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book reviews
Fantasy or reality?
TOLKIEN: MAN AND MYTH. A Literary Life. By Joseph Pearce (Ignatius Press, P.O. Box
1339, Ft. Collins, Colo. 80522, 1998), xiv + 242 pp. HB $24.95.
In a British poll of more than 25,000 people, conducted in 1997,
patrons of Waterstone’s Booksellers and viewers of Channel 4 voted Tolkien’s
Lord of the Rings the “greatest book of the century.” The critical response to
this singular honor, however, was strikingly at variance with such popular acclaim. It is
precisely this anomaly, a fact that is congruent with the controversies that dogged
Tolkien throughout his literary life, that motivated Joseph Pearce to explore the man
whose critical opprobrium stood in such stark contrast with his public approbation.
In a nutshell, as the author informs us with a lisping pun, Tolkien is misunderstood because he is mythunderstood. For the author of Lord of the Rings, a myth is not a leap from reality but a leap into reality. Most modern critics, according to Pearce, regard myth as a synonym for a lie. For Tolkien, it was the only way that certain transcendent truths could be expressed in intelligible form. Rev. James V. Schall, for one, would agree. In his essay “On the Reality of Fantasy,” the Georgetown University scholar asserts that “The unsuspecting reader who thinks he is only reading ‘fantasy’ in reading Tolkien will suddenly find himself pondering the state of his own soul because he recognizes his own soul in each fairy-tale.”
Tolkien’s popular acclaim should not be surprising. After all, his books have sold more than fifty million copies worldwide and sales show no sign of abating. What is surprising, even astonishing, is the vitriol directed at Tolkien’s works by the literati. As one writer in the Guardian states, “[The Lord of the Rings] must be by any reckoning one of the worst books ever written.” The great question then: Who is living in a world of fantasy, Tolkien’s readers or his critics?
In order to understand the myth, Pearce first seeks to understand the man. He presents a biographical sketch of the man, placing special emphasis on Tolkien’s relationship with C. S. Lewis and other members of the Inklings. Thus, he unfolds the man behind the myth. But there is also the myth behind the man. This myth—the “True Myth”—is Catholic Christianity, which relates to Tolkien’s work as God’s Creation relates to the author’s “subcreation.” The two geneses, therefore, do not contradict each other. Good is original good, while evil is the perversion of what is good. As Tolkien writes, “What we call bad things are good things perverted. . . . This perversion arises when a conscious creature becomes more interested in itself than in God . . . the sin of Pride.”
Joseph Pearce has provided us with a readable, informative, and insightful account of his subject. He has also regaled us with his gift for giving contrasting opposites both an economy of expression and a wealth of thought. Let me offer but three examples: “Whereas Star Trek expresses the desire to leave home and explore the universe, The Lord of the Rings expresses the desire to find home and discover the universals.” “To many of Tolkien’s millions of readers, Christian and otherwise, the myth he subcreated is not a flight from reality but an escape to reality.” “For Tolkien, Catholicism was not an opinion to which one subscribed but a reality to which one submitted.”
Tolkien: Man and Myth itself is a story, one that would have greatly
amused its creator. It represents another instance of the triumph of Christian light over
pretentious egoism, more specifically, the spectacular and unparalleled success of Lord of
the Rings over what Professor Jeffrey Richards has described as the “sneering chorus
of intellectual snobs” who fail to see its merit.
Donald De Marco
St. Jerome’s University
Waterloo, Ontario
The political thought
of that formidable friar
AQUINAS: MORAL, POLITICAL, AND LEGAL THEORY. By John Finnis (Oxford
University Press, 198 Madison Ave., N.Y., N.Y. 10016, 1998), xxii + 358 pp. PB $18.95; HB
$52.00.
