"Truth is symphonic," it resists reduction

Since my post Pope Francis: What's in a name?, the Holy Father has provided us with an answer to the question, "Why the name Francis?" In his address to journalists last Saturday, Pope Francis shared the following:

Some people wanted to know why the Bishop of Rome wished to be called Francis. Some thought of Francis Xavier, Francis De Sales, and also Francis of Assisi. I will tell you the story. During the election, I was seated next to the Archbishop Emeritus of São Paolo and Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Claudio Hummes: a good friend, a good friend! When things were looking dangerous, he encouraged me. And when the votes reached two thirds, there was the usual applause, because the Pope had been elected. And he gave me a hug and a kiss, and said: “Don't forget the poor!” And those words came to me: the poor, the poor. Then, right away, thinking of the poor, I thought of Francis of Assisi. Then I thought of all the wars, as the votes were still being counted, till the end. Francis is also the man of peace. That is how the name came into my heart: Francis of Assisi

I appreciate the clarification and love the simplicity of Pope Francis' story (who wouldn't?). Predictably, I have received a few "nanner, nanner"-type replies to my post, despite the fact that I admitted to not knowing why he chose "Francis" and thought I made it clear that I was simply exploring possibilities, which exploration spilled over into my next post (Concrete polyavlance: the communion of saints). These responses brought to my attention, yet again, how on-line interaction often renders us less mature and causes some people to regress to Piaget's "concrete operational" stage of development.

All of this brings me back to the concept, or idea, of polyvalence. I want to apply that concept more specifically to language. So, for an explication of what I was pointing to as we awaited some clarification as to why the Holy Father chose the name "Francis," I turn to that philosopher whose prose style is said to have been been dubbed by Michel Foucault obscurantisme terroriste (i.e., terrorist obscurantism- I have never found it to be so, but some of Foucault writings are, in my estimation, moral terrorism). Whatever else might be written of Derrida, he grasped the mystery of language and how it is language that leads us into an intense encounter with reality ("In the beginning was Logos"- John 1:1). Too many philosophers and theologians, failing to grasp the mysterious nature of language, seek to be definitive about what they write and work very hard to make their prose unequivocal, bearing a singular message, one that is not subject to any other way of understanding it. Derrida's point was never that authorial intention doesn't matter when trying to understand a text (though some extremists of the "deconstructionist" school tried to make this case and drew on Derrida to do so). On the contrary, he insisted that it is one of the markers that constitute the boundaries of what a text can mean.

Pope Francis' papal coat-of-arms

Derrida's point, as I understand it, was that language resists our attempts to reduce the meaning of a text exclusively to what we think were the specific intentions of its authors, even when the intentions are fairly well known, but especially when the are not. This brings to mind many critical passages written by St. Paul. Nothing demonstrates this better than attempts to reduce the interpretation of Sacred Scripture by application of the historical-critical method. It is the post-critical, that is, theological expositors of Scripture that help us grasp the polyvalence of the sacred texts. Anyone who has read Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth books knows firsthand what it is to explicate Scripture in a post-critical way. It was Hans Urs Von Balthasar, especially in the first chapter of his first volume of his theological aesthetics, Seeing the Form, who pioneered the post-critical approach, which does not discount the insights wrought by those who mine the historical-critical vein, but refuses to be reductive, or let the atomizing of Scripture be the last word because it leaves us only with fragments and shards, saying nothing. Returning to those passages by St. Paul, to grasp their possible meanings in the absence of clear authorial intention, we look to how these have been interpreted by commentators whose works help to make up what we call Tradition. We also have what we call the "four senses of Scripture" (see "Henri de Lubac and the Spiritual Sense of Scripture" by Dr. D'Ambrosio).

