Book Reviews

An intellectual feast

BERNANOS: AN ECCLESIAL EXISTENCE. By Hans Urs von Balthasar (Ignatius Press, P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, Colo., 80522, 1996), 617 pp. PB $29.95.

A rich, copious scholarly work that explores in depth the thought and art of Georges Bernanos, this exhaustive book possesses enormous breadth and scope. Beginning with an account of Bernanos's life, a man who belongs to "the poor in spirit," an author who referred to himself as "a writer without wealth who is also the father of six children," this study then explores the riches of Bernanos's profound mind. Von Balthasar's theological erudition and comprehensive knowledge of the corpus of Bernanos's works make this book an intellectual feast. Every chapter and every topic are abounding in religious insight and human wisdom. A unique aspect of von Balthasar's study is the wealth of quotations gleaned from the complete works which depict the integrity of Bernanos's voice rather than reduce his writings to some literary theory or fashionable ideology. This careful arrangement of significant passages allows von Balthasar to present the profundity of Bernanos's thought in an especially intelligible, lucid way and allows Bernanos's letters and lectures to illuminate his works.

Von Balthasar summarizes Bernanos's thought with the memorable words of the main character in his most famous novel, Diary of a Country Priest: "Everything is grace!" Bernanos's "concrete feel for Grace" that he refers to in a letter, von Balthasar explains, "is no dry organ for cognition but rather a sensing through love, a scenting of every fragrance that wafts from the beloved, something so tender that it can only be expressed through the gift of tears." Of the many significant topics treated in the three main divisions of the book-"A Christian and a Writer," "The Church: A Place for Living," and "Contemporary Man"-the theme of grace abiding in everything and everywhere unifies the many themes von Balthasar explores in Bernanos's writings.

In the course of his thorough examination of Bernanos's works, von Balthasar emphasizes a number of recurring themes-all of which appear in Diary of a Country Priest: sainthood, poverty, childhood, simplicity, and the interior life of the soul. Quoting Bernanos, von Balthasar illuminates the difference between the saint and the ordinary person. While the ordinary person engages only "a very slender part, a ridiculously small part" of his spiritual resources, a saint is the person who exercises his "whole being" and uses his soul "with all its faculties at once . . . his whole nature at its very depths." Unlike the merely wise man who in his worldly prudence lives off the income of his capital, "A saint does not live on the profits generated by his income, or even on his income alone. He lives on his capital, he engages his soul totally." The secret of the saints is their knowledge of the depths of the heart and soul-"the water of which Christ spoke to the Samaritan woman" that Bernanos alludes to: "Those who drink of it shall never thirst again. . . . It is there inside each one of us, this deep cistern, open to the heavens." Von Balthasar illuminates this aspect of Bernanos's work and gives it the prominence and careful exposition it deserves. To Bernanos, saints are not supermen but "ordinary men steered by grace" whose spiritual adventures are "absorbed into the veiled ordinariness of Christian existence."

The theme of sanctity appears again in Bernanos's profound love of his Catholic faith and his veneration of the saints. In his statement, "Our Church is the Church of the saints," Bernanos explains that these saints are not "venerable old men full of experience and politics, but in fact most of them are children." St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux, two of Bernanos's favorite saints because of their childlike simplicity, exemplify the notion that "sanctity is an adventure" that requires daring and self-sacrifice. The mystery of sanctity consists of its simplicity and childlikeness. "It is so difficult to be simple!" Bernanos writes in Country Priest, "The holiness of God! The simplicity of God, the terrible simplicity of God, which damned the pride of the angels!" For Bernanos the childlikeness of sanctity consists of docility, "the love that consists of being perfectly pliable in God's hands," being a "soft and malleable thing in [God's] hands." In contrast to the sanctity of youthful saints like Joan of Arc and the Blessed Virgin Mary whose spirit of charity and hope distinguish them from the "desiccated and loveless" old men, the politicians and scholastics who burn Joan at the stake, are the mediocre, the jaded, and slothful who have, Bernanos says, "no time to hope, to love, or to dream." Von Balthasar's explanation of Bernanos's ideal of sainthood as youthful in spirit and adventurous in daring sharply differentiates them from apathetic Christians and mediocre priests.

