Anti-Christian Violence in India

There is a another reason for Hindu hostility to Christian missions. The social work of missionaries has always sought to help the poorest and most marginal classes. Among the “casteless” (Dalits or Pariahs, today numbering some 150 million) and the tribals (another 80 million), the missions have played an important role, which is acknowledged by Indian governments. They have given the poor awareness of their dignity and rights. Whoever visits regions inhabited by Pariahs or tribals, over a period of 20–30 years or more, can testify to the profound social revolution achieved without violence, simply through education.

Hindu Extremism and the Fear of Christ, Piero Ghedo (missionary)

The Word of God Is a Fact: It Is the Person of Jesus Christ

The Word of God is a fact: it is the person of Jesus Christ whom the Apostles met as he walked along the shore of the Sea of Galilee and whom the Church proclaims as one who can be met today in the paths of our life.

There is a challenge that this announcement has to overcome; the challenge is above all anthropological. And that is does this fact shows it is able to overcome space and time as something that does not fade away, that does not wear out and answers the desires of a man’s heart in a unique and singular way. Experience shows that things sparkle then fade with time: the Ancient Greek poet Mimnermus said “like the leaves that germinate spring” and along with him Arnault, Leopardi and the literature of all times. The ego also fades and what fascinated us loses its value with time, it is consumed or it no longer attracts us. The big question, which cannot be denied even by contemporary culture, is: does something exist that can fully realizes the needs of our hearts and that lasts in time, forever.

H.E. Most. Rev. Filippo SANTORO, Bishop of Petrópolis (BRAZIL)

The Grace of Salvation

People still tell me that the Catholic church teaches that all outside the Church are going to hell, even though Fr. Feeney's position was corrected in 1949 by Pope Pius XII. Cardinal Dulles in First Things summarizes the thorny question of salvation for those outside the Church as seen by theologians through the centuries and offers a way to reconcile the structure of every person designed with a heart meant for God and our need for the saving grace of the Catholic Church.

Scripture itself assures us that God has never left himself without a witness to any nation (Acts 14:17). His testimonies are marks of his saving dispensations toward all. The inner testimony of every human conscience bears witness to God as lawgiver, judge, and vindicator. In ancient times, the Jewish Scriptures drew on literature that came from Babylon, Egypt, and Greece. The Book of Wisdom and Paul’s Letter to the Romans speak of God manifesting his power and divinity through his works in nature. The religions generally promote prayer and sacrifice as ways of winning God’s favor. The traditions of all peoples contain elements of truth imbedded in their cultures, myths, and religious practices. These sound elements derive from God, who speaks to all his children through inward testimony and outward signs.

The universal evidences of the divine, under the leading of grace, can give rise to a rudimentary faith that leans forward in hope and expectation to further manifestations of God’s merciful love and of his guidance for our lives. By welcoming the signs already given and placing their hope in God’s redeeming love, persons who have not heard the tidings of the gospel may nevertheless be on the road to salvation. If they are faithful to the grace given them, they may have good hope of receiving the truth and blessedness for which they yearn.

The search, however, is no substitute for finding. To be blessed in this life, one must find the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field, which is worth buying at the cost of everything one possesses. To Christians has been revealed the mystery hidden from past ages, which the patriarchs and prophets longed to know. By entering through baptism into the mystery of the cross and the Resurrection, Christians undergo a radical transformation that sets them unequivocally on the road to salvation. Only after conversion to explicit faith can one join the community that is nourished by the Word of God and the sacraments. These gifts of God, prayerfully received, enable the faithful to grow into ever greater union with Christ.

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The Newest Missionary Venture

Don't miss this week's article by John Allen on a fledgling missionary operation in Mongolia. It's a fascinating subject: a brand new territory for Christian evangelization, Mongolia, just started in 1992 by a Filipino priest, now bishop. To date there are about 400 Christians.

The attraction for the new Christians has come simply from the liturgy (in the vernacular) and from the social relief programs.

Padilla said that when he conducts interviews with Mongolian converts to understand what attracted them and made them decide to join the church, most will say they first came into contact with Catholicism through one of its social programs – a school, soup kitchen, or relief center. What “hooked” them, however, was the liturgy.

“They say it’s the singing, the liturgy,” Padilla told an audience at the Oratory of St. Francis Xavier del Caravita in Rome. “They say it’s more worthwhile than what they experience in the Buddhist temple. They’re active in the prayers and in the singing, It’s not just the monks doing all the singing.”

Padilla said that even though the four parishes in Mongolia (and four parochial sub-stations) use largely Western liturgical music, it’s translated into the vernacular, and most of the liturgy now is also said using the Mongol language. That, too, he said, is a major point of entry for new converts, most of whom are young and from the middle class or below.