Aquinas is a contribution to Oxford University Press’s series,
“Founders of Modern Political and Social Thought”—a very distinguished
contribution. Professor Finnis covers the areas marked out for exploration with impressive
thoroughness, and provides the reader with sound, thoughtful accounts of St. Thomas’s
moral, political, and legal thought. He mentions in the preface to the book that he
intends to go beyond simple explication. He does so, and in a particularly adept and
fruitful manner, working within the best tradition of philosophical commentary.
This book might be regarded as a sustained conversation between Professor Finnis and St. Thomas, a conversation which is highly informative and stimulating. One of the special strengths of the work is the way Professor Finnis compares and contrasts Thomistic political thought with modern political thought, to the decided advantage of the former. We are allowed to see the profound differences that inevitably obtain when the natural order is examined by someone who, as with St. Thomas, is completely imbued with a consciousness of the supernatural. Without being at all ostentatious or polemical about the matter, Professor Finnis succeeds in demonstrating at every turn the breadth and depth of St. Thomas’s thought, and its enduring timeliness.
The book is very nicely structured. Its shapely integrity and coherence is perfectly consonant with the nature of the subject matter with which it deals. After an initial chapter which introduces the life of St. Thomas and provides an overview of his work, each of the following nine chapters is given over to a basic subject area (for example, human fulfillment and morality, human rights, the state), within which are treated any number of specific topics with keen and lively analytic insight.
The penultimate chapter, “The Power of the Sword,” deals interestingly with such subjects as war and capital punishment. Here the argument, in my opinion, becomes a bit bumpy, but this is no doubt explained by the fact that I would interpret the pertinent Thomistic texts differently than would Professor Finnis. My own view on questions of this sort is that St. Thomas had a more capacious and sensitive understanding of the nature of justice and its proper applications than perhaps our modern sensitivities might allow us to appreciate.
The final chapter, “On our Origin and End,” is remarkably strong, almost symphonic in its dramatic resolution of the argument. It brings into sharpest focus just what it is that St. Thomas, perhaps more than any other thinker, has to contribute to political theory: a sense of that critical larger context only within which political theory can be fully coherent and meaningful. Instead of beginning in medias res, as do practically all modern theorists, St. Thomas begins at the beginning. That is, before speculating on man’s place in society, he rightly sees the need first to establish certain basic facts about man himself. What is man? Where does he come from? Where is he going?
It is not possible, within the scope of a short review, to cite all the specific virtues of this book, but attention should be called to Professor Finnis’s perspicacious and penetrating treatments of subjects such as marriage, the common good, and skepticism as it relates to the question of freedom. And, by the way, the book contains an excellent analysis of St. Thomas’s psychology of will, one of the best I’ve come across.
The special value of this book is not limited to the text itself. The notes are not to be passed over lightly. They are of two types. The first type, arranged at the bottom of the page, relate mainly to Thomistic texts, and are immensely helpful. The second type, gathered at the end of the chapter, develop more fully various points raised in the text, and they contain much pointed commentary. Among the many good things to be found in them is a succinct and telling critique of John Noonan’s Contraception, as well as some helpful observations on St. Thomas’s classification of justice.
In all, Professor Finnis’s Aquinas represents a scholarly endeavor of the first rank. Anyone who reads it will come away from the experience amply rewarded, and with a deeper appreciation for the intrinsic worth and eminent applicability of the political thought of that formidable friar from Roccasecca whom we now name the Common Doctor.
Dennis Q. McInerny
Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary
Scranton, Pa.
The eclipse of the masculine
in Christianity?
THE CHURCH IMPOTENT. The Feminization of Christianity. By Leon J. Podles
(Spence Publishing, 501 Elm Street, Suite 450, Dallas, Tex. 75202, 1999), 350 pp. HB
$27.95.