In affirming the saintly virtues of simplicity, poverty of spirit, childlikeness, zeal, and hope, Bernanos contrasts these ennobling Christian qualities with the mediocrity, lukewarmness, inaneness, materialism, and optimism of the modern Zeitgeist. Von Balthasar offers careful analysis and special insight into this aspect of Bernanos's thought. He explains that while Communist ideology and the liberalism of Western European nations enamored of welfare states fantasize about wars on poverty, Christianity, in Bernanos's words, never promised "a dictatorship of the proletariat but that of a society in which the poor would be honored because God himself had made himself poor. . . ." Rather than viewing the poor as a social class that must be eliminated, Bernanos recognizes that "the spirit of hope, which is always inseparable from the spirit of poverty, will always become really incarnate in the materially poor." Childlikeness is intrinsic to poverty of spirit, and the virtue of hope belongs to the poor in spirit. As Bernanos observes, "The poor and the children are those most privileged by the Beatitudes."

These are just some of the recurring themes in Bernanos's works that von Balthasar explores thoroughly and explains masterfully. The saints and those who imitate them are the salt of the earth and epitomize the vigorous faith of children-the opposite of the bland and the lukewarm who stultify the exuberance of youth and the fire of charity. The saints are the "fools for Christ," not the "imbeciles" who offer the "infantile ideologies that have been substituted for an adult conception of the world," the imbeciles who "prefer killing to thinking." The saints, "those magnificent hopers" who "always fight like desperadoes," are not duped by the false optimism of the world but understand that "the highest form of hope is despair that has been overcome." The saints, like the freshness of the morning-described by Bernanos as "a grace from God, a smile"-renew the face of the earth and restore the innocence of the childhood of the world. As Bernanos wrote in a letter, "Never again forget that what still keeps this hideous world from falling apart is the sweet conspiracy-always attacked yet always reborn-of poets and children. Be faithful to the poets, remain faithful to childhood. Never become a grownup!" This is the secret of the saints and the mystery of sanctity-the childlike virtues of simplicity, poverty of spirit, and hope which are attuned to the simple truth: "Everything is grace!" As von Balthasar demonstrates so cogently, this secret of the saints that Bernanos understands so deeply is a cure to the "vast, immense, universal sterilization of the highest values of human life" that has afflicted the twentieth century.

It is no exaggeration to call Bernanos: An Ecclesial Existence a great book and a work of love. As Cardinal Newman observed, the highest form of knowledge and communication occurs when heart speaks to heart (cor ad cor loquitur). Clearly, Bernanos's writings have touched the heart of von Balthasar whose astonishing book will touch the hearts of all Christians who wish to grow in the knowledge and love of God and ponder the mysteries of sanctity and grace in the art of a great Christian writer.

Mitchell Kalpakgian
Simpson College
Indianola, Iowa

A quotable primer
of Catholic ecclesiology

CALLED TO COMMUNION: UNDERSTANDING THE CHURCH TODAY. By Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, (Ignatius Press, P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, Colo. 80522, 1996), 165 pp. PB $12.00.

Catholic books on ecclesiology are usually not noted for their brevity. Fr. de Lubac's rambling, encyclopedic essays amass quotations from dozens of patristic and medieval writers in fine-print footnotes. Fr. Bouyer's table of contents is neatly arranged, but many of the chapters are speculative and verbose. Fr. von Balthasar did his thinking in multi-volume series. In the years after Vatican II one made allowances, given the complexity and far-reaching implications of the theme.

Now, at last, in 150 concise pages, we have a "primer of Catholic ecclesiology" by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has also served the Church as a professor of dogmatic theology, as a peritus at the Second Vatican Council, and as an archbishop (and therefore a member of the Magisterium) and so is eminently qualified to teach Catholic ecclesiology.

The five chapters and the epilogue of Called to Communion were originally written to be delivered viva voce. The various occasions on which these talks were given are themselves instructive. Chapters I - III, concerning the essence of the Church, the primacy of Peter and the role of the bishops, were lectures in a theology course offered to a South American bishops' conference. The next chapter, on the priesthood, was an address presented at the opening of the Synod of Bishops on priestly formation later that same year (1990). A talk on the proper nature of renewal, given to a "Communion and Liberation" gathering, diagnoses the dissatisfaction with Church structure sometimes expressed by laypeople. The epilogue is a homily preached at a seminary in the U.S. on the problem of factions and on the Church's unity in Christ.

In Called to Communion Cardinal Ratzinger often cites modern New Testament scholarship, including studies by Lutheran or Orthodox writers, when their findings shed light on the subject. The book, however, is not an attempt to resolve or even summarize academic debates. The author presents at the outset an "aerial view" of three main exegetical hypotheses of the past century in order to reaffirm Catholic principles of scriptural interpretation and to sketch an accurate map of the disputed biblical territory.

