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ATC 6 On Change

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Cardinal John Henry Newman wrote, “To live is to change, and to change often is to become more perfect.”

Welcome to another edition of All Things Catholic. I’m your host, Deacon Rudy Villarreal and I’m so happy you’re here! Together we are going to explore what it means to be Catholic. Today we are going to discuss a question raised by a friend in Switzerland – how the Church addresses change. This question is a great one to discuss in the light of Pope Francis’ post-synodal exhortation on the Amazon, “Querida Amazonia.”

We’ll discuss Querida Amazonia in a future episode, but the point is that the Church seemed on the verge of a large number of changes and that begs the question, how does the Church approach change? Well, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus pointed out, change is the only constant in life. Change is a reality that must be faced. To avoid change can have all sorts of unintended consequences – some more dire than others to be sure.

All of creation is in a constant form of change. It is no different for humans or our institutions. The Church is an interesting phenomenon. There is the eternal form of the Church and the earthly interpretation of the Church. As C.S. Lewis described in the Screwtape Letters, number two, Screwtape tells Wormwood, “I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners.” That’s an apt description for the eternal form of the Church. But the human form of the Church, try as it might, is still very far from perfect. So how does the Church make adjustments?

Now, this is an important question because there are many Anglican clergy and laity who joined the Catholic Church in part because the tenants of the Anglican church changed quickly and perhaps too much. So, the mere discussion of change can be a little disconcerting to some, and understandably so.

There have been so many changes in the life the Church that it would be impossible to even try to list them all in this podcast. But perhaps one of the earliest examples of change concerned the questions raised over Paul’s missionary work and the Council of Jerusalem that we find in Act 15. The question was over the admission of Gentiles. Ultimately the Council agreed with Paul but made a few clarifications that would bind future missionary activity to the Gentiles.

As we walk through history, we will continue to see changes in the life of the Church throughout history right up to the present. There are many different ways change happens. Generally, I would say that change in the Church is slow and methodical, but that is not always the case. For example, the Church can change by Papal decree. One example of this is how Joseph was added to the canon in the mass. During the first session of the Second Vatican Council, the elderly and frail Bishop Petar Cule of Yugoslavia gave a long speech for the inclusion of Joseph. The presider, Cardinal Ruffini, cutoff Bishop Cule and moved on to the next speaker. Pope John XXIII, who was watching on close circuit television, on his own authority and without waiting for a recommendation from the bishops ordered Joseph’s name to be immediately added to the canon.

Other times, changes by papal decree are made after an exhaustive and deliberative process including consultations with bishops and theologians. The development of the Catechism and Canon Law are other examples of this process.

There are advisory committees at the Vatican which study various topics and issue reports from time to time. Popes are not required to act on these reports, but the reports can become part of the data used to advance a change over the course of time. Take for example the idea of ordaining women to the diaconate. The International Theological Commission of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has studied this question three times: from 1972-1974 for Paul VI, from 1992-1997 for John Paul II, and from 1997-2002 for both John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Three studies, three popes, but no outcomes. Pope Francis appointed a separate panel of scholars in 2016 to study the question again, and despite recent newspaper articles, I think the jury is still out on that one.

There are synods, special gatherings of bishops along with other clergy, consecrated religious, scholars and the laity to take up a specific set of questions, themes or handle specific disciplinary issues. Often synods are more local, but they can be requested by a Pope. The work of a synod is advisory.

Then there are ecumenical councils. These are gatherings of the world’s bishops generally at the request of a pope to take up questions of Church doctrine or discipline. The work of a council is legally binding on the Church. There have been approximately 21 ecumenical councils from the Council of Jerusalem that we find in Acts 15 that occurred within years of Jesus’ resurrection to the Second Vatican Council. Just over three hundred years mark the time between the Council of Trent (1545-4563) to the First Vatican Council (1870). It takes almost one hundred years before the Second Vatican Council to be called (1962-1965). So, the calling of a council is an extraordinary event, at least in the life of the Church over the last 500 years.

While there certainly are examples of big changes in the life of the Church, most changes are incremental usually occurring over time. Going back to the example of women deacons, while there has been a lot of study and discussion on the topic, some might argue that nothing has changed. But that’s not true. In 2009, Benedict made a small change to canon law to further distinguish deacons from priests. The change clarified that deacons do not act in the person of Christ the Head. Deacons who are empowered to serve the People of God in the ministries of liturgy, the word and charity, act in the person of Christ the servant. On one hand, this sounds like insignificant word play. But it has been suggested that this subtle change in canon law actually did two important things. It placed a codified limit on the priesthood to men and it opened the door to the possibility of women deacons.

