(Part Three: EUROPE AS A “STAND IN” FOR SECULAR MODERNITY) 12 Days on Pilgrimage in August “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6).
Our Marian Franciscan pilgrimage took us through central Europe where several of our twenty-eight pilgrims have roots. We prayed and celebrated Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Altötting, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s favorite place in his beloved Bavaria. In this third essay, I turn to his thoughts on why Europe is a “stand in” for secular modernity. “If Europe is to survive, … it involves encountering with reverence that which is holy to another. We can and must learn from that which is holy to others, but it is our obligation both in relation to them and to our own selves to nourish our own reverence for the Holy One and to show the face of the God who has appeared to us, the God who cares for the poor and the weak, the widows and orphans and strangers, the God who is so human that he himself became one of us, a suffering man whose compassion with our suffering gives us dignity and hope.”[1]
Why is Europe a stand-in for secular modernity? Together with Pope St. John Paul II, Benedict lived through the horrendous consequences of the relativization of truth in our modern period. As we drove through Munich, the University and buildings that were home to the Gestapo, their court, prison, and execution place, tears flowed. I remembered the Second World War, in particular, the conviction and courage of Sophia Scholl and her circle of friends in the White Rose Movement. They dared to criticize the unjust regime and were decapitated on Hitler’s orders. Our guide did not mention that poignant fact. Sophia and friends[2] demonstrated their intent to get to truth and love for truth without insisting that they had truth in their back pocket. Today their graves nearby are covered with fresh white roses daily.
Students who refuse to live the lie counter modern reason that has given up on the search for truth and reduced it to only opinion. No doubt the White Rose circle was familiar with Plato’s Republic and its three phases: first, a generation that has shown a degradation of the search for truth; second, a new and young character to the politics without a commitment to truth; and, third, the failure to talk about truth which enables those who seek power to gain it then feel free reign to use power as they choose. John Paul II and Benedict lived with the consequences. Today, all with good sense ask: What are you going to do to prevent the world from being laid waste anew by hatred and violence and falsehood?
As storekeeper, so to speak, to Pope John Paul II, an incredibly engaged Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) had his hand in the writing of Fides et Ratio. The irony is that he wrote a commentary on Fides et Ratio about reason as subject to pathology, to a deformed version of reason. In 1999,[3] the future Pope Benedict already saw the pathology of faith in secular modernity with several forms in fundamentalism which is always around.
Pope Emeritus Benedict finds pathology in fundamentalism as a modern production which is doctrinaire and narrow. Both Christians and Muslims have been irrational and violent and done fanatical things. Reflect on reason that does not scrub away fundamentalist thinking or fanaticism. Fundamentalism produced by reason arises as a reaction formation. The problem links with the suggestion that every religion does not have conviction. Religion is substitutable or worthless. To put religion on hold as a person grows up in favor of personal preference is not the Catholic way of formation. Benedict adds that the pathology of believers, in any form, is spread by hyper-rationality. Evangelical forms of Christianity, for example, do not have doctrines that develop as Catholic doctrines do. Another example is evidence that anyone can be as apocalyptic as any subgroup of Muslims misguided by jihadism.
Pope Emeritus Benedict deals with these issues in the pattern of the thought of St. John Henry Newman, who insists that there is a good account and a bad account of reason. Newman grew up in England in the nineteenth century, when the English religious ethos was not to believe too hard: i.e., Yes, God exists; yet, don’t ask if God is triune. Yes, Jesus lived in history; yet, don’t ask if he was human and divine. Don’t ask about claims that Mary was his mother. Don’t ask too much about his death on the cross and claim that Jesus is the savior of mankind.
Benedict follows Newman’s distinction between the extrinsic and intrinsic connection. There is an extrinsic not intrinsic connection that Christianity leads to violence. Newman recognized the pathology of fanaticism as insistence that one thing is absolutely true and ought to be imposed on others. Thinking that is not pure enough is worth fighting for. On intellectual grounds, that is how fundamentalist thinking is the fuel about what is true and not true. Catholics know many examples of historical difficulties when the Church allowed periods of disagreement with patience and forbearance. The first years after Vatican II were a time of “experimentation.”
