CAN I KNOW TRUTH? (Part Twelve: FROM VATICAN II TO A NEW CLARITY IN THE CHURCH’S MISSION)
12 Days on Pilgrimage in August
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6).
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s insight is that “in Vatican II the question of the Church in the world became the real central problem.”[1] He explains the critical reconsideration of the concept of the Church as the mystical body of Christ as having passed its peak.[2] In this situation, he wrote his dissertation on “People and House of God in Augustine’s Doctrine of the Church.” About the same time, Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner, OFM Conv. wrote his dissertation: “The Role of Charity in the Ecclesiology of St. Bonaventure.” Two great contemporary thinkers inspire me to write with an eye on the new situation that has arisen for the Church in the world.
CAN I KNOW TRUTH was an inspiration during our Marian Franciscan Pilgrimage from 14 – 23 August beginning in Prague, St. Vitus Cathedral (Hradčany), Our Lady of Victory Church and the miraculous statue of the Infant of Prague, Franciscan Church, to Altӧtting, Munich, Marienplatz, Ettal, the historic Passion Play at Oberammergau, Salzburg, Melk, Mariazell, Vienna, Bratislava, Esztergom, and Budapest. Now it is time to turn to the new situation in which we twenty-eight pilgrims find ourselves. Would you agree that “the question of the Church in the world” moved us to participate, or was at least a hidden motive? Faith raises questions in the brave new world. Our families engaged with theirs; it is time for our engagement.
After Prague, we admired the beauty of Bavaria where Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was born and prayed at the Shrine he loves, Our Lady of Altӧtting. No doubt you agree with him that the question of “the Church in the world,” on the one hand, is lashed by secular modernity, and, on the other, the wider spiritual dimension of the concept of the Church is joyfully perceived. The question of the meaning of “the Church in the world” includes the realism of faith and its Catholic institutions throughout the world. Remember, public opinion immediately after Vatican II astonished those whose personal degrees of belief and unbelief desired the Church and its faith to be recognized, so long as its faith was considered beautiful, and in a harmless place.[3]
“Keep your beautiful Catholic faith harmless” is the mantra buffeting the Church today. I will critique that mantra by engaging key elements of the Church in the world, interpret them with a positive and a negative perspective, and be alert to what is past peak. Defining secular modernity, according to my wise sister, Frances, is the starting point. Secular modernity is readily visible in the 1690’s in the thought of the philosopher John Locke. Think of Sts. Francis of Assisi, Bonaventure and Bl. John Duns Scotus as living during pre-modernity, and Locke as living in modernity. The origins of our U.S. Constitution (1787) are connected to Locke.[4]
A second chapter to CAN I KNOW TRUTH? will change the subtitle from “12 Days on Pilgrimage in August”, to “The Church in the World.” Unlimited resources will open up: the Bible, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, from Sts, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine to John Henry Newman, Maximilian M. Kolbe, Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the Franciscan School as sketched by Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner, OFM Conv.,[5] and others, such as Charles Taylor. Pope Francis, the first named after St. Francis, focuses on the Church of the poor, mercy, synodality, and integral human development for everyone.
Twelve reflections have shown me what direction to take. Being with you on pilgrimage made us critically reconsider dimensions of the universal Church for our day. With Pope Emeritus Benedict, we agree that the important concept of the Church as the mystical body of Christ was awakening in souls and has passed its peak. You will agree with him about the concept of the Church, for its part, not missing the realism of faith and how it is lived or not throughout the world. We aspire for a Church whose ecclesiology has not passed its peak.
Our 12 Days of Pilgrimage gave birth to experiences in preparation for engagement with the question of the Church in the world. One pilgrim came from the Anglican Church which gave an ecumenical tone. There were two astrophysicists; two lawyers; a research historian; a speech pathologist; a linguist; several in the business world; a widower increasing belief in his wife’s presence; a math teacher and writer; a widow praying for her family’s faith, who is a teacher and active with the poor; a confessor at the Vatican; administrators in government and the Church; and a theologian studying the “gift of modernity.” All prayed for our families, friends and communities, living and grieving our deceased. We shared insight into how the forces of secular modernity evacuates faith. A transition is to “The Church in the World.”