I would suggest that this is a sign of an incremental change that may take centuries before it bears fruit. Actually, the entire diaconate is an example of incremental change. For reasons unknown, the diaconate as a separate order dies out sometime during the Middle Ages. It is revived in 1967 (more or less 500 years later) by Paul VI at the recommendation of the Second Vatican Council, but it was limited to men. The question of women deacons has continued to be studied off and on for almost fifty years. While this is disheartening for some, I think it is an example of change in the Church. I think we can describe change in the Church as a deliberative, if not slow, process.

Why?

I think that the Church tries very hard to be an authentic representation of the Christ’s church on earth. That means the Church is sensitive to not get swept away by fads, popularity and emotion. The Church is not in a popularity contest. The Church is about saving souls – period.

I think the Church is also sensitive to moving at pace that is comfortable for the majority. The Church takes seriously the threat of schisms and tries hard to keep the community of the faithful together. If I may use a hiking analogy, the Church tries not to move faster than the slowest person in the group.

Look, change happens. But when change happens in the Church, don’t assume that it is a knee-jerk reaction to anything. Try to remember that a lot of prayer, research, and time went into any change we experience in the Church.

Do you got it? Do you get it? Good! Now go make disciples! May Almighty God bless you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit! +Amen!

I’m Deacon Rudy Villarreal and next time on All Things Catholic, I think we’ll take up the question of the Amazon Synod and the Pope’s exhortation, “Querida Amazonia”.

You’re listening to All Things Catholic.

This episode was produced by deacon rudy’s notes. Our theme music was composed by Silent Partner. You can find all sorts of helpful information on the website at www.deaconrudysnotes.org. I’m your host, Deacon Rudy Villarreal. Join us again next time and don’t forget to watch for the weekend edition where we break open the Word. Peace!

References:

  1. McGonigle, Tomas D. and James F. Quigley. A History of the Christian Tradition: From the Reformation to the Present. New York: Paulist Press, 1996.
  2. The Bible: A Study Bible freshly translated by Nicholas King. Buxhall, Suffolk UK: Kevin Mayhew, 2013.
  3. Zagano, Phyllis. “What’s the problem with women deacons?” U.S. Catholic, 26 February 2018, http://www.uscatholic.org/womendeacons, (accessed 3 March 2020).
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ATC 1 On What Authority

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On this Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of the Unborn, I’d like to welcome you to this inaugural edition of All Things Catholic. I’m your host, Deacon Rudy Villarreal and together we are going to explore what it means to be Catholic. At the bottom of the notes I will include the references I use to build these reflections including the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Now, without going into too much detail, let me quickly explain what the Catechism is. To put it simply, it’s a collection of the Church’s teaching about God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Look, there are over 1 billion Catholics around the world. Having a document that summarizes our understanding of God and His saving action throughout history is simply a way of assuring consistency in the way we preach and teach. I don’t think that’s unreasonable, so, my reflections will include references to the Catechism and link that you can click and read it for yourself online. If you look at the footnotes in the Catechism, you will find references to Scripture and to the writings of the Church Fathers like Augustine, among others, and to works by other Christians or Church councils throughout time.

To kick things off in our first program, I think we should discuss why I believe I have any authority to share these reflections or why the Church for that matter has any authority at all. I think once we establish this foundation, it will be easier to have conversations in the future about other topics.

So, where do we begin? Well, we’re not going to begin with any org charts, organigrams or hierarchy matrixes – no, nothing like that. The Church’s teaching on authority begins with God’s great love for humanity. That love story begins with one of the most familiar stories in the western world: the story of Adam and Eve found in the third chapter of Genesis.

The first really important point that we learn in Genesis which is the foundation of so much of Christian thought is that God made us in God’s own image and likeness and when God looked at us He saw that we were good, (Genesis 1:26-27, 31).

Now enters the serpent who claims that if the first humans eat the fruit of the forbidden tree they will become like God. Is the first temptation disobedience? No! That idea trivializes the story.

The first real temptation is not to believe what we learned in the first chapter of Genesis. We heard that God created us in His image and likeness and that His creation is good. Two chapters later, the serpent is telling us, “You’re not like God! You’re a mess! You’re filthy! You’re not good enough! Don’t believe that God made you like Him.”

So, the first temptation is not to believe in the goodness of being human. The first temptation is despair. This is really one of the most profound and wisest insights in the Hebrew and Christian traditions: the recognition that evil enters the world through despair, which is the refusal to accept the goodness, the rightness, the blessedness of being. Evil is the denial of the goodness of being a finite human. It’s the refusal to believe that we are like God, (Himes).

