elect, and the legislators elected to assist them in implementing their vision. Graham wrote, “Briefly modernism’s programme was to ‘make it new’. It courted the unconventional and nonconformist in a conscious effort to overthrow the traditional perspective and stock expectations. Its dynamism was aggressive, disruptive and even apocalyptic. Hostility to the.........War fed its anger against the status quo and its desire for a creativity that would be transcultural, transclass and transfrontier.”
On November 4, 2008 a cultural earthquake hit America. Senator Barack Obama and Senator Joseph Biden were elected President and Vice President of the United States together with a significant majority of their Party in the federal Congress supporting their deadly vision of human life. Americans were unanimous in their joy over the significance of the election of a Black President. However, if Obama, Biden and the new Congress are determined to implement the anti-life agenda which they spelled out before the election, I foresee the next several years as being among the most divisive in our nation’s history. If their proposals should be initiated and enacted, it would be impossible for the American bishops to repeat in the future what their predecessors described the United States in 1884 as “this home of freedom.”
While reflecting about the profoundly negative impact of Obama’s vision on the humanum (and also of Biden’s), I recalled how current are the reflections of Mauriac upon his contemporary, an influential European author. Even though Mauriac disagreed with him on almost every point, he acknowledged his great intelligence and personal attraction. “But under all that grace and charm there was a tautness of will, a clenched jaw, a state of constant alertness to detect and resist any external influence which might threaten his independence. A state of alertness? That is putting it mildly: beneath each word he wrote, he was carrying on sapping operations against the enemy city where a daily fight was going on.”.
Similar characteristics were evident in Senator Obama’s talk before Planned Parenthood supporters on July 17, 2007 - tautness of will, a clenched jaw, etc. - where he asserted, “We are not only going to win this election but also we are going to transform this nation.........The first thing I will do as President is to sign The Freedom of Choice Act........I put Roe at the center of my lesson plan on reproductive freedom when I taught Constitutional Law...........On this issue I will not yield..” During a town meeting in March 2008 in Johnstown, Pa., he spoke with equal determination on the necessity of universal sex education for preteens and teens, “I don’t want my daughters punished with a baby.” The President - elect did not qualify in any way the methods his single daughters might employ in the event they needed to avoid being “punished with a baby”, that is, giving birth to his grandchild. Obama’s vision is modernist and rooted in the Enlightenment. The content and rhetoric of Obama and Biden have elements similar to those described earlier: aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic.
Catholics weep over Barack Obama’s words. We weep over the violence concealed behind his rhetoric and that of Joseph Biden and what appears to be that of the majority of the incoming Congress. What should we do with our hot, angry tears of betrayal?
First, our tears are agonistic. Secondly, we must acknowledge that the model for our tears is ancient. Over the next few years, Gethsemane will not be a marginal garden to us. A model, I suggest, is medieval. With an anonymous author, our restless minds search in a dark valley during this exhausting year. With him as our guide, we find a bleeding man on a hill sitting under a tree “in huge sorrow”. It is Christ, the Bridegroom of the Church and of mankind.
Thirdly, we listen to the words of Christ as narrated by our mediaeval ancestor. Jesus pointing to his gloved hands says that these gloves were given him when he sought his Bride. They are not white but red, embroidered with blood. He says that his spouse brought them and they will not come off. Fourthly, we focus our attention on the constantly repeated refrain of the Bridegroom and the reason for his “huge sorrow”, “Quia amore langueo - Because I am sick for love”. And finally, we find that before this vision of the wounded young man, our frustration and tears become one with his “huge sorrow” and we make his love for the unfaithful Bride whom he seeks and never fails, our own. I will close with a citation of this spousal model. It serves as a measure of what we need to recapture for the whole Church in 2008:
Upon this hil Y fond a tree,
Undir the tree a man sittynge,
From heed to foot woundid was he,
His herte blood Y sigh bledinge:
A semeli man to ben a king, (handsome enough to be a king)
A graciouse face to loken unto;
I askide whi he had peynynge, (suffering)
He seide, "Quia amore langueo. (Because I am sick for love).
I am Truelove that fals was nevere.
My sistyr, Mannis Soule, Y loved hir thus.
Bicause we wolde in no wise discevere, (because in no way would we part company)
I lefte my kyngdom glorious.
I purveide for hir a paleis precious; (prepared, a palace)
Sche fleyth; Y folowe. Y soughte hir so,
I suffride this peyne piteuous,
Quia amore langueo.
In the autumn of 2008 we must begin anew with that sentiment of our medieval brother. Quia amore langueo. With Jesus we are sick because of love toward those with whom we are so tragically and unavoidably at variance. The reader has now become one with the narrator who is addressed in line one as “Dear Soul”. As Humanae Vitae with the whole Catholic tradition teaches, we are to “be true with body and soul”.
James Francis Cardinal Stafford
(Note: Address given by J. Francis Cardinal Stafford before the International Conference to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute on Marriage and the Family at the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. Due to the lack of time the above discourse was given substantially as it appears here although in a somewhat abbreviated form from written notes and typed materials.)
"Gethsemane" in Context
Nov 19, 2008
Last week's comments by the major penitentiary of the church Cardinal James Francis Stafford have circulated far and wide since the Baltimore-born prelate offered his impressions on the incoming administration in a lecture at DC's Catholic University of America late last week.
Whispers in the Loggia, Wednesday, November 19, 2008
"Gethsemane" in Context
Last week's comments by the major penitentiary of the church Cardinal James Francis Stafford have circulated far and wide since the Baltimore-born prelate offered his impressions on the incoming administration in a lecture at DC's Catholic University of America late last week.
Seeking to clarify his remarks, Stafford spoke with CNN yesterday...
[The cardinal] didn't want our phone conversation recorded, but said he believes his remarks can be misunderstood. He says his take on the word apocalyptic is different from common Western references to the end of the world.
In his understanding, he says, apocalyptic means resistance to what [he] calls the divine and natural laws on reproduction and the preservation of human life.
He says he does believe Obama's stance on abortion rights condones violence toward unborn children. Cardinal Stafford told us he does not speak for the Vatican.
Cardinal: Obama "Apocalyptic"
Nov 19, 2008
Aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic -- those surprisingly harsh words being used against the president-elect of the United States, Barack Obama.
CNN, THE SITUATION ROOM
Aired November 18, 2008 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BLITZER: Aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic -- those surprisingly harsh words being used against the president-elect of the United States, Barack Obama. Even more surprising considering the source -- a Roman Catholic cardinal.
CNN's Brian Todd is working the story for us. What's this one all about -- Brian?
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, this cardinal told me he wants to make sure that his words are not taken out of context. But he is not backing down from some very strong criticism of Mr. Obama, specifically over his willingness to sign pro-choice legislation when he becomes president.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TODD (voice-over): Swept into office with help from the Catholic vote, Barack Obama now finds himself the target of harsh criticism from a Vatican cardinal. James Francis Stafford, former archbishop of Denver, said this recently about Obama's support for abortion rights.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
CARDINAL JAMES STAFFORD, APOSTOLIC PENITENTIARY, THE VATICAN: His rhetoric is post-modernist and marks an agenda and ambitions that are aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic. Catholics weep over these words. We weep over the violence concealed behind the rhetoric of our young president-to-be. What should we do with our hot, angry tears of betrayal?
(END AUDIO CLIP)
TODD: We reached Cardinal Stafford in Rome. He didn't want our phone conversation recorded, but said he believes his remarks can be misunderstood. He says his take on the word apocalyptic is different from common Western references to the end of the world.