Kierkegaard’s counsel to one who intended to write a book was to consider carefully the subject about which he wished to write, to acquaint himself as far as possible with what has already been written on the subject, for he might meet an individual who had dealt exhaustively and satisfactorily with one or another aspect of that subject, and would do well to rejoice as does the bridegroom’s friend who stands by and rejoices greatly as he hears the bridegroom’s voice. “When he has done this in complete silence and with the enthusiasm of a love that ever seeks solitude, nothing more is needed; then he will carefully write his book as spontaneously as a bird sings its song, and if someone derives benefit or joy from it, so much the better.”[6]
“O brave new world!”—it is brave, but is it human?[7] Know the answer yourself.
Fr. Ed Ondrako, OFM Conv., Univ of Notre Dame, eondrako@alumni.nd.edu
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[1] Pope Benedict XVI, Letter to Rev. Father Dave Pivonka, TOR, President, Franciscan University of Steubenville, 7 October 2022. [2] Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, encyclical, 1943. [3] Pope Benedict XVI, Letter to Rev. Father Dave Pivonka, TOR, President, Franciscan University of Steubenville, 7 October 2022. This is a rare public statement of the Holy Father Emeritus. [4] J. Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Reasonableness of Christianity, Ltr. on Toleration. [5] P. D. Fehlner names a double gift from Vatican II: Sources of Revelation (Dei Verbum); and the development of doctrine throughout. I found a third gift within both: “The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, in the Mystery of Christ and of the Church” (Lumen Gentium, ch. 8). Three for one. [6] S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 7, Preface. [7] Miranda from Shakespeare’s, The Tempest. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, 1932.
Fr. Edward J. Ondrako, OFM Conventual
Research Fellow Pontifical Faculty of St. Bonaventure, Rome
Visiting Scholar, McGrath Institute for Church Life
University of Notre Dame
Feast Day of Saint St. Elizabeth of Hungary ~ November 17, 2022
The Guadalupe Torch (Carrera Antorcha Guadalupana Mexico New York) again arrived at our Siler City, NC pastoral ministry ~ St. Julia Catholic Community, on Monday, November 14, 2022, all the way from the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City. For 20 years the Asociación Tepeyac de New York has coordinated the Torch Race to honor the Queen of Mexico. The torch left Mexico City and crossed the border into the USA, where it will end in New York City.
The St. Julia Catholic Community, including their pastor, Fr. Julio Martinez, OFM Conv. (seen holding the Paschal Candle which was lit by the torch – held by parochial vicar, Fr. Luis Palacios Rodriguez, OFM Conv., in photo at left) celebrated with song and dance, as a welcome. Along with the torch, the images seen in the Sanctuary Space photo above, of St. Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalpe have been traveling along with the runners. This event has been incorporated into the spiritual preparation for the great Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, on December 12th. More photos are available on the parish Facebook page.
National Vocation Awareness Week (November 6-12, 2022) may have ended, but our Vocation Awareness efforts are in effect year-round. Three of our friars serve as Vocation Directors: Br. Nicholas Romeo, OFM Conv. & Fr. Emanuel Vasconcelos, OFM Conv. on the East Coast of the USA, and Friar Reto Davatz, OFM Conv. in [Ontario] Canada, for our Province Delegation of St. Francis of Assisi.
In addition to serving in other ministries and administration duties of the province, through the year these friars visit with men in discernment, travel to conferences, hold parish information sessions, sponsor events, and work with the other Vocations Directors of the CFF (Conventual Franciscan Federation), to promote vocations. For men on your own discernment journey, one tool promoted by our Vocation Office, is Franciscan Voice: an invaluable source of information about life as a Conventual Friar. The page on this site devoted to Vocations includes friar-produced videos, podcasts, and photo-essay blogs, representing the dynamic and life-giving quality of our life as a Franciscan Friar Conventual.