What’s the result of the sin of Adam and Eve? Separation from God. In chapter 4, we find the story of Cain and Abel and what’s the result of that sin? You can’t even trust your own brother, (Genesis 4:1-16). Human beings now become separated from one another. Fast forward to chapter 11 and we find the story of the tower of Babel. What is the result of the sin of Babel? Human beings find themselves in isolated communities that talk past each other symbolized by their inability to speak to one another anymore, (Genesis 11:1-9). In a word, it’s chaos.

As the theologian Michael Himes observes, “As sin grows in the world we constantly become more alone, more alienated, more separated from God and from one another in ever more separated communities,” (Himes).

But, here’s the good news. God did not abandon us. He worked through the Chosen people, to gather them together, but they wouldn’t listen. So, God sends prophet after prophet, sign after sign, but the people would not listen. You see, we believe the gathering of the Church began at the moment when sin destroyed our communion with God. “The gathering of the peoples, the gathering of the Church is God’s reaction to the chaos provoked by sin,” (CCC, 761).

So, God sends His only Son into the world. Indeed, the Church teaches that Jesus’ task is to accomplish the Father’s plan of salvation in the fullness of time – to usher in the Kingdom of heaven on earth. The Church is the Reign of Christ already present in mystery, (CCC, 763). We believe that Christ is the light of humanity and that there is no other light in the Church that the light of Christ (CCC, 748-749).

But the Church on earth is not perfect. The Church believes that here below, she is on pilgrimage amidst this world’s persecutions and God’s consolations, (CCC, 769). The Catechism quotes Sacrosanctum Concilium, which is a document that comes to us from the Second Vatican Council and is based on Hebrews 13:14: The Church is essentially both human and divine, visible but endowed with invisible realities, zealous in action and dedicated to contemplation, present in the world, but as a pilgrim, so constituted that in her the human is directed toward and subordinated to the divine, the visible to the invisible, action to contemplation, and this present world to that city yet to come, the object of our quest, (CCC, 771, SC 2; cf. Heb. 13:14).

So often in Scripture, the Church is described as the bride of Christ. How does Christ sustain and prepare His bride? First, Christ is the Lord in whom the entire Revelation of God is summed up. Christ commanded his apostles to preach the Gospel and to communicate the gifts of God to all people. The Gospel was to be the source of all saving truth and moral discipline. Would you be surprised if I told that this idea, based on Matthew 28:16-20, comes from the Catechism, 75?

God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, and that is of Christ Jesus – period, (CCC, 74).

Now, how did all this work? How were the apostles and the fist disciples (let’s not forget there were many disciples like the 72 that Jesus sent out; see Luke 10:1-23). How did they share the Good News?

What I mean by that is that the New Testament didn’t exist yet. Scholars believe, and by “scholars” I mean Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical, etc., scholars give us some idea of when the New Testament was written, but we don’t know for sure when the books of the New Testament were committed to paper. So, the dates we’re about to discuss are just an estimate.

Let’s assume that Jesus died in year 33. The earliest writings are the New Testament letters and that makes sense because they were letters from a specific person to a specific person. Scholars believe that the earliest letters or epistles were written no earlier than the 50s. Ok, let’s stop there for a minute. If you’re going to write a letter strongly advocating something – anything, that means that you already have a firm grasp of the material and that you are confident that you can correctly and authentically represent it. So, if the first letters weren’t written until the 50s (about 20-something years after Jesus died), and there were no written Gospels yet, how would you have such a firm grasp of the Truth?

Well, we believe that the apostles and disciples handed on the Good News by their preaching, teaching and their example. In other words, we believe that because the people of this time had a strong oral tradition, the apostles and first disciples handed on the Good News orally.

Okay, so the letters begin to be written around the early 50s and beyond, when were the Gospels written? The general consensus is that Mark was written around 64 or 66, in other words either just before or just after Peter’s death.

Matthew comes to us in the middle of the first century, but after Mark.

Luke and Acts probably come around the 60s because Acts doesn’t mention the death of Paul and we believe Paul died around 64 or 67.

John comes to us between 90-110. Jesus, we agreed earlier, died in 33. John comes to us almost 60+ years after Jesus’ death.

We believe, then, that the apostles and the first disciples kept the Lord’s command to preach the Good News and to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, both orally and in writing, (CCC, 76). This – the oral Tradition and Sacred Scripture – are the foundation of our faith. Tradition doesn’t mean, “this is how we’ve always done it.” No! For us, Tradition and Scripture are connected to the apostles themselves. In fact, we describe Tradition as the living transmission accomplished in the Holy Spirit, (CCC, 78).