The important point that Benedict is making about Europe as a “stand in” for secular modernity is that it has arrived on the scene out of the dark ages with a message of human rights, reason as not subject to a Church, and the need for a generic equality in economics, gender, ethnicity, and social equality. Secular modernity, democracy, or equality relate to justice. He asks: Is it a break from Christianity or funded by Christianity? The United States imported secular modernity from Europe, and it has less resistance; therefore has worked.
When Christianity was called on to stand against the fanaticism of National Socialism and Communism, Catholics like Saints Maximilian M. Kolbe, Edith Stein, and others stood up. Conservative Protestants stood up as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who had been teaching at Union Theological in New York City. Liberal Protestants, on the other hand, had the view that faith is relative to the historical moment and offered very little resistance. Thoughts?
[1] Pope Benedict XVI, Values in a Time of Upheaval (San Francisco: 2006), 149, 150. [2] Significantly, the White Rose students were reading about conscience in now St. John Henry Newman. [3] Pope Benedict XVI, Truth and Tolerance (San Francisco: 2004), 183-209.
Fr. Edward J. Ondrako, OFM Conventual
Research Fellow Pontifical Faculty of St. Bonaventure, Rome
Visiting Scholar, McGrath Institute for Church Life
University of Notre Dame
Feast of St. Wenceslaus, patron of the Czech Republic and Slovakia
– September 28, 2022
At the beginning of this year, we put out some “guidelines,” as members of the Conference of the Franciscan Family, to help us carry out the Franciscan Centenary in the most meaningful way possible. The Centenary will culminate in 2026 with the celebration of the 800th anniversary of the Easter of our Seraphic Father St. Francis. We said that this celebratory journey “offers us a valuable opportunity to invigorate the richness of our charism with a prophetic vision toward the future.” The core of our charism is, without a doubt, evangelical fraternity. This ideal is challenged by the current situation of the world, in which “the sense of belonging to a single human family is fading, and the dream of working together for justice and peace seems an outdated utopia” (Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, 30). As we know, wars driven by various interests, often fratricidal wars, are proliferating around the world. Moreover, the power figures of the world persist in extending their domains, in spite of shedding innocent blood. However, it certainly must not be so among us: “whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all” (Mark 10:43-44). The only prophetic choice for us is called the “Gospel,” the Gospel “sine glossa,” but lived in an intelligent way. In celebrating our “Brother from Assisi,” I invite you to discern, in fraternity, how we should live intelligently in a way that is appropriate to our charism and our times. Let us keep in mind, however, that “prophetic vision” and “self-interest” are competitors, one at the expense of the other. The choice is ours. Let us choose to live our charism authentically and not let the logic of the world and of power permeate our hearts!
September 20, 2022: An Inter-Novitiate class was held at the Conventual Novitiate House of Studies, in Arroyo Grande, CA. Our Franciscan Friars Conventual Novices were joined by the Capuchin Novices in study in California, for a class on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, presented by Friar Jude Winkler, OFM Conv. (2nd from left front). Friar Jude is not only a prolific author for all ages, a scripture scholar, and a well respected speaker on biblical theology, he is also a friar of our province serving our Order as an Assistant General (CFF).
Thursday, September 15 – Our Lady of Angels Care Center, Enfield CT Saturday, September 17 – Saint Francis of Assisi Parish, Hamburg NY Monday, September 19 – St. Philip Benizi Parish, Jonesboro GA Thursday, September 22 – The Shrine of Saint Anthony, Ellicott City MD
Twice annually, during the Spring and Fall, the friars of the Our Lady of the Angels Province gather for a day of on-going formation and fraternity. Because of the tremendous geographical distance among the friars there are generally four planned days: metro-Baltimore, Western New York, Western Massachusetts and Connecticut, and either Georgia or North Carolina.
