A hipocrisia dos Benetton

Andrea Tornelli

In La Stampa

Como já é sabido, ontem (16/11) rebentou a polémica sobre a nova campanha publicitária, que pretendeu reviver os dias de glória das campanhas de Oliviero Toscani. Assim, de repente, na ponte do Castelo de Sant'Angelo [perto do Vaticano], afixaram uma gigante foto-montagem onde aparece Bento XVI e o imã de Al Ahzar, Ahmed al-Tayyeb, que
se beijam na boca.

A descabida campanha publicitária, que apenas pretende provocar, prevê outros beijos (entre Obama e o presidente chinês, entre Merkel e Sarkozy) e está inspirada na foto famosa do beijo entre Leonid Brejnev, então presidente da URSS e Erich Honecker, presidente da Alemanha Oriental. O autor da fotomontagem, entre outras coisas, quis tornar o beijo entre os dois líderes religiosos mais «passional» que o beijo dos líderes políticos.

A apresentação da nova campanha Benetton realizou-se em Paris, cidade onde Gilberto Benetton recebeu a Legião de Honra, a máxima condecoração honorífica do Estado francês, directamente das mãos do presidente Sarkozy, durante uma cerimóina no Eliseu.

«O objectivo da campanha é combater a cultura do ódio, promovendo a proximidade entre povos, crenças, culturas e compreensão pacífica das razões dos outros, explicou Alessandro Benetton, vice-presidente executivo da Benetton Group.

Os ódios nunca irão cessar por força do ódio, hão-de cessar graças ao não-ódio». Esta campanha, concluiu Benetton, «gera um estado de espírito de reconciliação, mas não é uma campanha suave: o amor seria irrealista, mas o não-ódio é, pelo contrário, uma coisa que podemos fazer».

Como era de esperar, o uso e o abuso da imagem do Papa e do imã egípcio afixada a poucos passos da Praça de S. Pedro provocaram indignação e a justa resposta da Santa Sé.

O P. Federico Lombardi, porta-voz do Vaticano, expressou «um protesto firme pelo uso totalmente inaceitável da imagem do Papa, manipulada e instrumentalizada no contexto de uma campanha publicitária com fins comercias».

«Trata-se - acrescentou - de uma grave falta de respeito para com o Papa, de uma ofensa aos sentimentos dos fiéis, de uma demonstração evidente de como no âmbito da publicidade se podem violar as regras elementares do respeito pelas pessoas com o fim de atrair atenções».

O aspecto mais surreal e nalguns pontos ridículo destes tristes acontecimentos está representado pela (falsíssima) resposta do grupo Benetton, que à reacção vaticana respondeu:

«Repetimos que o sentido desta campanha é exclusivamente combater a cultura do ódio em todas as suas formas. Estamos, portanto, tristes por saber que o uso da imagem do Papa e do imã tenha de alguma maneira ferido a sensibilidade dos fiéis. Como confirmação dos nossos sentimentos, decidimos, com efeito imediato, retirar esta imagem de todos os lugares onde foi publicitada».

Coitadinhos, ficaram tristes.
Coitadinhos, não podiam imaginar.
Coitadinhos, não fizeram de propósito.
Coitadinhos, tão empenhados em promover a sua camisola colorida que nem se lembraram de quem é o Papa.
Coitadinhos, não imaginaram que para um fiel católico, como para um fiel muçulmano, e até simplesmente para uma pessoa
de bom senso, aquela fotomontagem teria de ofender, ferir, indignar.
Coitadinhos, os Benetton não chegaram lá.

Eles não queriam provocar, nãããããããããão... Nunca!
Eles só queriam dizer que não querem o ódio.
Por isso, «com efeito imediato», assim que conseguiram a visibilidade mundial que procuravam, retiraram - oh a bondade deles,
que sensibilidade! - a foto do Papa Ratzinger e do imã do Cairo.
Isto é, sim, um exemplo de responsabilidade e de compreensão das razões do outro: será já um primeiro efeito positivo do novo governo Monti?

* * *

Espero vivamente que o Vaticano desta vez avance em iniciar um processo judicial contra o grupo Benetton, em vez de deixar passar. Eventualmente anunciando desde já o projecto social a que será destinado o valor da indemnização.

E aos irmãos Benetton, exemplo da Itália perspicaz, daquela Itália que trabalha não só para ganhar dinheiro, mas que quer ainda ajudar a todos a serem melhores, assim tão atentos à sensibilidade de cada qual, permito-me azer uma sugestão: vão pessoalmente - talvez com a Legião de Honra de monsieur Sarkozy cravada no peito - colar o mesmo mega cartaz diante
da sede de Al Azhar, no Cairo.

Então veremos se o prezado gesto surtirá o efeito esperado de combater a cultura do ódio.

«Unamuno era una persona muy religiosa. Sorprende que siga circulando el tópico de su ateísmo»

In Religión en Libertad

El próximo 31 de diciembre se cumplirá el 75º aniversario de la muerte de Miguel de Unamuno. Aquél día de 1936, recibió en su casa al profesor y falangista Bartolomé Aragón. Al final de la conversación, en la que tuvo un lugar destacado la guerra civil que unos meses antes había empezado, el visitante le dijo que a veces pensaba que Dios le había vuelto la espalda a España disponiendo de sus mejores hijos. Entonces Unamuno se inclinó hacia la mesa-camilla, dio un golpe sobre ella y dijo: «¡No! ¡Eso no puede ser, Aragón! Dios no puede volverle la espalda a España. España se salvará porque tiene que salvarse». Dicho lo cual murió.

En sus últimas palabras estuvieron presentes dos de las más grandes preocupaciones de su obra: Dios y España. Pero sin duda fue el problema religioso lo central en ella.

¿Pero quién era Unamuno? ¿Qué puede aportarnos su pensamiento religioso? Lo cierto es que, pese a que suele ocupar algún espacio en los estudios de literatura en la enseñanza secundaria, no es un autor conocido, su obra suele estar oscurecida por buen número de tópicos que en nada responden a la riqueza de su pensamiento.

Con el deseo de que nos dé alguna claridad, hemos entrevistado a Alfonso García Nuño, profesor de la Universidad San Dámaso y autor de un importante libro recientemente aparecido, El problema del sobrenatural en Miguel de Unamuno.

En el prólogo a esta obra, Ciriaco Morón Arroyo, profesor de Cornell University (U.S.A.) y uno de los máximos especialistas en el rector de Salamanca, dice de este libro: «El profesor García Nuño ha escrito la exposición más extensa y sistemática que yo conozco sobre el pensamiento de Unamuno. […] La obra más importante publicada hasta ahora sobre el pensador… ¿vasco?, ¿castellano?, ¿español? Creo sinceramente que de talla universal. […] Es un libro de pensamiento riguroso, con la estructura de una obra de arte, y con el entusiasmo de un maestro, que se contagia a sus lectores».

- ¿Era Unamuno creyente o era un ateo?
- Era una persona muy religiosa. A nada que haya leído uno un poco a Unamuno, se sorprende de que siga circulando el tópico de su ateísmo. Ciertamente sus creencias no eran del todo católicas, pero era profundamente cristiano, aunque siempre estuviera atormentado por las dudas.

- Entonces, ¿por qué sigue siendo corriente esa opinión sobre él?
- Hay quienes tienen interés en asociar a personas ilustres el ateísmo para darle mayor prestigio; sería interesante hacer un estudio de esto en los libros de enseñanza secundaria y bachillerato. Pero también influye una mentalidad muy española que identifica el ser religioso con ser católico.