From the preoccupation—one is tempted to say
“obsession”—in some quarters with the role of women in the Church, one
would have thought that churches were devoid of a feminine presence. Actually, as both
anecdotal evidence and observed data evince, the reality is that churches, Catholic and
Protestant, are more apt to be characterized by an absence of men. Despite charges of
“patriarchy” leveled by feminists, in many churches about the only male visible
in the sanctuary is the priest or minister. In fact, Dr. Leon J. Podles, president of the
Crossland Foundation and frequent contributor to a variety of religious journals, argues
in his provocative book The Church Impotent that the Christian churches in the
contemporary Western world have effectively become “women’s clubs with a few
male officers,” a development which, unless arrested, he finds perilous to both
Church and society.
Like all-too-many books in the overworked field of “gender studies,” The Church Impotent is not an easy read: both its prose and its argument appear sometimes tortured to the non-initiate. However, for the reader who perseveres, Podles offers a thesis unlike that of any other books on the subject of gender and religion. The masculine (as distinguished from the male) traits that once characterized Christian life have disappeared, leading to an imbalance of the feminine (as distinguished from the female). In turn, this breakdown of the proper relationship of masculinity and femininity, male and female, Adam and Eve, is responsible for many of the Church’s failures of outreach in the world today.
And what is this missing masculinity? According to Podles it is the very key to men’s behavior as men. Drawing on the arguments from anthropology and developmental psychology, he identifies initiation into masculinity with religious initiation and highlights the role of struggle and fraternal love in the masculine personality. These three “masculine” aspects of Christianity—initiation, struggle, and fraternity—were essential to the Old Testament idea of God and remained characteristic of the Trinitarian Godhead revealed in the New Testament. The Christian, Podles notes, is fundamentally “masculine” since he is conformed to the masculine Son. Unfamiliar as this idea is, it is not without its foundation in the early Church when the martyr was viewed as an athlete and a soldier for Christ. While awaiting her martyrdom in the third century, the chronicler records that Perpetua had a dream in which an angel anoints her so that she might, mystically, be masculine, exclaiming “Facta sum masculus.” After the age of the martyrs, their successors, the monks, took up the daily struggle as a form of martyrdom: both Anthony and Benedict using masculine images of warfare as metaphors for their rules.
If such was the predominantly masculine vision of the early Church, Podles traces the “feminization” to three contemporaneous medieval sources: the affective spirituality and bridal mysticism of Bernard of Clairvaux, the rise of scholasticism, and the expansion of female monasticism. In particular, Podles riles against the affective spirituality which—at least in its exaggerated form—makes Christianity individualistic and even erotic such as the casting of the soul as a receptive feminine characteristic. In any event, all three developments made the Western Church a “difficult place” for men by marginalizing masculinity, leading them to find their spiritual sustenance elsewhere. And, as the churches became predominantly feminine, the feminized spirituality identified the Church as the sphere of women and reinforced the desire on the part of men to keep a safe distance from religion, which then tended toward universalism and quietism.
Up to this point, although the author makes some interesting points, it would seem to this reviewer that his use of the sources is somewhat selective. Why is Bernard of Clairvaux scored for his bridal mysticism, which is viewed as a medieval development, while Origen, whose influence on patristic thought was almost supreme, is barely mentioned and Gregory of Nyssa passed over in silence when both waxed eloquent on the bridal imagery of the Song of Songs? And Bernard may have contributed to a spirituality marked by feminine images, but he also preached the glorious struggle of the Crusades. In short, the case for the progressive historical development—or, in the author’s vision, degeneration—of a virile, masculine Christian spirituality into a passive, feminized faith is a bit forced.
By far the most interesting part of The Church Impotent is its final argument that whatever its fate in the Church, the masculine cannot be expunged from human society. Rather, separated from Christianity, masculinity will reappear as a substitute religion in war, exaggerated sports, ideological conflict, and, ultimately, nihilism. Here Podles makes a rather eloquent argument that masculine struggle that is the mystery of death and rebirth are an integral part of human experience. Without religion, rebirth is forgotten and all that remains is death and emptiness. Thus, since for the nihilist the ultimate truth is a void, the good has no source beyond the ego. To the nihilist, the good is what he wants. Thus the moral relativism in which sex, possessions, and amusement are the goal of life is but a disguised nihilism filling the vacuum of a masculine spirituality.
