Issue 50 - The Pilgrim - June 2016 - The newspaper of the Archdiocese of Southwark

The Pilgrim June 2016
Europe and the common good
Fr Ashley Beck, assistant priest at St Edmund of
Canterbury, Beckenham, and lecturer in pastoral ministry
at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, continues his series
exploring modern papal encyclicals
On the feast of Pentecost, we
celebrate the coming of the Holy
Spirit on the disciples and, like
the whole of the season of Eastertide,
this leads us to reflect
about, and to celebrate, the nature
of the Catholic Church.
The Holy Spirit dwells within
the Church as a guarantee of
truth, of freedom from error.
That is what we mean when we
say that the Church is infallible in
its teaching ministry. Much of this
ministry is articulated in the ministry
of the Vicar of Christ, which
is why we talk of the pope being
infallible.
So Pentecost and the weeks
following are a good time to
think about the subject of my
monthly articles this year, encyclical
letters from the popes of
the last century.
Pope St John XXIII, as many of
you will still remember, was only
pope for five years, having been
elected at a great age, and many
saw him as a stop-gap or a “caretaker”
pope: but in those years
he achieved a tremendous
amount, above all by calling the
Second Vatican Council, which
opened only a few months before
he died of cancer in June 1963.
But two of his encyclical letters
are also very important and we
will look at the first this month,
Mater et Magistra, issued in the
summer of 1961. The letter’s
opening words are a good Pentecost
statement: “Mother and
teacher of all nations - such is
the Catholic Church in the mind
of her founder, Jesus Christ.”
For us it might not seem a very
striking description but it actually
sets a tone in addressing the
“nations” which strikes the
reader as somewhat warmer and
more ‘motherly’ than had been
true in the recent past (the pope
actually got the phrase “Mother
and Teacher” from Innocent III in
the Middle Ages).
The letter celebrates the 70th
Pope John XXIII meeting President
Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1959
anniversary of the letter of Leo
XIII, which we looked at in March,
Rerum Novarum, seen as the beginning
of the modern tradition
of Catholic Social teaching, and
the pope addresses social issues
in the light of Catholic moral
teaching.
As with all papal encyclicals,
there is a lot of emphasis on continuity.
That is why the anniversaries
of Rerum Novarum are
seen as important. But at the
same time the tradition grows
and develops as the Church responds
to changes in the world,
to history.
The change in tone is crucial,
reflecting Pope John’s overall approach
of warmth and a desire
for reconciliation, but there are
two big ways in which the letter
shows a shift, a movement, in
Catholic teaching.
The letter is significant in
many ways in the rather complicated
world of Italian politics in
the late 1950s and early 1960s
which is too big a subject to be
looked at here. But one thing the
pope does is to endorse moves
towards what we call the “welfare
state.”
He welcomes what he calls “an
increase in social relationships”
and “a development in man’s social
life”. Drawing on the writings
of the Jesuit anthropologist and
theologian Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin, the pope welcomes a
sense of interdependence in the
human family. This means that
when the state intervenes to help
people it is a good thing “even in
matter of such intimate concern
to the individual as health and
education, the choice of a career,
and the care and rehabilitation of
the physically and mentally
handicapped.”
In the years immediately after
the Second World War the Church
in some places had seen welfare
state policies as a sign of centralised
state control and an undermining
of the place of the
family (partly because of what
had happened in Communist and
Fascist countries).
For most Catholics 15 years on
this was less of a threat. The
pope’s endorsement is important
all these years later at a time
when many of the services associated
with the welfare state are
no longer provided in the same
way, if at all, a change generally
criticised by Catholic bishops and
charities.
The second important development
- and very topical in this
month - is over international relations.
Pius XII after the war had
reminded Catholics that the sovereignty
of nation states cannot
be absolute. It is only relative
and there needs to be international
bodies to stifle national
aggression.
Pope John takes this further,
specifically endorsing intergovernmental
organisations: “The
demands of the common good on
the international level include:
the avoidance of all forms of unfair
competition between the
economies of different countries;
the fostering of mutual collaboration
and good will; and effective
co-operation in the development
of economically less advanced
communities.”
Mater et Magistra was written
three years after the signing of
the Treaty of Rome, which set up
the Common Market, the EEC.
Italy had been a founder member
of the common European institutions
set up from 1950, and Pope
John’s words are an endorsement
of the ideals and aims of the EEC,
which has grown into the European
Union.
Of course Britain was not a
member of the EEC in 1961. But
it is hard to square the pope’s vision
with the outlook of the
“Leave” campaign in the current
EU Referendum debate in this
country. His vision should help to
guide as we pray about how to
vote.
By Fr Daniel O’Leary
Into every life, the wise ones say,
comes one shining moment. It is a
moment of glory. The curtains part,
the vision is granted, and something
is changed forever.
That single experience, in one
way or another, stays with us always
and colours the whole of our lives. It
is the timeless time when the veil is
drawn from the mystery of our existence,
when our essence is disclosed
to us, when we discover – even if
only fleetingly – who we really are.
It is a highly personal moment of
truth.
Your one bright and shining moment
may have to do with naming
what or who you really love; with
revealing to you the job or relationship
that is slowly destroying you; or
with becoming aware that all your
decisions and reactions spring from
a deeply hidden anxiety, anger or
fear.
Or it might be that you need no
longer be afraid because you are
loved unconditionally by a God who
delights in you; that, without a
doubt, the universe and life itself
are safe places for yourself, your
children and all you love; that
everything that has ever happened
to you is not happen-chance but
part of a carefully crafted love
story.
Feature/Column
Have you experienced
a shining moment?
In the popular film
‘It’s a Wonderful
Life’, George Bailey
experiences a
shining moment
The Leaven
Carmelite Secular
Institute
CALLING ALL
Single and widowed women
Seeking to dedicate
their life to God
Through vows in secular society.
Contact: The Secretary, The Leaven,
c/o The Friars, Aylesford ME20 7BX.
Tel: 01883 742488.
Email: kinman@ouvip.com
www.theleaven.org.uk
It might be that your shining moment
happens when God comes to
you usually disguised as your life, in
all its bits and pieces; that apart
from one or two cherished beliefs,
nothing matters very much. You realise
that it is in our weakness and
sinfulness that we are strongest of
all and that we are indestructible
and untouchable as long as we remain
close to God.
The human life of Jesus in time
and space was one of the brightest
shining moments in the history of
creation. In the fullness and totality
of his very own humanity lies the secret
passage to the heart of God.
And, therefore, likewise with us.
It is during our most desperate, ecstatic,
despairing, joyful, routine,
hopeless times that those luminous
moments of clarity surround us with
transparency.
We are held in a threshold between
two phases of our lives – not
to do with the chronological time of
years and decades but with the
kairos-time of falling into mystery,
of falling in love with God.
These moments heal and transcend
the damaging religious education
of our childhood days and
liberate us into the belief that we
are all gods-in-the making, that
even from our murkiest and most
sinful encounters with evil, God can
bring light.
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