- En el título de su libro se habla del problema del sobrenatural, ¿qué significa esto?
- Esta cuestión ha sido el centro de uno de los debates más intensos e interesantes de la teología durante el s. XX. Hoy en día ha perdido la centralidad que tuvo en pasadas décadas en las discusiones de los teólogos, pero sigue siendo un elemento central no solamente para poder comprender nuestro mundo tan secularizado y alejado de Dios, sino también para poder afrontar adecuadamente los retos de la evangelización.

- ¿Por qué?
- Para explicar esta cuestión me gusta hacer uso del salmo que dice: «Como desea la cierva las fuentes de agua así mi alma te desea a ti, Dios». ¿Está nuestro deseo de divinización tan arraigado como la necesidad de agua en un animal? Si no fuera así, si solamente fuera algo aditivo, entonces el hombre podría ser feliz solamente con lo natural, el cielo sería para él algo perfectamente prescindible, un elemento, si acaso, lujoso. Y el infierno sería un absurdo. Pero el caso es que Dios nos ha creado para la divinización.

- … pero Dios no es como el agua.
- Efectivamente, veo que vd. ha captado la paradoja y la dificultad. Nuestro «apetito de divinidad», como diría Unamuno, es el deseo de lo más necesario para el hombre, pero al mismo tiempo de lo inalcanzable para él, siendo para él imprescindible la contemplación divina, sin embargo es algo que con su capacidad natural le es inasequible. Lo más necesario es lo más imposible, esa sed solamente se puede saciar por gracia.

Si la divinización no fuera lo único que plenificara de verdad al hombre, entonces sería posible crear una sociedad al margen de Dios en la que tal vez hubiera un rincón para los que quisieran ese aditivo prescindible de felicidad. Y, desde el otro punto de vista, si ese deseo tuviera que ser saciado forzosamente por Dios o alcanzable con las fuerzas humanas, entonces a lo que se tendría que dedicar el hombre es a construir la torre de Babel, para exigírselo o conquistarlo.

- ¿Y este problema fue importante intelectualmente para Unamuno?
- No solamente fue importante, sino que creo que fue el problema central de su vida, en torno al cual gira su pensamiento. Se suele decir que lo fue la muerte o la inmortalidad. Pero esto es insuficiente, lo que le acuciaba no era simplemente el deseo de ser siempre, sino el de ser más, el de ser participe de la divinidad.

Aunque él no se considerara católico y algunas de sus afirmaciones no lo fueran, aunque sus páginas sean no pocas veces de difícil lectura, sin embargo ofrece muchas riquezas, no solamente para la filosofía o la teología, sino también para el creyente.

- ¿Por ejemplo?
- Su poesía, especialmente El Cristo de Velázquez. Parte de otro de sus poemas se reza como himno de la Hora Intermedia del domingo de la tercera semana de la Liturgia de las Horas.

Ante el próximo aniversario de su muerte, creo que podríamos recordar los cuatro versos que figuran en la lápida de su nicho en el cementerio de Salamanca.

Méteme, Padre eterno, en tu pecho,
misterioso hogar,
dormiré allí, pues vengo deshecho
del duro bregar.

Is Anything Really Right or Wrong? - by Peter Kreeft

La dittatura giacobina dei poteri “forti”. Ci sarà una nuova “Vandea”? - Roberto de Mattei

In Corrispondenza Romana

Le vicende italiane ed estere dell’anno che si conclude rendono sempre più evidente la presenza di “poteri forti”, come oggi si usa dire, che operano dietro le quinte della scena internazionale. Un tempo questi poteri venivano chiamati “forze occulte”. Oggi essi non hanno bisogno di nascondersi: mostrano il loro volto, e dialogano e interferiscono con le istituzioni politiche.

Uno dei principali centri di potere è la Banca Centrale Europea (BCE), con sede a Francoforte, un organismo di carattere privato, con propria personalità giuridica, incaricato dell’attuazione della politica monetaria per i diciassette paesi dell’Unione europea che aderiscono all’ “area dell’euro”. La BCE, ideata dal Trattato di Maastricht del 7 febbraio 1992 e istituita il 1º giugno 1998, ha assunto, di fatto, la guida della politica non solo monetaria, ma economica e sociale europea, espropriando progressivamente gli Stati nazionali della loro sovranità in questo campo.

In una lettera inviata al presidente del Consiglio italiano Silvio Berlusconi il 5 agosto 2011, Mario Draghi e Jean Louis Trichet, a nome del Consiglio direttivo della BCE, hanno dettato una precisa agenda al governo italiano. Essi non si sono limitati a suggerimenti e raccomandazioni di carattere generale, ma hanno fissato, punto per punto, la politica economica e sociale del nostro Paese, indicando come “misure essenziali”: 1) privatizzazioni su larga scala; 2) la riforma del sistema di contrattazione salariale; 3) la revisione delle norme che regolano l’assunzione e il licenziamento dei dipendenti; 4) la modifica del sistema pensionistico; 5) il taglio dei costi del pubblico impiego, fino alla riduzione degli stipendi dei dipendenti statali. Hanno infine chiesto che tali regole fossero prese per decreto legge, seguito da ratifica parlamentare, auspicando una riforma costituzionale che le rendesse più cogenti.

Si può pensare ciò che si vuole di queste misure economiche e sociali. E’ certo però che per la prima volta un gruppo di eurocrati, indipendenti dal potere politico, interviene in maniera così diretta e imperativa nella vita pubblica del nostro Paese. Che cosa accade se un governo nazionale resiste all’imposizione di questi dettami? Lo abbiamo visto proprio in Italia. La BCE è oggi l’unica istituzione europea che può esercitare una prerogativa tipica dello Stato sovrano, quale è l’emissione di moneta. La forza di una moneta dovrebbe corrispondere alla ricchezza di uno Stato. In realtà la Banca Centrale, non essendo uno Stato, emette moneta e stampa banconote senza produrre ricchezza. Essa però impone agli Stati nazionali, a cui è interdetto battere moneta, le regole per produrre la propria ricchezza. Se gli Stati in difficoltà si allineano, la Banca Centrale li aiuta comprando i loro titoli di Stato e diminuendone in questo modo l’indebitamento. Se essi non obbediscono alle indicazioni ricevute, la BCE cessa di sostenerli finanziariamente riducendo l’acquisto degli stessi titoli di Stato. Ciò comporta un aumento del cosiddetto “spread”, che è la differenza tra il rendimento dei titoli di Stato tedeschi (Bund), considerati i più affidabili, e quelli italiani (BTp), percepiti come “a rischio” dagli investitori. Se lo spread aumenta, lo Stato italiano è costretto a garantire ai propri titoli rendite più alte, aumentando così il suo deficit, a tutto vantaggio della speculazione dei potentati finanziari. E’ difficile che in una situazione di questo genere un governo regga. Né la Spagna, né la Grecia, né l’Italia hanno resistito a questa formidabile pressione. La BCE, in una parola, “pilota”, e qualche volta provoca, le crisi politiche degli Stati nazionali.

Naturalmente la BCE non agisce isolata, ma di concerto con altri attori: il Fondo Monetario Internazionale, le agenzie di rating, che valutano la solidità finanziaria di stati e governi nazionali, l’Eurogruppo, che riunisce i ministri dell’Economia e delle finanze degli Stati membri che hanno adottato l’Euro. Queste iniziative sono concordate in luoghi discreti, ma ormai a tutti noti, come gli incontri periodici del Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), della Commissione Trilaterale, del Gruppo Bilderberg. Sarebbe riduttivo immaginare che dietro queste manovre siano Stati nazionali come la Gran Bretagna, gli Stati Uniti, la Germania o la Francia. L’obiettivo non dichiarato della BCE è proprio la liquidazione degli Stati nazionali.