Whatever one’s views of the argument made by Podles, there is no denying the evidence he meticulously documents of a serious “gender gap” in Christian churches. But if such is the case, how can the Church reach men effectively? While public relations blitzes and mass revivals à la the Promise Keepers may occasionally attract men, they have shown little evidence of keeping them. And campaigns to placate feminists and tolerate homosexual behavior certainly won’t help. Rather, the men and women of the Church must develop anew a balanced understanding of the rich metaphors at her disposal: Son and Bride, spiritual warfare and spousal affectivity. In that much, by drawing attention to a number of abuses and exaggerations, The Church Impotent presents a significant intuition and is a valuable and welcomed contribution to a new discourse.
Fr. John-Peter Pham
Champaign, Illinois
A special place for Mary
MARY AND THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH: THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY IN PATRISTIC
THOUGHT. By Luigi Gambero, S.M. (Ignatius Press, P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, Colo. 80522,
1999), 439 pp. PB $18.95.
Post-biblical Mariology is an essential tool in understanding the
message Scripture aims to convey about the Mother of God. It is here we see how the first
Christians understood Mary’s perpetual virginity, her role as the Second Eve, why
they invoked Mary as Mediatrix, and how they saw her as the Model of the Church as well as
the prototype of Christian discipleship. It is thus fitting that Gambero opens his work by
quoting John Henry Cardinal Newman in that, “The Fathers made me a Catholic. . . .
And, in particular as regards our teaching concerning the Blessed Virgin, with the Fathers
I am content.”
Gambero first examines the Apostolic Age to the Council of Nicaea (325) and looks at not only the Tradition but Apocryphal works as well: Ignatius of Antioch, the non-canonical Protoevangelium of James, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. Also included here is an excellent chapter examining Mary in the early Church of Rome: in both the art of the catacombs as well as in the thought of Hippolytus of Rome. We see how these earliest of theologians turned to Mary in order to stress Christ’s dual-nature: her perfect humanity points to the fullness of her Son’s Incarnation.
The century between Nicaea and Ephesus (431) was dedicated to explicating the proper way to understand this Incarnation, and in doing so, the first Council Fathers provided Christian thought not only with rich Marian doctrine but the beginnings of liturgical Marian devotion as well. This period is also marked by the legalization of Christianity and the subsequent embracing of the evangelical counsels as a form of martyrdom: “In the context of this new mentality, it seemed obvious to present the Mother of the Lord as the most sublime model of life for consecrated virgins.” Theologians during this time sought answers to more speculative questions than did their predecessors: Epiphanius of Salamis was the first to ask about the end of Mary’s earthly life, Jerome explains how Mary retained her virginitas in partu, and Augustine explains that Mary is surprised by Gabriel’s words about her bearing a son because she had earlier taken a vow of virginity.
The third section treats the Council of Ephesus to the death of Severus of Antioch in 538. During this important century, Gambero argues, “The liturgy was beginning to reserve an important place for the Virgin in its celebrations. Marian homiletics . . . was starting to appear as a new literary genre.” Ephesus’s defense of Mary as Theotokos reinvigorated devotion toward her, emphasizing her great dignity, the power of maternity, and her perfect intercession.
Finally, in the end of the Patristic period—the sixth to the eighth centuries—Gambero maintains that Western thinkers did not exhibit much creativity during this period while Marian thought in the East, “reached its highest manifestations.” He accordingly presents the writings of Gregory the Great, Venantius Fortunatus, and Isidore in the West, but spends more time looking at the Akathist Hymn, Romanos the Melodist, Andrew of Crete, John Damascene, and the Iconoclastic Controversy (725-843).
Fr. Gambero, professor at the Marianum in Dayton, has produced a highly accessible book for beginner and scholar alike. Since Gambero lays out the original text in full, it is able to speak for itself but he also offers the reader articulate and sophisticated commentary throughout. This book is for anyone who wants or needs to see, like Newman, that the first followers of Jesus maintained an eminently special place for his Virgin Mother in both thought and worship.