In his understanding, he says, apocalyptic means resistance to what calls the divine and natural laws on reproduction and the preservation of human life.
He says he does believe Obama's stance on abortion rights condones violence toward unborn children. Cardinal Stafford told us he does not speak for the Vatican.
Contacted by CNN, a Vatican spokesman would not comment on his remarks. The Obama transition team also had no comment.
President-Elect Obama won the Catholic vote by a solid 9 points over John McCain. But analysts say American Catholics have at least one key disconnect with the church.
WILLIAM GALSTON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Many Catholics who are opposed to abortion believe that birth control through means other than the so-called rhythm method are perfectly legitimate and that when the Catholic hierarchy took such a firm position against the acceptability of birth control, that it began to undermine its own moral authority.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TODD: But Cardinal Stafford held firm. When we asked him about American Catholic support for Mr. Obama at the polls, he said he doesn't understand how a Catholic voter could look favorably at the president-elect when "he is hostile to the life of an unborn child."
Again, no response from Obama's team to this cardinal's remarks -- Wolf.
BLITZER: So when you spoke with the cardinal, did he express regret about anything?
TODD: He says he does not regret anything. But he wants to make sure that we understand that this is not a political thing with him. He said he has -- he himself has come out critical against Mr. Bush -- President Bush -- for the war in Iraq, for interrogation programs, etc. So he says this is not any kind of a political message. He just firmly believes in, you know, the anti-abortion message that he always espouses and he thinks Barack Obama goes directly against it.
BLITZER: Brian, thanks very much for that story. Brian Todd reporting.
Obama and the Catholic Church do agree on some hot button issues, including opposition to the war in Iraq, greater access to health care and a more equitable tax code. But they strongly disagree on embryonic stem cell research, abortion rights, as Brian noted, and civil unions for gay couples -- all of which Obama supports. The Catholic Church opposes.
Vatican cardinal: Obama is 'Aggressive, Disruptive and Apocalyptic'
Nov 18, 2008
Father Newman may have at least one big gun on his side, rhetorically if not canonically or theologically. According to the student newspaper of Catholic University of America, Cardinal Francis Stafford, a longtime American in the Roman Curia, on Thursday night painted an apocalytpic picture of the America he sees in the wake of Obama's victory:
His Eminence James Francis Cardinal Stafford criticized President-elect Barack Obama as "aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic," and said he campaigned on an "extremist anti-life platform," Thursday night in Keane Auditorium during his lecture "Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II: Being True in Body and Soul."
"Because man is a sacred element of secular life," Stafford remarked, "man should not be held to a supreme power of state, and a person's life cannot ultimately be controlled by government."
"For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden," Stafford said, comparing America's future with Obama as president to Jesus' agony in the garden. "On November 4, 2008, America suffered a cultural earthquake."
Cardinal Stafford said Catholics must deal with the "hot, angry tears of betrayal" by beginning a new sentiment where one is "with Jesus, sick because of love."
The lecture, hosted by the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, pertained to Humanae Vitae, a papal encyclical written by Pope Paul VI in 1968 and celebrating its 40 anniversary this year.
Stafford also spoke about the decline of a respect for human life and the need for Catholics to return to the original values of marriage and human dignity.
"If 1968 was the year of America's 'suicide attempt,' 2008 is the year of America's exhaustion," said Stafford, an American Cardinal and Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary for the Tribunal of the Holy See. "In the intervening 40 years since Humanae Vitae, the United States has been thrown upon ruins."
This destruction and America's decline is largely in part due to the Supreme Court's decisions in the life-issue cases of 1973, specifically Roe v. Wade. Stafford asserted these cases undermined respect for human life in the United States.
"Its scrupulous meanness has had catastrophic effects upon the unity and integrity of the American republic," said Stafford.
Wow. I bet that wasn't the tenor of Obama's chat with the Pope the other day. Then again, lieutenants are there to do the dirty work so the white cassock stays clean.
L'amore è la chiave della teologia di Ratzinger
Sept 21, 2008
Il suo è un richiamo “non a una teologia estetica, ma a un'estetica teologica".
ROMA, domenica, 14 settembre 2008 (ZENIT.org).- “La chiave della teologia di Joseph Ratzinger è l'amore”, ha spiegato questo sabato il Cardinale James Francis Stafford, Penitenziere Maggiore, alla Pontificia Università della Santa Croce (PUSC) di Roma.
Il porporato è intervenuto al Seminario Professionale per giornalisti della stampa internazionale “The Church Up Close – Covering Catholicism in the Age of Benedict XVI”, organizzato dalla Facoltà di Comunicazione Sociale Istituzionale dell'Università, sul tema “Theological keys to Joseph Ratzinger's thought”, sottolineando che tutta la teologia papale è condensata nel titolo della sua prima Enciclica: “Deus caritas est”, “Dio è amore”, appunto.
Il Penitenziere Maggiore ha spiegato in primo luogo che il nostro è “un Dio attivo nella sua ricerca d'amore”, “un Dio che va personalmente alla ricerca del suo gregge”.
“L'amore, solo l'amore è credibile”, ha aggiunto, spiegando che per questo motivo Gesù Cristo “è il centro di tutta la storia, anche di quella contemporanea”, perché rappresenta l'amore profondo di Dio, che ha sacrificato il suo stesso Figlio per la salvezza e la redenzione l'umanità.
“L'ingiustizia può essere vinta solo con la sofferenza”, ha sottolineato ricordando il legame tra verità e martirio.
Il Cardinale Stafford ha quindi spiegato il significato dello stemma di Papa Benedetto XVI, che contiene tre simboli già introdotti dal Cardinale Ratzinger quando era Arcivescovo di Monaco e Frisinga e mantenuti poi quando è diventato porporato.
Il primo simbolo è una conchiglia, segno del pellegrinaggio – chi compie il Cammino di Santiago de Compostela ne infatti riceve una a simboleggiare il viaggio – e ricordo della leggenda attribuita a Sant'Agostino, che incontrando sulla spiaggia un ragazzo che cercava di mettere con una conchiglia tutta l'acqua del mare in una buca gli chiese cosa stesse facendo. Quando il giovane gli rispose, Agostino pensò ai suoi sforzi inutili per far entrare l'infinità di Dio nella limitata mente umana.
Il secondo simbolo è un orso addomesticato, segno di penitenza, mentre il terzo è una testa di moro incoronata, a simboleggiare l'universalità della Chiesa.
Il Penitenziere Maggiore ha poi difeso la necessità di non distogliere lo sguardo dall'umanità per concentrarsi sulla tecnologia e le sue evoluzioni. Per questo, ha invitato a seguire l'esempio ratzingeriano di “tornare alle radici, alla patristica”, “non a una teologia estetica, ma a un'estetica teologica”.
A tale scopo, non bisogna mai perdere di vista “la bontà e la bellezza”, ricordando sempre il primato di quest'ultima, a cui il Papa compie un vero e proprio appello.
Come diceva il famoso scrittore russo Fëdor Dostoevskij, ha osservato il Cardinale, “la bellezza ci salverà”.
Per raggiungere la bellezza, ha tuttavia concluso, è imprescindibile “un impegno nei confronti della verità”, per “scoprire davvero la verità”.