L’Unione europea, presentata come una necessità economica, è stata infatti una precisa scelta ideologica. Essa non prevede la nascita di un forte Stato europeo, ma piuttosto di un non-Stato policentrico e caotico, caratterizzato dalla moltiplicazione di centri di decisione con compiti complessi e contrastanti. Ci troviamo di fronte a trasferimenti di potere che avvengono non verso una sola istituzione ma verso una pluralità d’istituzioni internazionali, le cui competenze rimangono volontariamente oscure. Ciò che caratterizza questa situazione è la grande confusione di poteri e la loro conflittualità latente o manifesta: in una parola un’assenza di sovranità tale da esigere il costituirsi di una suprema Autorità mondiale. L’ex presidente della BCE Trichet in un discorso tenuto a New York il 26 aprile 2010, presso il CFR ha esplicitamente evocato la necessità e l’urgenza di un super governo mondiale, che fissi regole economiche e finanziarie per affrontare lugubri scenari di depressione economica.

Questa visione viene da lontano e vuole imporre all’umanità una “Repubblica universale” direttamente antitetica alla Civiltà cristiana nella quale si amalgamerebbero tutti i Paesi della terra, attuando cosi il sogno ugualitario di fondere tutte le razze, tutti i popoli e tutti gli Stati. Il romanzo profetico di Robert Hugh Benson Il Padrone del mondo (Fede e Cultura, Verona 2011, con prefazione di S.E. Mons. Luigi Negri) mostra come questa utopia tecnocratica possa sposarsi con l’utopia religiosa del sincretismo. In nome di questo superecumenismo tutto viene accettato fuorché la Chiesa cattolica di cui si programma l’eliminazione, dopo quella degli Stati nazionali.

L’eliminazione della sovranità nazionale comporta, come logica conseguenza, quella della rappresentanza politica. L’ultima parola è ai tecnocrati, che non rispondono alle istituzioni rappresentative, Parlamento e governi, ma a club, logge, gruppi di potere i cui interessi sono spesso in antitesi con quelli nazionali.

I tecnocrati aspirano a guidare governi di emergenza, con leggi di emergenza, che spianano la strada alla dittatura giacobina, come accadde nella Rivoluzione francese. Al giacobinismo si contrapposero però allora, in Francia e in Europa, con successi e insuccessi, le insorgenze contro-rivoluzionarie. Ci sarà oggi una nuova Vandea nel Vecchio continente devastato dagli eurocrati?

Roberto de Mattei

Germany: The strange case involving bishops - by Guido Horst

In Vatican Insider

Original article in German

Bit by bit, even in those circles closest to the Pope, and within the Secretariat of the Vatican State, thoughts and concerns have begun to run rampant: for some time, it has been common knowledge that the Augusta "Weltbild" company, 100% owned by German bishops, is the leading bookseller in Germany and, in terms of on-line sales, it ranks second on the German market, after Amazon. The turnover of the chain of the German bishops' bookshops is around 1.7 billion Euros. But the Pope's entourage is not rejoicing about this at all. Indeed, it knows full well that "Weltbild" has no Catholic aims or inspirations and that, being a colossus among collossi, it sells all that the big operators in the sector offer on-line, including esoteric material, Buddhist literature, even Satanism and eroticism. One can find more that 2000 literary articles, or in other words books on eroticism, and more than 4000 on esoteric subjects.

The members of the "Weltbild" board include representatives from twelve German Catholic dioceses and the “Verband der Diözesen Deutschlands” (VDD or the Association of German Dioceses). The latter is a consortium of all the German episcopates, established to oversee mutual matters of law and finance. Shareholders of the "Weltbild" company include the Dioceses of Trier, Aachen, Bamburg, Eichstätt, Fulda, Freiburg, Münster, Passau, Regensburg, Trier and Würzburg and the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. The largest shareholdings are in the hands of, amongst others, the Association of German Dioceses (24.2%), the Archbishopric of Munich and Freising (13.2%) and the Diocese of Trier (11.7%). However, all German bishops are in fact co-owners of "Weltbild", through their membership in the Association of German Dioceses.

Therefore, all German dioceses have actively been supporting the entrepreneurial model of "Weltbild" for thirty years now: a thirty year marriage between dioceses, money and power. With its "family business" in the mass media sector, the German Catholic Church has become a major player. To arrive at such a level, millions and millions of offerings and money transfers by the church have gone up in smoke. As far as the German bishops are concerned, "Weltbild" represents a kind of bank; over the years, they have invested nearly 182 million Euros in church dues.

"Weltbild", however, does not limit itself to selling erotic books, it also has shareholdings in many publishing houses which produce erotic and pornographic litterature. In 1998 for example, "Weltbild" amalgamated seven of its own publishing houses with five of the "Georg von Holtzbrinck" group into the "Droemer&Knaur" corporation with registered offices in Munich. "Droemer&Knaur" is a publishing house that is in tune with the times. It aims its offer at "mainstream" purchasers, constantly churning out erotic and pornographis books. German bishops currently hold 50% of "Droemer&Knaur", which means that they are no longer just peddlers of erotic and pornographic material (through "Weltbild"), they are now also producers.

But that is not all; other equally questionable shareholdings come into play. "Weltbild" also owns a third of the "Buecher.de" internet portal which publicizes books such as "Graf Porno" (Count Porn) and "Porno für Paare” (Porn for couples). When the German magazine "Buchreport" and the Austrian on-line press service "kath.net" made an observation on these facts at the Frankfurt Book Fair this year, German Catholics who contribute to the church were not at all happy to find out how exactly their money was being used.

In the meantime, for the Pope, the issue has become a matter of urgency; a constant flow of publicity on the participation of the church in the sale and production of pornographic and erotic books, yet amongst the bishops, there is a total conspiracy of silence. It was Benedict XVI, who broke the impasse and brought the matter up last Monday when he received the new German Ambassador, Reinhard Schweppe, in the Holy See to present him with his letters of credence. Benedict XVI expressed his pleasure at the relationship between the Vatican and the German Federal Republic - as is nevertheless appropriate on such occasions - only to make a statement which was completely out of context: "The moment has come - the Pope resolutely declared - to make a stand against prostitution, as well as the widespread diffusion of erotic and pornographic material, even on the internet.

The Holy See will ensure that the Catholic Church in Germany takes decisive and committed steps against these evils." A phrase which should ring several alarm bells within the ecclesiatical establishment in Germany. But why did the Pope take advantage of the diplomatic visit from Germany to urge the Catholic Church in his native country to proceed in a precise and decisive manner against the spreading of erotic and pornographic material? Whatever the reasons, when the Pope received the new ambassador, he spoke in German, and the word spread around the relevant establishments.

That Sunday evening, the Archbishop of Cologne released a press statement affirming that he personally, over a number of years, had put pressure on the church to distance itself from "Weltbild". By now the conspiracy of silence amongst the German bishops on the sale of erotic material has been broken. A clean up has begun, but there is a long way to go.