If you live on the East Coast of the USA, contact Friar Nick and Friar Manny
at vocations@olaprovince.org or call 202-681-6051.
As a chaplain, a Franciscan priest and an Army captain, he shows the German officer these men are all wounded and dying….It was a moment when he had to make this life-threatening decision. He handed his Mass kit to the owner of the house-café for safe-keeping because he might not be back.”
Veterans Day is dedicated to American veterans of all wars, celebrated on November 11th each year. This date was chosen because, in 1918, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany in World War I, then known as “the Great War.” Originally commemorated as Armistice Day, and becoming a federal holiday, in 1938, in the aftermath of World War II and the Korean War, Armistice Day became known as Veterans Day.
Many of our friars have served in the Armed Forces. A veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, Fr. Santo Cricchio, OFM Conv. currently serves the province as Guardian of the St. Philip Benizi Friary, assisting the parish with priestly ministry, while provides counseling services for the Jonesboro, GA area through an office in our pastoral ministry of St. Philip Benizi Catholic Church. [Pictured here, in October 2005, Chaplain Santo Cricchio, OFM Conv. gave his first Mass in French at a Catholic Mission in Arta, Djibouti. He was requested to assist in a shortage of priests in the area by the Catholic Bishop of Somalia.
While today we pray for all US Veterans. We would also like to take moment to honor our own Friar Veterans of the Franciscan Friars Conventual of the Our Lady of the Angels Province, including:
Br. Dennis Sokolowski, OFM Conv.
Fr. Anthony Francis Spilka, OFM Conv.
Br. Douglas McMillan, OFM Conv.
Fr. Curt Kreml, OFM Conv.
Fr. Tom Lavin, OFM Conv.
Fr. Santo Cricchio, OFM Conv.
Br. Lawrence LaFlame, OFM Conv.
Fr. Andy Santamauro, OFM Conv.
Excerpt from the “Navy Hymn” Creator, Father, who first breathed In us the life that we received, By power of thy breath restore The ill, and men with wounds of war. Bless those who give their healing care, That life and laughter all may share.
Pope Francis appointed Friar Francesco Panizzolo, OFM Conv, of the Italian Province of St. Anthony of Padua, as a Head of Office in the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Check out the Vocations page on FranciscanVoice.org. Videos, podcast episodes, a flip book, and more offer a journey into the life and mission of the #Franciscan#Friars Conventual
Left to Right: Fr. Jacob Carazo (a friar of St. Joseph Cupertino Province who serves as Assistant Formation Director), Fr. Michael Heine, OFM Conv. (Minister Provincial), Friar Rich Rome, OFM Conv., and Fr. Michael Zielke, OFM Conv. (Guardian and Director of our St. Bonaventure Friary – Post Novitiate.
November 1, 2022: During the Evening Liturgy in the chapel of our St. Bonaventure Friary [Post Novitiate], in Silver Spring, MD, Friar Richard Rome, OFM Conv. was received into the minor orders of Lector and Acolyte, as a gift in his Franciscan and priestly vocation. A lector is the reader and bearer of God’s Word who is given responsibility in the service of our Faith, which is rooted in the Word of God, proclaiming God’s Word during the Liturgy, helping others come to believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all while accepting the Word in obedience, meditating on the Word in order to grow in a deeper love of God’s Scriptures, so as to reveal Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh, to our world. The chief offices of an acolyte are to light the candles on the altar and carry them in procession, to prepare wine and water for the sacrifice of the Mass, and to assist the sacred ministers at the Mass and other public services of the Church. (Can. 1035 §1. Before anyone is promoted to the permanent or transitional diaconate, he is required to have received the ministries of lector and acolyte and to have exercised them for a suitable period of time.) Friar Rich is a solemnly professed student friar of our province who is in continued studies at The Catholic University of America.