Those who refuse the inherent polyvalence of language, which is made of words, are reductivists. Derrida, Von Balthasar, and those who have a deeper understanding of and appreciation for language and the words that comprise it, seek to demonstrate the futility of the authoritarianism over language exhibited by those seek to be definitive, or unequivocal. To borrow words from Steve Martinot, "the polyvalence of language calls in question what 'say' and 'think' mean, what the 'who' that does it is." So, while we are now clear about what led the Holy Father to choose "Francis" as his papal name, let's not seek to reduce to his witness, or restrict the communio sanctorum. Even with the Pontiff's clarification, I am sticking with both/and. As Balthasar noted, "truth is symphonic."

For those who think I am really stretching, I ask you simply to consider Papa Begoglio's episcopal motto: Miserando atque eligendo. He chose this motto, not when he was chosen to be Bishop of Rome last week, but when he became a bishop back in 1992. Translated fluidly it means "Lowly yet chosen," or, a bit more literally, "Poor but elected." His motto exemplifies the very tension I am trying to articulate. I would also draw your attention, dear reader, to a piece posted last Friday on the Catholic Answers blog by Todd Aglialoro: A Pope of Contradictions. Moreover, like my beloved Benedict, Pope Francis strikes me as a Pope who resists reduction.

Pope Francis moved by Msgr. Giussani

Yesterday, while flying eastward from my beloved Utah (the true Zion, for those who are unaware), I took the opportunity to re-read then-Cardinal Bergoglio's short essay in A Generative Thought: An Introduction to the Works of Luigi Giussani, a book of essays explicating the thought of my dear Don Gius. Before I address the now-Pontiff's essay, I want to make a some observations.

In addition to Pope Francis' contribution, the book also features essays by two of the other leading papabili: Cardinals Angelo Scola and Marc Ouellet. This shows how deeply the charism given to the Church through Luigi Giussani has penetrated. Of course, Don Angelo is a true son of the Movement known as Comunione e Liberazione, so no surprises there. Benedict XVI's ties to the Movement are also well known, his household consisting of members of Memores Domini, with whom he is said to engage in weekly School of Community- the study and discussion of life in the light of the teachings of Msgr. Giussani. It was then-Cardinal Ratzinger, just a few months prior to becoming Pope, who, in February 2005, was sent by Bl. John Paul II as papal legate to celebrate the funeral mass for Msgr. Giussani at the Duomo in Milan, at which he delivered one of his remarkable homilies.

People have me asked if I was disappointed that Cardinal Scola was not elected pope by his brother cardinals. My answer is simply and emphatically, No! I had no preconceptions at all, really and truly. But I knew that both Ouellet and Bergoglio were also close to the Movement. Even then, I had no expectations. As John Allen wrote after Bergoglio's selection as Bishop of Rome: "Over the years, Bergoglio became close to the Comunione e Liberazione movement founded by Italian Fr. Luigi Giussani, sometimes speaking at its massive annual gathering in Rimini, Italy."

Judging by the length of his piece in A Generative Thought, by the length of his inaugural homily, and his prior reputation, I think, building on the great teaching and reforming legacies of Blessed John Paul II and Benedict XVI, this will be a pontificate dedicated almost exclusively to praxis, walking the walk in the everyday circumstances of our lives, not that the previous two papacies weren't about that too, lest we get carried away and exaggerate. I look for not so many words from, but a lot of actions by Pope Francis. In terms of the on-going tension concerning the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, I believe that the fact that Pope Francis was ordained a priest after the Council (in 1969- a result of the lengthy process of Jesuit formation) is significant and represents a generational shift. To give credit where it is due, I think my beloved Benedict sensed the need for this while discerning his decision to abdicate.

Now to then-Cardinal Bergoglio's brief, but powerful essay on the influence of the thought of Luigi Giussani on his life and ministry, simply entitled, For Man. I read the article when I was first given the book by a friend some years ago. So I looked to see what, if anything, in his five page piece I had highlighted. It was this from the last page:

The beginning of every philosophy is wonder, and only wonder leads to knowledge. Notice that moral and cultural degradation begin to arise when this capacity for wonder is weakened or cancelled or when it dies. The cultural opiate tends to cancel, weaken, or kill this capacity for wonder. Pope Luciani once said that the drama of contemporary Christianity lies in the fact that it puts categories and norms in the place of wonder"

At the beginning of his essay, which is a revised version of a lecture he gave while personally presenting the Spanish edition of Giussani's book The Religious Sense, , he wrote that he agreed to do this as an expression of gratitude to Don Gius: "For many years now, his writings have inspired me to reflect and have helped me to pray. They have taught me to be a better Christian, and I spoke to bear witness to this."