Particularly interesting in this regard is Ratzinger's approach to the scriptural evidence for the papacy (Ch. III). He saves for last the classic proof-text, Matt. 16:13-20, and examines first the New Testament tradition as a whole. Every strand of it, whether Synoptic, Johannine or Pauline, gives witness, some of it implicit, to the primacy of Peter.

In similar fashion in Chapter IV, "On the Essence of the Priesthood," a reconsideration of the biblical vocabulary for sacred ministries demonstrates that the Catholic priesthood was instituted by Christ and is inextricably bound up with apostolic succession. Theories about "developments by the second-century Christian community" or "later additions to the sayings of Christ" are simply at odds with the New Testament tradition.

Called to Communion was translated into smooth and often elegant English by Adrian Walker. It may be providential that the English edition appeared in 1996, when widely publicized movements were afoot to change the Church by means of signature campaigns or by talking about and tinkering with her structure.

Cardinal Ratzinger is not one for writing sound-bites, yet the clarity and depth of his theological reflections on the nature of the Church makes Called to Communion quotable and the insights in it memorable. A good example can be found in the opening paragraph of the Foreword, which states the purpose of the entire book: "Today, as always, the will to take action in regard to the Church must find the patience first to ask about her nature, her origin, her destination."

Michael J. Miller
Glenside, Pa.

God invented sex and marriage

REAL LOVE: ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS ON DATING, MARRIAGE AND THE REAL MEANING OF SEX. By Mary Beth Bonacci (Ignatius Press, P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, Colo. 80522, 1996), 317 pp. PB $12.95.

The author is a well-known "chastity educator" who speaks to nearly 100,000 people every year concerning the Church's teaching on sex and marriage. Her book is an interesting compilation of concise answers to the interminable questions she receives about human sexuality from troubled and confused teens and adults. In popular, down-to-earth, chatty language she explains well the physical, emotional and social consequences of immoral sexual behavior. She notes the tragic results of defying God's plan for sex as an expression of marital love.

To audiences reflecting the disintegration of contemporary morals she observes that it is God who has "invented sex and marriage." A sex-obsessed society has confounded "fuzzy feelings" and the "pizza-love" of infatuated teeny-boppers with true human and Christian love. Real Love does not compromise the sexual ethics of the Church, and Miss Bonacci is to be commended for upholding the Church's teaching on the immorality of fornication, contraception, homosexuality, divorce, pornography, and other forms of deviant behavior. Her book will be of value to parents, priests, counselors and older teens who will better understand where people (both young and old) are coming from as a result of the Sexual Revolution instigated by powerful secular currents seeking to destroy "traditional family values" (codeword for the Judaeo-Christian sexual ethic). Readers will benefit from her brief and practical responses to questions posed.

In a sense Real Love provides depressing reading insofar as it also reveals the alarming failure of the Catholic pulpit, press, and educational system to have openly confronted the emerging contraception-abortion-population control society with that defense of the human person provided by the Gospel of Christ. In the opinion of this reviewer, dissenting moral theologians and the sex education lobby active in Catholic education have largely compromised Catholic truth regarding the key moral issues of the day. Such flawed documents as the USCC's 1981 "Education for Human Sexuality for Christians" and the 1990 NCCB-USCC's "Human Sexuality: A Catholic Perspective for Education and Life-Long Learning" have done great damage to parental rights in foolishly sanctioning formal classroom sex instruction in Catholic (and public!) schools. Influenced by such documents, a number of "chastity educators" have failed to urge the outright removal of offensive sex instruction programs from schools. Instead they have only too often participated in them to the consternation of Catholic parents. (See p. 188 with its favorable reference to the controversial Molly Kelly.)

There is a certain unrealism regarding the realities of marital life. The author writes: "Abstinence from sexual activity just refers to unmarried people" (p. 39-but cf. St. Paul's counsel in 1 Cor. 7:5-7). With 1.5 million abortions committed each year, it is surprising to read the bald statement: "Women are not killers" (p. 49). It is unfortunate she uses the term "sexual being" to characterize the human person (thus highlighting the primacy of body over soul). The Church's doctrine of Original Sin is not adequately explained. The imperious force of carnal concupiscence in fallen human nature is duly noted but it is the loss of the supernatural gift of original holiness and justice which needs emphasis if readers are to better understand Christ's redemption of the body. As Pope John Paul II has noted, it is this realization which leads one to understand that it is a "special moral duty" for the Christian to commit himself to purity, to what St. Paul himself has defined as the necessity of "controlling his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust, like heathens who do not know God" (1 Thess. 4:3-5). In his addresses on the "Theology of the body" Pope John Paul II has given recent voice to biblical teaching, noting: "Purity is the glory of the human body before God."