Le pape Paul VI a refusé de modifier l'enseignement de l'Église sur la contraception
Aug 25, 2008
Le 25 août 2008 - E.S.M. - La Commission papale adressa ses recommandations au pape. La majorité lui conseilla de modifier l'enseignement de l'Église sur la contraception à la lumière des circonstances nouvelles. Comme nous le savons, le pape en décida autrement.
Le long texte que nous propose l'Homme Nouveau est de Son Éminence le cardinal James Francis Stafford, cardinal pénitencier majeur de la Pénitencerie apostolique. Il s’agit là d’un témoignage de première main et d’une réflexion d’intérêt sur la “réception” de l’encyclique Humanae Vitae de Paul VI dans un diocèse américain, en l’occurrence l’archidiocèse de Baltimore (Maryland), le premier diocèse érigé aux États-Unis, en 1789.
Le cardinal Stafford est né en 1932 à Baltimore et a été ordonné prêtre pour cet archidiocèse en 1957. Il fut nommé successivement évêque auxiliaire de Baltimore en 1976, évêque de Memphis (Tennessee) en 1982, archevêque de Denver (Colorado) en 1986, puis président du Conseil pontifical pour les laïcs en 1996. Créé cardinal et nommé cardinal pénitencier majeur par Jean-Paul II en 1998, le cardinal Stafford nous livre de précieuses informations sur l’été 1968 et le début de la contestation cléricale du Magistère pontifical.
Ce texte, écrit à la demande de L’Osservatore Romano, a été publié en langue anglaise dans le California Catholic Daily du 29 juin 2008, avec l’autorisation de la Catholic News Agency. Il eut été dommage que le public francophone fût privé de la lecture attentive de cette contribution. C’est pourquoi L’Homme Nouveau en a entrepris la traduction qu’il vous offre aujourd’hui
Humanae Vitae 1968 : l'année du Peirasmos
« Et ne nous laisse pas succomber à la tentation » constitue la sixième demande du Notre Père. Peirasmos, le grec qui est utilisé dans cette citation pour « tentation », signifie jugement ou épreuve. Les disciples demandent à Dieu d'être prémuni contre la suprême épreuve des puissances impies. Le jugement est lié à la coupe de Jésus à Gethsémanie, la coupe même que ses disciples devront aussi goûter (Mc 10, 35-45). Le côté sombre de l'intérieur de cette coupe est un abysse. Il révèle les conséquences affreuses du jugement de Dieu sur l'humanité pécheresse. En août 1968, le poids de ce Peirasmos de l'Évangile s'est abattu sur de nombreux prêtres dont moi.
C'était l'année de la sale guerre, de l'innocence complexe sanctifiant l'effusion du sang. L'historien anglais Paul Johnson surnomme 1968 l'année de la « tentative de suicide de l'Amérique ». Cette année vit l'offensive du Têt au Vietnam, qui eut un effet "tsunami" sur la vie et la politique américaines, l'assassinat du Dr Martin Luther King Jr. à Memphis (Tennessee), l'agitation du week-end des Rameaux dans des villes américaines et l'assassinat en juin du sénateur Robert Kennedy en Californie du Sud. Ce fut aussi l'année où le pape Paul VI promulgua sa lettre encyclique sur la transmission de la Vie : Humanae Vitae (HV). Immédiatement et de manière préméditée, le pape rencontra une opposition sans précédent de la part de théologiens et de prêtres américains. A tous égards, 1968 fut une coupe amère.
Pour le quarantième anniversaire d'Humanae Vitae, on m'a demandé mes réflexions sur l'un des événements de cette année-là : la contestation doctrinale parmi des prêtres et des théologiens dans un diocèse américain à l'occasion de sa publication. C'est une tâche qui n'est ni facile ni agréable. Mais dès lors qu'elle peut aider des disciples de Jésus à plus de « discipline » (HV, n. 21) de vie, je vais examiner cet événement.
Cet été 1968, compte parmi les heures les plus ardentes de Dieu. Les souvenirs ne sont pas oubliés, mais ils demeurent douloureux. Ils demeurent aussi intenses qu'une tornade dans les plaines du Colorado. Ils habitent dans ce moulin-à-vent où la colère de Dieu réside. En 1968, quelque chose de terrible est arrivé dans l'Église. Au sein du sacerdoce ministériel, des déchirements ont surgi partout entre amis, déchirements qui ne se sont jamais guéris. Et ces blessures continuent à affecter toute l'Église. La contestation, avec la manipulation de la colère que les chefs ont fomentée, est devenue l'épreuve suprême. Elle a modifié les relations fondamentales à l'intérieur de l'Église. Elle fut, pour beaucoup, un Peirasmos.
Mais il faut revenir sur quelques informations qui ont précédé cet événement . Le cardinal Lawrence J. Shehan, sixième archevêque de Baltimore, était mon supérieur ecclésiastique à cette époque. Paul VI l'avait nommé, avec d'autres, membre supplémentaire de la Commission papale pour l'étude des problèmes de la famille, de la population et de la natalité, une commission qui créée par le bienheureux pape Jean XXIII pendant le Concile de Vatican IL II y avait eu des discussions et des retards, et des rapports intérimaires non officiels venant de Rome avant 1968. On avait demandé à cette Commission élargie de faire des recommandations au pape sur ces questions.
Pour préparer les délibérations, le cardinal avait adressé, à titre confidentiel, des lettres à différents membres de l'Église de Baltimore pour obtenir leurs avis. Je fus le destinataire d'une de ces lettres. La réponse que j'y fis était tirée de mon expérience à la fois personnelle et pastorale. Ma famille et mon éducation m'avaient apporté une connaissance chrétienne de la sexualité. L'imagination profondément catholique de ma famille, de mes amis et de mes maîtres m'avait permis d'être très ouvert à cette réalité. J'étais empli d'émerveillement devant ce mystère. Les arguments théologiques n'étaient pas nécessaires pour me convaincre de la relation étroite entre l'acte sexuel et la naissance d'une nouvelle vie. Cette vérité faisait partie des choses de la vie acceptées à l'école élémentaire qui dépendait de la paroisse du monastère Saint-Joseph de Baltimore. Au tout début de mon adolescence, mon père m'avait fait découvrir la pleine signification de la sexualité humaine et le besoin d'une discipline. Son intervention m'ouvrit un chemin dans le labyrinthe de l'adolescence.
Grâce à ma famille, à mes écoles et à mes paroisses, je me liai d'amitié avec de nombreuses jeunes femmes. Et j'en rencontrai régulièrement un certain nombre. Leur beauté m'émerveillait. Le courage de sainte Maria Goretti, canonisée en 1950, frappa ma génération tel un violent orage en montagne. Alors que je m'acheminais vers la fin de mon adolescence, je compris mieux combien pouvait être complexe l'amitié avec déjeunes femmes. Elles composèrent le printemps de ma vie comme la rime composée d'un poème. A ma grande surprise, la joie de les avoir comme amies s'enrichit par la prière, la pudeur, et les sacrements de pénitence et de l'Eucharistie.
