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letters from our readers
The titles of Mary
Editor: I can only imagine that Robert C. McCarthy’s letter (March 1999) has provoked many rebuttals, considering that his arguments against not only the formal papal definition of the Dogma of Mary as Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix of all Graces, and Advocate, but also against the doctrines themselves, are theologically quite shallow and even logically incoherent. My guess is that he probably received a degree in theology from one of our country’s “Catholic” colleges or universities within the past 35 years. This unfortunately often means being “educated into imbecility” as one critic wrote.
Regarding Co-Redemptrix: Whether these titles (as well as the other Marian titles) should be soon formally defined is one thing. But the term itself has been used by various popes, including John Paul II, not to mention various Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Therefore, the title is not “fatally flawed,” as Mr. McCarthy asserts, but rather his understanding of it is. It does not imply the exercise of “independent authority” but a sharing in Christ’s redemptive work. Authority, per se, doesn’t really apply. Redemptive merit is what is at issue. And we know as Catholics that our Blessed Mother cooperated with her Son in redeeming the world. If God so willed to do this, why don’t we rejoice? Besides, doesn’t it make sense that she who is without sin would in an unique and eminent way help atone for the sins of her children through her participation in the sufferings of Christ, since the redemptive merit gained by her need not apply to herself?
Mr. McCarthy’s lamentable narrow-mindedness regarding Mary, which Vatican II warns against, along with exaggeration (Lumen Gentium, 67), needs more than theological arguments, I’m afraid, but I might recommend a prayerful pondering of the unfathomable mystery contained in one of the prayers taught to the Fatima children by the angel in 1916: “. . . and by the infinite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. . . .” Can we not just “gape and grin,” as Chesterton would say, rather than presumptuously find fault in the wonderful way that God has chosen to dwell, live and act in Mary, with Mary and through Mary?
In response to the rest of Mr. McCarthy’s letter, let me just use an ordinary human example to save on space, since his criticism of Mary as Mediatrix and/or Dispensatrix of all graces can adequately be answered with a domestic analogy: If I as a husband or father am the sole bread winner and I give control of my earnings to my wife to pay bills and make purchases, etc., and she gives our children a weekly allowance, can it not be truly said that both my wife and I are giving the children money?
Readers may refer to Lumen Gentium, Vatican II’s dogmatic constitution on the Church, Chapter 8, especially #62, for Church teaching on Mary, in which the titles of Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix and Mediatrix are specifically mentioned.
And, by the way, “gratuitous grace” is not a “variety” of grace, as Mr. McCarthy states. All grace is gratuitous. Before he takes it upon himself to criticize theological matters affirmed by popes, councils and Doctors of the Church, maybe Mr. McCarthy should do both himself and others a favor by studying his basic catechism.
Darrell Palmer
Murphys, Calif.
Defending Cardinal Arinze
Editor: We support Mrs. Cornelia R. Ferreira’s main thesis that Catholics should reject the United Religious Initiative (HPR, January 1999) but that she impugns Francis Cardinal Arinze neither I nor my wife can support.
Cardinal Arinze is a wise, patient and learned man of God. We know this from having listened to his videos and tapes and from his personal appearances at the Apostolate for Family Consecration. He is, after all, the director of the Council for Interreligious Dialogue. How is he to dialogue without going to a URI gathering? That Arinze does not support the URI is patently clear, even seen through the fog of Mrs. Ferreira’s misemphases.
To highlight Mrs. Ferreira’s hermeneutic of suspicion, let us take one example. She questions the validity of the Cardinal’s belief in “the rights of all religions to believe and teach their own creation stories.” This is not opinion, but Church teaching!
The Vatican II document “On Religious Liberty” is replete with statements such as: “One of the key truths in Catholic teaching . . . is that man’s response to God by faith ought to be free, and that therefore nobody is to be forced to embrace the faith against his will (#10).” Similar statements can be found in another document, “On the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions”: “Let Christians, while witnessing to their own faith and way of life, acknowledge, preserve, and encourage the spiritual truths found among non-Christians, also their social life and culture (#2).”
So, while we believe with Mrs. Ferreira that the URI is detrimental to faith, we also believe that Cardinal Arinze, like Pope John Paul II, is a just son of Joseph, a teacher worthy of emulation, and a clearheaded supporter of the magisterium.
Jan and Barbara Fredericks
Rochester, N.Y.
Check out the lifeboats
Editor: I read with interest the January 1999 Homiletic & Pastoral Review story entitled “The One-world Church Emerges” and that the proposed United Religions Organization may locate at the San Francisco Presidio.
As a boat captain in San Francisco Bay, I operate commercial vessels which pass the beach of the Presidio on a daily basis. Prayer is now in my routine when this beach is abeam of my vessel.
To any individual or organization who signs onto the voyage of the titanic organization—the United Religions Organization, I recommend that you check out the lifeboat situation before boarding.
Capt. Rod Phillips
Richmond, Calif.