David Vincent Meconi, S.J.
Xavier University
Cincinnati, Ohio
Real pastoral care
A CAREGIVER’S COMPANION. Ministering to Older Adults. By J. Daniel Dymski
(Ave Maria Press, P.O. Box 428, Notre Dame, IN 46556, 1997), 176 pp. PB $8.95.
In the last thirty or so years, an entirely new genre of Catholic literature has come into being seemingly ex nihilo. Whereas a subject search of theological library catalogues turns up relatively few titles under “pastoral theology” in the period immediately before the Second Vatican Council, acquisitions from the period afterwards literally number in the hundreds. While some of these recent publications represent valuable contributions to the theological enterprise, most accomplish nothing other than—in the dismissive humor of one well-respected theologian—“the slaughter of another acre or two of rain forest.”
Among the books in this latter category are the countless volumes published and being published as guides to this-or-that lay ministry. The table of contents of all too many of these “do-it-yourself” publications can often be accurately surmised without even opening their covers. After a gratuitous preface in which the author thanks somebody or another for having “empowered” his or her ministry, an introductory chapter pretends to tell the history of the particular “ministry,” linking it with a mythical golden age sometime in the early Church before the twin evils of clericalism and ritualism made it disappear only to reappear stronger than ever in the light of the victory of the “spirit of Vatican II.” Chapter two will contain some not-too-profound reflections on how the “ministry” in question is undoubtedly one of the most—if not the most—important ecclesial undertakings today. Chapter three is usually an outline of “training” for this “ministry.” Chapter four will be a few practical tips, usually of dubious practicality. Chapter five will be a rousing conclusion to fire the new “ministers” up for their tasks. An appendix will then follow with a paraliturgical service or two both for the “commissioning” of the “ministers” and perhaps another ersatz liturgy for them to perform as part of their new “ministry.” Volumes upon volumes of this sort can be found in almost any Catholic library, bookstore, rectory, and school, covering the gamut of imaginable “ministries,” official and unofficial, useful and not so useful: extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, lectors, acolytes, church greeters, sacristans, janitors, parish committee members, rectory cooks, youth volunteers, drivers, soup kitchen workers, etc.
The end result of all this has been the de facto institutionalization of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy to the detriment of the spirit, the clericalization of the laity to the detriment of priestly identity, and the ritualization of pastoral ministry to the detriment of the cura animarum which is the Church’s very raison d’être. On the other hand, the expansion of the practical scope of the Church’s threefold mission and the relative decline in the number of priests and religious has necessitated the increased active cooperation of the laity in the work of the apostolate. As Pope John Paul II noted in his Exhortation on the Vocation and Mission of the Laity, Christifideles laici: “In the present circumstances the lay faithful have the ability to do very much and, therefore, ought to do very much . . . in every apostolic and missionary undertaking.”
One area where the laity’s cooperation in the pastoral solicitude of the Church will be particularly important in the coming years is in the ministry to older adults. In the United States alone, in the three decades since Vatican II, the portion of the population aged 85 and older has tripled while that of those aged 65 to 80 has more than doubled. Consequently, many parishes have set up pastoral programs to meet the needs of older members. Some employ regular groups of extraordinary Eucharistic ministers to supplement the ministry of priests to the homebound and to those in nursing homes and hospitals. And not only are these individuals to be representatives of the Church, as incarnate in their parochial communities, but they are often called upon to mediate between often impersonal government or private service providers and those to whom they minister. Consequently, many pastors are recognizing that an authentic participation in this ministry requires a comprehensive theological, spiritual, and pastoral formation on the lay caregivers—a formation heretofore unavailable.