Mon éducation et ma formation ultérieures en séminaires s'édifièrent sur ces expériences. Dans une lettre de 1955 adressée à un ami, Flannery O'Connor décrit la signification de la vertu de pureté pour beaucoup de catholiques de cette époque : « Envisager le Christ comme Dieu et homme n'est probablement pas plus difficile aujourd'hui qu'hier (...) Pour vous ce peut être demeurer dans l'incapacité d'accepter ce que vous appelez une suspension de la loi de la chair et de la physique, mais, pour ma part, je pense que dès que je sais ce que sont réellement les lois de la chair et la réalité physique, alors je sais ce que Dieu est. Nous les connaissons comme nous les voyons, et pas de la manière dont Dieu les voit. Pour moi c'est la conception virginale, l'Incarnation et la résurrection qui constituent les vraies lois de la chair et de la physique. La mort, la décrépitude, la destruction constituent la suspension de ces lois. Je suis toujours surpris de l'insistance de l'Église sur le corps. Ce n'est pas l'âme, dit-Elle, qui ressuscitera mais le corps glorifié. J'ai toujours pensé que la pureté était la plus mystérieuse des vertus, mais il m'est apparu que cela ne serait jamais entré dans la conscience humaine si nous n'envisagions pas la résurrection du corps, ce qui consistera en l'union dans la paix de la chair et de l'esprit, de la même manière que chair et esprit le furent dans le Christ. La résurrection du Christ apparaît être le plus haut point de la loi de nature ». La théologie d'O'Connor, avec sa remarquable note eschatologique, anticipe l'enseignement du Concile de Vatican II : « En réalité, le mystère de l'homme ne s'éclaire vraiment que dans le mystère du Verbe Incarné » (Gaudium et Spes, 22 § 1). En ces années-là, je n'aurais pas pu utiliser des mots aussi précis pour expliquer ma position sur la sexualité et la manière d'en user. Sitôt que je les eus découverts, elle devint ma sœur spirituelle.
Huit années de ministère sacerdotal, de 1958 à 1966, à Washington puis à Baltimore élargirent mon expérience. Il ne me fallut pas beaucoup de temps pour découvrir les changements dans les attitudes des Américains sur la vertu de pureté. Ces deux villes connaissaient une augmentation sensible du nombre des grossesses hors mariage. Le taux dans les quartiers déshérités de Baltimore était d'environ 18 % en 1966, un taux qui n'avait cessé de grimper depuis plusieurs années. En 1965-1966, Le Conseil pour la Santé et le Bien Être de la Métropole de Baltimore entreprit une étude pour conseiller les autorités municipales sur la manière de traiter le problème. A cette époque, le conseil d'administration de ce Conseil, dont je faisais partie, croyait sans réserve aux experts et aux études sociales. Le Concile de Vatican II lui-même avait exprimé une confiance illimité dans le rôle des experts bienveillants (Gaudium et Spes, 57 § 6). Aucune de mes relations professionnelles n'avait anticipé la crise de confiance toute proche dans les relations entre les hommes et les femmes. Notre vision ne nous permettait pas de constituer les conditions de justice et de pureté de cœur dans lesquelles l'émerveillement et la gratitude puissent trouver leur place. Nous étions déjà anachroniques et dépourvus d'espoir. Nous ignorions de quoi la vie était tissée.
Il y avait dès cette époque des signes avant-coureurs des désastres qui allaient menacer les enfants, nés ou à naître. Comme travailleur social et prêtre tout au long des années 1960, une partie de mon ministère consistait à conseiller des familles de quartiers défavorisés et des parents célibataires. La première fois que j'ai pris conscience qu'un paroissien consommait des drogues dures, ce fut en 1961. Un jeune homme de seize ans avait été jeté en prison dans le comté d'Anne Arundel (Maryland). A l'heure d'une visite de fin d'après-midi que je lui fis, je le trouvai soumis à un sevrage de drogue sans aide médicale, seul dans une minuscule cellule. Ses hurlements retentissaient dans les couloirs et les cellules adjacentes. Au travers des barreaux qui nous séparaient, je fus saisi d'effroi en le voyant en proie à son tourment. L'abysse qu'il voyait était terrifiant au-delà de l'imagination. Chez ce jeune drogué se tordant de douleur sur le sol près d'une cuvette de W.C. sans rabat, je vis les fruits amers de la séparation entre l'homme et la femme. Sa mère, séparée de son mari, vivait avec ses enfants plus jeunes dans un troisième étage étouffant de chaleur sur Light Street dans le vieux Baltimore Sud. Le père n'existait plus pour eux. La faillite des hommes, dans leurs rôles de père et d'époux, s'étalait devant mes yeux et retentissait à mes oreilles. Depuis lors, de plus en plus d'hommes américains ont refusé d'endosser la responsabilité de leur sexualité.
Dans une lettre confidentielle, en réponse à sa demande, j'exposai d'une manière générale ces préoccupations. Mon avis au cardinal Shehan était très concret et explicite. J'avais observé attentivement et froidement mon expérience et ce que l'Église et la société mettaient en œuvre. Une idée me vint, qui était elliptique : le don de l'amour doit être accordé pour porter du fruit. Ces deux points fixes sont constants. Cette idée simple éclairait tout comme un éclair d'orage. J'écrivis tout cela un peu plus formellement au cardinal : on ne peut pas séparer les réalités d'union et de procréation dans un mariage. En conséquence, priver délibérément l'acte conjugal de sa fertilité est intrinsèquement erroné. Encourager ou approuver un tel abus conduirait à une éclipse de la paternité et à l'irrespect pour les femmes. Depuis, le pape Jean-Paul II nous a offert un aperçu complémentaire et superbe sur la signification nuptiale du corps humain. Des dizaines d'années plus tard, j'en suis arrivé à une lecture analogue de Maître Eckhart : « La gratitude pour le don ne s'exprime pas autrement qu'en lui permettant de porter du fruit ». Un peu plus tard, la Commission papale adressa ses recommandations au pape . La majorité lui conseilla de modifier l'enseignement de l'Église sur la contraception à la lumière des circonstances nouvelles. Le cardinal Shehan faisait partie de cette majorité. Avant même que l'encyclique ait été signée et diffusée, le vote fut rendu public, encore que ce ne le fut pas à son initiative.
Comme nous le savons, le pape en décida autrement. Tout se mettait en place pour la tragédie qui allait suivre le jour de la publication de la lettre encyclique, le 29 juillet 1968.
Dans ses mémoires, le cardinal Shehan rapporte la réaction immédiate de certains prêtres de Washington à l'encyclique : « Sitôt reçues les premières informations sur la publication de l'encyclique, le P. Charles E. Curran, enseignant de théologie morale à la Catholic University of America (CUA), prit l'avion pour rentrer à Washington, abrégeant ses vacances. En fin [d'après-midi, le 29 juillet], lui et neuf autres professeurs de théologie de la CUA se réunirent - une réunion évidemment préméditée - au Caldwell Hall pour réceptionner, grâce à un arrangement, également prévu par avance, avec le Washington Post, l'encyclique morceau par morceau au fur et à mesure qu'elle arrivait aux journaux. L'histoire nous apprit plus tard qu'à 21 h cette nuit-là, ils avaient reçu l'intégralité de l'encyclique, l'avaient lue, analysée, critiquée et avaient rédigé leur « Déclaration de Protestation », un texte de 600 mots. Ils entreprirent alors, au moyen de nombreux coups de téléphone, de contacter des "théologiens" dans tout l'Est du pays, une démarche qui se poursuivit, selon le Washington Post, jusqu'à 3 h 30 du matin, afin d'obtenir leur accord pour que leurs noms apparaissent sur la déclaration en qualité de soutiens (signataires fut le terme utilisé), bien que ceux qu'ils contactaient par téléphone n'aient pas eu la possibilité de lire ni l'encyclique ni leur déclaration. Entre-temps, ils s'arrangèrent avec une chaîne de télévision locale pour que leur déclaration soit diffusée cette nuit-là ».