In need of purification
Editor: Hooray for Fr. Joseph Wilson’s “Canonizing Uncle Fred” (March 1999). To assume that our deceased loved ones are in heaven is a grave disservice to them; it negates our belief in the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory. These people can be deprived of Masses and prayers which may hasten their purification. I have said to my wife, more than once, that when I die and people at the visitation say “He was a good man—he is now at rest with the Lord,” please immediately correct them and request them to pray for me since I know that I will need purification before the Beatific Vision.
John Soucy, M.D.
Troy, Mo.
Steal it back!
Editor: In the March issue of HPR, Mary Oberle Hubley in describing her experience with the local parish priest and organist while planning her mother’s funeral mass, comes to the painful conclusion that “They have stolen our church.”
To anyone and everyone who has come to this realization, I hereby grab you by the shoulders and shout as loudly as I can (in print) “steal it back.”
She concludes correctly that, “It is in the parishes of every diocese that the crucial and intimate struggles for identity and integrity of our beloved Roman Catholic faith are being waged. Our Catholic people are beleaguered, their Faith besieged, their simple faith mocked.” To this I remind us all that the Lord will not be mocked.
And further, if we recognize that the struggle is in every parish of every diocese then we must be willing to step up and challenge the liturgists and parish priests who have left the Church yet still hold the keys! If we don’t challenge them (charitably but forcefully and with the confidence that we are correct and they are not), then who will?
Haven’t we done enough documenting of this liturgical disaster that has occurred over the past 30 years? Let’s stop talking about it and step up and do something about it . . . at every parish . . . in every diocese.
The parish priest and organist Mary describes are not invincible. They are in fact very wrong headed. They need to be told this (again charitably) on their home turf.
If we agree that this liturgical abuse is everywhere, then where are we going to go? We can’t run. We must stand and fight. We must fight to win. As the church militant, we must steal it back!
Lou Bruno
Altamonte Springs, Fla.
Priests as victims
Editor: Father Thomas Kocik’s excellent article, “Priestly Identity Crisis” alludes to the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s comments on the theology of priest-victimhood, from his book Those Mysterious Priests.
In September of 1973, Bishop Sheen conducted a retreat for clergy, religious and laity in the Diocese of Gary, Indiana. There were sixteen sermons given at that time, and the audio cassettes were later sold as an album, “An open Retreat, given in the Diocese of Gary, Indiana, September 10-13, 1973.” This has to be one of the greatest retreats ever recorded.
One of the talks was, “Christ, Priest and Victim,” which should be mandated listening before priestly ordination. Indeed the bishop strongly declared the priesthood had been devastated because: “we have separated and divorced” these two elements. “We are not just priests but also victims,” thundered Fulton Sheen. Furthermore, religious were not just oblators, but also oblated, as laity were not only offerers but in addition, offered. Incidentally, the sacramental sign of victimhood was the daily holy hour before the blessed Sacrament. This was not just an idea or suggestion Bishop Sheen preached, but something he did every day of his sixty-plus years as a priest.
When we shed the victim aspect of our priesthood, be it the sacrificial or spiritual, we begin to manifest what Bishop Sheen called “the crossless Christ.” We then mirror Peter at Caesarea Philippi when he tempted Christ from the cross. If this be the case, let us hope that Jesus’ stern rebuke to Peter: “Get behind me satan!” will bring us back to reality.
John T. Hemhauser
Middletown, N.J.
The sword of Truth
Editor: Thank you very much for Fr. Schall’s excellent and provocative article “The Church’s Universal Mission” (March 1999). It seems that the Asian bishops he chides are in danger of “emptying the cross of Christ of its power.” To preach Christ, “and Him crucified” will always be a scandal for both the West and the East. The human heart, whether Western, Eastern, Northern, or Southern is fallen, and as Jeremiah tells us, is “deceitful and desperately corrupt.” Although the Lord has planted “seeds of truth” in other religions, they are meant to prepare the searching heart to receive the fullness of truth when he comes. The Holy Father has a beautiful statement about this in his recent encyclical, Fides et Ratio (23): “The wisdom of the cross . . . breaks free of all cultural limitations which seek to contain it and insists upon an openness to the universality of the truth which it bears.” On their own human beings simply cannot reach the fullness of truth about God. Because he is utterly free, he reveals himself where and when he wills.
It is characteristic of the times we live in to think that it is unloving to claim that there is Truth, and particularly to say that the Church has “received the gift of the ultimate truth about human life” (Fides et Ratio, 2). We think that if we say we have the truth, we are not being loving. Thus the religious relativist believes that by rejecting truth he preserves love. But Christ says that he comes not to bring the false peace of relativism, but a sword. Why? Because the sword of Truth divides those who love the truth from those who seek a false unity in shared falsehood. And the addition of Truth to Love equals the Cross.
We rob the cross of Christ of its power every time we try to make it unscandalous. It is a complete and total scandal. Let us pray that the Asian bishops take to heart the “foolishness of God” and come to realize that to divorce truth from love is to bow to the Prince of this world, who appears “as an angel of light” saying “can’t we all just get along?” To downplay truth because of love is to cry peace when there is no peace. And there is no peace without the scandal of the Cross.
Lucy Tucker
Scarsdale, New York
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