Doctrinal, dogmatic and ecumenical reflections

On 8 December 1854 His Holiness Pope Pius IX issued the Bull Ineffabilis Deus in which he infallibly defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. To mark the 150th anniversary of that event the Franciscan International Study Centre (FISC), Giles Lane, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NA and the Centre for Marian Studies (CMS), University of Wales Lampeter, have organised a conference on Saturday 4 December 2004, 10 a.m. - 5.30 p.m. Persons not already CMS-members or FISC-students wishing to attend are invited to suppy Richard Caraccio at FISC beforehand with £20 towards the costs of the day and full details of their name, postal address and telephone number.

CMS-director Dr Sarah Jane Boss writes: "The doctrine that the Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin has perhaps had the most interesting history of any doctrine in the Christian Church. Supported by popular celebrations and by enthusiasts willing to go so far as to shed their blood in its defence but often opposed by theologians, the dogma was finally made an article of the Roman Catholic faith when Pope Pius IX proclaimed the Bull Ineffabilis Deus in 1854. This conference marks that definition with discussion of the theological, political and wider cultural aspects of this distinctively Catholic teaching."

The conference begins with Holy Mass at FISC at 10 a.m., and the Most Revd Kevin McDonald, Archbishop of Southwark will preside over the proceedings. Specific topics to be addressed by a variety of appropriately qualified and distinguished speakers include the place of the Immaculate Conception in British tradition, in the Franciscan intellectual tradition, in modern French Culture, and in its relationship not only to St Bernadette's visions at Lourdes, but also to other social and political circumstances prevailing at the time.

Notable studies that shed additional light on Pope Pius IX's and the Catholic Church's existential position in the middle of the 19th century include Joseph Bezzina's Religion and Politics in a Crown Colony - The Gozo-Malta Story, 1798-1864 (Valletta, Bugelli Publications, 1985), Edna Hamer's Elizabeth Prout 1820-1864 - A Religious Life for Industrial England (Downside Abbey, Bath, 1994), and A. Auffray's classic life of Saint John Bosco, 1815-1888 (1st English edition: 1930; Indian edition: Salesian House, Tirupattur, 1959). Father Auffray writes (pp. 115-7) -

"Like Ozonam, Don Bosco thought the best defence for the purity of his sons was an active life of charity and self-sacrifice… Don Bosco was always on the watch for opportunities for self-sacrifice in order to plunge his sons boldly into the midst of them; and in 1854 cholera broke out in Turin, and thus provided him with a wonderful opportunity.

At the end of July, in splendid weather, the scourge came from the south of Italy and fell upon the town. Cases increased in number with disconcerting rapidity; at the end of the first week, there were fifty or sixty a day, and sometimes the mortality rose to sixty per cent. In three months the cases amounted to two thousand five hundred, of which fourteen hundred were fatal…

From the very beginning Don Bosco was rushing everywhere to the bedsides of the sick and dying, giving them his spiritual and charitable assistance, and he quickly saw that, considering the extent of the evil, nothing but a band of devoted young people could render such heroic aid to the stricken town. Then, without hesitating, he made an appeal to his bigger lads: fourteen of them immediately gave in their names, and thirty others imitated them within a few days. With the zeal of these forty, splendid work was done, and it was methodically organised. Part of the young folk lent a hand in the lazarettos, and another part of them in people's families; and another group was charged with visiting workmen's houses to hunt for unfortunate cases abandoned by their relations; and a picket was left on the watch at the Oratory to answer any and every call. No one hesitated to come and beg for help at any hour of the day or night. For more than two months these forty young fellows were absolutely run off their legs. And yet not one of them was attacked by the disease. The protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary was visibly over them, for if, at the beginning of their new business, they really took care to use antiseptics, washing and using disinfectants after each expedition, yet at the end they did not worry about it but trusted to Providence…

On December 8 of this same year, in Rome, Pius IX, surrounded with more than two hundred Cardinals, Patriarchs, Archbishops and Bishops, solemnly proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin; it was the day chosen by Don Bosco to thank G-d and His Mother for having so visibly protected his roof under the tempest, and for having made him the Father of a family of whom he could so justly be proud…"

