-255x255.jpg)
“The New Evangelization” is a term coined by Pope John Paul II the Great to describe the current need for the evangelization and re-evangelization of countries and areas of the world that are historically Christian, but for various reasons are no longer so, or are Christian in name only. Pope Benedict XVI has taken up this clarion call with regard to Europe in particular, as he witnesses Europe’s attempts to deny even the factuality of its Christian roots. Pope Benedict even instituted the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization last year.
The “re-evangelization” of countries is not new. There are precedents wherein a country/people received the kerygma (the initial proclamation of the Gospel) from early missionaries, but the local Church was left without pastors, lacked a systematic structural development, reverted back to native religions, fell into heresy, fell away, converted to other religions due to invasions, etc. The parable of the Sower and the Seeds is very applicable here. India claims to have received its kerygma from the Apostle Thomas himself. England received the Faith early on but was in need of re-evangelization soon after. The Potawatomi Indians in Michigan were baptized by a missionary priest and taught the Our Father in Latin, but did not see another priest for many years. Their recitation of the Our Father was proof of their baptism to subsequent missionaries.
What does John Paul II’s theology of the body have to do with his New Evangelization? Everything. Although he did not connect the dots himself — most likely out of modesty — the correlation is vital, at least for Western civilization. How so? There is no evangelization without the evangelization of culture. Individuals belong to cultures, and the Gospel must not only transform the individual but the culture through “inculturation.” Why the need to evangelize cultures? “Culture” is everything that makes us human: art, work, recreation, leisure, athletics, family life, rites of passage, social networks, politics, food, dance, literature, drama, rituals and, above all, worship. For the Gospel to “stick” and be effective, it must permeate all these areas.
Today, “pop culture” is the dominant culture. Some would call it “American culture” or “media culture.” Some disdain pop culture as “low culture” versus the “high culture” of classical music, the “great books,” etc., but the fact is: The pop culture has all the earmarks of a bona fide culture. And it’s the only culture many young and not-so-young people claim allegiance to. As John Paul also said: “Man is the way of the Church.” We do not have the luxury to hang back, stand aloof from the roads that the masses travel on. We must duc in altum
<?i>, “put out into the deep,” put out into the wild and wooly watering holes of the pop culture if we are to bring and be Christ, the Way, Truth and Life, to souls.
As Vatican II taught us, there are “seeds of the Gospel” present in every culture. There is a need to “baptize” what is already good in a culture and “purify” what is not. What are the “seeds of the Gospel” present in today’s Western, so-called “post-Christian,” culture and pop culture? A fascination, obsession and unswerving commitment to the body, the sensuous, the material, the beautiful, what can be seen, felt and experienced. And John Paul II said: Fine. We can start there. This was the genius in his theology of the body. Instead of starting with the spiritual, the soul, the mind, consciousness, i.e., what cannot be seen, he said: Let’s start with what we can see. The physical. The body. As John Paul’s biographer, George Weigel, notes, the theology of the body has and will continue to turn the entire theological and philosophical world (secular and religious) upside down (or right-side up!) by giving it a new starting point. A universally verifiable starting point. And this starting point cannot be divorced from God, because it is creation and creation is a doctrine and now we are squarely in the lap of God.
But didn’t we always start our catechesis with creation? “God made the world”? Yes. However, we Western Catholics are card-carrying members of our particular Western culture, which is Cartesian, that is, which espouses and lives out a mind-body split at its very core. (See Waldstein’s introduction to the new edition of the theology of the body, Male and Female He Created Them.) This flawed philosophical underpinning undermines and overrides whatever we are taught by the Bible and the Church and guides our everyday choices.
The fact of that matter is: We do not have bodies, we are bodies. We are embodied spirits and spiritualized bodies. The definition of the human person is body and soul, together forever.
Is theology of the body something new or something old, then? It’s both. It’s a new synthesis of eternal truths. John Paul II, a master catechist, has arranged the deposit of the faith in such a way that it is immediately accessible to all, because he starts where we all live: our bodies, love, relationships. Jeff Cavins says that what we learn about our faith through the years often amounts to a “pile of Catholicism” that might even seem like a bunch of true but unrelated facts. John Paul II has taken the jigsaw puzzle box of the Catholic faith and assembled the pieces together so that we can see the beautiful complete picture and plan of God for the human body, the human person, centered around creation/Incarnation/new creation. Now we can see how everything is interconnected: how the Eucharist connects to marriage, how the magisterium connects to the Church’s social teaching, how the liturgical year connects to our cycles of fertility, etc. As Father Thomas Loya says, “The theology of the body is the delivery system for the sum total of the Church’s wisdom.”
Perhaps we could even say that the theology of the body is the New Evangelization.
Sister Helena Burns, a sister with the Daughters of St. Paul, gives workshops to teens and adults on theology of the body, media literacy and philosophy.
Tomorrow: Stratford Caldecott and David Schindler discuss how Pope John Paul’s catechesis seeks to recover “the language of the body.”