Similarly, in a remarkable passage, the Servant of God John Henry Cardinal Newman sounded a supernatural theme that might have provided powerful motivation for "life in the Spirit" to the readers of Miss Bonacci's otherwise useful book:

The Church is built upon the doctrine that impurity is hateful to God, and that concupiscence is its root; with the Prince of the Apostles, her visible Head, she denounces "the corruption of concupiscence which is in the world," or, that corruption in the world which comes of concupiscence; whereas the corrupt world defends, nay I may even say, sanctifies that very concupiscence which is the world's corruption. . . . It deifies and worships human nature and its impulses, and denies the power and the grant of grace.

This is the source of the hatred which the world bears to the Church; it finds a whole catalogue of sins brought into light and denounced which it would fain believe to be no sins at all." (Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations, 149-50)

It is, of course, no accident that a "culture of lust" should lead to a "culture of death."

James Likoudis
Montour Falls, N.Y.

A spiritual journey

THE KING'S HIGHWAY, El Camino Real. By Kenneth R. Guindon (Ignatius Press, P.O. Box 1339, Fort Collins, Colo. 80522, 1996), 212 pp. PB $11.95.

When I picked up this book I thought it would be preachy and dull, like many TV preachers. It is just the opposite, interesting on every page. It is the story of Kenneth Guindon, born a Catholic but who did not really know the faith. The Jehovah's Witnesses were kind to him and he joined them. For sixteen years he worked for them in this country and in France. But then he found they could not back up many of their notions, and so he became a Baptist minister and was devoted to their cause. However again, he found in time that this church left him dissatisfied. Through a study of the Bible in depth, he drew closer to the Catholic Church.

He began to visit a Catholic monastery and talk to the monks. They were not at all the odd creatures he had been told. Guindon prayed. Things happened to him-was it the hand of God? Eventually he decided he must return to the Catholic Church of his boyhood which he had not then understood.

He writes: "Near the end of November, Father Claude Jean-Marie and I went to the bishop's house [in France] located in the poorest neighborhood in town. When we arrived, the bishop was still busy, so we were asked to wait. After a bit, Father Claude Jean-Marie asked a nun who was passing by if we could go upstairs and visit the chapel until the bishop was free. She led us upstairs, and we entered a small room. A nun was kneeling on the floor before the Blessed Sacrament, which was exposed in a very large, gold monstrance upon the altar. I hesitated; I knew I should go down on both knees and adore my God. Would I do it? Well, I thought, I've made up my mind to come back to the Church, so why not? I got down on my knees and thanked the Lord God for his mercy, for his kindness, and for his patience with me who had strayed so far from the path, from the King's Highway, from El Camino Real."

Kenneth Guindon has had a very interesting spiritual journey. He writes about it simply. This is not a book you have to read-this is a book you will enjoy reading.

Fr. Rawley Myers
Colorado Springs, Colo.

Total sacrifice and self-giving

SAINT EDMUND CAMPION. By Evelyn Waugh (Sophia Institute Press, Box 5284, Manchester, N.H. 03108, 1996 reprint), 227 pp. PB $15.95.

In times when you can barely get people to go to confession or Mass for the good of their souls, you wouldn't stand a chance if to do so meant certain loss of property, possible imprisonment, or perhaps even death.

It is hard for us in this age of Christianity Lite to conceive of a period when persecution of the Church was a matter of public policy; yet, more often than not, this has been her plight throughout history. Christ has always been the threat, and if the world thought once the solution was in spilling his blood, it's never thought twice about spilling the blood of his followers-at least those unwilling to cut a deal to save their lives.

And we won't know until Judgment Day just how much Christian blood was required for corrupt governments to remain standing and degenerate rulers to remain strong.

Elizabeth I, though, could make an educated guess.

Even more so than her father, Henry VIII, whose craving for maiden breasts was equaled by his drive for his opponents' heads, Elizabeth engaged in a systematic elimination from her realm of everything Catholic. And while she ruthlessly tormented the faithful who somehow maintained their hold on the faith in spite of her, she reserved a particular viciousness for the stewards of the mysteries of God, the Church's priests.

Father Edmund Campion was one of those dispatched to Paradise by the queen, but not before launching and carrying out a clandestine operation to energize the underground Church and ensure that the faith was not driven from England's shores. Quite simply, with only a stole and Mass kit, Campion frustrated Elizabeth's plans one soul at a time.