It is to fill this void that Father J. Daniel Dymski, a priest of the Diocese of Erie, has written A Caregiver’s Companion, a manual which focuses primarily on the spiritual needs of both care recipients and those who minister to them. After briefly outlining the common characteristics of many of those who are objects of this pastoral ministry, the author presents a valuable profile of those called to care for them. Dymski is in full accord with recent norms from the Holy See when he counsels that the caregivers must be careful to “work under the supervision of the pastor or associate pastor” and reminds them of their function in taking care to bring those in need to the sacramental ministry of a priest.
A Caregiver’s Companion is particularly eloquent in its emphasis on the need for an authentic spiritual life as the condition sine qua non for ministering to others. Dymski presents as one scriptural point to pray with a poignant meditation, “Mary, the Caregiver, to Her Dying Son, Jesus,” based on John 19 as well as reflections from sources including Mother Teresa, among others.
Unlike so many “ministry guides” filled with rather esoteric suggestions, this book is especially helpful to the caregiver because it offers several lists of very practical operating principles, especially regarding care in instances of death, dying, and bereavement. While there is no “right” way to minister to a dying person, Dymski offers some good guidelines such as: “Before death, it is important to be present to the person on a regular basis” and “A dying person should have the opportunity to receive the sacraments of the Church. Remember to maintain contact with a priest as the time of death draws near.” Also helpful are brief guides to conditions including depression and Alzheimer’s disease.
An additional valuable feature of this brief volume is its extensive resource section which includes the texts of the official rites for the distribution of Holy Communion and a selection of traditional devotional prayers which might be used, as well as nearly two hundred toll-free telephone numbers of agencies which offer assistance to older people and their families.
The author modestly describes his book as “practical and pedestrian.” It is certainly practical insofar as it will be a reliable resource both for preparing lay people to cooperate in the Church’s solicitude for her older members as well as for a quick “refresher” for the many clergy whose often-unheralded work has and will remain the primary manifestation of the Church’s pastoral office. As far as being pedestrian, it is so only in that it will be a valuable contribution to those whose ministry is to help the aged and sick to associate themselves with that walk whereby Christ redeemed the world.
Fr. John-Peter Pham
Champaign, Illinois
Driving out the devil
AN EXORCIST TELLS HIS STORY. By Gabriele Amorth (Ignatius Press, P.O. Box
1339, Ft. Collins, Colo. 80522, 1999), 205 pp. PB $14.95.
A reprinting of a popular European best-seller in many
editions, this captivating book illuminates the nature of demonology, the power of
exorcism, and the mystery of evil. Based on the experience of Father Amorth, the Chief
Exorcist of Rome who has exorcised 30,000 persons who have been victims of Satan’s
influence, possession, or oppression, the book acquaints us with the lost art of detecting
and expelling demons. The unique, compelling nature of this work is the integration of
authoritative Catholic teaching on Satan and an exorcist’s lifetime of experience in
the machinations of the devil. The author testifies to his personal encounters with devils
and verifies that evil is not some abstract force or vague theory.
Lamenting the modern lip service that acknowledges demons in theory but denies it in practice—an attitude epitomized in Rudolph Bultmann’s statement that “We cannot use electric lights and radio, or turn to modern medicine in case of sickness, and at the same time believe in a spirit world and in the miracles that the New Testament presents us”—the author recalls the Church’s traditional teaching on Satan’s unceasing warfare waged against souls. In Sacred Scripture Jesus cited the expelling of demons as one of the specific powers he conferred to his apostles (“In my name they will cast out devils”). Jesus called Satan “the prince of this world,” and the first letter of John affirms that “the whole world is in the power of the evil one.” The Bible refers to Judas’s betrayal of Christ as an act of diabolical possession: “Satan entered into him.” Pope Leo XIII’s St. Michael prayer, prompted by his vision of demons descending upon Rome—an experience that evoked an “expression of horror and awe”—invokes the archangel’s protection against “the evil spirits that prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls.” As Pope Paul VI stated, “Whoever refuses to recognize the existence of [the demonic reality] denies biblical and ecclesiastical teachings.”