Here are a few photos from the Thursday, September 22nd session, held at The Shrine of St. Anthony, in Ellicott City, MD:
September 13-16, 2022: Our Lady of the Angels Province Minister Provincial, Fr. Michael Heine, OFM Conv. joined our friars in Brazil to facilitate the XV Ordinary Custodial Chapter, of our Custódia Província Imaculada Conceição (Provincial Custody of the Immaculate Conception). With him, serving as a translator, was Fr. Emanuel Vasconcelos, OFM Conv., who is also one of our province Vocation Directors. Read More
“Que as bençãos de Deus sejam derramadas sobre nossos frades.
E que o Espírito Santo possa direcioná-los.
Que Nossa Mãe a Senhora dos Anjos possa interceder por cada um deles.
Rezemos por eles. Paz e Bem!”
[English Translation: “May God’s blessings be poured out on our brothers,
and may the Holy Spirit direct you.
May Our Mother, the Lady of the Angels,
intercede for each one of them. Let’s pray for them.
Peace and good!”]
The Installation of our new Custódia Província Imaculada Conceição (Provincial Custody of the Immaculate Conception) Custódio Provincial – Frei Carlos Roberto de Oliveira Charles, OFM Conv., at the hands of our Minister Provincial ~ Fr. Michael Heine, OFM Conv.
CONGRATULATIONS to the newly elected!
Custódio Provincial – Frei Carlos Roberto de Oliveira Charles, OFM Conv.
Vigário Custodial – Frei Fábio Soares da Silva, OFM Conv. Secretário Custodial – Frei Willian Gomes Mendonça, OFM Conv. Tesoureiro Custodial – Frei Luis Henrique Nascimento Lima, OFM Conv. Definidor Custodial – Frei Ronaldo Gomes da Silva, OFM Conv. Definidor Custodial – Frei José Pinto Cardozo Junior Link to photos of those elected
Pictured left to right: Julie DelMartino Scalora (Director of Advancement), State Representative Donna Veach (a former school parent), Jill Conaway (principal), Fr. Joseph Benicewicz, OFM Conv. (pastor), Fayne Molloy (former principal), Julia Lawson (Class of ‘20) and Elijah Hairston (grade 8 student) and Kelly Esposito (Admissions Director)
“I found the desert canyons to be a lot like the spiritual life: a place of unknowns, uncertainty, and possibly even some danger. But lived in, with the help of a community, dedicating some time to enter the canyon, asking for God’s help, the canyon taught me a lot. And I think the same is true for the spiritual life.”
Two part reflection by Fr. Nick Rokitka, OFM Conv. presented via Franciscan Voice.org. The hyperlink for each part can be found by clicking the title or the image.
Our Lady of the Angels Province friar, Fr. Nick Rokitka, OFM Conv. professed his Simple Vows of poverty, chastity & obedience, as a Franciscan Friar Conventual, on July 16, 2010, and his Solemn Vows on August 06, 2014. He was Ordained to the Priesthood on June 25, 2016. Since his ordination, Friar Nick has served as a high school instructor, in formation, and in administration for the province. He now serves as Parochial Vicar for our Point Pleasant Beach, NJ pastoral ministry ~ St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church.
The Encyclical of Pope Francis on Fraternity and Social Friendship
The days of the long hot Summer of 2022 are fading, as Autumn ushers onto the scene. Arriving hopefully, as St. Francis expressed in the, “Canticle of the Sun,” with an array of the beauty, grandeur and splendor of God radiated in all creation. This changing of the season also reminds us that the Feast Day of Our Holy Father Francis grows near. In remote preparation for the coming (October 4th) Feast, as Our Lady of the Angels Province JPIC Director, I would like to invite you to read, reread, or perhaps listen to for the first time, Pope Francis’ Encyclical – “Fratelli tutti.”
The Introduction to the encyclical captures Pope Francis’ understanding of the spirit of our Franciscan way of life: “Inspired by Saint Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis gives us “Fratelli tutti,” a proposal for a way of life marked by the flavour of the Gospel. It is a call to love others as brothers and sisters, even when they are far from us; it is a call to open fraternity, to recognizing and loving every person with a love without borders; it is a call to encounter others in a way that is capable of overcoming all distance and every temptation to engage in disputes, impositions, or submissions.” Hopefully, encountering the insights so wonderfully presented by Pope Francis may stir our collective reflection and its meaning for us as Franciscan Friars Conventual today.