We find in Paul’s letters, for example, that problems develop when people interpret what they have received on their own or in ways that might benefit one group over another. So, Paul sends letters very often to correct erroneous thinking and to bring people back on the right path. This act demonstrates Paul’s authority.

We find a similar example in the Acts of the Apostles Chapter 8:27-31.

An Ethiopian man, a eunuch, a man of influence with Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians (he was in charge of her entire treasury), who had come with the intention of worshipping in Jerusalem, was now returning. He was seated in his chariot and reading the prophet Isaiah. The Spirit told Philip, ‘Approach and hang on to the chariot.’ Philip ran up, and heard him reciting Isaiah the prophet and said, ‘Do you know what you are reading?’ He said, ‘But how can I, unless someone guide me?’ He invited Philip to get up and sit with him.

These two examples lead us to the final piece of the Catechism’s teaching on the authority in the Catholic Church. The Church believes that that task of interpreting the Word of God is entrusted to the living, teaching office of the Church alone whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. The task of interpretation was entrusted to Peter and his successors, (CCC, 85). Hang with me just for a minute.

The New Testament supports this idea. We call it apostolic succession. Peter announced that the “office” left empty by Judas need to be filled, (Acts 1:20-21). Paul, who is an apostle by the hand of Jesus Himself, submits to the will of the disciples at Jerusalem and goes to Tarsus for time – maybe as long as three years – before he is allowed to go on his first mission, (Acts 9:19-30). Acts also describes the role of Council of Jerusalem in resolving the circumcision controversy (Acts 15). Paul directs Titus to appoint “elders” in every town (Titus 1:5). So, the idea of apostolic succession and the idea of hierarchy come to us not from some modern org chart, but from Scripture itself!

Indeed, the Church believes she is the servant to the Word of God, not superior to it. And as the servant to the Word, the Church believes as Jesus taught, “The one who listens to you people, listens to me,” (Luke 10:16).

So, as we come to the end of our first program, we learn that the Church’s authority comes from Christ Jesus handed down from the apostles in the examples given to us by Scripture itself. The Church, thus, has the authority to preach and to teach the Good News, and the Church has the authority, following the examples of Peter and Paul that we read about in Acts, to appoint ministers to go out into the world. So my authority is twofold: first, as a deacon ordained by the Church to minister to the word, and at the table of the Lord and in charity; and second, from my baptismal, just like your baptismal call to be priest, prophet and king first and foremost to my family, but as a disciple of Christ Jesus, also to all those I encounter.

Do you got it? Do you get it? Good! Now go make disciples!

One quick announcement: if there are topics you’d like me to discuss in upcoming programs, please send them to me via the comment form on the website, www.deaconrudysnotes.org, or by sending an email to rudy @ deaconrudysnotes.org. If I don’t receive something, then I will rotate between exploring the Catechism and discussing current events in the light of the Church’s teaching.

I have not received anything for next week, so please send me your comments, suggestions and questions!

Pray with me, won’t you?

God our Creator, we give thanks to you, who alone have the power to impart the breath of life as you form each of us in our mother’s womb; grant, we pray, that we, whom you have made stewards of creation, may remain faithful to this sacred trust and constant in safeguarding the dignity of every human life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. (Taken from the Collect for January 22, USA). +Amen!

The Lord be with you!

May Almighty God bless you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit! +Amen!

You’re listening to All Things Catholic. Our theme music was composed by Silent Partner. You can find all sorts of helpful information on the website at www.deaconrudysnotes.org. I’m Deacon Rudy Villarreal. Until next time, peace!
References:

  1. Himes, Michael. The Mystery of Faith: An Introduction to Catholicism. Cincinnati, Ohio: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2004.
  2. Sacrosanctum Concilium, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html.
  3. The Bible: A Study Bible freshly translated by Nicholas King.

Catechism Links: Easily search the Catechism at http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

  1. 74
  2. 76
  3. 78
  4. 85
  5. 748-749
  6. 761
  7. 763
  8. 769
  9. 771

For further reading:

  1. Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.
  2. Gadenz, Pablo T. The Gospel of Luke. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2018.
  3. Healy, Mary. The Gospel of Mark. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2008.
  4. Kurz, William S. SJ. Acts of the Apostles. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2013.
  5. Martin, Francis and William M. Wright IV. The Gospel of John. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2015.
  6. Mitch, Curtis, and Edward Sri. The Gospel Of Matthew. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2014.
  7. Powell, Mark Allan. Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2009