Given the eternal warfare instigated by the “powers and principalities” for the souls of men, the role of the exorcist requires the specialized knowledge of the expert conversant with the science of “demonopathy.” This expertise Father Amorth learned from his mentor, Father Candido Amantini, who performed exorcism for thirty-six years, often treating sixty to eighty people in one day. In this book Father Amorth examines the causes, symptoms, and treatments that an exorcist studies to effect spiritual healing. He explains that the devil uses not only temptation but also physical pain, possession (e.g., Judas), oppression (e.g., Job), and obsession (the despair that leads to suicide). Every form of magic, sorcery, and witchcraft manifests demonic activity as do such phenomena as the curse, the evil, and the spell or hex. Writing from experience, Father Amorth testifies that “the devil is very sensitive to the five senses (‘I enter through the senses,’ he told me once), and mostly through the eyes.” Often physical and mental illness that resists all medical treatment, especially in the form of headaches and stomach pains, manifests diabolical influence. In his discernment as exorcist, Father Amorth verifies that Satan’s activity is unceasing aggression, for “The Devil causes as much harm as he is allowed to do.” He cunningly tries to hide himself. He subtly alternates times of intense activity (“moments of crisis”) with times of periodic absence and then returns with a vengeance “seven times worse than himself.” An exorcist identifies five areas where the evil one attacks: health, business, affections, enjoyment of life, and desire for death.
The science of exorcism, then, is to diagnose these symptoms of diabolical intervention and expel demons through prayers of deliverance, holy water, incense, the name of Jesus, the Sign of the Cross, the invocation of the saints and the Blessed Mother, sacred images, and the Miraculous Medal. While exorcism has always been an essential ministry of the Church in the eternal battle between Christ and Satan, modern trends in theology have diminished the power of Satan’s influence and ignored the medicine of exorcism, equating demonology with superstition and mythology that are beneath the notice of enlightened, scientific man.
This sobering, engrossing book confronts us with the ugliness of evil and its invidious attacks—the destruction, perdition, and ruin of health, marriages, families, and societies that comprise the agenda of the “roaring lion” seeking to devour souls. How else does one account for the low attendance at Mass in Rome and the popularity of Satanic rock music, Father Amorth asks. How else does one account for the culture of death and modern man’s obsession with abortion, euthanasia, divorce, and homosexuality, one may add. Historical events and economic forces cannot explain the stark reality of evil in its horrific forms, and the cure to demonic activity is not new laws or more money but the sacramental of exorcism: “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.” Exorcism is one of the Church’s most potent weapons in the eternal struggle between good and evil, and anyone who is uninformed or unarmed is endangered: this is the compelling, convincing theme of this book.
Mitchell Kalpakgian, Ph.D.
Simpson College
Indianola, Iowa
A clear mind
Many Religions—One Covenant. By Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Ignatius
Press, P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, Colo. 80522, 1999), 113 pp. PB $11.95.
The four chapters contained in this book deal primarily with the relationship between
Judaism and Christianity in the light of proposed modern alternatives to this heritage or
to religion itself. The first chapter was prepared for a conference in Jerusalem in 1994;
the second and fourth were lectures to the Academy of Moral and Political Science in
Paris, of which Ratzinger is a member, and the third chapter was a homily for the 19th
Sunday of the year, Series B, given in Wolfesing, near Munich.
The first chapter is a commentary on the relationship between Israel and Christianity as that is presented in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Ratzinger resolutely asks: is there an incompatibility between Christianity and Israel that cannot be reconciled? He is quite clear that without an origin and reference in Israel, no Christianity is possible. The recurring Marcionite heresy about the incompatibility of the two Testaments is to be rejected. The whole mission of Jesus is that of reconciliation, completion. Ratzinger carefully demonstrates how the Cross and the sacrifice of Jesus are rooted in the Old Testament in such a way that there is a unity between the two.