For more information on adding the life as a Franciscan Friar Conventual of our province to your discernment journey, email our Province Vocation Directors, Br. Nick Romeo, OFM Conv. and Fr. Manny Vasconcelos, OFM Conv. at vocations@olaprovince.org. For general information, visit FranciscanVoice.org. For information on the life of our Order’s friars around the world, visit our Curia’s website (ofmconv.net).
Our Lady of the Angels Province’s Minister Provincial, Fr. Michael Heine, OFM Conv. traveled to Pittsboro to visit with our eight friars living in and serving from the Our Lady of Guadalupe Friary. While there, he was able to concelebrate Masses at St. Julia Catholic Community (Siler City, NC), on Sunday, November 6, 2022, with Fr. Julio Martinez, OFM Conv. (at right above – Pastor of St. Julia Parish and Guardian of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Friary), and Fr. Luis Palacios Rodríguez, OFM Conv. (at left above – Parochial Vicar of St. Julia Parish). [More Photos] [Even More Photos]
The second pastoral ministry served by this friary is the Newman Catholic Student Center Parish, at UNC at Chapel Hill, under the pastoral leadership of Fr. Timothy Kulbicki, OFM Conv., who serves as Pastor & Campus Minister there. Our Lady of Guadalupe Friary is also home to our Province Treasurer, Br. Raymond Sobocinski, OFM Conv. and four more of our senior friars in residence.
The next day, Friar Michael traveled to Burlington, NC to visit with the four friars living in and serving from our Blessed Sacrament Friary. Three friars of this friary serve in pastoral ministry at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Community, in Burlington, NC: Fr. Vincent Rubino, OFM Conv. (Pastor), Fr. Piotr Tymko, OFM Conv. (Parochial Vicar) and Fr. Timothy Lyons, OFM Conv. The fourth friar, Fr. Peter Tremblay, OFM Conv., serves as Associate Chaplain for Catholic Life and Catholic Campus Minister, at Elon University.
CAN I KNOW TRUTH? (Part Eleven: THE BRAVE NEW WORLD AND CONTINUATION OF CHRISTIANITY)
12 Days on Pilgrimage in August
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6).
Why is “interiority” such a high stake for St. John Henry Newman? His fundamental redress of the modern picture of interiority is because he thinks the modern picture of interiority is devastating to the prospects of authentic Christianity. Cyril O’Regan calls it “the affliction of interiority.” [1] The root is in John Locke’s philosophy written in the 1690’s. His influence remains massive today, which is why the diagnosis of the affliction of modernity is spot on. It is a fact that many are not aware that they are Lockeans. The affliction of interiority lies in the weight of responsibility the subject bears to practice the ethics of belief. In religious matters a person is free to act according to the evidence and adjust the tone of one’s claims. If demonstration is ruled out from the beginning, as it is at the very core of Lockean thought, we operate in a universe of probabilities. Various grades of conviction are permissible. The high stake for Newman was his full recognition of Lockean inspired intent at Oxford to instill a more or less universal convictionless manner of holding religious beliefs. The intent of our Marian Franciscan pilgrimage aligned with Newman.
Newman diagnosed the affliction of modernity as something wholly different from Locke. Interiority to Newman as the indelible mark of a human being is a fact rather than a responsibility that a finite person bears towards the world. Newman and Pope Emeritus Benedict have a deep sense of the congeniality of interiority and the world. O’Regan’s diagnosis: “interiority is afflicted because it is receptive: it receives or suffers the influences of the world, others, and above all else God. Its affliction is its richness as well as its poverty and is the index of the intrinsic relationship that ironically Locke’s rationalist impersonalism does not allow, since the common rationality operative in his procedural logic seems itself to be no more than the means of repair of an atomistic individualism ….”[2]
The problem of the evacuation of doctrines and practices effected by the secular modern age and the drift of the Church towards the secular is my central concern. Retrieval of a direction for the Church’s further journey is so necessary. By that I mean that if I speak in the language of tradition, in a Marian Franciscan mode, I am speaking of the gift that is handed down and exceeds what the hander-on offered and sets the one who receives the gift a task of developing as well as elucidating what is intended and what is said.[3] As laity, parents, teachers, religious and priests, we have the gift of tradition handed down to develop and elucidate. The difficulty is the refusal to recognize the gift or to make any effort to understand the gift.
