A New World

by Oswald Sobrino

The New World of Faith
by Avery Cardinal Dulles
Our Sunday Visitor, 176 pp.
$14.95

The “times call for a more confident and knowledgeable assertion of the bedrock truths of faith,” declares theologian, and now cardinal, Avery Dulles, in his recent book The New World of Faith. In this work, Dulles provides a plainspoken and heartfelt presentation of the Catholic faith as an ever-new and inviting departure from the “tired and old” world we normally inhabit. 

The book is significant for several reasons. First, it is not an academic treatise for professional theologians. It is intended as an apologetic and evangelistic work for believers and seekers. We have here a renowned professional theologian, a theological elder statesman, writing a personal invitation to Catholicism. This refreshing contrast to the intramural focus of so many academics is alone enough to make the book noteworthy. 

Furthermore, the author is a convert, who, like Newman, became a cardinal and whose views will be discussed well into the future. As Dulles himself points out, we can learn from converts “that the faith is still young.” His comments on various facets of the Church’s current situation are a fertile source for reflection on the mission of Catholics at the beginning of the Third Millennium.

Catholics, at least in developed nations, are surrounded by a highly relativistic and sophisticated culture, which views itself as having outgrown crude claims based on universal truths. The present situation of the Church is similar to that of the early Christians. In a passage that many participants of interreligious dialogue would do well to focus on, Dulles describes the situation of Christians in the ancient Mediterranean world:

Christianity refused to settle for the religious relativism that had been practiced in the Empire. While confessing Jesus as the “one Lord,” it had to face the objection that ultimate truth could not be a monopoly of any one religion. The pagan rhetorician Symmachus, in his controversy with St. Ambrose, protested that the pagan temples should not be closed by Christians. As his reason he stated that the mystery of the divine was so great that it could not be reached by one road only. While we are not entitled to suppress other beliefs by violence, we cannot responsibly settle for skepticism or syncretism.1

The view that there are many roads to the mystery of the divine is, in fact, a working assumption of many in modern society, including some theologians. The recent controversy over the Church’s document Dominus Iesus shows how shocking and offensive many find the fact that the Catholic Church still believes in the necessity of confessing Jesus as the one Lord. 

As Catholics, we must examine our own working assumptions. Do we really believe in the pagan and modern view that all roads lead to God, or are we willing to testify that Jesus is the Lord of all cultures and civilizations? Our answer will determine whether we will participate in the “new evangelization” called for by John Paul II, or retire into complacency. Dulles himself has no problem restating the historic Christian position that “Christianity stands or falls with the claim that it is the definitive revelation of God and that its beliefs are true for people of every race and nation.”2 If we Catholics integrate this claim into our lives, we will abandon any complacency about spreading the Faith, even while engaging in honest and respectful religious dialogue.

A related matter for reflection are ecumenical ties with other Christian communities. Dulles maps out the necessarily different relations of the Catholic Church to different Christian traditions. As recently emphasized by the Pope’s pilgrimage to Greece, the Easten Orthodox churches, our true “sister churches,” 3 stand in close relation to the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, our relation with the Orthodox churches is uniquely intimate. As Dulles points out, the Catholic Church recognizes the validity of the episcopate and the sacraments, including the Eucharist, of the Orthodox churches—a recognition never given to Protestant bishops or Protestant Eucharistic practices. 

Thus, it is logical that the Catholic Church in the future should continue Pope John Paul II’s emphasis on reunion with the Orthodox. And, contrary to what may seem convenient and natural in many American dioceses, reaching out to Eastern Orthodox Christians should have priority, all other things being equal, over joint efforts with those mainline Protestant denominations that have publicly departed from traditional Christian belief and practice. Such denominations raise new barriers to reunion with both the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox churches. 

Regarding joint efforts with other churches, Dulles cautions that we “must be on guard not to be drawn in cooperation in evil, for example, by joining organizations that promote abortion and unacceptable methods of family planning.”4 Cooperating with the Eastern Orthodox poses less risk of joint efforts contrary to Catholic teaching.

Dulles also notes the significance of the statement “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” given that Evangelicalism is the fastest-growing segment of Protestantism.5 After the Eastern Orthodox, joint efforts with Evangelical Protestants are especially appropriate, given their loyalty to the historic core of the Gospel and their opposition to abortion. Evangelicalism’s strong missionary impulse, from which the Catholic Church has much to learn, is a tremendous resource for world Christianity. Especially in Latin America, Catholic leaders should learn from the Evangelical conversion of Catholics and infuse Catholic parish life with a strong missionary emphasis. A new Evangelical style of Catholic proclamation will hold on to those Latin American Catholics whose spiritual needs may have been taken for granted in the past.

In addition to confronting the relativism of modern culture, the Church must respond to the perennial temptation of Catholics and other Christians to adapt fundamental doctrinal and moral beliefs to the reigning philosophies of the surrounding culture. Often appeals are made to the “sense of the faithful” or sensum fidelium. Dulles explains how the term is often misunderstood:

Not everything the faithful believe is the fruit of their faith. Influenced by the general culture, they tend to accept as true what they imbibe from popular presentations of science and history, at their current state of development. They commonly subscribe to the maxims of the world, which are often false and deceptive.6

In fact, proponents of liberal positions on subjects ranging from women’s ordination to contraception and other matters of sexual morality often appeal to the “sense of the faithful,” usually emphasizing as well the idea that the Church is the “people of God,” unjustly burdened with hierarchical rulers. Dulles explains the correct meaning of “sense of the faithful”:

[The sense of the faithful] coincides with the spontaneous convictions of orthodox believers. In its full scope it implies agreement between those holding pastoral office and other believers, religious and lay. It is not a matter of the majority of laypeople outvoting the pope and the bishops. Unless the clergy as well as the laity freely accept the teaching, it cannot be a matter of consensus [emphasis added].7

To accept the distorted version of the “sense of the faithful” is to destroy what has preserved the Catholic Church for two millennia. By trying to change fundamental beliefs and dilute the challenge of Catholicism, dissenters undermine the new evangelization.