“We cater mostly to the young and to the very poor,” Padilla said.

Bishop Padilla also found a strategy to soften up the local officials to get church building permits.

[A] Belgian missionary who had served in Inner Mongolia explained to him how to get things done.

“He told me that when you’re in difficulty, the thing to do is to invite these officials to dinner and get them drinking, especially vodka,” he said.

“It worked, but it was rough. At one point, I was drunk at least once or twice a week. One time I had to leave my car behind because I was too drunk to drive … but God will forgive, and anyway I wasn’t a bishop yet!”

Actually, Jesus attended a lot of parties from all accounts.

Building the Kingdom may not be so complicated as we tend to think.

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Grave Crimes Against the Human Person

"Christians are called to cooperate for the defense of human rights and for the abolition of the death penalty, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment against the human person in time of peace and in case of war."

"These practices are grave crimes against the human person, created in the image of God, and a scandal for the human family in the 21st century."

President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace Cardinal Renato Martino

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Testimony to a Grandmother's Martyrdom

From the moving story of Bl. Teresa Cejudo, Spanish martyr, by her granddaughter. Read the whole story here.

Caballero said Blessed Teresa Cejudo was very active at the Salesian school in her town and “helped distribute food to poor families and taught children unable to attend school to read and write.” She was put in prison for over a month in Pozoblanco and was shot at the cemetery together with seventeen others. “She was very strong at that time,” Caballero continued. “She said goodbye to her only daughter, my mother, and she was shot last because that was what she requested. She asked not to have her eyes covered, she wanted to die looking at death in the face, which she did not fear, because she was dying for God. She encouraged her seventeen companions not to deny God or their faith.”

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Stafford on the Freedom of Indifference

Here's an interesting piece from an interview with Cardinal Francis Stafford of Denver, who just celebrated his golden jubilee.

Q: What's the most significant change in the Catholic Church in the last 50 years?

A: On the positive side, lay people are actively in search of holiness; not a cheap holiness, not a holiness that comes from an inexpensive grace. Wallace Stevens, one of the great poets of the 20th century and a convert to Catholicism on his death bed, wrote, and I paraphrase: Sanctity is produced out of the condition of winter, that is a wintry cold climate. He describes a holiness produced out of a mind of winter....

On the negative side, what has changed is the self-inflicted and mortal wound of many Catholic universities and colleges that have attempted to live in two diametrically opposed cultural worlds; one, a culture based upon freedom as the pursuit of excellence and the other, freedom of indifference. The first is from the tradition of St. Augustine and St. Thomas and the other is from the period of the Enlightenment beginning with Kant.

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An Historic Ordination in Russia

From Whispers in the Loggia:

On Saturday, before a cathedral packed with Italians and Russians, Catholics and Orthodox alike, the Italian-born cleric Paolo Pezzi was ordained archbishop of "Mother of God" of Moscow, as the Latin-rite community in the Russian capital is known.

A member of the priestly arm of Comunione e Liberazione -- Benedict XVI's favorite "new movement" -- the 47 year-old archbishop served until his September elevation as a seminary rector in St Petersburg. He succeeds Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, who was returned to the top hierarchical post in his home country of Belarus. The departing Moscow prelate -- who's spoken in interviews of his regret at not being able to forge better coexistence with the dominant and influential Russian Orthodox church -- served as principal consecrator at the three-hour long liturgy.

Reflecting the Roman consensus that Pezzi's appointment would offer yet another sign of Vatican goodwill to the Russian Orthodox, a high-ranking representative of the Moscow Patriarchate attended the liturgy and offered a message from Patriarch Alexei II which expressed hopes for improved relations between the two churches and an "early resolution" of the issues that divide them.

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Start Blogging!

Cardinal Ruini, in a speech to religious, urged them to use the internet to reach young people on the authentic message of Christ. From Zenit.

"A priest from Novara told me that the theme of 'Jesus' is very much discussed by youth in blogs. The focus, though, comes from destructive books that are widespread today, and not from Benedict XVI’s book ‘Jesus of Nazareth.'

"What will the idea of Christ be in 10 years if these ideas triumph?"

The 76-year-old prelate admitted, "I don’t understand the Internet, but especially young religious ought to enter blogs and correct the opinions of the youth, showing them the true Jesus.”

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In Africa, Religious Harmony

Here's a beautiful story from Africa about mutual religious respect between Muslims and Christians, via Whispers in the Loggia.

The senior African prelate heading into the papal senate next month is 70 year-old Archbishop Theodore-Adrien Sarr of Dakar in Senegal. Ordained a bishop at 37 and named to the capital see of the West African nation in 2000, the cardinal-designate follows his princely predecessor Hyacinthe Thiandoum, who was given his red hat in 1974 and died three years back.