From the same book, in the opening essay by Cardinal Scola (an essay that is must reading for anyone who really wants to grasp Giussani), something that struck me in light of my trip later today to the the National Shrine of Divine Mercy, located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, something that also shows Giussani's deep and authentic ecumenism, a trait that Pope Francis also possesses. Scola quotes Don Gius:

Theologising and being committed to an immediate activity of apostolate do not seem to me at all separate or incompatible. I would say rather that I cannot understand how it is possible to theologise unless theology is a systematic and critical self-awareness of an experience of faith in action and thus a commitment to the mystery of Christ and of the Church, a passion for the salvation of the world therefore... [ellipsis in Scola's piece] Jonathan Edwards was able to write a colossal work like Freedom of the Will (1754), with pages of extraordinary value on freedom, on religious affections and so on, while he was living with his family amidst grave poverty, committed to the mission amongst the Indians of the village of Stockbridge in the remote woods of Western Massachusetts in the first half of the eighteenth century

I believe this gives us a little insight and background for statements like this from Papa Bergoglio: "We have to avoid the spiritual sickness of a self-referential church. It's true that when you get out into the street, as happens to every man and woman, there can be accidents. However, if the church remains closed in on itself, self-referential, it gets old. Between a church that suffers accidents in the street, and a church that's sick because it's self-referential, I have no doubts about preferring the former."

"No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name"

Thanks to my friend Alex I have a clear-cut selection for this week's Friday traditio, Franz Liszt's beautiful Cantico del Sol di San Francesco d'Assisi. I offer this in gratitude for our Holy Father, Pope Francis. Vive il Papa! It bears noting that the historical evidence supports the claim the Francesco Bernadone was a deacon, never a priest.

St. Francesco d' Assisi receiving the Stigmata, by El Greco, 1571

Canticle of the Sun, by St. Francis of Assisi:

Most high, all powerful, all good Lord! All praise is yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing. To you, alone, Most High, do they belong. No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.

Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him. And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor! Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars; in the heavens you have made them, precious and beautiful.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air, and clouds and storms, and all the weather, through which you give your creatures sustenance.

Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom you brighten the night. He is beautiful and cheerful, and powerful and strong.

Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth, who feeds us and rules us, and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you; through those who endure sickness and trial. Happy those who endure in peace, for by you, Most High, they will be crowned.

Be praised, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death, from whose embrace no living person can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Happy those she finds doing your most holy will. The second death can do no harm to them.

Praise and bless my Lord, and give thanks, and serve him with great humility.

Concrete polyvalence: the communio sanctorum

There is nothing I cherish more than belonging to the communio sanctorum. In light of my last post, my dear friend, Fred, offered this list of saints named Francis, in addition to those I wrote about previously:

Saint Francis of Paola (1416–1507), Italian (Calabrian) founder of the Order of the Minims

Saint Francis Borgia (1510–1572), Spanish Jesuit priest; third leader of the Jesuits

Saint Francis Solanus (1549–1610), Spanish Franciscan missionary to South America

St. Francis Borgia, the third Superior General of the Society of Jesus

Saint Francis Caracciolo (1563–1608), Italian priest who co-founded the Congregation of the Minor Clerics Regular

Saint Francis Ferdinand de Capillas (1607–1648), Castilian Dominican missionary; first Roman Catholic martyr killed in China

Saint Francis de Geronimo (1642–1716), Italian Jesuit priest


Since St. Frances of Rome, whose liturgical memorial we celebrated 9 March, was a woman, I think we can rule her out.