A major example of the confusion created by dissenters is the call for women’s ordination to the priesthood. To a reasonable observer, the issue is closed for the reason stated in Dulles’ discussion on the structures of the Church, namely, that in “1994 Pope John Paul II taught that the testimony of Scripture, confirmed by the constant and universal teaching of the magisterium, excludes the possibility of women priests in the Catholic Church.”8 According to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the requirement of a male priesthood is an infallible teaching of the ordinary and universal magisterium of the Church.9 Nevertheless, some dissenters still push for overturning this authoritative teaching. Such a reversal, impossible to square with the Church’s pronouncements, would clearly involve an action unambiguously declared to be beyond the power of any bishop, pope, or council to effect. 

Without specifically pressing the point, Dulles answers the problem of persistent dissent when he observes how Christ “taught that those who would not listen to the Church should be treated as if they did not belong to the company of believers” (Mt 18:17). A lot of the confusion inimical to the new evangelization would be reduced if our pastors insistently proclaimed this biblical teaching. Then the faithful would know that what is at stake in the practice of picking and choosing among different Church teachings is effectively cutting oneself off from the Church.

In his chapter “Handing Down the Faith,” Dulles neatly ties together various lines of thought by commenting on the proper role of Catholic theologians who have difficulties with official teaching:

If they [theologians] have difficulties, they may express them to colleagues and to the hierarchical teachers. . . . What is unhelpful is for theologians to engage in noisy protests and try to recruit adherents for their dissenting positions. It is especially harmful when they try to bring pressure on the magisterium by organizing rallies, calling press conferences, or placing paid advertisements in newspapers. The Church, unlike political society, is a community of faith held together by the shared beliefs and mutual love of its members. When the Church becomes a battlefield between opposing groups, sowing discord and antipathy, it less appealing to its own members and less attractive to others whom it is commissioned to evangelize [emphasis added].10

As stated above, disorder in the Church hinders the new evangelization. Thus, efforts to reign in dissent are not merely punitive efforts, but, more significantly, efforts needed for the Church to be fruitful in its mission to evangelize the world in the third millennium.

Yet there is the need to overcome contemporary doubt about evangelization itself. Dulles aptly describes this in the chapter on the mission to evangelize:

[M]any Christians no longer seem to see the urgency to evangelize. Even in their own homes they make little effort to pass on the faith to their children. In traditionally Christian countries, many young people are no longer brought up in the faith. If the Christian portion of the world is not to shrivel, the sources of current doubt about the value of this holy apostolate must be openly confronted.11

This holy apostolate is the apostolate. The new evangelization begins literally at home. More and more Catholic families in traditionally Christian countries are finding it necessary to home school their children because of the overwhelmingly anti-Christian values of their societies. In these countries, argues Dulles, “reception of faith by osmosis from the culture or by casual religious instruction can no longer be adequate.”12 If the Faith is to be effectively passed on to new generations, then Catholic families must teach the Faith at home, even if the children attend parish religion classes or parochial schools. Religious education programs can, at best, complement the catechesis of the domestic church. By themselves, such programs are insufficient to form fervent Catholics. 

This is especially true today when much of modern religious education fails to teach the fundamentals of the Faith. Of course, the situation is even worse for those young people who receive no formation either at home or in a school or parish. On this point, Dulles notes that “[y]ounger members of formerly Christian countries, not having been brought up in the faith, are in much the same status as their counterparts in unevangelized parts of the world. The primary evangelization of baptized Catholics is all too often neglected.”13 Catholics baptized as infants are sometimes robbed of the fullness of their baptism because, as Dulles states, the “sacrament is not complete until it has been ratified by a personal confession of faith, accomplished with the help of the divine grace that is assured by the sacrament itself.”14 In light of the “new evangelization,” Dulles calls for a “strenuous type of catechesis . . . not only for adult converts but for children baptized in infancy.”15 Such strenuous catechesis is a wonderful opportunity to minimize the scandal of so many nominal Catholics. It is also the foundation for evangelizing the world anew.

Mr. Sobrino is an attorney and a lecturer in economics at Cleveland State University.

End Notes

1 Dulles, 19.
2 Dulles, 107.
3 See Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Note on the Expression “Sister Churches” (June 30, 2000).
4 Dulles, 119.
5 Dulles, 127-28.
6 Dulles, 100.
7 Ibid.
8 Dulles, 86.
9 See Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Responsum ad Dubium (October 28, 1995). On the distinction between the “ordinary” and “extraordinary” magisterium, see Russell Shaw, ed., Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine, 396-99, 481. 
10 Dulles, 103.
11 Dulles, 106.
12 Dulles, 163.
13 Dulles, 112-113.
14 Dulles, 22.
15 Dulles, 163.