Original article in German

Pelos vistos ando enganado… - Nuno Serras Pereira

1. Eu julgava que elaborar e promulgar uma “lei” que não só não tutela como promove a matança deliberada de seres humanos inocentes era sempre iníquo, injusto e ilícito, e que, portanto, tal lei não o era de facto, sendo antes uma violência tirânica, totalitária e ilegítima. Mas, pelos vistos, ando enganado, porque os nossos Bispos nunca o disseram, ao invés alguns disseram exactamente o contrário.

2. Eu julgava que, no que diz respeito ao direito à vida, todos éramos absolutamente iguais e que, por isso, a vida de um português valia tanto como a de um judeu. Mas, pelos vistos, ando enganado, pois os nossos Bispos nunca o disseram, dando a entender pelos seus silêncios exactamente o contrário (vide, por ex., declarações da última reunião plenária da Conferência Episcopal).

3. Eu julgava que o regímen democrático só era tal quando se tutelava a igual dignidade de toda a pessoa humana, em todas as fases da sua existência. Mas, pelos vistos, ando enganado, pois os nossos Bispos dizem que vivemos em democracia e um ou outro fazem profissões de fé na mesma com um fervor mais intenso do que quando rezam o Credo.

4. Eu julgava que a matança organizada e patrocinada pelo estado de mais de sessenta mil pessoas nascituras era uma tragédia inominável, que nos poria em estado de choque e nos urgiria a uma mobilização geral em defesa da vida. Mas, pelos vistos, ando enganado, pois os nossos Bispos não o dizem, nem dão directivas, antes aparentam uma grande indiferença, entretendo-se com outras coisas.

5. Eu julgava que advogar e votar a favor da matança de pessoas humanas nascituras era um gravíssimo pecado mortal. Mas pelos vistos ando enganado, pois os nossos Bispos dão alegremente a Sagrada Comunhão aos que publicamente o fizeram e nunca manifestaram arrependimento ou se retractaram.

6. Eu julgava que impor, através dos impostos, o pagamento do assassínio de inocentes era uma intolerável agressão à consciência das pessoas de boa vontade e uma violação brutal da liberdade religiosa. Mas, pelos vistos, ando enganado, pois os nossos Bispos nunca o afirmaram, nem fizeram qualquer alusão, nem com isso se preocuparam, minimamente.

7. Eu julgava que a desumana deformação e a ferina perversão do crentes católicos, muitos com cargos de responsabilidade a nível eclesial, no referente à eminente dignidade da pessoa humana, desde o seu início até ao seu termo natural, exigiria uma formação sistemática e contínua nos órgãos de comunicação social da Igreja sobre o direito à vida de cada ser humano, do respeito que lhe é devido e da sua promoção. Mas, pelos vistos, ando enganado, pois isso, de todo, não acontece; pelo contrário, dá-se voz e “púlpito” aos propagadores do homicídio, entre todos, o mais abominável.

8. Eu julgava que era uma injustiça patente e gritante cortar abonos de família e cuidados de saúde mantendo os subsídios à matança de crianças nascentes e à congelação e experiências letais sobre as mesmas. Mas ando enganado, pois os nossos Bispos nunca a tal se referiram, nem têm mostrado preocupação alguma.

9. Eu julgava que era impossível falar ou praticar a Doutrina Social da Igreja sem ter em conta as encíclicas Humanae vitae e Evangelium vitae. Mas ando enganado, pois os nossos Bispos têm mostrado, por palavras e por actos, que tais textos nada têm a ver, nem devem ser tidos em consideração a propósito da tal Doutrina Social.

10. Eu cuidava tudo isto por causa da leitura atenta e repetida, e pela meditação assídua e continuada do Magistério dos últimos Papa e dos documentos da Sagrada Congregação para a Doutrina da Fé. Pelo que poderia concluir que, se calhar, não sou eu que ando enganado mas sim os Santos Padres e os documentos da cúria romana por eles aprovados.

Mas será justa e razoável tal conclusão?

14. 11. 2011

Teologia del corpo: El fundamento de la sacramentalidad del matrimonio - Miguel Paz

ROMA, lunes 14 noviembre 2011 (ZENIT.org).- Ofrecemos a nuestros lectores los pasajes más relevantes de la comunicación al congreso internacional sobre la Teología del Cuerpo, celebrado en el Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum, de Roma, del 9 al 11 de noviembre, por el profesor Miguel Paz LC*.

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Juan Pablo II pone el fundamento de la sacramentalidad del matrimonio en la “imagen y semejanza con Dios que desde “el principio”, esto es, en el “plan original” de Dios, tiene la unión entre el hombre y la mujer. El paralelismo que encontramos en Génesis 1, 27: “A imagen suya los creó / macho y hembra los creó” revela que la “unión de los dos” representa la más originaria visibilidad del amor de Dios (o de Dios que es Amor) en el mundo. Esta idea la resume Juan Pablo II en la Familiaris Consortio n. 11:

Dios ha creado al hombre a su imagen y semejanza: llamándolo a la existencia por amor, lo ha llamado al mismo tiempo al amor. Dios es amor y vive en sí mismo un misterio de comunión personal de amor. Creándola a su imagen y conservándola continuamente en el ser, Dios inscribe en la humanidad del hombre y de la mujer la vocación y consiguientemente la capacidad y la responsabilidad del amor y de la comunión.

La “unidad de los dos” en el capítulo segundo del Génesis se expresa como unión en “una sola carne”. Adán después de haber pasado revista a los animales sin encontrar en ellos un “ayuda semejante” (una “ayuda adecuada” traduce Juan Pablo II), reconoce en el cuerpo de Eva su propia humanidad, la imagen de Dios: “Esta vez sí que es hueso de mis huesos y carne de mi carne” (Gn 2, 23) y de este reconocimiento surge la unión: “por eso dejará el hombre a su padre y a su madre, se unirá a su mujer y se harán una sola carne” (Gn 2,24). El cuerpo sexuado lleva “inscrita” en su visibilidad la llamada al amor y a la comunión más íntima. Es lo que Juan Pablo II llama el “significado esponsal” del cuerpo humano.

Jesucristo, al expresar su concepción del matrimonio en su respuesta a la cuestión del divorcio (cfr. Mt 19 = Mc 10) se remite “al principio” : Moisés permitió el divorcio, pero “al principio no fue así” (Mt 19, 8) y une Gn 1,27 con Gn 2, 24: «¿No habéis leído que el Creador, al principio, “los hizo varón y hembra”, y que dijo: “Por eso dejará el hombre a su padre y a su madre y se unirá a su mujer, y los dos se harán una sola carne?” De manera que ya no son dos, sino una sola carne. Pues bien, lo que Dios unió no lo separe el hombre» (Mt 19,4-6).

San Pablo, recogiendo la enseñanza de Cristo, tiene en mente Gn 2, 23-24 cuando expresa lo que Juan Pablo II llama la “gran analogía” entre la unión del hombre y la mujer en “una sola carne” y la unión entre Cristo y la Iglesia. En el capítulo 5 de la Carta a los Efesios, exhortando a los esposos cristianos a amar a sus esposas, pone como modelo el amor entre Cristo y su Iglesia: «Porque nadie aborreció jamás su propia carne; antes bien, la alimenta y la cuida con cariño, lo mismo que Cristo a la Iglesia, pues somos miembros de su Cuerpo. “Por eso dejará el hombre a su padre y a su madre y se unirá a su mujer, y los dos se harán una sola carne”. Gran misterio es éste, lo digo respecto a Cristo y la Iglesia» (Ef 5, 29-32).