What marks Sarr out, however, is his status as the top hierarch of a nation whose population is 95 percent Muslim. What's more, relations between Islam and the church in Senegal are reported to be unusually strong, cooperative and reciprocal.

As evidence of this, after his nomination was made public the cardinal-designate noted that his elevation had been sought in prayer... by one of the country's senior imams:

The Senegalese prelate disclosed hours after his nomination that Muslim cleric Habibou Tall had predicted publicly he would be made a cardinal before the end of the year.

"He said he was going to pray for that to happen," Sarr told reporters. "I know he has prayed for that to happen and I thank him for that."...

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Jägerstätter's Witness

There is an excellent article at First Things on the life and death of Franz Jägerstätter, who will be beatified tomorrow. He was executed for refusing to serve in Hitler's army. Author William Doino points out Jägerstätter, who started on a wild course in life and had a conversion after a trip to Rome, was following the Pope's teaching in the encyclical against Hitler, Mit Brennender Sorge (1937), in front of the Nazi terror.

After Hitler’s forces annexed Austria, completing the Anschluss, Jägerstätter was the lone voice in his village to oppose it and was appalled by the willingness of his many countrymen, including high-level prelates, to aquiesce. “I believe there could scarcely be a sadder hour for the true Christian faith in our country,” he wrote, “than this hour when one watches in silence while this error spreads its ever-widening influence.” Commenting on the Austrian plebiscite, which gave approval to the Anschluss, he lamented: “I believe that what took place in the spring of 1938 was not much different from what happened that Holy Thursday 1,900 years ago when the crowd was given a free choice between the innocent Savior and the criminal Barabbas.” Jägerstätter himself became an outspoken opponent of the Nazi regime and refused all cooperation. When a storm destroyed his crops, he declined any assistance from Germany. He stopped attending social events to avoid heated arguments with Nazi apologists. As the takeover of Austria proceeded, Jägerstätter knew he would be asked to collaborate at some point. In early 1943, it came: He was ordered to appear at the induction center at Enns, where he declared his intention not to serve. The next day, he was hauled off to a military prison at Linz, to await his fate. “All he knew when he arrived,” writes Zahn, “was that he was subject to summary execution at any moment.” A parade of people—relatives, friends, spiritual advisers, even his own bishop—pleaded with Jägerstätter to change his mind. Some did not disagree with his anti-Nazi convictions or his moral stance; they simply argued he could not be held guilty in the eyes of God if he offered minimal cooperation under such duress, given the extreme alternative. Jägerstätter, however, saw things differently. He believed Christians were called precisely to meet the highest possible standards—“be thou perfect,” said Our Lord—even at the cost of one’s life, if fundamental Christian principles were at stake. Serving Germany in a nonmilitary post would simply make it easier for someone else to commit war crimes. He could not participate in the Nazi death machine, even indirectly. He would not be swayed: “Since the death of Christ, almost every century has seen the persecution of Christians; there have always been heroes and martyrs who gave their lives—often in horrible ways—for Christ and their faith. If we hope to reach our goal someday, then we, too, must become heroes of the faith.” Indeed, he added, “the important thing is to fear God more than man.”

Jägerstätter reminds me of Margaret Clitherow, in that friends and family opposed and misunderstood his sacrifice. His story was not popular until recently, and the rise of his cause for beatification is a witness to his holiness and the value for us of his witness. The risk in his story is that he will be used as an example for a particular course of action, e.g., against the war in Iraq or as some permanent model of conscientious objection against all military involvement. That would miss the point of the source of his certainty in Christ and the particular way in which he lived his faith openly in his times according to his acute conscience.

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Openness

This week our local School of Community is working on the section "Universality" (p. 81) from The Journey To Truth Is an Experience by Fr. Giussani. It's one of the four marks of the Church, to be "catholic" in the original meaning, which is "universal".

Here's the definition of "catholic" (small "c") according to dictionary.com unabridged:

1.	broad or wide-ranging in tastes, interests, or the like; having sympathies with all; broad-minded; liberal.

2.	universal in extent; involving all; of interest to all.

3.	pertaining to the whole Christian body or church.

Again, Fred's post speaks very well to the human method of knowledge, which starts from experience and excludes nothing. For the Christian, according to Fr. Giussani, this openness is a natural outgrowth of charity with a constant reference to the origin of all things.

The very nature of Christian action, that is, to share, unquestionably demonstrates its boundless domain: a commitment to a genuine experience of charity signifies a complete openness towards the universe. All limitations to the breadth of our existence imposed from within suppress love. Love is not a matter of taste or measure, nor is it some intelligent plan of ours. It is a humble clinging to being as it offers itself to us.