Le jugement du cardinal fut méprisant. En 1982, il écrivit : « La première chose que nous devons remarquer sur tout ce cirque est celle-ci : pour autant que je puisse le discerner, jamais dans toute l'histoire connue de l'Église une déclaration solennelle d'un Pape ne fut reçue par un groupe de catholiques avec autant d'irrespect et de mépris ».
Le Peirasmos personnel, l'épreuve, commençait. A Baltimore, début août 1968, à quelques jours de la publication de l'encyclique, je reçus une invitation par téléphone d'un vicaire tout récemment ordonné, à participer à une réunion de prêtres de Baltimore, au presbytère de la paroisse St. William of York, dans le sud-ouest de la ville, pour discuter de l'encyclique. La réunion était fixée samedi 4 août au soir. Je dis que je m'y rendrai. Au final, un grand nombre de prêtres se retrouvèrent dans le sous-sol du presbytère. Je les connaissais tous.
Le crépuscule était limpide, l'air chaud et humide. Le local était exigu. Nous étions assis sur des rangées de bancs et de chaises et un curé diocésain, s'occupant d'un quartier défavorisé et bien connu pour son travail sur la liturgie et les relations interraciales, présidait la séance. Pour diriger la réunion, il était assisté de plusieurs prêtres sulpiciens du séminaire de St. Mary de Baltimore. Je ne me souviens plus de leur nombre exact.
Ce que j'espérais de cette réunion se révéla infondé. J'avais espéré que nous avions été convoqués pour recevoir un exemplaire de l'encyclique et en discuter. Je m'étais trompé. Cela n'advint pas. Après un mot de bienvenu et une présentation des personnes qui dirigeraient la séance, le curé en arriva au fait. Il attendait de chacun de nous que nous avalisions la "Déclaration de Protestation" de Washington. Passant alternativement de la passion à l'humour, il nous en expliqua les raisons. Elles allaient du maintien de la crédibilité de l'Église chez les laïcs, à la nécessité d'autoriser une "souplesse" chez les couples mariés pour ce qui est de la formation de leurs consciences à l'utilisation de contraceptifs artificiels. Avant notre arrivée, ceux qui nous avaient rassemblés avaient décidé que le rejet par les prêtres de Baltimore de l'encyclique papale serait publié dès le lendemain matin dans The Baltimore Sun, un des quotidiens de la ville.
La déclaration de Washington fut lue à haute voix. Puis celui qui présidait demanda à chacun de donner son accord pour que son nom y figure comme signataire. Il n'y eut aucun temps d'accordé pour discuter, réfléchir ou prier. Chaque prêtre fut prié de donner individuellement et verbalement son "oui" ou son "non".
Il m'était impossible de signer cela. Ma précédente lettre au cardinal Shehan me revint à l'esprit. Je demeurais convaincu de la vérité de mon jugement et de mes conclusions. Remarquant que mon siège était le dernier dans ce sous-sol bondé, j'écoutais la réponse de chaque prêtre espérant quelque soutien. Il n'y en eut aucun. Tous les prêtres furent d'accord pour signer. Il n'y eut aucune abstention. Quand mon tour arriva à la toute fin, je me sentais isolé. Le sous-sol était devenu suffocant. La nuit était tombée. La tension emplissait la pièce. Quelque chose d'historique était en train de se dérouler. Il devint clair que la stratégie des dirigeants de cette séance avait été soigneusement élaborée et préméditée. Tout se déroulait sans anicroche. Leurs talents rhétoriques avaient obtenu l'effet escompté. Ils avaient soigneusement planifié la manière d'exercer ce qui n'était qu'une coercition émotionnelle et intellectuelle. Ce type de violence recourant à la manipulation patente était quelque chose de nouveau dans le presbyterium de Baltimore.
La réaction de celui qui présidait la séance à mon refus était prévisible et fut affreuse. L'ensemble du processus s'était transformé en un combat éreintant, une terrible épreuve, un Peirasmos. Le prêtre/président, utilisant des expressions scatologiques qu'il avait apprises lors de son passage dans le corps des Marines pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, réagit avec arrogance à ma décision. Il essaya de me forcer à changer. Il se mit visiblement en colère et devint verbalement injurieux. La violence "fraternelle" sous-jacente devint plus évidente. Il s'interrogea sur mon honnêteté puis la tourna en ridicule. Il railla le risque que je prenais quant à mon "avenir" ecclésiastique, encore que son allusion relevât plutôt de l'anatomie. Les injures continuèrent.
Avec une cohérence surprenante, je finis par être capable d'objecter que l'encyclique du pape méritait la courtoisie d'une lecture. Personne d'entre nous ne l'avait lue. Je poursuivis en disant qu'en fait j'étais d'accord avec l'enseignement du pape et que je l'acceptais d'après ce qui en avait été dit dans les médias. Cette réponse suscita encore plus de quolibets chez celui qui présidait. Chez les autres, le silence régnait. A la fin, constatant que je camperais sur mes positions, l'ancien Marine décida de clore l'affaire et leva la séance. Le groupe dirigeant se mit alors à préparer une déclaration destinée au quotidien du lendemain matin.
La réunion était achevée. Je m'empressai de la quitter, libre mais désemparé. Une fois sorti, les ténèbres me couvrirent. Nous avions tous été l'objet de quelque chose de nouveau dans l'Église, quelque chose d'inattendu. Un curé et plusieurs professeurs de séminaire avaient abusé de la rhétorique pour saper la vérité dans une communauté évangélique. Et quand on les contredisait, ils jouaient le rôle des amis de Job. Leur mépris devint un cauchemar. Au cours de la nuit, il me sembla que la main invisible de Dieu se tendait vers moi pour me toucher le visage.
La contestation de quelques professeurs du séminaire sulpicien ajouta à ma désorientation. C'est dans leur vénérable séminaire de Baltimore que j'avais pour la première fois compris la relation entre la liberté, l'intériorité et l'obéissance. A tous égards ecclésiaux ils auraient dû prendre conscience que le processus qu'ils avaient soutenu ce soir-là outrepassait les "limites d'une contestation licite". Mais ils ne manifestèrent aucune inquiétude sur la gravité de ce moment théologique et pastoral. Ils ne virent rien d'inconvenant dans ce mélange de publicité et de théologie. Ils ne manifestèrent aucun agacement, alors comme plus tard, quant à la nature coercitive de cette réunion d'août. Aucun des autres prêtres présents n'en manifesta. Un seul prêtre diocésain demanda secrètement plus tard au cours de cette nuit que son nom soit retiré avant que la déclaration paraisse dans le journal du matin.
Je me suis longtemps interrogé sur la signification de cet événement. Ce fut un cataclysme auquel il a été difficile de survivre indemne. Les choses ne se clarifièrent que lentement. Plus tard, Henri de Lubac a saisi une partie de sa signification : « Rien n'est plus opposé au témoignage que la vulgarisation. Rien n'est moins propre à l'apostolat que la propagande ». Les intuitions d'Hannah Arendt ont été précieuses quant au dangereux équilibre de la culture occidentale du XXe siècle entre catastrophe inévitable et optimisme imprudent : « Il devrait être possible de découvrir le mécanisme caché par lequel les éléments traditionnels de notre univers politique et culturel ont été dissous en un conglomérat que l'entendement humain ne peut pas identifier, inutilisable à des fins humaines. Céder au pur processus de désintégration est devenu une tentation irrésistible, non seulement parce qu'il suppose la fausse grandeur de la "nécessité historique", mais aussi parce que tout ce qui lui est extérieur a commencé à apparaître dépourvu de vie, exsangue, sans signification et irréel ». Le monde d'en bas qui a toujours cheminé avec les communautés catholiques, et que nos aïeux appelaient gnosticisme, a de nouveau fait surface et tenté d'usurper la vérité de la tradition catholique.
