Celebrating
87 years of publication, The Catholic Times sent a questionnaire to a
hundred Korean theologians. They were to select what they considered the
most important issues for Pope Francis to deal with during his
pontificate, and what actions they would recommend the pope to take to
resolve these issues. A similar questionnaire was sent to theologians
after the selection of Benedict XVI in 2005.
The Catholic Times
gave the questionnaire a great deal of space along with an editorial on
the subject. The Catholic press has been talking about these areas of
Catholic life for sometime, and it was interesting to see what the
theologians considered important.
The issues considered important, from most to least important were: Coping with the secularism and relativism of society. (37 theologians)
Implementing the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. (27)
Poverty and globalization (24)
Renewal of the Vatican. (20)
Life, family and moral questions--such as abortion, contraception, homosexuality. (16)
Role of the laity. (14)
Caring for the natural environment. (12)
Celibacy and women priests. (12)
Evangelization, dialogue and witnessing. (10)
More autonomy of local churches (8)
Ecumenicism and Church unity. (7)
New understanding of collegiality. (2)
The place of women in the Church. (2)
Religious freedom. (0)
The
list of issues given the theologians back in 2005 were not the same as
the above, but it does help us see what was considered important at that
time.
Collegiality in the governing of the Church. (20)
Conflict of European culture and Christian values. (40)
Dialogue and witnessing in evangelizing. (40)
The ministerial priesthood. (22)
Culture of life issues. (37)
Movements of the laity and church life. (24)
Renewal of the Church and implementing Vatican II. (8)
From the distant
past, a custom from China was commonly observed in Korea at the start of
every new year. A red bean porridge was prepared and employed to ward
off evil spirits by applying the bean paste to the walls and door posts
of the house. Disease and misfortunes, it was thought, would be
avoided, assuring them a new year of happiness.
We
no longer hear of this custom, but it's similar
to what the Israelites did
to receive their liberation from the Egyptians after their years of
slavery. They killed a lamb and used the blood to sprinkle the door
posts to prepare for their delivery from slavery. Today, the Seder meal
for Jews commemorates this liberation from slavery in Egypt. Christians
at Easter remember their own liberation received from Christ by his
sacrifice on the
cross.
A religious sister, a theologian, explains in the
Kyeongyang magazine the idea of the Easter appearances in the Gospel of
John. She wants us to examine the word passover (meaning passage) and
reflect on its meaning for us today. If the Jews had not been able to
'passover' the situation they found themselves in, then freedom would
have been impossible for them.
Courage was needed to overcome
slavery, faith was needed to overcome the ignorance concerning how best
to deal with it, and strength of will was needed to accept the difficult
years in the dessert, before arriving in the promised land.
Christians
are being asked at this time of year to passover to a faith in Jesus,
who is the beginning and the end of our life. This requires that we move
from the life of the dead to the life of those fully alive. This faith
allows us to overcome the worries and fears that normally are present in
every life, due to greed and selfishness, and to overcome estrangements
and permit an openness to others.
Our Easter faith allows us to
overcome the small self and embrace an affirming hope with courage. We
tend to forget we have entered the Easter life, our immortal
life, with our baptism, and that death no longer exists for us as
Christians. This kind of thinking does not come easy, but with a firm
resolve to passover to a life of faith in Jesus, we will come to
understand what salvation and liberation should mean to us as
Christians. Happy Easter.
The selection of
our new pope came more quickly than expected. The Catholic Times desk
columnist goes over the weeks that have come and gone since then, with thoughts on the events that no one foresaw except the cardinals. It appeared to be the start of a new style, with a common touch and appearance, a cheerful and humorous manner not tied to the rigid habits of the past--a happy conclusion to what many believed would be the beginning of more emphasis on having a Church of and for the poor.
That the new pope Francis bowed his head and asked for our prayers before giving his blessing was, the columnist said, a shock, not what he expected. In church, we are always bowing our heads but we don't see many who bow their heads to us, he said. Isn't this the reason, he added, that what happened recently in Rome seemed to come out of nowhere, without any hint of what was to come?
The pope's choosing the name Francis moved the columnist to feel that the Assisi connection points to the direction that life itself should
take, and that the accompanying values associated with the name are
what the Church needs to emphasize today. More than system or
structural changes we need, he said, a fundamental change in attitude
and mode of living.
The reformation that St.Francis began was one
of simplicity and humility in life. It started very simply in a time of
great Church power, riches, honors, and luxury that in the long run was
the starting point for change. Today, there are also calls within and
outside the Church for change, though not all are in accordance with the Gospel message. The clerical sexual abuse scandal is only one of several problems that need to be addressed by the new pope. Francis, from where he has positioned himself by his brief statements, appears to be the right person to start the ball rolling in the direction of a fundamental change of attitude.