Campion's life reads like a suspense novel, not merely because of the high drama and heart-pounding twists of fate, but even more so because of the character of the man himself, whose humility and courage are so rare and inspiring that he does seem more contrived than real.

With his own ambitions leading him one way and Providence pulling him another, this Oxford scholar who could have had it all chucked everything and went with God. He would pay for that decision for the rest of his life, in struggle and hardship, and, finally, in torture and martyrdom-all so that his fellow countrymen could receive the sacraments of the Church.

Nowadays, with so many clerics abandoning the sacraments in search of "relevant" ministry, it refreshes the spirit to witness a day in Campion's priesthood:

Word would go round the countryside that Campion had arrived, and throughout the evening Catholics of every degree, squire, laborer, and deposed cleric, would stealthily assemble. He would sit up half the night receiving each in turn, hearing their confessions and resolving their difficulties. Then before dawn a room would be prepared for Mass. Watches were set in case of alarm. The congregation knelt on the rush-strewn floor. Mass was said, Communion was given. Then Campion would preach.

Between the vigilance of bounty-hunters and informants, and the carelessness of the faithful, Campion was cutting a dangerous path through anti-Catholic England, a path that was destined from the beginning to end in violence. Indeed, it was only a matter of time before England's catacombs would be invaded by the Church's enemies, and the most notorious threat to the realm would be captured, brutally tortured, and put to a gruesome death.

Campion's priesthood was one of total sacrifice and self-giving, in the pattern of the One who blazed the martyr's trail to Calvary; and his life reminds us that much of the Lord's work is a dirty and thankless job-like hanging on a Cross-that nonetheless needs to be done, but that carries with it a reward that no one in this world can take away.

If nothing else, reading the life of this great priest cautions us that even in a so-called enlightened age, "the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour."

Or, for someone who's willing to cut a deal to save his life.

Rev. Michael Madden
Ridgefield, Conn.

Drawing closer to God
through reconciliation

SACRAMENT OF MERCY: A SPIRITUAL & PRACTICAL GUIDE TO CONFESSION. By Thomas Weinandy, O.F.M.Cap. (Pauline Books & Media, 50 St. Paul's Avenue, Boston, Mass. 02130, 1997), 230 pp. PB $11.95.

While it has become rather fashionable in some circles to describe the doctrinal and disciplinary solicitude of the present Holy Father as "alarmist," few observers begged to differ when, in the wake of the 1983 Synod of Bishops meeting on reconciliation and penance, Pope John Paul II wrote that "the Sacrament of Reconciliation is in crisis." All too many Catholics do not participate in this sacrament. Of shrinking numbers of those who do, many are often unsure of precisely why they do. For them, it has become a matter of rote recitation of sins and a formalized utterance of forgiveness. A living and personal encounter with the Father's mercy in the person of Jesus Christ is almost totally absent.

In many respects, the crisis which the Sacrament of Penance finds itself in is symptomatic of the contemporary state of the Church. All too many of her children are apathetic about their faith. They profess to believe, but their lives do not reflect any transformation in the light of faith. Others may sincerely desire to love God, but are skeptical as to whether he can indeed be known or, if he can be, whether he can indeed make a difference in their lives. Still others are confused about what is right and what is wrong. Many, however, realize that they do sin and are in need of reconciliation with God before they can realistically face up to life's challenges and concerns.

It is perhaps for these last-mentioned that Father Thomas Weinandy, a Capuchin scholar with a long experience in pastoral ministry to families and students, has written Sacrament of Mercy: A Spiritual & Practical Guide to Confession. This is not another treatise in sacramental theology (the author remands those in search of one to several excellent resources) and it does suffer somewhat from the paucity of references to the Magisterium. However, this book sets out to be-and succeeds quite handily in being-an inspirational guide to make the experience of this much-neglected sacrament more fruitful for the average Catholic, whether priest, religious, or lay, married or single.

The first part of the book briefly addresses three introductory issues. After examining the scriptural understanding of the Sacrament of Reconciliation as portrayed in the parable of the prodigal son, Fr. Weinandy gives an account of its fascinating historical development. He then proceeds to a close examination of the theological elements of the sacrament: examination, contrition, confession, absolution, and penance.

The second-and, by far, most significant-section of the book consists of twenty-five meditations based on specific passages of scripture. The meditations are themselves each divided into four parts: the context of the scriptures, the scripture passage itself, the application of the passage to the reader's daily life (motives, attitudes, emotions, memories, thoughts, and actions), and a series of thought-provoking questions designed, according to their author, to "enable us to apply and appropriate what the Holy Spirit has taught us."

The third and final part of the book consists in a series of specific examinations of conscience for children, young adults, single adults, married couples, priests, and religious.