This is just the non-dualistic view of creation according to the Church, where all things are seen as very good, and evil is simply a lack or misuse of the good. The risk is to lose ourselves in a particular good, that is, idolatry, which can only be corrected by returning everything to Christ in offering our lives.

This openness does not manifest itself in an impossible contempt of, or inhumane disinterest for, the particular, but in the way in which the detail is lived. We may commit and genuinely dedicate ourselves to family or friendship, class or school, studies or profession, but the motive behind the commitment must transcend any particular desire for a higher mark or attachment to a particular person.

The Christian lives the details, according to Fr. Giussani with a freedom that is a "vigilant detachment from all particularism, ... resolute readiness for any authentic freshness [which] constitutes a sure promise, a prophecy of the coming of the Kingdom."

It is interesting to see how this plays out in an ordinary day like yesterday. I spent the morning with my granddaughter, and we stayed in doing some coloring and learning colors. I had to meet my grandson's teacher and discuss some behavior issues, to stay open despite some natural defensiveness. I met a friend from the community for lunch, and since it was a rainy day, people shared tables in the small lunchroom. We met a lady rabbi and a man who was a former campus minister and now runs a kayak rental outfit. And we talked about many interesting things from children to illness to aging to the adventure of changing careers. Then there was taking my daughter and grandson to the dentist and having a quiet evening with my husband.

Who can know what the meaning of the *this* and *that* of daily life is, except to be certain that all offered is somehow for the kingdom, and we are its joyful stewards. We are these moving targets that reality pings against, and each encounter is an invitation to respond, with humanity, awareness, offering, love. The motivation is all, with detachment from the result. It makes life ultimately fascinating instead of fearful.

Related to this is that tendency we have to make some design on another person, particularly those we would like to reform close by. A few friends of mine have to work with a very rigid and difficult person. on a daily basis. One said, maybe we can be friends with him and show him how to live differently. Another, more wise, said instead: we should be friends with him and love him as he is. He implies: God can do the rest.

The Freedom of Obedience

There's an excellent series in the May issue of Traces on the question of obedience. The treatment of the problem reminds me of a text I read a few months ago from political philosopher Hannah Arendt, "What Was Authority?" (1959), where she discusses the scope of the crisis. First, she deals with the common misconception about obedience, that it is as equated with coercion.

Since authority always demands obedience, it is commonly mistaken for some form of power or violence. Yet authority precludes the use of external means of coercion; where force is used, authority itself has failed. Authority, on the other hand, is incompatible with persuasion, which presupposes equality and works through a process of argumentation. Where arguments are used, authority is left in abeyance.... Historically, we may say that the loss of authority is merely the final, though decisive, phase of a development which for centuries undermined primarily religion and tradition.

And why isn't persuasion sufficient? Arendt explains:

Authority, resting on a foundation in the past as its unshaken cornerstone, gave the world the permanence and durability which human beings need precisely because they are mortals--the most unstable and futile beings we know of. Its loss is tantamount to the loss of the groundwork of the world, which indeed since then has begun to shift, to change and transform itself with ever-increasing rapidity from one shape into another, as though we were living and struggling with a Protean universe where everything at any moment can become almost anything else.

This problem of obedience and authority is addressed in these Traces articles very well from the Christian perspective.

Close-up
Obedience
A Matter for Reasonable Men
by Davide Perillo

For obedience is very closely connected to reason. Even more: it is the primary factor that preserves it, enabling it to light up and to breathe. Just think about it. The first act of reason is to recognize reality, to bow before the data of the real; in a word, to obey. Without this start-up, reason only revs its engine, failing to engage its gears, and certainly doesn’t move forward. It will always remain a few yards short of the truth, which, said Saint Thomas, is adaequatio rei et intellectus, conforming the intellect to reality. Conforming, that is, obeying.

> The Family
by Stefano Andrini

Today, Leoni stresses, “it is difficult to find within families a position of reciprocal obedience between spouses. It seems to me that one of the gravest problems is the absence of a real recognition of the authority of the one toward the other, man or woman–authority, meaning, power to interfere in and influence my life; recognition that the good for me is not given by myself; that without reciprocal obedience there is no sharing, and thus one experiences a substantial solitude.”

> School
edited by Paolo Perego

There’s no obedience without freedom, nor without a goal; obedience is functional to an objective. If there’s no goal, if you’re not trying to get anywhere, obedience has no meaning. This is a primary aspect of the educative paralysis immobilizing our schools. By dint of preaching neutrality, theorizing the absence of absolute values, a teacher can’t then demand obedience. The “neutral school” isn’t capable of proposing a goal, educating, and at this point it also becomes impossible to exert compulsion, as we’ve all seen in recent episodes.

> Vocation
edited by Paola Bergamini
> Politcs edited by Alberto Savorana

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Traces May 2007