Matthew Warner: Why the world doesn't take Catholicism seriously
Benjamin Wiker: Benedict XVI: Doctor of the Church
Comments
Post a Comment
Another wonderful commentary on Theology of the Body bringing out more aspects of this beautiful teaching and some of the areas of conflict.
Sister touched on two things that I think are quite relevant in this ongoing debate. One is that TOB uses a different philosophical method than we are accustomed to by looking at what is around us to help us to see God. That includes our Western culture, music, celebrities, etc. This has seemed to cause much concern among certain groups within the Church but it is exactly what the Pope has called for. Maybe some of the methods need a little tweaking but at least a few are out there trying to engage and draw in the culture at large.
Another is our inner Cartesian worldview. This is deep within us and takes a lot of prayer and study to overcome. First one has to accept that we are not thinking with the Church in this area but have been deeply influenced by our culture. That is difficult when one has been trying to be a faithful Catholic.
Lots to think about in these wonderful essays on TOB. Thank you.
Another thought as I re-read this piece. I was struck in the same way when I first began studying TOB. All of the individual doctrines that I knew in isolation all of a sudden began to fit together and I could begin to see the full, beautiful picture of the faith. It was a profound moment for me. It would seem that TOB could be used very fruitfully to teach the faith in general since it covers many of our core doctrines:
creation, original sin, redemption, sacraments, etc.
The problem, as I see it, is there are too few people in the Vatican that are good and credible role models. Although there are primarily MALES in the Vatican, how many REAL MEN are there? Do they dress like MEN? Do they think and act like MEN? Are they courageous, able to protect women and children, like MEN?
Just look at the government in Italy. Most call themselves “Catholic”, but their morals are what Christians know is an offense to God. With so few MEN in the Vatican, what can we expect from society, ours included? Good morals does not come from commanding it of others. It does not materialize in a vacuum.
Good morals that affects a whole society comes from large groups of Christians developing relationships with other people, and one by one, modeling what SHOULD BE in terms of healthy living, thereby causing God-honoring behavior to be attractive to the general populace. It is bringing Jesus and the Gospel to them, in a common way, and in a way where people can see it lived out, and successfully.
Today is St. Patrick’s Day. He affected a whole culture. By the way, St. Patrick is the son of a Roman Catholic deacon, Calpurnius, and the grandson of Potitus, a Roman Catholic priest. It is obvious that St. Patrick had good role models in his life, particularly the males, that resulted in his being a good man. The women in his life would be supportive too, in the manner of Ephesians Chapter 5.
Good, very good.
I recommend to begin with the following to have a great appreciation of this wonderful article on ” a synthesis of Eternal Truths”
Objective criteria of human kind and the world
1. The nature of man, the elevation of man to the supernatural order, man’s lapse from the supernatural order these objectives can be located from this source ( fundamentals catholic dogmas page 95-114)
2. Another objective criteria is to begin with the council of Constantinople (543) through 1998 with the address to the pontifical academy of science made by Pope John Paul II ( reference from this wonderful book call ” the Christian faith- Doctrinal documents of the catholic church)
3 catechism of the catholic church #279-284
4 encyclicals : there are several which you will find from the above reference I mentioned ( Doctrinal Documents of the catholic church ) I will mention one , Pope Pius IX syllabus of condemned errors (1864)
In reference to sexuality ( theology of the Body) the objective criteria
1 starting point from doctrinal documents should be as the church recommends Pope Innocent XI ” Errors of lazier morality condemned by the Holy Office (1679)
2 Encyclical letter by Pope Innocent XI ” Letter Casti ConnubII ( 1930)
3 scriptural exposition of the nature of the body
a. Unity of the body ( scriptural passage 1 Cor 12:14-26) please read a new catholic commentary on this scriptural passage for appropriate interpretation
4 Saint Thomas Aquinas : first part of the second part. It is the section on habits questions 59-60 in relation to the moral virtues in relation to the passions and to one another there are 5 articles per question
Finally these precedent documents pave a wonderful way for the “Theology of the Body” and for this article on ” A Synthesis of Eternal Truths”
God Bless!
I find this article very interesting, with some points really “delicious”, able to promote a deeper reflection in the theology of the body. I should make, however, an accuracy about one idea: I’m not a body or my body, but I have a body; I’m not a soul or my soul, but I have a soul; I’m not an embodied spirit nor spiritualize body, but I’m a Human Person, and as a human person I’ve these two essentials elements: body and soul, strongly vinculated, deeply united, both togheter as only one thing. I cannot identify myself with my body or my soul, but I cannot refuse my body or my soul because in this way I could destroy myself as a human person. Jesus Christ saved me as a human person, and to do that, took flesh, that means, a body and a soul, togheter; offering both on the Holy Cross, purified my soul and my body, both togheter, beacause He wanted to purify and save me, not only my soul and not only my body but me myself as a human person.
Post a Comment
By submitting this form, you give The National Catholic Register permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.