All in all, Fr. Weinandy succeeds in presenting a highly readable volume, ideal for those who either want to learn more about the Sacrament of Penance or for those who simply want to foster their own spiritual growth. The twenty-five meditations are pure Gospel, in the true sense of the word: filled with the good news of how the Lord Jesus makes available the marvelous fruits of his Cross in this sacrament, of how the concrete men and women of the specific circumstances of today can draw close to and appropriate the mercy of the Father.

Fr. John-Peter Pham
Champaign, Ill.

Priestly vocation of a pope

GIFT AND MYSTERY: On the Fiftieth Anniversary of My Priestly Ordination. By Pope John Paul II, (Doubleday, 1540 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10036, 1996), 114 pp. HB $19.95.

I recall the suddenness of the death of John Paul I, with his charming book, Illustrissimi, his letters to Mark Twain, Chesterton, and I believe Pinocchio. I cannot find my copy, somehow. Then the quick election of this man from behind the Iron Curtain, this Karol Wojtyla. One thing that John Paul I and John Paul II have in common is their ability to write in a charmingly simple and frank manner. No doubt John Paul II can write philosophical jargon with the best of them, because he is the best of them, but he also writes with great appeal and disarming profundity. Since I read it, his Crossing the Threshold of Hope has moved my soul.

Gift and Mystery is a very personal book about Karol Wojtyla's priesthood. He looks back on his life to realize he is probably the most traveled man in public life today. We are astonished to read of his youth, that he was in a seminary in hiding during the war, that he loved acting and poetry and literature, that he worked and, when he got to the Belgian College in Rome just after the war, seemed familiar with and yet beyond the much acclaimed "worker priests," who often seemed more workers than priests, while Wojtyla always seemed, even to those who worked with him, more priest than worker, not that he was not a good worker. These working men let him study on the job when it was possible; and so later, he officiated at their weddings, their funerals, the baptisms and confirmations of their children.

"The story of my priestly vocation?" he asks in the beginning. "It is known above all to God." No doubt we can say the same thing of any life, even the worst. But Karol Wojtyla was always conscious that he was being led. If we wonder about his Marian devotion, we see here his family, his father, a strong, silent man. Death took all of his immediate family from him, though he has, I believe a few aunts and cousins. His mother died early, then his brother, then his father. He tells us about it.

"At the deepest level," he tells us, "every vocation to the priesthood is a great mystery; it is a gift which infinitely transcends the individual. Every priest experiences this clearly throughout the course of his life. Faced with the greatness of the gift, we sense our own inadequacy." We speak of shortages of vocations to the priesthood today. As I read these moving lines, I know that there are no shortages of vocations, only failures to teach and maintain what the priesthood is about, failure to offer to young men the kind of priesthood that Karol Wojtyla knows and experiences. There are great sins being committed against vocations today, those that systematically prevent these gifts and mysteries from being accepted and experienced. But John Paul II is no doubt right. Good priests know that God has been there, that they have received a hundred fold and wondered where it came from.

I was struck by the affection with which the Holy Father spoke of his companions in the seminary, of his bishop, the great Cardinal Sapieha, of the parish priests he knew and worked with, of his teachers. This man has a wondrous warmth and love for the brethren. "I am deeply convinced of the decisive role that the diocesan presbyterate plays in the personal life of every priest. The community of priests, rooted in a true sacramental fraternity, is a setting second to none for spiritual and pastoral formation. The priest, as a rule, cannot do without this community."

To a religious priest, in a community with sixty or seventy other priests, the diocesan priesthood often looks especially lonely, though it is always filled with a thousand people and never ending things to do. This clergy mans the main posts where the great flock of the faithful lives and dies. Yet, as I watch my friends in the diocesan priesthood across the river in the Arlington Diocese, I see that what the Holy Father says seems true of them.

I have a young cousin who is the pastor of a lovely small parish in western Iowa. The last time I saw him he was driving his small tractor to mow the lawn in the parish cemetery. In talking to him, I have sensed the importance of his brother priests in his life.

The Pope talks of the relation of the priest to lay men and women. He says something that I think is of especial pertinence, namely, that the priest is not there to make up his own Mass, nor to figure out new mystical tales, not to invent new uniforms or doctrines. "Through faith he (the priest) draws near to the invisible treasures which constitute the inheritance of the world's Redemption by the Son of God. No one may consider himself the 'owner' of these treasures; they are meant for us all. But by reason of what Christ has done, the priest has the tasks of administering them." I like that line, "no one may consider himself the 'owner' of these treasures. . . ." I sometimes fear this is precisely what has happened to many in the priesthood. We are to pass on what we have been given; we do not own it, we cannot make it up.