The
columnist uses the words of a theologian to point out that there is no
need to tell the pope what the problems are in the Church; he is well
acquainted with what ails the Church. And he quotes a
Church historian as saying the cardinals made it clear they did not
want a continuation of the past by choosing a Jesuit, who was not a
member of the Vatican inner circle. It is understood that he will be
making changes in the curia, the administrative arm of the Vatican.
The change the columnist believes is coming, however, does
not mean just in personnel but in the tone and policies for a pastoral
outreach. We will be seeing the direction the pope will be taking the
universal Church in the future, and we trust it will be in the direction
the name Francis indicates. We are not only hoping for changes in the
Vatican but also hoping for changes here in Korea.
Twice during Holy
Week the passion Gospels are read, the first reading on Passion Sunday
and the second on Good Friday. The passion narratives are filled with a
great deal of information that helps us to understand what we do at Mass
each day.
The Salt Pot of Bible Life magazine divides the
persons in the passion narratives into three groups: the religious
leaders and their hypocrisy; the Roman politicians and their
indifference and avoidance of responsibility; and the crowd with their
selfish and fickle religiosity, first welcoming and then turning
completely against Jesus, and wanting his death.
There are also
persons in the passion narratives who showed great strength and helped
support Jesus in his trial. What distinguishes this group of
sympathizers from the other groups is that they were not the ones
considered by the establishment as the saner and stronger segment of
society. They did not follow the crowd, or do the diplomatic thing.
They were the women who gathered at the cross, those who wept for him,
the Roman centurion, the condemned man hanging on the cross next to
Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea--the Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin
that condemned him--and the other Pharisee Nicodemus who anointed his
body after his death, and Simon from the country who helped carry his
cross, though unwillingly.
Those
who should have been at the cross were not, and those we would not
expect to be there were. That is a lesson that gives us much to
think about. The paradoxes in the life of Jesus that can teach us about life are easy to see on
reflection.
Today, Good Friday, is the only day of the year
without a Mass. To allow us to meditate on the reality of what happened
on that day, without the usual support of a commemorating Mass,
is the reason we read the passion, meditate on its meaning and
venerate the cross. We have the Liturgy of the Word today and
participate in the communion rite from the Eucharist consecrated on Holy
Thursday.
In Korea as in most parts of the Catholic World, we
call the day Holy Friday, which does not need an explanation as does the
word 'good' in "Good Friday," the term normally used in the
English-speaking world. Paradoxes stand our strongly during this day's
liturgy. God in the person of Jesus became man, and yet lacked all that
the world of the East considers important for happiness.The Koreans have
the expression 'five blessings' which names what the tradition
considers necessary for earthly happiness; this was also true of the
Israelites of the Old Testament. Jesus didn't possess even one of these
blessings. This is a good lesson for us to bring to mind when we see
what society presents to us as the great values of life.
The
need to communicate has been a part of life from the beginning of time,
from the first word-of-mouth exchanges to the written messages of more
recent times, and from our even more recent television, Internet,
and smart phone culture of today. Any individual with the use of an
electronic device can now either set up a personal blog or access the
growing number of interactive social media to wield the same, and
sometimes greater, influence globally than many giant media corporations
have in the past. This expanded, sophisticated use of mass media will
play an increasingly important role in our world, with potentially
detrimental consequences, according to a scholar on the media who spoke
at a recent meeting of the Korean bishops. He discussed how the porn
industry has taken advantage of our enhanced mass media to distort and
sensationalize sex in efforts to reach our most vulnerable citizens, our
younger people who are always on the lookout for new experiences and
delving into rebellious behavior. It is an area, he warned, that
requires serious pastoral concerns.
The media has influenced not
only how the porn industry operates today but how many other areas of
life have been affected, including, he reported, the recent downtrend in
priestly vocations. What would be the most effective measures to deal
with the overall media problem? he asked. The morally healthy intentions
of our hearts are
fostered by what comes in from the outside, he said. So the suggestive
images that flood the mass media are going to influence our young
people.
The bishops at the meeting agreed and began a discussion
of how to deal with the situation, especially with an internet culture
liberally sprinkled with lewdness and the sensationalizing displays in
the media of mindless hedonism within society itself.
However,
despite the obvious problems there is little that has been done by the
Church to deal with the problems, no education provided for making us
more media-savy, and not any great advances in the sex education of our
young people. Without allocating personnel and finances to help solve
the problem, the Church can do little to compete with the way the mass
media has infiltrated and influenced society, the scholar said.