For your convenience linked here is a PDF Version of the encyclical along with a PDF version of a short-handed ‘at-a-glance’ summary of the text. For those who may not always have time, are better auditory learners, or for those on the go, here is a link to an audio recording that contains the Introduction and Chapter 01. In the Introduction and 1st Chapter, Pope Francis lists the issues confronting God’s people. Skillfully, in a nonjudgmental fashion, he lays out the problems facing all humanity. And he reminds us that none of them can be healed with simple fixes nor can they be treated with band-aids. In the successive chapters, Pope Francis prophetically addresses the issues calling upon all to listen attentively to God’s grace in this moment of history.
Our Franciscan response to the multiple issues facing humanity urges us to look deep within and ask, “Am I advocate or adversary to the grace of God? Is faith leading life or has it taken a back step to something else leading? What does it mean to be committed to the Gospel of Christ Jesus and to the mission of seeing as St. Francis did; all peoples as brother and sister?”
On September 11, 2022, several of our friars living in our St. Francis Friary, in Syracuse, NY, were on hand for the community’s Northside Festival (Franciscan Northside Ministries). Many of our Syracuse ministries were represented. FrancisCorps FC24 members were there to not only enjoy the fair but also to provide sidewalk chalk as an activity for those who attended (photo cred). Our province’s pastoral ministry ~ Assumption Church ~ was well represented with a booth providing parish information & giveaways, manned by Our Lady of the Angels Province friars: Friar Jude DeAngelo, OFM Conv. (Pastor), friar Joseph Krondon, OFM Conv. (Apostolic Year of Formation) and Friar Jim Moore, OFM Conv. (Director of The Franciscan Place, in Destiny Mall, USA). Read more about the parish and how they minister to the people of Syracuse.
RaeAnn Kirk and Lucy Wilkerson are two of the five FrancisCorps current Volunteers.
Fr. Jude, Mr. Clint Mitchell (Parish Manager), and Br. Jim manning the Assumption Church stand.
Greeting passersby is Br. Jim, with friar Joe manning the booth.
Here is another photo, shared by FrancisCorps, of friar Joe, Br. Jim and Fr. Jude watching the Tae-Kwon-Do presentation. Br. Jim joined in the fun (see below).
12 Days on Pilgrimage in August “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” Jn 14:6.
In my first entry, I ended with Kierkegaard’s story of the clown who shouted that the circus was on fire. The more he shouted, the harder everyone laughed until the circus and village were destroyed. As a Franciscan priest for fifty-one years, I have taught Catholic truth claims. At times I felt like the clown shouting to warn but to no avail. For thirteen years my Franciscan formators prepared me with the Marian integrating element in St. Francis’ life. They did not use the term post-Christian culture but perceived it on the horizon. Without apology, they insisted that the Franciscan way of life means that I can know truth and I am to teach truth because philosophy links with Revelation. The key is Christ as the way, the truth and the life.[1]
I join the generations who are growing up in post-Christian culture. E.g. At Notre Dame an open minded, inclusive and critically engaged senior asked her philosophy and theology professor: “If I approach others who think differently than I do as a Catholic by saying, I have my truth and you have your truth, do I align with Fides et Ratio?” [2] In reply, the professor qualified that the words my truth and your truth are consequences of language. To say my truth is no longer a truth claim. He explained that the implication is that truth is collegial which results in a “slippage.” If your truth is as valuable as my truth, are we not subverting truth?
Fides et Ratio pivots on the claim in John 14:6. Only if the Christian faith is truth does it concern everyone. If Christian faith is a cultural variant of the religious experiences of mankind that one tracks through history, with symbols that can never be deciphered or interpreted, then Christian faith has to come clean. It has to remain within its own culture and leave others to theirs. Fides et Ratio aims to rehabilitate the question of truth in a world that carries the weight of post-Christian culture. For me, that means to recognize many external factors, the temporization of authority, and inviting in ideas without the competence to regulate Christianly.