Persons already uncomfortable with the Roman Catholic dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption may be less than pleased by the Lady of All Nations' insistence that the Pope should also define as dogma of Catholic Faith Her prerogatives as Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate. Indeed, several Roman Catholic theologians who already believe Mary truly is our Co-Redemptrix as Her only Son, Jesus of Nazareth, is our sole Redeemer, that She is Mediatrix of All Graces as Jesus, Her Divine Son, is our One and Only Mediator with the Father, and that She is our most efficacious Advocate in all necessities as Jesus Christ is ever living and interceding for us, have, nevertheless, vigorously argued that, in the interests of Christian charity and better ecumenical relations, the Pope is best advised to refrain from adding to the dogmas the Church already has…

Those who accept the authenticity of the Amsterdam apparitions and communications are, however, hoping and praying that this Lady's requests be speedily met (Cf. Josef Kunzli, The Messages of The Lady of All Nations and Eucharistic Experiences, Queenship Publishing Company, 1996; Robert J. Payesko, A Marian Dogma Whose Time Has Come - Short answers to the ten most commonly asked questions about the Definition of the Final Marian Dogma, Queenship Publishing Company, 1998).

Here instead I shall outline a few thoughts derived in part from my second reading of the English-language adaptation of Father Martin Bialas, C.P.'s Das Leiden Christi beim hl. Paul vom Kreuz (1978), namely: The Mysticism of the Passion in St. Paul of the Cross (1694-1775) - An Investigation of Passioncentrism in the Spiritual Doctrine of the founder of the Passionist Congregation, with an Introductory Word by Professor Jürgen Moltmann (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990).

In July 1994, when I summarised my first impressions after reading Bialas's work in English, I also tried briefly to relate his thought both to that of Bernard Lonergan on Aquinas and of Bede Griffiths about the Holy Spirit as Mother. Then, in August that same year in a related letter to Cardinal Ratzinger, who as the author's former professor had in 1977-78 supervised the book's first publication in German, I focussed rather more sharply on this work's central thesis, and at the same time referred to Bede Griffiths' appreciation of religious renewal as our participation in Jesus Christ's crucifixion-resurrection experience.

Like Ratzinger's theological understanding of Jesus Christ as "praying being" and Saint Paul of the Cross and his spiritual sons' fourth religious vow "to further among believers veneration of the passion and death of Jesus", all that has already been mentioned and everything that follows is best understood within a context of narrative theology, since that is, I feel, how G-d's grace in history is most truthfully and, in a sense, mythically appreciated in both its speculative-mystical and its affective-spiritual dynamic. Although neither Paul of the Cross nor Martin Bialas appear to have mentioned St Gregory of Nyssa and his Pauline approach to mystical theology, this latter is still among the best available correctives to that neo-gnostic New Age liberalism which frequently underpins contemporary exaggerated distrust of Christian fundamentalism, even when genuine.

German theological writing cannot be easily translated or, as here, adapted into English. Without access to the German original there is no way of knowing to what extent Peter Gregory Anastasis's English version of Bialas's work manages to convey the author's sense, or with what success Eugene Selzer has accurately translated those German passages considered particularly difficult. I found only a few blemishes in Philip C. Fischer's English translations of Latin passages, the originals of which are also given in full either alongside or in a footnote on the same page, and such inaccuracies as I did notice may have been typographical errors rather than mistakes in translation. I don't know whether or not Fischer was also responsible for translating such Latin idioms as mutatis mutandis which feature here and there in passages that are otherwise entirely in either English or Italian, but their appearance, too, is occasionally problematic. Silvan Roue translated those Italian passages considered difficult. Where well established English translations were already available of cited works originally composed in Spanish, French, German or some other language, such translations are usually quoted together with the corresponding originals. Several other individuals are also mentioned as involved in the work of preparing this English edition of The Mysticism of the Passion in St. Paul of the Cross, but who was mainly responsible for the bulk of the translations from the Italian is not stated, possibly the author himself who also has, I believe, a fair command of English.

Readers unable to read and understand the many Italian passages quoted as well as their corresponding English supposed equivalents should note that the meaning of the English is frequently significantly different from that of the Italian - occasionally it means the very opposite, sometimes it is simply inaccurate (as when, for example, the Italian for "flayed alive" is put into English as "torn to pieces", and when, instead of "this blooming desk" the saintly founder's familiar questo benedetto tavolino appears as "this small table, albeit blessed"); in other instances the English is more paraphrase than translation. Nevertheless, the main lines of both the author's and of St Paul of the Cross's own thinking on those issues which are relevant to our present theme are clear enough.