More and/and/and.. I think we'd have to agree that among these Sts. Francis of Assisi, Francis Xavier, and Francis de Sales stand out. I also think in the case of Pope Francis we have to narrow it down to St. Francis of Assisi and Francis Xavier. But who knows? I certainly make no claim to have exhausedt the polyvalent possibilities in my last post, or to know the mind of the Holy Father.

It's also fascinating to me that when the Society of Jesus (i.e., the Jesuits) were suppressed in the eighteenth century, it was the Franciscan, Pope Clement XIV, who suppressed them with his papal bull, promulgated in 1773, Dominus ac Redemptor.

Pope Francis: what's in a name?

The true answer to the question I posed in the title is, "We don't know." Like everyone else, my mind went immediately to St. Francis of Assisi. I thought, "Interesting name for the first Jesuit Pope." But a little later someone reminded me of the great Jesuit missionary, St. Francis Xavier. Later still, another friend, as well as a brother deacon, asked, "What about St. Francis de Sales?"

Before discerning his vocation to priesthood and religious life, a young Jorgé Mario Bergoglio studied to become a chemist, earning a master's degree in the subject from the University of Buenos Aires. Hence, he is familiar with the term poly- or multivalence, which is a term that is also used in logic, music, and medicine. As a non-scientist (but one who has studied logic), as I grasp it, in chemistry a "valence" refers to the number of valence bonds a given atom has formed, or can form, with one or more other atoms. In logic polyvalence refers to inexact, or approximate, reasoning. In other words, it is not binary. In either case, I think that this is the best we can do right now when discerning what his choice of the name indicates. This seems to suit his character as he is both quiet, unassuming, and simple as well as firm, decisive, and eloquent when he speaks.

In the true Catholic spirit, I have to go with Assisi/Xavier/de Sales, and/and/and, not either/or/or. It seems to me that the thread that weaves together the three Francises is being a missionary. This also links his papacy, at least to some extent, to that of Benedict XVI. Francis of Assisi, a missionary whose task, given him by our Lord, was to rebuild, that is, reform the Church. St. Francis Xavier who traveled far and died on Shangchuan Island, where he was waiting to continue his missionary journeys by taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Chinese mainland. His other missionary destinations included Japan, Indonesia, and India. St. Francis de Sales, of course, was the Counter-Reformation bishop of Geneva, the city of Calvin, a master communicator, and so also a missionary who led many back to the Catholic faith.

Pope Francis assuming the mantle

In his brief remarks, he said: "And now let us begin this journey, the Bishop and people, this journey of the Church of Rome which presides in charity over all the Churches, a journey of brotherhood in love, of mutual trust. Let us always pray for one another. Let us pray for the whole world that there might be a great sense of brotherhood . My hope is that this journey of the Church that we begin today, together with help of my Cardinal Vicar, be fruitful for the evangelization of this beautiful city." Being a missionary, I can only take him to mean ab urbe, ad mundi (i.e., from the city to the world).

I loved that he led us in prayer for our beloved Benedict and that he asked us to pray for him before he blessed us.

I know from reading the late Peter Hebblethwaite's biography Paul VI: The First Modern Pope that Papa Montini was haunted by a verse from the Gospel According to St. John, something Jesus says to Peter after "the Rock's" threefold confessio in answer to the Lord's persistent question "do you love me?" and after telling Peter "Feed my sheep"- "'Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.' He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when he had said this, he said to him, 'Follow me'" (John 21:15-19). In light of this, let's commit to praying for our Holy Father daily.

On the eve of the Conclave

Dear sisters and brothers, the Conclave is near. It is time to pray and fast, nothing else, just that.

O God, eternal shepherd,

who govern your flock with

   unfailing care,

grant in your boundless fatherly love

a pastor for your Church

who will please you by his holiness

and to us show watchful care.

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.

Amen.

The Church: a renewed invitation to a change of heart

Pater Tom once observed that it is much better to just be yourself than to try acting like an angel.