One last thing that struck me that I must mention. The Pope tells us that if we take a careful look at "contemporary men," they are "thirsting for Christ." How many of us notice this or notice how it is so? "The truest secret of authentic pastoral success does not lie in material means, much less in sophisticated programs. The lasting results of pastoral endeavor are born in the holiness of the priest." How sobering are these words. They are, of course, simply true. In the end, the priest is to do what only he can do. If every priest would read slowly and ponder these last words of Karol Wojtyla, this extraordinary man in the mystery of whose life is bound the destiny of the Church and the world in our time, we would begin that move to the Third Millennium, to the understanding of the Godhead that so concerns him.

"The priest has a mysterious, awesome power over the Eucharistic Body of Christ. By reason of this power he becomes the steward of the greatest treasure of the Redemption, for he gives the people the Redeemer in person. Celebrating the Eucharist is the most sublime and most sacred function of every priest. As for me, from the very first years of my priesthood, the celebration of the Eucharist has been not only my most sacred duty, but above all my soul's deepest need." In a journal meant especially for priests, it is difficult to think of anything more important to tell them. We are blessed in this Holy Father, let us never doubt it.

James V. Schall, S.J.
Georgetown University
Washington, D.C.

A positive view of marriage

A PLEA FOR PURITY. By Johann Christoph Arnold (Plough Publishing House, Spring Valley Bruderhof, Farmington, PA 15437, 1996), 176 pp. PB $13.00.

In the introduction to his book, Johann Arnold states: "We must show the world that the unique teachings of Jesus and his apostles are the only answer to the spirit of our time. . . . This is not a personal book-it comes out of the life of the Bruderhof, the church community to which I belong."

Arnold, manager of the Plough Publishing House of the Bruderhof communities, offers readers interesting and perceptive insights gained from his many years of experience as a marriage counselor, pastor and father of eight. The Bruderhof, founded in 1920 by Eberhard Arnold, is a community based on the practices of the early church.

Throughout his book the author cites biblical passages to show God's will regarding the proper use of sex in marriage. The whole Bible protests against adultery, he says, "from the books of the Prophets, where the idol worship of the children of Israel is called adultery (Jer. 13:25-27), to Revelation, where we read of God's wrath against the harlot. When the bond of marriage is broken, love-the unity of spirit and soul between two-is broken and smashed, and not only between the adulterer and his spouse, but between himself and God."

Arnold presents a very positive view of marriage and its purposes. He says that "To be fruitful for each other by complementing each other in love, and to be fruitful with each other in bearing children-it is these purposes that make marriage blessed and holy, and a joy in heaven."

He contends that to engage in sexual activity of any kind without being united in the bond of marriage is a "desecration" and states that the key to purity is humility. "Purity and meekness belong together," he says, "because they both arise from a complete surrender to God."

While there are many laudable features in Arnold's book, there are also weaknesses. He laments the results of the sexual revolution-widespread promiscuity, rising rates of teen pregnancy, suicide, abortion, etc.-and asserts that "modern sex education more than anything else is responsible for all this." Is it? Or aren't the crises of faith and authority within the Christian churches, including the Catholic Church, the major causes of the sexual revolution and its devastating results? Without the acceptance of situation ethics (moral relativism) by prominent Protestant and Catholic theologians and the silence of many priests and ministers regarding the popular sins of today-contraception, pre-marital sex, abortion, and divorce and remarriage-it is doubtful that modern sex education would have been as widely accepted as it is today.

Regarding religious education, Arnold says that his communities avoid formal religious instruction. "Rather than try to 'teach' children faith, it is much better for their parents to live their faith by example in a spontaneous, genuine way." He states that we can bring our children to God "through the world around them, by helping them to sense him in all they see."

Those Catholics who favor the experiential method of teaching religion, a method which downplays the importance of memorization and the need to learn Catholic terminology ("religious jargon") would no doubt agree with Arnold. But thirty years of this type of informal religious education has produced Generation X-a generation of religious illiterates who, for the most part, have rejected the Church and its teachings because they were never taught the basic teachings of Catholicism and the reasons for these teachings. They can't be expected to appreciate and love what they don't know or understand.

What Arnold and many Catholic catechetical "experts" fail to acknowledge is that when our youth leave the safety and security of their families and faith communities to attend college or embark on a new career, they are often bombarded with pagan and hedonistic philosophies. If we fail to prepare them to always "be ready with a reason" for the hope that is in them, should we be surprised when they succumb to the sophisticated argumentation of agnostic professors and the irreligious and immoral lifestyles that dominate our culture?

