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Back to Basics
Education and evangelization are the crucial ingredients in an
archbishop’s recipe for change in American culture.
By Molly Mulqueen
In his new book, Living the Catholic Faith: Rediscovering the Basics, Denver’s Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap, writes briefly about his spiritual father, St. Francis of Assisi, and his straightforward approach to the Gospel:
… Francis insisted that his brothers follow the Gospel sine glossa—without accommodation. He wanted no explaining away of the meaning of Scripture. As Francis saw it, Jesus said what He intended, and therefore, to follow the Gospel was not confusing. It was difficult to be faithful—but it wasn’t complicated. That was the magic of Francis. He wanted to rediscover the Gospel and live it plainly and simply—without gloss.
In the tradition of St. Francis, Archbishop Chaput is a man who avoids parentheses and exceptions. He gets straight to the heart in matters of faith—without gloss, but not without a compassionate understanding of the challenges Catholics face as they seek to follow the Gospel in contemporary American culture.
A bishop as “lesser brother”
In an era when many Catholic leaders are reluctant to preach about the non-negotiable teachings of the Church, Archbishop Chaput’s approach—getting back to the brass-tacks basics of the faith—has found a strong and supportive following in northern Colorado. This is evidenced most notably by the 55 young men currently studying for the priesthood at Denver’s new St. John Vianney Theological Seminary, and also by the financial support offered by the people of the archdiocese, whose contributions exceeded the goals set by the most recent capital campaign.
Archbishop Chaput, a Native American of the Prairie Band Potawatomi tribe, was born in Concordia, Kansas, in 1944. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1970 and was a teacher, spiritual director, and pastor before serving in several leadership positions for his Capuchin Franciscan province. He was named Bishop of Rapid City, South Dakota, in 1988, and later made Archbishop of Denver in 1997.
He said that he was surprised, and even a bit reluctant to accept, when the call came asking him to serve as a bishop.
I am a Capuchin Franciscan, and St. Francis didn’t want his brothers to become prelates, and that meant anyone who had a position of authority in the Church. He wanted us all to be lesser brothers. That set up a crisis of sorts—crisis with a very small ‘c’—because St. Francis also says we should be obedient to the Church. If someone is called by the Holy Father to serve the Church as a bishop, there is kind of a conflict between two goods: between the good of being a lesser brother and the good of being obedient to the Church. The resolution of that for me is trying to be a bishop after the fashion of being a Franciscan.
The best defense
In just over four years, Archbishop Chaput has spearheaded a remarkable number of new programs in Denver, most of which are centered around education in the faith, including the new seminary, the Our Lady of the New Advent Theological Institute, a Catholic Biblical school, and a catechetical school. His plan is to encourage the faithful to learn more about the Gospel and the teachings of the Church, for two reasons. First, lay people who are well informed about their faith can have a positive influence on American culture. Second, the archbishop believes that proper education will help to stop the infighting within the Catholic Church.
He explains:
I think the best approach to handling dissent in the Church is to be very public in the assent of the Church: to teach positively the faith of the Church rather than to be looking for or going after the negative, or going after dissent. In other words, the best defense is a good offense for the Church.
“You have to be very assertive in proclaiming the faith in a very positive way so that the natural attractiveness of the Gospel will be before people’s eyes,” the archbishop continues. “And having said that, I think it is also the duty of the bishop, very clear from the Scriptures, to be a watchtower to make sure the Gospel is being proclaimed faithfully, and if it isn’t, to intervene as quickly as possible so there isn’t confusion in the Church.”
Archbishop Chaput has steadfast confidence in sound religious education because he is convinced that “the truth is naturally attractive.” Still he concedes that “sometimes people get confused and they think that some of the false teachings that are going around are options.” As an example he cites the issue of contraception, pointing out that “some people think that the Church’s teaching is really just the Church’s opinion, rather than the official teaching of the Church.” He insists that Catholic leaders must be absolutely clear in proclaiming Church teachings. In America today, that means teaching clearly on matters involving the dignity of human life, and also speaking out on behalf of the needy. “We have to be careful in American society that we are advocates of the poor and those who are most in need,” he says.