I had to laugh at how much currency Cardinal Onaiyekan's comment about the Church being entrusted to "erring humans" and not "angels" has gained. It shows how our distraction leads to incoherence. On the one hand, we berate the Church, yell and scream about how much the Church needs to change, for many even in its essentials (i.e., those things that really cannot change). On the other hand, we turn the Cardinal Electors into some kind of super-human, super-Christian club (it must be the dazzling eccesial vestments).

One of the signs of Christ's Church is that She remains ecclesia semper reformanda. Cardinal Dolan pointed this out in his wonderful way this week, which he wrote about on his blog:

A journalist... asked if the new Pope would bring radical change to the Church. She seemed surprised when I replied, yes! At least I had her full attention! I then went on to clarify that the Church was “big-time” into change; namely, a change in the human heart, which Jesus called repentance or conversion. The “job description” of the Bishop of Rome is to conserve the faith, the truths of which have been revealed to us by God, especially through His Son, Jesus, faithfully passed on by His Church these past 2000 years, and to renew the invitation of Jesus to a change of heart

It can't be lost on anyone who pays the slightest attention that the Church has been mired in scandal for awhile, what the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus called the Church's "long Lent." These scandals have continued to come to light (i.e., Mahony and O'Brien) right up to threshold of the Conclave. What Cardinal Onaiyekan said was obvious and he stated it as being obvious. Isn't this the reason so many of the faithful are already praying so fervently and will continue do so throughout the Conclave and into the next pontificate? Isn't this the reason behind the success of the website Adopt a Cardinal (I am praying in a special way for Cardinal Rubén Salazar Gómez, archbishop of Bogotá)?

Van Gogh's The Sower, June 1888

I think what Cardinal Onaiyekan went on to say is more important than the remarks that have drawn so much diversionary attention. According to the Catholic News Service, he went on to assert something about true and false reform, insisting that the Church cannot be worried about being credible "in the sense of its message being believed" and "accepted by everyone." He said, "There are people to whom my message will never be credible, because they will never believe me because they don't believe" in God. He asserted. "You can't be credible to everybody. Authentic, yes, but authentic means a message that is as close as possible to the message of Jesus... The church cannot go around, obviously, all the time trying to be popular, to be acceptable." According to His Eminence, this "doesn't mean that we go out of our way to be difficult to understand... We do our best to explain as much as we can."

Indeed, the Church must continually rise to the task entrusted to Her by Christ, to "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that [He has] commanded [us]" (Matt. 28:19-20). Onaiyekan concluded, "Even Jesus didn't have it easy explaining to the people of his day what his message was about."

Just last evening I was reading about John Calvin's doctrine of predestination as set forth by T.H.L. Parker:

Calvin's begins at the same practical point as Augustine. Why, when the gospel is preached do some believe and some reject it? The answer that some will to believe and some will to reject cannot be final; it is merely explaining [belief] and unbelief. How can one who has hitherto willed to reject now will to believe? Man is a sinner, that is, a being who wills to reject God. It is clear from the New Testament that faith is the gift of God, that man's will is changed from a rejecting to a believing will by the creative act of the Holy Spirit. So, then, those who believe the gospel do so because their rejecting will is changed into a believing will... To say that men change their own wills [with regard to the actus fidei] would be the grossest Pelagianism

I pray that we never lose sight of the fact that, in the end, the Bride of Christ is spotless, being only comprised of the saints. As Patrick Coffin, the host of Catholic Answers Live, often says on-the-air: "Be a saint. What else is there?" The answer really and truly is, "Nothing, absolutely nothing." This is as true of a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church as it is of the Roman Pontiff, as it is of any lay woman or man, or even of this lowly deacon. Jesus' parables of the sower and the wheat and the tares, both of which are found in the thirteenth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, serve to point this out. Each day of the Conclave the Cardinal electors will gather in the Sistine Chapel. It is not accidental that on the altar wall of the Sistine is Michelangelo's fresco The Last Judgment.