Cardinal Stafford: Church crisis is a crisis of parish life
By Antonio Enrique
Issue of 8 August 2003
Source: rcab.org

Q. The Pontifical Council for the Laity is working to give formal recognition to some of those new movements and ecclesial communities. Among them, your dicastery has recently given formal recognition, for the first time, to a post-baptismal catechumenate. How useful can the Neocatechumenate be as a tool to bring that renewal into the parishes?

Cardinal Stafford: There are many lay movements within the Church that have been called by the Spirit to bring about a renewal of communities, of parishes. They may not call it mystagogia but, nevertheless, it is a mystagogia, it is a catechesis in the forgiving love of Jesus, a catechesis is which the parish learns to be a community of loving forgiveness.

In my judgment, and I’ve been a bishop now since 1976, the Neocatechumenate is one of the strongest expressions of that capacity within the Church that the Spirit has given to us

that has the ability to create a forgiving community, the capacity to create a community of tough love that is rooted in the Cross of Jesus.

I have known the Neocatechumenate since 1980. I invited them into the Archdiocese of Denver and we established a Redemptoris Mater seminary there. I have become much more familiar with the Neocatechumenate since I have gone to Rome. In my judgment, it is one of the best expressions, one of the best proclamations of the Paschal Mystery that the Spirit has given to the modern Church.
The bishops and the priests of the United States must first face the fact that this crisis that surfaced in 2002 is a crisis in parish community life, not just in the priesthood but in the way in which priests relate to people in the parish communities. They must recognize that the parishes are facing a crisis in the United States, and that crisis has been [shown] not simply by the abuse issue but also by the generational decline (since 1967-68) of the vital sacramental signs of the Church. The vital signs also have declined in terms of the number of ordinations to priestly ministry within the Church in the United States.

Having recognized that crisis, the priests, bishops and the lay people of the Church must then begin to ask themselves, “What is the Spirit calling us to do in reforming the Church?” I think one of the instruments that the Spirit has given to us would be these new lay communities, including the Neocatechumenate. Despite the fact that so many find objections to the Neocatechumenate in the United States, I am convinced that the means for renewal within the Church rests with the new communities and it also rests with the Neocatechumenate.

Q. Growing conflicts between contemporary culture and faith seem to be keeping many Catholics from accepting the teachings of the Church on moral issues. How can that gap between the Magisterium and contemporary culture be healed?

Cardinal Stafford: I think the lay people have much to teach us in this. I am thinking of such lay persons as Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, David Schindler, Tracey Rowland in Australia -—a great woman theologian — some lay theologians in Great Britain.

They are indicating to us that we have to better our understanding of the theology of culture. I understand them to say that the Vatican Council was too optimistic in its assessment, Gaudium et spes, especially, of the compatibility between post-modern culture and the Catholic faith. I am in full agreement with that judgment.

So, the first issue that the Church must face is to assess, critically, the compatibility between facets of liberal-Nietzchean culture as it’s being lived in the West, that is, in United States, in Canada, in Western Europe and, increasingly, in many other parts of the world, and to make judgments in light of the Gospel whether this liberal Nietzchean culture is, as a matter of fact, compatible or hostile to the Gospel. I am thinking specifically in the area of human sexuality, of economics, of academic freedom, especially in the university and colleges.

It is important for the Church, not simply the hierarchical Church, priests and bishops, but the laity, together, to analyze the concept of individualism in Western culture, not simply from a sociological point of view, but above all from an evangelical-Gospel, point of view, and from the tradition of the Church rooted in that evangelical-Gospel tradition, especially from the writings and teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas. To look closely at the meaning of contemporary American freedom and look closely at his philosophical origins, especially in Hegel. Most of the academic freedom that we are practicing in the United States came through Johns Hopkins, and Johns Hopkins was greatly influenced by Hegelian philosophy.
We have to look very closely at the meaning, from an evangelical point of view, of economic globalization and what it is doing to Third World countries, especially in Latin America and Africa, and how much responsibility does the economic system in the United States have to do with creating those situations that many perceive as being increasingly unjust.

My point is that the crisis in the Church will continue until the Catholic Church comes to a deeper awareness and consciousness — and above all judgment — about the compatibility of elements within modern culture and the Catholic faith. My conviction is that until we come to that clarity of judgment, that critical judgment about the relationship of the culture to faith, the chronic crisis will continue within the Church and within the priesthood and within the parish.

So, to put it in a nutshell, is modern culture a praeparatio evangelica [preparation for the Gospel] or not? And what elements within modern culture are not praeparatio evangelica? In my judgment, I think there are going to be many elements within that culture that will be determined to be hostile to Christian marriage, to Christian understanding of justice, to charity and to the Christian understanding of virtue.

Q. Is that where the new evangelization needs to come forward?

Cardinal Stafford: The new evangelization, first, is dependent upon this willingness to reach a judgment about the compatibility or incompatibility between post-modern culture and the Catholic faith. Everything, in my opinion, depends upon that judgment.

Q. Strong words, your Eminence…

Cardinal Stafford: Well, strong words requiring a courageous willingness to address the issue. If the United States’ bishops move ahead with some type of gathering, whether at a plenary council or a national synod of bishops under the presidency of the Holy Father, in my judgment the bishops must have the courage, above all, to face that issue.

Q. One aspect of that relation between faith and post-modern culture is the relationship between politics and the Christian conscience. The Holy See has issued a document, “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons.” It affirms that Catholic politicians are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions, calling failure to do so “gravely immoral.” Local politicians have reacted to the document, saying that it is inappropriate for the Church to instruct politicians. Would you like to comment?

Cardinal Stafford: The general principle is this: If we judge that religion is irrelevant to politics, then we are recognizing that the political realm is no longer part of the realm of God. If we divide the religious, the sacred, from the secular, then we are limiting severely, into very narrow confines, the action of God in the life of the world. But that’s not what we confess in our faith as Catholics. God is not simply the God who is limited to a very specific area of life. He is the Creator of all that we see and all that is not seen.

For the Catholic politician who lives fully his or her Baptism, it is impossible that God should simply be a “tag-on” to the system, whether it is political or economic. That is not the Catholic understanding of God. He is the Lord of Life. We confess in the Creed [that] He is the Spirit, He is the Lord, the Giver of Life.
Governor [Mario] Cuomo and President John Kennedy, both Catholics, did a severe disservice to the Catholic laity by setting a path that limits God in His role as Creator and Redeemer of all of mankind. And for Catholic politicians today to believe that they [Cuomo and Kennedy] are guides for their consciences, puts them at total odds with the Catholic Magisterium and with the Catholic tradition.

Q. What message would you deliver to Boston Catholics, as we move forward beyond the crisis?

Cardinal Stafford: We pray at every Eucharist the Our Father, and Jesus seemed to say that the central petition of the Our Father is the fourth one, where we pray, at Jesus’ instruction, for forgiveness to the Father as we forgive those who have sinned against us. That “as” is very central to the Christian understanding of evangelical life. That is, that we are forgiven by God as we forgive one another within marriage, within families, within our workplace, within the parish; relationships of priests and people, relationships of priests and bishops.cover hop