Un souvenir plus précoce, remontant à avril 1968, a contribué à jeter une nouvelle lumière sur ce qui est arrivé en août 1968, parallèlement aux mots du Père de Lubac sur la violence et aux intuitions d'Arendt sur le point de rupture auquel arriva la civilisation occidentale au XXe siècle. Au plus fort des émeutes de 1968 qui suivirent à Baltimore l'assassinat du Dr Martin Luther King Jr., j'avais donné de toute urgence un coup de téléphone à ce même curé de quartier défavorisé qui allait diriger la réunion d'août. Ce fut l'une des nombreuses conversations téléphoniques que j'eus avec des curés de quartiers défavorisés au cours de la nuit qui précéda le Dimanche des Rameaux. A la demande des autorités locales, je demandai si lui-même ou ses fidèles, assiégés qu'ils étaient, avaient besoin de nourriture, d'assistance médicale ou de toute autre aide.
La conversation que j'eus avec lui en cette nuit d'avril fut, et de loin, la plus dramatique. Il me décrivait ce qu'il voyait depuis son presbytère tandis que nous parlions au téléphone. Sa fenêtre le séparait d'un voisinage en train de se détruire. Sa paroisse était devenue un enfer déchaîné. Il commentait : "D'ici je ne vois rien d'autre que des incendies partout. On a mis le feu partout. L'église et le presbytère sont jusqu'à maintenant indemnes ». Il ne voulait ni partir ni être évacué. Sa voix trahissait sa déception et sa peur. On apprit plus tard que les bâtiments de la paroisse n'avaient pas été touchés.
« Tirer au clair » ces deux manifestations de violence prit de nombreux mois et de nombreuses années. De manière non prévisible, les trajectoires des mois d'avril et août 1968 se croisèrent. Mes souvenirs de la violence physique dans la ville en avril 1968 m'aidèrent à qualifier ce qui m'arriva en août de la même année. La contestation ecclésiale peut devenir une sorte de violence spirituelle, tant par sa forme que par son contenu. Une nouvelle et troublante intuition émergea. La violence et la vérité ne se mélangent pas. Quand la violence manifeste, de quelque nature qu'elle soit, s'applique à la vérité, l'ironie qui en résulte est létale.
Que veux-je dire ? Considérez les résultats de ces deux événements. Après le violent week-end des Rameaux de 1968, le dialogue social dans la métropole de Baltimore fut brisé et suspendu. Il fallut s'effacer devant la colère non dissimulée et les récriminations entre Blancs et Noirs. La violence des prêtres lors de la réunion d'août engendra sa propre acrimonie féroce. Les conversations au sein du clergé, quand il y en avait, furent contaminées par la peur. Les suspicions chez les prêtres étaient récurrentes. La peur était partout. Et elle continue. Les prêtres de l'archidiocèse ont perdu quelque chose de cette pleine amitié que les prêtres de Baltimore avaient connue depuis des générations. 1968 est l'année du hiatus dans la communio générationnelle du presbyterium archidiocésain, qui n'a cessé d'être renforcé par son séminaire et sa faculté sulpicienne. La fraternité entre les prêtres a été blessée. La contestation pastorale s'est attaquée au fondement eucharistique de l'Église. Sa signification nuptiale a été niée. Des prêtres ne considéraient plus leurs évêques que comme des marionnettes de Rome.
Quelque chose d'autre est arrivé aux prêtres en cette violente nuit d'août. L'amitié dans l'Église a reçu un coup direct. Jésus, en appelant « amis » ceux qui étaient avec lui, a fait de l'amitié une analogie privilégiée avec l'Église. Cette analogie s'est obscurcie après qu'un grand nombre de prêtres a exprimé sa honte envers ses dirigeants et répudié leur enseignement.
Le cardinal Shehan a déclaré plus tard que le lundi 5 août au matin, il fut « surpris de lire dans le Baltimore Sun que 72 prêtres de la circonscription de Baltimore avaient signé la Déclaration de Protestation ». Ce qu'il qualifia plus tard « d'années de crise », commença pour lui pendant cette chaude et violente soirée d'août 1968.
Mais cette nuit ne fut pas qu'une perte totale. L'épreuve n'était pas prévue et ne fut pas la bienvenue. Ses conséquences déstabilisantes se font encore sentir. La contestation, abusive et coercitive, est devenue une réalité dans l'Église et la soumet à des controverses chroniques, violentes, affaiblissantes et improductives. Mais j'ai vraiment découvert quelque chose de nouveau. Et d'autres aussi avec moi. Quand le moment du témoignage du chrétien est arrivé, aucun chrétien ne peut être contraint s'il s'y refuse. Bien que ce fut pour moi une nouveauté que d'être traité en objet de honte et ridiculisé, je ne suis pas devenu « honteux de l'Évangile » [Rm 1, 16] cette nuit-là et j'ai trouvé « un doux délice en ce qui était juste ». Ce n'était pas une mauvaise leçon. L'obéissance ecclésiale tient la distance.
17
Découvrir que le Christ fut le premier à mépriser la honte, fut pour moi déchirant en sa réalité existentielle et providentielle. « [Courons] avec constance l'épreuve qui nous est proposée, fixant nos yeux sur le chef de notre foi, qui la mène à sa perfection, Jésus, qui au lieu de la joie qui lui était proposée, endura une croix, dont il méprisa l'infamie » [He, 12, 1-2]. Paradoxalement, en cette chaude nuit d'août, un nouveau signe se manifesta sur le chemin de la vie à venir, et ce signe se lit ainsi : « [Jésus] apprit de ce qu'il souffrit l'obéissance » [He, 4, 8].
La violence de la désobéissance initiale n'était que le prélude à une violence à venir et encore plus envahissante. Des prêtres pleurèrent lors de réunions sur la manipulation de leurs frères. Le mépris de la vérité, qu'il soit agressif ou passif, est devenu d'usage dans la vie de l'Église. Des prêtres, des théologiens et des laïcs contestataires ont poursuivi leurs techniques coercitives. Dès le début la presse les a utilisés pour poursuivre son propre programme sinueux.
Tout cela a conduit à une dernière découverte. Le discernement est un aspect essentiel du ministère épiscopal. Avec la grâce de « l'Esprit qui gouverne », les talents de discernement d'un évêque devraient mûrir. L'attention épiscopale devrait se concentrer sur la cassure/rupture amorcée par Jésus et décrite par saint Paul dans sa réponse aux contestataires corinthiens : « Vous cherchez une preuve que le Christ parle en moi, lui qui n'est pas faible à votre égard, mais qui est puissant parmi vous. Certes, il a été crucifié en raison de sa faiblesse, mais il est vivant par la puissance de Dieu. Et nous aussi, nous sommes faibles en lui, bien sûr, mais nous vivrons avec lui, par la puissance de Dieu à votre égard. Examinez-vous vous-mêmes pour voir si vous êtes dans la foi. Éprouvez-vous vous-mêmes » (2 Cor 13, 3-5).