Esta “gran analogía” recorre la Sagrada Escritura. Procede de la tradición profética y conecta perfectamente con el hecho de que “la unidad de los dos” “en una sola carne” sea “imagen y semejanza de Dios” desde el punto de vista del amor y la comunión. Y el amor y comunión de Dios con respecto a la humanidad, en la Escritura se llama “Alianza”, primero de Dios con su Pueblo, luego perfectamente cumplida en la unión de Cristo con su Iglesia, la “Nueva Alianza”.

El matrimonio, para S. Pablo es “misterio” con respecto a Cristo y la Iglesia, esto es, manifestación y participación del plan de salvación de Dios escondido desde la eternidad y en la plenitud de los tiempos revelado y realizado en Cristo. Es sacramento de la Nueva Alianza.

Vamos a profundizar algo más en esta línea a partir de la expresión “una sola carne”, ¿cuál es su significado? La expresión “una sola carne” en su sentido más físico, hace referencia inmediata a un dato biológico común a todos los seres sexuados: que los órganos masculino y femenino funcionan como un solo órgano para realizar una función que ninguno de los dos puede realizar solo: la generación de un nuevo ser viviente, semejante al padre y a la madre y de su misma especie.

Este hecho biológico, en el ser humano adquiere un significado muy superior, pues se integra en la unidad de la persona humana y en su relación con los demás y con Dios: «La índole sexual del hombre y la facultad generativa humana superan admirablemente lo que de esto existe en los grados inferiores de vida», nos enseña el Concilio Vaticano II (Gaudium et Spes, n. 51). Es un significado de amor, un “significado esponsal”, que al mismo tiempo es una exigencia moral, una “vocación al amor” pues toda digna relación humana de algún modo se resume en el amor. Esta “vocación al amor” se realiza en el matrimonio o en la castidad consagrada por el reino de los cielos. (También podemos decir que la realiza quien sin casarse o consagrarse vive la castidad propia de su estado y se esfuerza por cumplir el precepto del amor a Dios y al prójimo.)

La diferencia-complementariedad entre el hombre y la mujer es el más básico ser-el uno-para-el-otro que existe a nivel de relaciones humanas, y hace posible el amor que llamamos sexual. En el ser humano el acto sexual se abre a la procreación como acto de amor. El amor de los progenitores se difunde en el amor hacia el hijo que viene procreado. El matrimonio es el único “lugar” existencial en que el ejercicio físico de la sexualidad alcanza su dignidad de amor, pues se integra en la donación mutua de toda la persona. Dice Juan Pablo II en la Familiaris Consortio n. 11:

El único "lugar" que hace posible esta donación total es el matrimonio, es decir, el pacto de amor conyugal o elección conscien­te y libre, con la que el hombre y la mujer aceptan la comunidad íntima de vida y amor, querida por Dios mismo (Gaudium et Spes, 48), que sólo bajo esta luz manifiesta su verdadera significado.

Y es que en el ser humano, este fenómeno de la diferencia-complementariedad entre el hombre y la mujer, que llamamos sexualidad, abarca todos los niveles de la persona: el biológico-corporal, el psicológico, el espiritual, este último entendido no sólo como inteligencia y libertad, sino también en su apertura a Dios. Esta apertura la llena Dios mismo con su gracia, elevando al hombre al nivel de participación a la misma vida divina, a nivel sobrenatural. Los tres primeros niveles están unidos por la naturaleza humana, que es naturaleza racional, capaz de conocimiento y amor, es la naturaleza de la persona humana. El nivel sobrenatural, que da al amor la plenitud última a la que tiende, se alcanza solamente por don de Dios y, aunque implique directamente y en primer lugar el nivel espiritual, precisamente por la unidad sustancial de la persona humana, alcanza también los otros niveles. Es toda la persona la que por la gracia queda unida a Dios. De nuevo citamos el n. 11 de la Familiaris Consortio:

En cuanto espíritu encarnado, es decir, alma que se expresa en el cuerpo informado por un espíritu inmortal, el hombre está llamado al amor en esta su totalidad unificada. El amor abarca también el cuerpo humano y el cuerpo se hace partícipe del amor espiritual.

El sacramento del matrimonio encuentra su explicación precisamente en este encuentro entre dos realidades que atañen a toda la persona humana: la sexualidad y la gracia. El matrimonio adquiere un significado y una realidad superior, sobrenatural, a la luz del “misterio”, es decir, de la realización del plan eterno de salvación en Jesucristo.

Como enseña el Concilio Vaticano II, «Cristo, el nuevo Adán, en la misma revelación del misterio del Padre y de su amor, revela plenamente el hombre al propio hombre y le descubre la sublimidad de su vocación» (Gaudium et spes n. 22). ¿De dónde viene últimamente la capacidad y la exigencia de amor interpersonal a la que está llamada la sexualidad humana? Toda verdadera unión de amor entre los seres humanos participa del amor de Dios, es su reflejo “a su imagen y semejanza”. Más en concreto, la unión de amor entre el hombre y la mujer es el modo más “originario” en que se refleja el amor de Dios por la humanidad, que encuentra su culmen en Jesucristo, Dios y hombre verdadero, la perfecta Imagen del Padre.

Jesucristo en los Evangelios se presenta como “el Esposo”; viene a culminar la Alianza entre Dios y la humanidad. Por el amor que recibe de Dios en Cristo, la persona recobra su integridad y la armonía entre todos los niveles de su ser, llega a ser en sí misma “imagen y semejanza” de Dios. Al mismo tiempo, se hace capaz de amar verdaderamente a los demás “a imagen y semejanza” del Amor de Dios. Este Amor ha sido derramado en los corazones de los cristianos con el Espíritu Santo que les ha sido dado (cfr. Rm 5,5). Y es que el matrimonio no sólo es imagen de la comunión Cristo-Iglesia, sino también de la comunión Padre-Hijo en el Espíritu Santo. Estas dos analogías se deducen la una de la otra: la entrega mutua de Cristo y su Iglesia es imagen y realización en la historia de la entrega eterna del Padre y el Hijo. Así se expresa Juan Pablo II, en la Mulieris Dignitatem, n. 7:

Ser persona a imagen y semejanza de Dios comporta también el existir en relación al otro “yo”. Esto es preludio de la definitiva autorreve­lación del Dios uno y trino: unidad viviente en la comunión del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu San­to. (...) Dios, que se deja conocer por los hombres por medio de Cristo es unidad en la Trinidad: es unidad en comunión. (...) El hecho de que el ser humano, creado como hombre y mujer, sea imagen de Dios no significa solamente que cada uno de ellos individual­mente es semejante a Dios como ser racional y libre; significa además queel hombre y la mujer, creados como "unidad de los dos" en su común humanidad, están llamados a vivir una comunión de amor y, de este modo, reflejar en el mundo la comunión de amor que se da en Dios, por la que las tres Personas se aman en el íntimo misterio de la única vida divina.