Culture clashes
In Living the Catholic Faith, Archbishop Chaput covers a wide range of topics, making references to the ideas, issues, books, and movies that have shaped his generation. He writes about issues as disparate as the Ten Commandments, Vatican II, celibacy,
Humanae Vitae, eugenics, and the “string theory” of the structure of the universe. The recurring theme, he explains, is the necessity of “. . . connecting the Gospel to daily life, and anchoring daily life in the Gospel.”
Although he protests that “I am not a negative person,” the archbishop allows that he is “constantly surprised by how un-Christian our culture has become.” He offers a few specific examples:
I am astonished at how people, in the name of religious liberty, fight against religion. I am amazed at how Catholics who really want to be Catholic are willing to let their religion be a private matter because they don’t want to be in conflict with the broader culture, whether it be at work or in politics or wherever.
There is a peculiarly American dimension to the problem, the archbishop observes:
We Americans all want to be like everyone else. We want to see every idea as equal, and everyone has the right to tolerance of his own opinion, and all of that can militate against confidence in our own beliefs and our ability to be missionaries and to spread that to others. We are afraid that if we spread the good news of Jesus Christ, we are somehow being intolerant of those who aren’t Christians, whereas the missionary activity of the Church has always been seen by the Church as a gesture of love toward others who don’t believe rather than a gesture of intolerance.
Faith comes first
Despite the hostility toward Christianity which has taken over the mainstream of American culture during his lifetime, Archbishop Chaput is adamant that Catholics must neither despair nor withdraw from the world. “The more society turns against the Gospel, the more important the Church becomes,” he says. In adverse times, he observes, the Church “is a place where we are supported in our faith, given the strength to go back into the world to try to preach and teach—to try to change things for the better.”
At the same time, while Christians strive to change the culture, the archbishop cautions that they should not make the culture their top priority; loyalty to the faiths comes first:
When you look at the history of the Church, sometimes the Church has been a catalyst for the conversion of the culture. Sometimes the Church has just been a community that keeps people safe in faith from an alien and oppressive culture. I don’t think we have any assurance from the Scriptures that we are going to save our culture. We do have assurance from the Scriptures that the Lord is going to save us despite our culture.
This leads us back to St. Francis.
Christians should be radical in their embrace of the Gospel. That’s what made Francis different from the other reformers of his time. Many other reformers lived and worked during the lifetime of St. Francis, with many different agendas for solving the problems of the Church and the world. Some had as much talent as Francis and some were more radical. Yet what set Francis apart was his relationship with the Church. He knew instinctively that we’d be much more faithful to our vocation as Christians if we were much more faithful to the Church.
Molly Mulqueen is a free-lance writer based in Colorado.
Confronting the Culture: A Test Case
In May, Archbishop Chaput ordered a Denver archdiocesan agency to revoke its invitation to a member of the US House of Representatives, Diana DeGette, to speak at an awards dinner, because of her pro-abortion voting record.
DeGette had been invited to speak at the dinner sponsored by the Denver Archdiocesan Housing Committee. The group’s fundraising chairman, Denise Ludwig, wrote to DeGette on May 2: “I deeply regret this request to ask that you not attend our Housing Awards Dinner.” Ludwig added that the archdiocese had been “inundated” by “highly controversial and threatening phone calls and the archbishop has even received negative emails.”
DeGette sent a harshly worded letter in reply, with a copy to Archbishop Chaput. She said she had been “surprised at being invited to speak because of the Catholic Church’s apparent litmus test regarding elected officials’ views on a woman’s right to choose.” But she said that she thought the invitation might be an “olive branch” from the archdiocese and that she “was delighted to accept.” However, she wrote, “the fringe politics of abortion have apparently won out.”
Archbishop Chaput replied to DeGette on May 4, praising her commitment to peace and justice, then adding: “I’ve always been puzzled by political leaders who exclude unborn children from the protection of the justice they publicly claim to champion.”
He added, “I invite you to turn away from the fringe politics (of the abortion issue) by bringing your own politics more consistently in line with real service to the sanctity of human life.” He also rejected her accusation that the Church employs a “litmus test since your own [Democratic] party enforces a pro-choice litmus test on its potential candidates far more roughly and with far less moral legitimacy.”
DeGette later told the Denver Post that the withdrawal of the invitation was “rude” and the archbishop’s letter “confrontational and combative.”
—CWR Staff