La rupture constituée par la mort violente de Jésus à changé notre compréhension de la nature de Dieu. Sa vie trinitaire est essentiellement se rendre de soi-même et aimer. Par le baptême, chaque disciple de Jésus reçoit l'empreinte de ce filigrane trinitaire. Le Verbe Incarné est venu pour faire la volonté de celui qui l'a envoyé. L'obéissance contemporaine des disciples au successeur de Pierre ne peut pas être séparée de la pauvreté en esprit et de la pureté de cœur façonnées et obtenues par le Verbe sur la Croix.
Quelques mots pour conclure. En 1978, ou aux environs de cette année-là, lors d'une visite épiscopale à sa paroisse, j'eus un déjeuner avec le curé de Baltimore, l'ancien Marine, qui avait dirigé la réunion d'août 1968. Il m'invita dans son presbytère. Il était toujours impressionnant. Notre conversation tourna autour de sa paroisse, cette même paroisse dont il était le pasteur lors des émeutes de 1968. L'atmosphère était aimable. Au cours de ce repas très simple dans sa cuisine, je pris une décision difficile. Puisque nous n'avions jamais discuté depuis de cette nuit d'août, je décidai de commencer à l'en entretenir. Mon rappel fut bref, objectif et, pour autant que les circonstances le permettaient, non menaçant. J'avais espéré quelque éclaircissement venant de lui sur un événement qui était devenu central dans l'expérience de beaucoup de prêtres, à commencer par moi. Alors que mon esprit et mon cœur se remémoraient les événements de cette nuit, lui demeurait silencieux. Son silence se poursuivit. Bien qu'il n'ait rien oublié, il ne fit aucun commentaire. Il ne leva pas même les yeux. Le brasier de son cœur s'était alors beaucoup refroidi.
Rien ne venait. J'abandonnai l'affaire. Aucun dialogue n'avait été possible en 1968 ; il demeurait impossible en 1978. Nous n'avions aucun terrain en commun. Chacun de nous regardait au fond de l'abysse, mais chacun de son côté. L'angoisse et l'anxiété avaient submergé l'espoir éloigné de la réconciliation et de l'amitié. Nous ne revîmes jamais sur le sujet. Il est mort depuis alors qu'il servait une grande paroisse suburbaine. Le dernier choix que j'ai à faire est de me frapper la poitrine et de prier : « Seigneur, souviens-toi du poids secret de notre humaine nullité ».
Les prêtres diocésains ne se sont pas remis des nuits de juillet-août 1968. Nombreux sont ceux dans la vie consacrée qui ont aussi raté l'épreuve évangélique. Depuis janvier 2002 [1], l'abysse s'est réouvert ailleurs. L'ensemble du peuple de Dieu, y compris les enfants et les adolescents, doit désormais scruter l'abysse et découvrir quelles effrayantes bêtes sont tapies au fond. Chacun de nous tremble face à la colère de Dieu, chacun verse des larmes amères pour nos péchés et chacun implore le Père pour qu'il se souvienne dans sa miséricorde de l'obéissance du Christ.
Humanae Vitae
Jul 26, 2008
The Year of the Peirasmòs - 1968
By Cardinal James Francis Stafford
(catholicnewsagency.com) “Lead us not into temptation” is the sixth petition of the Our Father. Πειρασμός (Peirasmòs), the Greek word used in this passage for ‘temptation.’, means a trial or test. Disciples petition God to be protected against the supreme test of ungodly powers. The trial is related to Jesus’s cup in Gethsemane, the same cup which his disciples would also taste (Mk 10: 35-45). The dark side of the interior of the cup is an abyss. It reveals the awful consequences of God’s judgment upon sinful humanity. In August, 1968, the weight of the evangelical Πειρασμός fell on many priests, including myself.
It was the year of the bad war, of complex innocence that sanctified the shedding of blood. English historian Paul Johnson dubs 1968 as the year of “America’s Suicide Attempt.” It included the Tet offensive in Vietnam with its tsunami-like effects in American life and politics, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee; the tumult in American cities on Palm Sunday weekend; and the June assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in southern California. It was also the year in which Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical letter on transmitting human life, Humanae Vitae (HV). He met immediate, premeditated, and unprecedented opposition from some American theologians and pastors. By any measure 1968 was a bitter cup.
On the fortieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, I have been asked to reflect on one event of that year, the doctrinal dissent among some priests and theologians in an American Archdiocese on the occasion of its publication. It is not an easy or welcome task. But since it may help some followers of Jesus to live what Pope Paul VI called a more “disciplined” life (HV 21), I will explore that event.
The summer of 1968 is a record of God’s hottest hour. The memories are not forgotten; they are painful. They remain vivid like a tornado in the plains of Colorado. They inhabit the whirlwind where God’s wrath dwells. In 1968 something terrible happened in the Church. Within the ministerial priesthood ruptures developed everywhere among friends which never healed. And the wounds continue to affect the whole Church. The dissent, together with the leaders’ manipulation of the anger they fomented, became a supreme test. It changed fundamental relationships within the Church. It was a Πειρασμός for many.
Some background material is necessary. Cardinal Lawrence J. Shehan, the sixth Archbishop of Baltimore, was my ecclesiastical superior at the time. Pope Paul VI had appointed him along with others as additional members to the Papal Commission for the Study of Problems of the Family, Population, and Birth Rates, first established by Blessed Pope John XXIII in 1963 during the II Vatican Council. There had been discussions and delays and unauthorized interim reports from Rome prior to 1968. The enlarged Commission was asked to make recommendations on these issues to the Pope.
In preparation for its deliberations, the Cardinal sent confidential letters to various persons of the Church of Baltimore seeking their advice. I received such a letter.
My response drew upon experience, both personal and pastoral. Family and education had given me a Christian understanding of sex. The profoundly Catholic imagination of my family, friends and teachers had caused me to be open to this reality; I was filled with wonder before its mystery. Theological arguments weren’t necessary to convince me of the binding connection between sexual acts and new life. That truth was an accepted part of life at the elementary school connected with St. Joseph’s Passionist Monastery Parish in Baltimore. In my early teens my father had first introduced me to the full meaning of human sexuality and the need for discipline. His intervention opened a path through the labyrinth of adolescence.
Through my family, schools, and parishes I became friends with many young women. Some of them I dated on a regular basis. I marveled at their beauty. The courage of St. Maria Goretti, canonized in 1950, struck my generation like an intense mountain storm. Growing into my later teens I understood better how complex friendship with young women could be. They entered the spring-time of my life like the composite rhythm of a poem. To my surprise, the joy of being their friend was enriched by prayer, modesty, and the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist.
Later education and formation in seminaries built upon those experiences. In a 1955 letter to a friend, Flannery O’Connor describes the significance of the virtue of purity for many Catholics at that time. “To see Christ as God and man is probably no more difficult today than it has been. ... For you it may be a matter of not being able to accept what you call a suspension of the law of the flesh and the physical, but for my part I think that when I know what the laws of the flesh and physical reality really are, then I will know what God is. We know them as we see them, not as God sees them. For me it is the virgin birth, the Incarnation, the resurrection which are the true laws of the flesh and the physical. Death, decay, destruction are the suspension of these laws. I am always astonished at the emphasis the Church places on the body. It is not the soul she says that will rise but the body, glorified. I have always thought that purity was the most mysterious of the virtues, but it occurs to me that it would never have entered human consciousness if we were not to look forward to a resurrection of the body, which will be flesh and spirit united in peace, in the way they were in Christ. The resurrection of Christ seems the high point in the law of nature.” O’Connor’s theology with its remarkably eschatological mark anticipates the teaching of the II Vatican Council, “The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light” (Gaudium et Spes 22). In those years, I could not have used her explicit words to explain where I stood on sexuality and its use. Once I discovered them she became a spiritual sister.