Podemos decir que si la unidad del hombre y Dios en Jesucristo es afirmada y aceptada, entonces se afirma también la unidad entre los diversos componentes de la persona, y la unidad de las personas entre sí en relaciones de verdadero amor. Si se niega la encarnación de Cristo, se niega la unión entre la humanidad y la divinidad y se termina por negar la unidad psicofísica del hombre y la unión entre los seres humanos. No se capta ya el significado humano de lo biológico, y menos todavía el significado sobrenatural de lo humano. Esta disgregación de significados es, según Juan Pablo II, el gran error del pensamiento moderno, como podemos ver en la Carta a las Familias, n. 19:

La separación entre espíritu y cuerpo en el hombre ha tenido como consecuencia que se consolide la tendencia a tratar el cuerpo humano no según las categorías de su específica semejanza con Dios, sino según las de su semejanza con los demás cuerpos del mundo creado, utilizados por el hombre como instrumentos de su actividad para la producción de bienes de consumo. Pero todos pueden comprender inmediatamente cómo la aplicación de tales criterios al hombre conlleva enormes peligros. Cuando el cuerpo humano, considerado independientemente del espíritu y del pensamiento, es utilizado como un material al igual que el de los animales —esto sucede, por ejemplo, en las manipulaciones de embriones y fetos—, se camina inevitablemente hacia una terrible derrota ética.

(…)

Para el racionalismo es impensable que Dios sea el Redentor, y menos que sea«el Esposo»,fuente originaria y única del amor esponsal humano. El racionalismo interpreta la creación y el significado de la existencia humana de manera radicalmente diversa; pero si el hombre pierde la perspectiva de un Dios que lo ama y, mediante Cristo, lo llama a vivir en él y con él; si a la familia no se le da la posibilidad de participar en el «gran misterio», ¿qué queda sino la sola dimensión temporal de la vida?Queda la vida temporal como terreno de lucha por la existencia, de búsqueda afanosa de la ganancia, la económica ante todo.

El gran esfuerzo de la Iglesia en los tiempos modernos está siendo el de suturar este desgarramiento, esta fragmentación en la auto-comprensión del ser humano. El Concilio Vaticano II en la constitución pastoral Gaudium et Spes, la encíclica Humanae Vitae de Pablo VI, las Catequesis sobre el amor humano en el plan divino de Juan Pablo II, junto con la monumental producción de su pontificado en torno al matrimonio y a la familia, son las piedras miliares en este camino contracorriente a una civilización que con lógica implacable se precipita a las conclusiones de unas premisas mal puestas y ciegamente mantenidas.

Podemos resumir así el evangelio del matrimonio, que hoy más que nunca la Iglesia debe proclamar:

El amor entre el hombre y la mujer, fundado sobre su diferencia-complementariedad sexual, que les hace ser uno para al otro y les abre a la transmisión de la vida humana, alcanza su digna realización en el matrimonio, el cual, a la luz del plan divino de salvación, es imagen y participación en el mundo visible y sensible del amor único, indisoluble y fecundo de Dios por la humanidad, que encuentra su plenitud en el amor entre Cristo y la Iglesia, imagen y participación a su vez del amor entre el Padre y el Hijo, el Espíritu Santo,en el seno de la Trinidad.

* Miguel Paz LC es profesor extraordinario de Teología del Sacramento del Matrimonio en el Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum.

My Conversion story - by Peter Kreeft

In The Coming Home network international

I was born into a loving, believing community, a Protestant “mother church” (the Reformed Church) which, though it had not for me the fullness of the faith, had strong and genuine piety. I believed, mainly because of the good example of my parents and my church. The faith of my parents, Sunday School teachers, ministers, and relatives made a real difference to their lives, a difference big enough to compensate for many shortcomings. “Love covers a multitude of sins.”

I was taught what C. S. Lewis calls “mere Christianity,” essentially the Bible. But no one reads the Bible as an extraterrestrial or an angel; our church community provides the colored glasses through which we read, and the framework, or horizon, or limits within which we understand. My “glasses” were of Dutch Reformed Calvinist construction, and my limiting framework stopped very far short of anything “Catholic!” The Catholic Church was regarded with utmost suspicion. In the world of the forties and fifties in which I grew up, that suspicion may have been equally reciprocated by most Catholics. Each group believed that most of the other groups were probably on the road to hell. Christian ecumenism and understanding has made astonishing strides since then.

Dutch Calvinists, like most conservative Protestants, sincerely believed that Catholic-ism was not only heresy but idolatry; that Catholics worshipped the Church, the Pope, Mary, saints, images, and who knows what else; that the Church had added some inane “traditions of men” to the Word of God, traditions and doctrines that obviously contradicted it (how could they not see this? I wondered); and, most important of all, that Catholics believed “another gospel;” another religion, that they didn’t even know how to get to Heaven: they tried to pile up brownie points with God with their good works, trying to work their way in instead of trusting in Jesus as their Savior. They never read the Bible, obviously.

I was never taught to hate Catholics, but to pity them and to fear their errors. I learned a serious concern for truth that to this day I find sadly missing in many Catholic circles. The typical Calvinist anti-Catholic attitude I knew was not so much prejudice, judgment with no concern for evidence, but judgment based on apparent and false evidence: sincere mistakes rather than dishonest rationalizations.

Though I thought it pagan rather than Christian, the richness and mystery of Catholicism fascinated me—the dimensions which avant-garde liturgists have been dismantling since the Silly Sixties. (When God saw that the Church in America lacked persecutions, he sent them liturgists.)

The first independent idea about religion I ever remember thinking was a question I asked my father, an elder in the church, a good and wise and holy man. I was amazed that he couldn’t answer it. “Why do we Calvinists have the whole truth and no one else? We’re so few. How could God leave the rest of the world in error? Especially the rest of the Christian churches?” Since no good answer seemed forthcoming, I then came to the explosive conclusion that the truth about God was more mysterious—more wonderfully and uncomfortably mysterious—than anything any of us could ever fully comprehend. (Calvinists would not deny that, but they do not usually teach it either. They are strong on God’s “sovereignty,” but weak on the richness of God’s mystery.) That conviction, that the truth is always infinitely more than anyone can have, has not diminished. Not even all the infallible creeds are a container for all that is God.

I also realized at a very young age, obscurely but strongly, that the truth about God had to be far simpler than I had been taught, as well as far more complex and mysterious. I remember surprising my father with this realization (which was certainly because of God’s grace rather than my intelligence, for I was only about eight, I think): “Dad, everything we learn in church and everything in the Bible comes down to just one thing, doesn’t it? There’s only one thing we have to worry about, isn’t there?” “Why, no, I don’t see that. There are many things. What do you mean?” “I mean that all God wants us to do—all the time—is to ask Him what He wants us to do, and then do it. That covers everything, doesn’t it? Instead of asking ourselves, ask God!” Surprised, my father replied, “You know, you’re right!”

After eight years of public elementary school, my parents offered me a choice between two high schools: public or Christian (Calvinist), and I chose the latter, even though it meant leaving old friends. Eastern Christian High School was run by a sister denomination, the Christian Reformed Church. Asking myself now why I made that choice, I cannot say. Providence often works in obscurity. I was not a remarkably religious kid, and loved the New York Giants baseball team with considerable more passion and less guilt than I loved God.

I won an essay contest in high school with a meditation on Dostoyevski’s story “The Grand Inquisitor;” interpreted as an anti-Catholic, anti-authoritarian cautionary tale. The Church, like Communism, seemed a great, dark, totalitarian threat.

I then went to Calvin College, the Christian Reformed college which has such a great influence for its small size and provincial locale (Grand Rapids, Michigan) because it takes both its faith and its scholarship very seriously. I registered as a pre-seminary student because, though I did not think I was personally “called” by God to be a clergyman, I thought I might “give it a try.” I was deeply impressed by the caption under a picture of Christ on the cross: “This is what I did for thee. What will you do for Me?”