Ratzinger spends a good deal of time on the relation of the words “covenant” and “testament” in order to show how there in fact can be one covenant, yet different religions that are related in an orderly fashion with it, the mission ad gentes. He includes here Islam and the oriental religions, particularly relating the mystical tradition to the core of Christian tradition.
Sometimes the conflict between Jesus and the Jews is seen as a struggle between Jesus as a sort of liberal and the Pharisees as an “ossified, traditionalistic hierarchy.” The fact is that “Jesus opens up the Law in a thoroughly theological way, conscious of acting, and claiming to act, in the closest union with God the Father and as his Son, with the authority of God himself. No one but God himself could have this totally new interpretation of the Law, no one but he could show that its transformation and preservation in this way—by opening it up—was its real, intended significance. Jesus’ exposition of the Law only makes sense if it is performed by divine authority, with God himself interpreting it.” The Testaments have a unity. Ratzinger is careful to dismiss any idea of “collective guilt” on the part of the Jews of Christ’s or our time. He refers again to the central teaching that Christ died for our sins.
“There can be no question of setting the Old and New Testament against each other as two different religions; there is only one will of God for men, only one historical activity of God with and for men, though this activity employs interventions that are diverse and even in part contradictory—yet in truth they belong together.” Ratzinger’s correlation of the death of Christ to the tradition is quite beautiful. “The Church Fathers described this novel two-sidedness, which arises from faith in Christ, as the Fulfiller of the promises, as the ‘incarnation of God’ and the ‘divinization of man.’ God binds himself by giving Scripture as the binding word of promise, but he goes beyond this by binding himself, in his own existence, to the human creature by assuming human nature. Conversely this means that man’s primal dream comes true and man becomes ‘like God.’”
Ratzinger has always been particularly good in noting the contemporary challenges to faith, Christian or Jewish. He notes that it was the encounter with non-Christian religions that caused the Protestant churches to begin to ask themselves about their unity. Moreover, the non-Christian religions all believe in something. They are not simply pagans. He remarks that globalization and common human problems force all religions to ask about their universal human nature. Some think that it is on the basis of practical problems—war, poverty, and environment, that religions can come together without necessarily agreeing on their doctrines. Or, conversely, it is proposed that inward and transcendent types of religion can be reconciled if all become mystical and drop any claim that doctrine makes any difference. “Orthopraxy” and mysticism are the things. The mystical approach allows all religions to retain their external customs but to be lost in the depths of the divine mystery in which what is thought about God makes no difference.
Ratzinger sees this approach as a denial both of creation, of the worth of the world, and of the reality of the real “I,” a real person. God no longer is present in such a world. “Religion can no longer create any community of thought and will; it becomes, as it were, individual therapy. Salvation lies outside the world; we are given no instructions on how to act in it: all we have is the strength which we must acquire through regular withdrawal into the spiritual dimension. But the latter has, as such, no discernable message for us. We are left to ourselves in our worldly affairs.” This gives scope to an ethics and moral theology that have no content other than what we choose, the perfect arena for the reconciliation of modern liberalism and religion in which religion in effect abdicates any claim on the world.
However, Ratzinger replies, “an essential part of our faith in the One God is the acknowledgment of God’s will. Worship of God is not only a sinking into him; it also gives us back to ourselves, it challenges us in the midst of our everyday lives, summoning all the powers of our own mind, feeling and will. However important the apophatic element may be, faith in God cannot dispense with truth and an articulated truth-content.” And Ratzinger is very cautious about the claim that activist religion is really a help to the world if it does not know the facts of what is to be done. “The religions have no prior knowledge of what serves peace here and now, or how social justice can be built within and between states, or how the creation can best be protected and cultivated out of a sense of responsibility to the creator. All these things must be worked out rationally, individually.”
Ratzinger’s clear mind is evident here. He does not hesitate to grapple with the most delicate and vital topics.
James V. Schall, S. J.
Georgetown University
Washington, D.C.
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