The major weakness of Arnold's book is that his arguments for purity rest mainly on quotes from the Bible. While the Bible is God's inspired word, Bible-believing Christians differ over key issues regarding human sexuality. An incident which strikingly illustrates these differences occurred recently in western New York.

According to reporter Tom Buckham (Buffalo News, October 26, 1996), two diocesan priests of the Western New York Episcopal Diocese quit because of the church's "growing acceptance of same-sex marriages and abortion, as well as its ordination of gays and lesbians." In response to their departure, the leader of western New York's Episcopalians, Bishop David Bowman, is reported to have said that at a time of "great ambiguity" over many issues, persons of "lively and good faith" who take the authority of scripture seriously may reach different conclusions about issues dealing with sexuality.

"Now, more than ever, we need to stay together, not splinter off, as we seek the mind of Christ for His Church," Bishop Bowman stated.

It is to be hoped that Bishop Bowman and all other Christians who seek Christian unity and Christ's will for his Church will soon find the unity and answers they are looking for in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church founded by Christ to teach, govern and sanctify in his name.

Only when Christians are united under the leadership of Christ's representative, the pope, in the church Christ founded and calls all people to belong to-the Catholic Church -can Johann Arnold's desire "to show the world that the unique teachings of Jesus and his apostles are the only answer to the spirit of our time" be fulfilled. Only when Christian unity is achieved can we expect to see the end of the sexual aberrations which have inflicted so much spiritual, emotional and physical harm on the human family.

Geraldine Stafford
Lockport, N.Y

The power of faith

CHRISTIAN FAITH AND THE THEOLOGICAL LIFE. By Fr. Romanus Cessario, O.P. (Catholic University of America Press, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., 20017, 1996), 197 pp. PB $17.95.

"Modern rationalism does not tolerate mystery," proclaims Pope John Paul II in his Letter to Families. "It does not accept the mystery of man as male and female, nor is it willing to admit that the full truth about man has been revealed in Jesus Christ." Fr. Romanus Cessario's recent book on the virtue of faith, highlights the importance of the Christian mysteries for the spiritual life.

The virtue of faith "introduces believers into the mysteries of the Kingdom, so that they 'may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge'" (Eph. 3:18-19). The central and fundamental mysteries of Christian life are the Trinity and Incarnation. The structure of the Trinity in man "resides in the whole intellectual part of the human soul-that is, not only in the intellect itself, but also in the will in its coordination with the intellect." Through the Incarnation Christ shares a common nature with every member of the human family and is therefore "able to communicate to us his divine benefits."

Because the modern secular mindset does not recognize mystery it fails to see that the divine benefit of the Paschal mystery is grace. "Grace principally signifies a participation in God's own life." Cessario notes that Catholic theology rejects the notion that grace is something extrinsic that merely inspires or motivates the life of the believer. The New Testament makes clear that God's action in the world "results in real changes and produces real effects in people." Quoting St. Paul, Cessario reiterates, "we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:4). St. Paul explicitly states that the theological life is a transformed life, "a movement from our being 'by nature children of wrath,' to our being 'alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved'" (Eph. 2:3-5).

Echoing the New Testament, the Second Vatican Council declared a universal call to holiness for all faithful. This call to sanctity is not reserved to a distinct few or a moral oligarchy, but for all men. Through the theological virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit, the whole person (intellect, will, and sense appetites) can be reconciled to Christ. Cessario teaches that "Christian faith is to be understood not as an isolated intellectual act but as a virtuous form of life, or habitus, that affectively transforms the mind of the believer unto a share in the eternal life of the divine Persons of the Trinity."

The infused virtues do not rely on human energy or operation, but are freely bestowed graces that allow the believer to live a complete and perfect Christian life. "In the Christian life, divine truth necessarily informs the practice of truth, and so we can speak of living by faith." To know about God is one thing, to commit oneself to him is another. The theological virtue of faith gives us a knowledge of divine truth. It unites us to all things that God reveals about Christian life. The theological virtues of hope and charity give us a specifically "Christian love of God, self, and neighbor."

The Christian mysteries unveil that God loves us because he is good, not because we are. From the pierced side of Christ flows a stream of new life. Though we are sinners and our mind, will and emotions are out of harmony, believers can still choose God's goodness, our Lady's mediation, and the power of the sacraments for the perfection of the moral life.

Nick J. Bagileo
Oklahoma City, Okla.