But in college I quickly fell in love with English, and then Philosophy, and thus twice changed my major. Both subjects were widening my appreciation of the history of Western civilization and therefore of things Catholic. The first serious doubt about my anti-Catholic beliefs was planted in my mind by my roommate, who was becoming an Anglican: “Why don’t Protestants pray to saints? There’s nothing wrong in you asking me to pray for you, is there? Why not ask the dead, then, if we believe they’re alive with God in Heaven, part of the ‘great cloud of witnesses’ that surrounds us (Hebrews 12)?” It was the first serious question I had absolutely no answer to, and that bothered me. I attended Anglican liturgy with my roommate and was enthralled by the same things that captivated Tom Howard and many others: not just the aesthetic beauty but the full-ness, the solidity, the moreness of it all.

I remember a church service I went to while at Calvin, in the Wealthy Street Baptist Temple (fundamentalist). I had never heard such faith and conviction, such joy in the music, such love of Jesus. I needed to focus my aroused love of God on an object. But God is invisible, and we are not angels. There was no religious object in the church. It was a bare, Protestant church; images were “idols.” I suddenly understood why Protestants were so subjectivistic: their love of God had no visible object to focus it. The living water welling up from within had no material riverbed, no shores, to direct its flow to the far divine sea. It rushed back upon itself and became a pool of froth.

Then I caught sight of a Catholic spy in the Protestant camp: a gold cross atop the pole of the church flag. Adoring Christ required using that symbol. The alternative was the froth. My gratitude to the Catholic Church for this one relic, this remnant, of her riches, was immense. For this good Protestant water to flow, there had to be Catholic aqueducts. To change the metaphor, I had been told that reliance on external things was a “crutch!” I now realized that I was a cripple. And I thanked the Catholic “hospital” (that’s what the Church is) for responding to my needs.

Perhaps, I thought, these good Protestant people could worship like angels, but I could not. Then I realized that they couldn’t either. Their ears were using crutches but not their eyes. They used beautiful hymns, for which I would gladly exchange the new, flat, unmusical, wimpy “liturgical responses” no one sings in our masses—their audible imagery is their crutch. I think that in Heaven, Protestants will teach Catholics to sing and Catholics will teach Protestants to dance and sculpt.

I developed a strong intellectual and aesthetic love for things medieval: Gregorian chant, Gothic architecture, Thomistic philosophy, illuminated manuscripts, etc. I felt vaguely guilty about it, for that was the Catholic era. I thought I could separate these legitimate cultural forms from the “dangerous” Catholic essence, as the modern Church separated the essence from these discarded forms. Yet I saw a natural connection.

Then one summer, on the beach at Ocean Grove, New Jersey, I read St. John of the Cross. I did not understand much of it, but I knew, with undeniable certainty, that here was reality, something as massive and positive as a mountain range. I felt as if I had just come out of a small, comfortable cave, in which I had lived all my life, and found that there was an unsuspected world outside of incredible dimensions. Above all, the dimensions were those of holiness, goodness, purity of heart, obedience to the first and greatest commandment, willing God’s will, the one absolute I had discovered, at the age of eight. I was very far from saintly, but that did not prevent me from fascinated admiration from afar; the valley dweller appreciates the height of the mountain more than the dweller on the foothills. I read other Catholic saints and mystics, and discovered the same reality there, however different the style (even St. Thérèse “The Little Flower”!) I felt sure it was the same reality I had learned to love from my parents and teachers, only a far deeper version of it. It did not seem alien and other. It was not another religion but the adult version of my own.

Then in a church history class at Calvin a professor gave me a way to investigate the claims of the Catholic Church on my own. The essential claim is historical: that Christ founded the Catholic Church, that there is historical continuity. If that were true, I would have to be a Catholic out of obedience to my one absolute, the will of my Lord. The teacher explained the Protestant belief. He said that Catholics accuse we who are Protestants of going back only to Luther and Calvin; but this is not true; we go back to Christ. Christ had never intended a Catholic-style Church, but a Protestant-style one. The Catholic additions to the simple, Protestant-style New Testament church had grown up gradually in the Middle Ages like barnacles on the hull of a ship, and the Protestant Reformers had merely scraped off the barnacles, the alien, pagan accretions. The Catholics, on the other hand, believed that Christ established the Church Catholic from the start, and that the doctrines and practices that Protestants saw as barnacles were, in fact, the very living and inseparable parts of the planks and beams of the ship.

I thought this made the Catholic claim empirically testable, and I wanted to test it because I was worried by this time about my dangerous interest in things Catholic. Half of me wanted to discover it was the true Church (that was the more adventurous half); the other half wanted to prove it false (that was the comfortable half). My adventurous half rejoiced when I discovered in the early Church such Catholic elements as the centrality of the Eucharist, the Real Presence, prayers to saints, devotion to Mary, an insistence on visible unity, and apostolic succession. Furthermore, the Church Fathers just “smelled” more Catholic than Protestant, especially St. Augustine, my personal favorite and a hero to most Protestants too. It seemed very obvious that if Augustine or Jerome or Ignatius of Antioch or Anthony of the Desert, or Justin Martyr, or Clement of Alexandria, or Athanasius were alive today they would be Catholics, not Protestants.

The issue of the Church’s historical roots was crucial to me, for the thing I had found in the Catholic Church and in no Protestant church was simply this: the massive historical fact that there she is, majestic and unsinkable. It was the same old seaworthy ship, the Noah’s ark that Jesus had commissioned. It was like discovering not an accurate picture of the ark, or even a real relic of its wood, but the whole ark itself, still sailing unscathed on the seas of history! It was like a fairy tale come true, like a “myth become fact;” to use C. S. Lewis’ formula for the Incarnation.

The parallel between Christ and Church, Incarnation and Church history, goes still further. I thought, just as Jesus made a claim about His identity that forces us into one of only two camps, His enemies or His worshippers, those who call Him liar and those who call Him Lord; so the Catholic Church’s claim to be the one true Church, the Church Christ founded, forces us to say either that this is the most arrogant, blasphemous and wicked claim imaginable, if it is not true, or else that she is just what she claims to be. Just as Jesus stood out as the absolute exception to all other human teachers in claiming to be more than human and more than a teacher, so the Catholic Church stood out above all other denominations in claiming to be not merely a denomination, but the Body of Christ incarnate, infallible, one, and holy, presenting the really present Christ in her Eucharist. I could never rest in a comfortable, respectable ecumenical halfway house of measured admiration from a distance. I had to shout either “Crucify her!” or “Hosanna!” if I could not love and believe her, honesty forced me to despise and fight her.

But I could not despise her. The beauty and sanctity and wisdom of her, like that of Christ, prevented me from calling her liar or lunatic, just as it prevented me from calling Christ that. But simple logic offered then one and only one other option: this must be the Church my Lord provided for me—my Lord, for me. So she had better become my Church if He is my Lord.

There were many strands in the rope that hauled me aboard the ark, though this one—the Church’s claim to be the one Church historically founded by Christ—was the central and deciding one. The book that more than any other decided it for me was Ronald Knox’s The Belief of Catholics. He and Chesterton “spoke with authority, and not as the scribes!” Even C. S. Lewis, the darling of Protestant Evangelicals, “smelled” Catholic most of the time. A recent book by a Calvinist author I went to high school with, John Beversluis, mercilessly tries to tear all Lewis’ arguments to shreds; but Lewis is left without a scratch and Beversluis comes out looking like an atheist. Lewis is the only author I ever have read whom I thought I could completely trust and completely understand. But he believed in Purgatory, the Real Presence in the Eucharist, and not Total Depravity. He was no Calvinist. In fact, he was a medieval.