• Jn 12:23-26 - "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be invested with glory. I am telling you in solemn truth: a grain of wheat remains but a solitary grain unless it first falls into the ground and dies. Yet if it die, it brings forth a rich harvest. He who loves his life is losing it, while he who makes an enemy of his own life in this world will preserve it, eternal life being the outcome. Anyone who is a servant of mine must follow me on my way; and where I am, there, too, will my servant be. Whosoever does a service to me will be honoured by my Father." (Heinz W. Cassirer's translation)
• Rm 8:18-21 - "Not that I consider the sufferings of this present time worthy of being compared with the glory which is to be manifested in us. For if all creation is full of eager expectancy, that is because it is waiting for the sons of G-d to be manifested. Creation was subjected to futility (not by its own choice but by the will of him who so subjected it); yet with a hope to look forward to, namely, that creation itself would be set free from the thraldom of decay, and obtain that liberty which is bound up with the glory which belongs to the children of G-d."
• 1 Cor 2:2 - "In fact, the resolution I came to was that, while I was in your midst, everything else was to be forgotten, and that I was to concern myself solely with Jesus Christ, and with him nailed on a cross." Without the dogmatic definition that Mary is Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate, the connection between other Marian dogmas and Jesus Christ's being "nailed on a cross" remains insufficiently explicit.
• Vatican I's reference to the interconnectedness of all the Mysteries of Faith (DS 3016) supports this claim. Similarly, 2 Cor 3:16-18 - "In the words of scripture, the veil is taken away when a man turns to the Lord (Ex 34:34). Now what is signified by Lord here is the Spirit; and where the Lord's Spirit is, there is freedom. And we - all of us - fixing our gaze with faces unveiled upon the glory of the Lord (Ex 16:7, 10; 24:17), are being transfigured into his likeness from one degree of glory to another…"
• The word "likeness" resonantly echoes the pregnant text, Gn 1:26-27 - "G-d said, 'Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild animals and all the creatures that creep along the ground.'

  G-d created man in the image of himself,
  in the image of G-d he created him,
  male and female he created them." (New Jerusalem Bible)

  According to the author of the study of St Gregory of Nyssa I mentioned above: "Pure awareness… is the fundamental attribute of a person being made in G-d's image and likeness. [This] differs from consciousness by reason of its more inclusive nature… Pure awareness surpasses the subtle though essentially dualistic nature of consciousness… Awareness implies a reference point or a freedom from both determinative factors as witnessed by genuine religious experience. This freedom is not marked by superiority or aloofness [Bialas's speculative-mystical pole?] but detachment from slavish identification with a particular object [Bialas's affective-spiritual pole?]. In this way pure awareness is free to both associate with the object of its regard while remaining present to other relationships."
• As Paul of the Cross wrote to Thomas Fossi on 5 July 1749: "It's true that this memory of the sacred passion of Jesus Christ and the imitation of his holy virtues should never be left aside - even after having attained a great degree of recollection and having reached a very high degree of prayer. The passion still remains the door through which the soul enters into union with G-d, to profound recollection and true contemplation."
• Such was also the teaching of St John of the Cross, whose writings Paul greatly treasured together with those of Francis of Sales, Teresa of Avila and John Tauler: "And when he comes to be reduced to nothing, which will be the greatest extreme of humility, spiritual union will be wrought between the soul and G-d, which in this life is the greatest and the highest state attainable. This consists not, then, in refreshment and in consolations and spiritual feelings but in a living death of the Cross, both as to sense and as to spirit - that is, both inwardly and outwardly."
• And so in a letter that Paul wrote to Agnes Grazi for the Feast of the Assumption, "he emphasizes how Mary interiorly participated throughout her life in the passion of her Divine Son." In another letter he wrote to her on 23 April 1742 he spoke of "the great sea of the pains of Jesus and of the sorrows of the most holy Mary." On 12 August 1775, writing a few months before his death to Lucrezia Bastiani Paladini, he urged her "to throw herself into the arms of the most holy Mary, our Lady of Sorrows, and to run back to her as Mother of Mercy."
• Although much remains to be developed in both the theology of the Passion and of Our Lady's place within it, Her Amsterdam claim that the justification for the dogmatic definition She now asks may already be read in "all the books" is, I suggest, amply vindicated.

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