The
young people who have been influenced by the mass media to accept a
distorted value system are not going to be open to accepting the
teachings of the Church. Since our young people's understanding of sex
and morality is often formed by the media's distorted value system,
governed by the always present financial bottom line, this is where our
efforts have to be applied. Like the effort made under the dictatorship
to maximize and monitor the influence of the government over its
citizens, the same effort needs to be made, he said, to restrain the
power of a disturbingly secular culture and mass media. Educating our
citizens to this reality should not be limited to a one-time approach
but be ongoing. A sister working in this area says we should have the
same concern for the increasingly polluted social environment the mass
media has created that we have for our natural environment. One priest
said that the number of abortions and suicides is influenced by popular
culture and that the Church, according to the priest, has said little
on the influence of the mass media on this matter.
In teaching
the social gospel, we should not limit the topics to politics, finances,
and social problems but deal also with the values of popular culture,
both the good and the bad values. Discerning one from the other should
be an ongoing educational priority for society and, especially, for the
Church.
Have
you ever been moved deeply by an unexpected encounter in your life? A
Catholic Times' columnist raises the question, but
he doesn't mean seeing a beautiful landscape, an inspiring movie, play
or painting, or meeting some extraordinary person. He means having such
an experience in circumstances least likely to create such an
experience--on an ordinary day in the presence of an ordinary person.
An
elderly religious brother came to the columnist's room and said he
needed to drink some beer; would he go out and buy two cans of beer for
him. The columnist knew the brother had been sick with a cold and fever,
and to hear him ask for beer was startling. Dumbfounded, he gently
asked, "Brother, you were very sick for a number of days, will it be
alright to have a beer?"
The brother quickly answered, "If I have
some beer, all will disappear." The brother went back to his room, and
the columnist put on some clothes, went to the nearest store to buy the
beer, and brought them to the brother's room. He was sitting in a chair
in his long underwear, a blanket wrapped around him, his face showing
the effects of the cold and fever. He thanked the columnist and gulp
down the first of the two cans of beer.
Though the columnist knew
that drinking a can of beer and getting rid of a cold had no reasonable
connection, he saw the brother, after drinking the beer, get up from
his chair, go to his cassette player and insert Simon and Garfunkel's
"Bridge Over Troubled Water." He turned the room light off, clicked on
the small light by the bed and, slightly bent over, stood on the floor
mattress which became his stage. "The reason I asked you to buy the
beer," he said, "was to sing this song." With a broad smile, he began
lip-synching the song with all the mannerism of the singer. Finishing
the song, he inserted two other pop songs and similarly sang them with lip movements and body gestures, mimicking the pop singer.
The columnist was teary-eyed seeing
the old religious on his makeshift stage, lip-singing the songs. He
didn't want to be a burden on his fellow religious and had found a way to overcome the body's indisposition by willing himself well so he could give what had to be the world's smallest
musical performance. And the columnist was there, as an audience of
one, in the best seat in the house. When he returned to his room, he was so overcome with feeling at what he had witnessed that he could not go to sleep.
What other activities--despite the obstacles that normally are present to frustrate those activities--are we capable of, we might ask ourselves, if only we would bring to our desires the same commitment of will as did the religious brother.
"Our modern culture is an obstacle to the religious life but it is
the reality we have to face." This was the headline on the write-up on one of the participants to a symposium sponsored by the research
center of the bishops on religious education in our present
environment. The Catholic Times reported on the results of the symposium.
A
predominantly secular culture, the sole reliance on science to uncover
the truths of life, and capitalism were among the major challenges to
the new
evangelization discussed by participants to the symposium. The article
considered secularism and the scientific world view the result of a capitalistic
way of life. This gave birth to problems, he said, like despondency and
suicide, and the resulting emphasis on the need for a healing culture,
separate from that provided by religion.
The first talk by a seminary
professor explored the problems that come from a secularism
devoid of the religious, the ascendency of atheism, the functionality of
religion, and the scientific mind cast that evangelization has to
face. The professor suggested that nothing is gained from continuing to see the
culture we live in as the enemy,
and to be satisfied in merely criticizing that culture.
Paradoxically, this culture enables many, he said, to see the value of the material creation and its
sacredness, the importance of living fully here and now, and seeing all
of nature and the universe with different eyes, eyes with more self-awareness.
Modern
culture is not to be seen as the enemy of the Christian culture but to
see Christianity as existing within this modern culture. We need to avoid, he added, the objectification
of culture, calling it secularism and then criticizing it. He wonders
if within the Church itself secularism is not
the
bigger problem. He wants to know how do we profess our
Christianity within this secularist culture and make it vital. If we
don't analyze and reflect to discover ways to live within this
culture, our criticism will be either empty or hypocritical, he said.
In
conclusion, the professor wants us to work with the methods Jesus used,
as we search for new programs to implement the new evangelization.
Criticism alone is not enough, he said. The Church has to change itself
before we can change the
world. Church renewal has to come first.