William Harry Jellema, the greatest teacher I ever knew, though a Calvinist, showed me what I can only call the Catholic vision of the history of philosophy, embracing the Greek and medieval tradition and the view of reason it assumed, a thick rather than a thin one. Technically this was “realism” (Aquinas) as vs. “nominalism” (Ockham and Luther). Commonsensically, it meant wisdom rather than mere logical consistency, insight rather than mere calculation. I saw Protestant theology as infected with shallow nominalism and Descartes’ narrow scientificization of reason.

A second and related difference is that Catholics, like their Greek and medieval teachers, still believed that reason was essentially reliable, not utterly untrustworthy because fallen. We make mistakes in using it, yes. There are “noetic effects of sin,” yes. But the instrument is reliable. Only our misuse of it is not.

This is connected with a third difference. For Catholics, reason is not just subjective but objective; reason is not our artificial little man-made rules for our own subjective thought processes or intersubjective communications, but a window on the world. And not just the material world, but form, order, objective truth. Reason was from God. All truth was God’s truth. When Plato or Socrates knew the truth, the logos, they knew Christ, unless John lies in chapter 1 of his gospel. I gave a chapel speech at Calvin calling Socrates a “common-grace Christian” and unwittingly scandalized the powers that be. They still remember it, 30 years later.

The only person who almost kept me Protestant was Kierkegaard. Not Calvin or Luther. Their denial of free will made human choice a sham game of predestined dice. Kierkegaard offered a brilliant, consistent alternative to Catholicism, but such a quirkily individualistic one, such a pessimistic and antirational one, that he was incompletely human. He could hold a candle to Augustine and Aquinas, I thought—the only Protestant thinker I ever found who could—but he was only the rebel in the ark, while they were the family, Noah’s sons.

But if Catholic dogma contradicted Scripture or itself at any point, I could not believe it. I explored all the cases of claimed contradiction and found each to he a Protestant misunderstanding. No matter how morally bad the Church had gotten in the Renaissance, it never taught heresy. I was impressed with its very hypocrisy: even when it didn’t raise its practice to its preaching, it never lowered its preaching to its practice. Hypocrisy, someone said, is the tribute vice pays to virtue.

I was impressed by the argument that “the Church wrote the Bible:” Christianity was preached by the Church before the New Testament was written—that is simply a historical fact. It is also a fact that the apostles wrote the New Testament and the Church canonized it, deciding which books were divinely inspired. I knew, from logic and common sense, that a cause can never be less than its effect. You can’t give what you don’t have. If the Church has no divine inspiration and no infallibility, no divine authority, then neither can the New Testament. Protestantism logically entails Modernism. I had to be either a Catholic or a Modernist. That decided it; that was like saying I had to be either a patriot or a traitor.

One afternoon I knelt alone in my room and prayed God would decide for me, for I am good at thinking but bad at acting, like Hamlet. Unexpectedly, I seemed to sense my heroes Augustine and Aquinas and thousands of other saints and sages calling out to me from the great ark, “Come aboard! We are really here. We still live. Join us. Here is the Body of Christ.” I said Yes. My intellect and feelings had long been conquered; the will is the last to surrender.

One crucial issue remained to be resolved: Justification by Faith, the central bone of contention of the Reformation. Luther was obviously right here: the doctrine is dearly taught in Romans and Galatians. If the Catholic Church teaches “another gospel” of salvation by works, then it teaches fundamental heresy. I found here however another case of misunderstanding. I read Aquinas’ Summa on grace, and the decrees of the Council of Trent, and found them just as strong on grace as Luther or Calvin. I was overjoyed to find that the Catholic Church had read the Bible too! At Heaven’s gate our entrance ticket, according to Scripture and Church dogma, is not our good works or our sincerity, but our faith, which glues us to Jesus. He saves us; we do not save ourselves. But I find, incredibly, that 9 out of 10 Catholics do not know this, the absolutely central, core, essential dogma of Christianity. Protestants are right: most Catholics do in fact believe a whole other religion. Well over 90% of students I have polled who have had 12 years of catechism classes, even Catholic high schools, say they expect to go to Heaven because they tried, or did their best, or had compassionate feelings to everyone, or were sincere. They hardly ever mention Jesus. Asked why they hope to be saved, they mention almost anything except the Savior. Who taught them? Who wrote their textbooks? These teachers have stolen from our precious children the most valuable thing in the world, the “pearl of great price;’ their faith. Jesus had some rather terrifying warnings about such things something about millstones.

Catholicism taught that we are saved by faith, by grace, by Christ, however few Catholics understood this. And Protestants taught that true faith necessarily produces good works. The fundamental issue of the Reformation is an argument between the roots and the blossoms on the same flower.

But though Luther did not neglect good works, he connected them to faith by only a thin and unreliable thread: human gratitude. In response to God’s great gift of salvation, which we accept by faith, we do good works out of gratitude, he taught. But gratitude is only a feeling, and dependent on the self. The Catholic connection between faith and works is a far stronger and more reliable one. I found it in C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, the best introduction to Christianity I have ever read. It is the ontological reality of we, supernatural life, sanctifying grace, God’s own life in the soul, which is received by faith and then itself produces good works. God comes in one end and out the other: the very same thing that comes in by faith (the life of God) goes out as works, through our free cooperation.

I was also dissatisfied with Luther’s teaching that justification was a legal fiction on God’s part rather than a real event in us; that God looks on the Christian in Christ, sees only Christ’s righteousness, and legally counts or imputes Christ’s righteousness as ours. I thought it had to be as Catholicism says, that God actually imparts Christ to us, in baptism and through faith (these two are usually together in the New Testament). Here I found the fundamentalists, especially the Baptists, more philosophically sound than the Calvinists and Lutherans. For me, their language, however sloganish and satirizable, is more accurate when they speak of “Receiving Christ as your personal Savior.”

Though my doubts were all resolved and the choice was made in 1959, my senior year at Calvin, actual membership came a year later, at Yale. My parents were horrified, and only gradually came to realize I had not lost my head or my soul, that Catholics were Christians, not pagans. It was very difficult, for I am a shy and soft-hearted sort, and almost nothing is worse for me than to hurt people I love. I think that I hurt almost as much as they did. But God marvelously binds up wounds.

I have been happy as a Catholic for many years now. The honeymoon faded, of course, but the marriage has deepened. Like all converts I ever have heard of, I was hauled aboard not by those Catholics who try to “sell” the church by conforming it to the spirit of the times by saying Catholics are just like everyone else, but by those who joyfully held out the ancient and orthodox faith in all its fullness and prophetic challenge to the world. The minimalists, who reduce miracles to myths, dogmas to opinions, laws to values, and the Body of Christ to a psycho-social club, have always elicited wrath, pity, or boredom from me. So has political partisanship masquerading as religion. I am happy as a child to follow Christ’s vicar on earth everywhere he leads. What he loves, I love; what he leaves, I leave; where he leads, I follow. For the Lord we both adore said to Peter his predecessor, “Who hears you, hears Me.” That is why I am a Catholic: because I am a Christian.

Source: “Hauled Aboard the Ark – The Spiritual Journey of Peter Kreeft” excerpt from The Spiritual Journeys published by the Daughters of St. Paul. Used with permission of the author.

Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and at the King’s College (Empire State Building), in New York City. He is a regular contributor to several Christian publications, is in wide demand as a speaker at conferences, and is the author of over 63 books including: Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Christianity for Modern Pagans and Fundamentals of the Faith.