Catholic thought (doctrine) develops. Without giving anyone a pass, Catholics failed to act in a timely manner or made decisions that were incredibly poor in any given age.[3] Without denying the truth, Fides et Ratio opens the windows to the fresh air that faith breathes. The encyclical is a diagnostic of why faith is rational and scientific. One gains reflective courage for the adventure of truth in a post-Christian culture. Fides et Ratio is speaking beyond the sphere of faith and into the heart of faith which strengthens all Catholics who investigate, i.e. faith seeking understanding. In this context, to investigate is different from to seek. The latter starts with reason seeking faith. Take it or leave it. The former starts with faith seeking to know truth.
Spe Salvi facti sumus – in hope we were saved (Rom 8:24).[4] Deep thinking about Fides et Ratio by engaged students at Notre Dame unfolds the belief of others and enables them to hold on to their Catholic faith. By getting philosophy right, they discover Christian faith’s struggles with a certain type of modern culture as only one variety. They learn to diagnose well what presumes to be culture and how it can despise the human person. John Paul II’s call for fresh examination and discussion includes qualifying lawgiving in any society. To favor the convictions of the majority, to separate private conscience from public order,[5] shuts out any society from the truth. What is accidental and arbitrary threatens to be set up in place of being open to truth. The very capacity to know and to recognize truth needs science and scholarship. Nothing is left out when philosophy asks about the person, way towards life and death, God and eternity. We seek truth, to find the common dignity beyond the bounds of cultural settings.
Truth and tolerance need a starting point and a return, philosophy. Theology necessarily touches upon this starting point and return. In life, a person changes and becomes righteous. In the modern debate about Christianity and world religions, the question about being saved and eternal salvation has a view that one attains salvation through all religions, a view that corresponds to the idea of tolerance and of respect for others. A modern idea of God is that because persons know nothing of Christianity and happen to have grown up in other religions, God will accept their worship and religion as he does ours. The problem is contradicting things leading to the same goal. The theory of universal salvation is extended. Truth is replaced by good intentions for one cannot know what is objectively good and true.
Pope Emeritus Benedict diagnoses the problem of what is not being thought about. First, he sees the mistake that all religions (including agnosticism and atheism) are of the same kind, which is delusional for all religions. Second, he senses the complex error that the significance of religion for salvation and eternal life is being neutralized i.e., whatever heaven is, it begins on earth. Salvation does not lie in religions as such; religions need to be criticized. Third, the modern concept of conscience emphasizes autonomy and makes the claim that it is “impossible” to establish common moral and religious standards. Proof is in “pagan saints” who show a turn toward each other and towards God. He sees such proof as salvation by another means. Benedict critiques these errors with true recognition of God’s voice in conscience.
Without wavering, Benedict is resolute that none of us is God and how any person approaches God is God’s secret. Truth and tolerance call on a methodological suggestion: the idea of circularity. The relationship between philosophy and theology, faith and reason and their renewal benefit from a dynamic circular movement which means that theology must always start with the word of God. It is set in relation to the search for truth with the struggle of reason for the truth and in dialogue with philosophy. Our 12 day pilgrimage built upon this unifying intention.
[1] St. Bonaventure, Sermon, Christus Unus Omnium Magister, Christ is the One Teacher of All. [2] Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 1998. Does faith really need philosophy? If philosophy is just an academic discipline among others, faith is independent of it. The Pope understands philosophy in a broader sense and puts the question of whether a human person can know truth which is his worry. [3] One example of many by Pope John Paul II stands out, Tertio Millennio Adveniente. Moreover, he was determined to canonize St. Edith Stein without harm to her Jewish origins. [4] Pope Benedict’s encyclical, Spe Salvi, 30 November 2007, opens with these words. [5] Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, no. 69 and 70.
Fr. Edward J. Ondrako, OFM Conventual
Research Fellow Pontifical Faculty of St. Bonaventure, Rome
Visiting Scholar, McGrath Institute for Church Life
University of Notre Dame
Holy Name of Mary – September 12, 2022
(Part Three: EUROPE AS A “STAND IN” FOR SECULAR MODERNITY)