The indelible mark of a human being is “interiority.” To bleed human beings of interiority by insisting that human beings are fully explicable in rationalist or naturalist terms is a contagious problem. Interiority is sidelined by authorizing a hyperbolical interpretation of the will as free inquiry that seals a person’s subjective judgment as truth. At best, both demonstrate a tension in the relation with the naturalistic tendency in modern rational thought and, at worst, represent its contrary. When interiority is being evacuated by a particular form of rationalism, it inevitably becomes an incoherent position. [4] Evacuating the interioriority of the person takes place by imagining the mind to re-present the world, to function as calculator of probabilities, and to insist on the prerogatives of free inquiry and the rights of private judgment. What is lost is the integral part of the training and virtue of the person making the judgment.
The contemporary Catholic philosopher, Charles Taylor, identifies our time as “the social imaginary.”[5] There is continuity with St. Augustine and the epic effects of the sack of Rome in 410. In The City of God, he elucidated a “thick” argument on the subjectivity of the finite person, always seeking, always in dialogue with others, forever open to change, and forever counting on and being open to the radical transformation effected by grace. We may compare his thought to today where there is a brave new world, a hold of certain ideas, images, or fundamental principles across an entire society that argues from rather than towards. In such a context, the issue of the existence and nature of interiority is hugely important.
Thinking with the mark of a prophet, Newman “diagnoses and clarifies the crisis regarding the view of the human subject and laments the historical happening that has replaced an ecstatic and relational view of human interiority with a philosophical and Christian pretender that, for him, fails the tests of both reason and faith.”[6] His prophetic critique links with lamentation, in hope that in our day that is coming to terms with what is interpreted as a moribund and debunked Christian past, a more satisfying account of interiority will emerge, with thicker roots in the Christian philosophical and theological traditions.
Newman recognized each person’s view on the world as unique and indivisible, for he or she is the judger. The interiority that Newman puts forward is in the first person. The judge judges according to the standard of truth that is a check of will and self-interest. It checks the arbitrariness of those who follow Locke and advocate private judgment, meaning that the person has the right to exercise his or her preferences without reference to a standard of the good, either internal or external. Newman’s subject is individuated and beyond Locke’s imagining, while being open to influence from the past and communities of belief. Crucial is Newman’s claim that the human being has immediate access to God in and through conscience. [7]
Fr. Ed Ondrako, OFM Conv., Univ. of Notre Dame eondrako@alumni.nd.edu
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[1] C. O’Regan, “Newman and the Affliction of Modernity.” Church Life Journal, McGrath Institute for Church Life, University of Notre Dame, 7 October 2022. [2] “Newman and the Affliction of Modernity.” [3] C. O’Regan inspires me to write and minister as a Franciscan priest by carrying forward what was opened up but not fully articulated in the Franciscan tradition by Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner, OFM Conv. [4] I am more than tempted but refuse to accept the bait to apply to contemporary American politics that are bathed in Lockean thought, all-be-it, unwittingly. Every reader is capable of judging wisely. [5] C. Taylor, The Secular Age, 2007. This move in recent modern philosophy is away from arguments. [6] “Newman and the Affliction of Modernity.” [7] J. H. Newman, Oxford University Sermons, A Grammar, Apologia, and Letter to the Duke of Norfolk.
Fr. Edward J. Ondrako, OFM Conventual
Research Fellow Pontifical Faculty of St. Bonaventure, Rome
Visiting Scholar, McGrath Institute for Church Life
University of Notre Dame
Feast Day of Bl. John Duns Scotus ~ November 8, 2022