Eight years of priestly ministry from 1958 to 1966 in Washington and Baltimore broadened my experience. It didn’t take long to discover changes in Americans’ attitudes towards the virtue of purity. Both cities were undergoing sharp increases in out-of-wedlock pregnancies. The rate in Baltimore’s inner-city was about 18% in 1966 and had been climbing for several years. In 1965-1966 the Baltimore Metropolitan Health and Welfare Council undertook a study to advise the city government in how to address the issue. At that time, the Board members of the Council, including myself, had uncritical faith in experts and social research. Even the II Vatican Council had expressed unfettered confidence in the role of benevolent experts (Gaudium et Spes 57). Not one of my professional acquaintances anticipated the crisis of trust which was just around the corner in the relations between men and women. Our vision was incapable of establishing conditions of justice and of purity of heart in which wonder and appreciation can find play. We were already anachronistic and without hope. We ignored the texture of life.
There were signs even then of the disasters facing children, both born and unborn. As a caseworker and priest throughout the 1960's, part of my ministry involved counseling inner-city families and single parents. My first awareness of a parishioner using hard drugs was in 1961. A sixteen-year old had been jailed in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. At the time of my late afternoon visit to him, he was experiencing drug withdrawal unattended and alone in a tiny cell. His screams filled the corridors and adjoining cells. Through the iron bars dividing us, I was horror-stricken watching him in his torment. The abyss he was looking into was unimaginably terrifying. In this drugged youth writhing in agony on the floor next to an open toilet I saw the bitter fruits of the estrangement of men and women. His mother, separated from her husband, lived with her younger children in a sweltering third floor flat on Light St. in old South Baltimore. The father was non-existent for them. The failure of men in their paternal and spousal roles was unfolding before my eyes and ears. Since then more and more American men have refused to accept responsibility for their sexuality.
In a confidential letter responding to his request, I shared in a general fashion these concerns. My counsel to Cardinal Shehan was very real and specific. I had taken a hard, cold look at what I was experiencing and what the Church and society were doing. I came across an idea which was elliptical: the gift of love should be allowed to be fruitful. These two fixed points are constant. This simple idea lit up everything like lightning in a storm. I wrote about it more formally to the Cardinal: the unitive and procreative meanings of marriage cannot be separated. Consequently, to deprive a conjugal act deliberately of its fertility is intrinsically wrong. To encourage or approve such an abuse would lead to the eclipse of fatherhood and to disrespect for women. Since then, Pope John Paul II has given us the complementary and superlative insight into the nuptial meaning of the human body. Decades afterwards, I came across an analogous reading from Meister Eckhart: “Gratitude for the gift is shown only by allowing it to make one fruitful.”
Some time later, the Papal Commission sent its recommendations to the Pope. The majority advised that the Church’s teaching on contraception be changed in light of new circumstances. Cardinal Shehan was part of that majority. Even before the encyclical had been signed and issued, his vote had been made public although not on his initiative.
As we know, the Pope decided otherwise. This sets the scene for the tragic drama following the actual date of the publication of the encyclical letter on July 29, 1968.
In his memoirs, Cardinal Shehan describes the immediate reaction of some priests in Washington to the encyclical. “[A]fter receiving the first news of the publication of the encyclical, the Rev. Charles E. Curran, instructor of moral theology of The Catholic University of America, flew back to Washington from the West where he had been staying. Late [on the afternoon of July 29], he and nine other professors of theology of the Catholic University met, by evident prearrangement, in Caldwell Hall to receive, again by prearrangement with the Washington Post, the encyclical, part by part, as it came from the press. The story further indicated that by nine o’clock that night, they had received the whole encyclical, had read it, had analyzed it, criticized it, and had composed their six-hundred word ‘Statement of Dissent.’ Then they began that long series of telephone calls to ‘theologians’ throughout the East, which went on, according to the Post, until 3:30 A.M., seeking authorization, to attach their names as endorsers (signers was the term used) of the statement, although those to whom they had telephoned could not have had an opportunity to see either the encyclical or their statement. Meanwhile, they had arranged through one of the local television stations to have the statement broadcast that night.”
The Cardinal’s judgment was scornful. In 1982 he wrote, “The first thing that we have to note about the whole performance is this: so far as I have been able to discern, never in the recorded history of the Church has a solemn proclamation of a Pope been received by any group of Catholic people with so much disrespect and contempt.”
The personal Πειρασμός, the test, began. In Baltimore in early August, 1968, a few days after the encyclical’s issuance, I received an invitation by telephone from a recently ordained assistant pastor to attend a gathering of some Baltimore priests at the rectory of St. William of York parish in southwest Baltimore to discuss the encyclical. The meeting was set for Sunday evening, August 4. I agreed to come. Eventually a large number of priests were gathered in the rectory’s basement. I knew them all.
The dusk was clear, hot, and humid. The quarters were cramped. We were seated on rows of benches and chairs and were led by a diocesan inner-city pastor well known for his work in liturgy and race-relations. There were also several Sulpician priests present from St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore to assist him in directing the meeting. I don’t recall their actual number.
My expectations of the meeting proved unrealistic. I had hoped that we had been called together to receive copies of the encyclical and to discuss it. I was mistaken. Neither happened.
After welcoming us and introducing the leadership, the inner-city pastor came to the point. He expected each of us to subscribe to the Washington “Statement of Dissent.” Mixing passion with humor, he explained the reasons. They ranged from the maintenance of the credibility of the Church among the laity to the need to allow ‘flexibility’ for married couples in forming their consciences on the use of artificial contraceptives. Before our arrival, the conveners had decided that the Baltimore priests’ rejection of the papal encyclical would be published the following morning in The Baltimore Sun, one of the daily newspapers.
The Washington statement was read aloud. Then the leader asked each of us to agree to have our names attached to it. No time was allowed for discussion, reflection, or prayer. Each priest was required individually to give a verbal “yes” or “no.”
I could not sign it. My earlier letter to Cardinal Shehan came to mind. I remained convinced of the truth of my judgement and conclusions. Noting that my seat was last in the packed basement, I listened to each priest’s response, hoping for support. It didn’t materialize. Everyone agreed to sign. There were no abstentions. As the last called upon, I felt isolated. The basement became suffocating.
By now it was night. The room was charged with tension. Something epochal was taking place. It became clear that the leaders’ strategy had been carefully mapped out beforehand. It was moving along without a hitch. Their rhetorical skills were having their anticipated effect. They had planned carefully how to exert what amounted to emotional and intellectual coercion. Violence by overt manipulation was new to the Baltimore presbyterate.
The leader’s reaction to my refusal was predictable and awful. The whole process now became a grueling struggle, a terrible test, a Πειρασμος. The priest/leader, drawing upon some scatological language from his Marine Corp past in the II World War responded contemptuously to my decision. He tried to force me to change. He became visibly angry and verbally abusive. The underlying, ‘fraternal’ vio
Full text of Cardinal Stafford's Nov. 13 remarks
L'amore è la chiave della teologia di Ratzinger
Le pape Paul VI a refusé de modifier l'enseignement de l'Église sur la contraception