CONTEMPORARY CONTEXT AND PERSPECTIVES OF STUDIES FOR

MINISTRY TODAY

LOYOLA SCHOOL OF THEOLOGYAugust 20, 2013

Bienvenido F. Nebres, S.J.

Pope Benedict XVI to Jesuit GC35

• Theological formation today that will enable priests and religious “to witness and help to understand that there is in fact a – profound harmony between faith and reason, – between evangelical spirit, thirst for justice and

action for peace?” • To prepare priests and religious to participate in

and contribute to the – dialogue between faith and cultures, – between faith and other religions?

Reflections from the Commission for Revision of Jesuit Studies

• The years of philosophical and theological studies should introduce students to different “Ways of Knowing” in today’s world: – Science and Technology, Business, – Different religious cultures (Buddhism,

Confucianism, Islam), – The Secular World– Postmodernism– Cultures of Poverty

Call of Pope Francis: Address to the Bishops of Brazil

• The Church must constantly recall that she cannot leave simplicity behind; otherwise, she forgets to speak the language of Mystery

• We lose people because we have forgotten the language of simplicity and import an intellectualism foreign to our people.

Pope Francis to the Bishops of Brazil

• “People are leaving Jerusalem”, the Church, because the Church no longer responds to their pain, their needs, their hopes – their hearts.

• We need a Church capable of walking at people’s side.

• “I would like all of us to ask ourselves today: Are still a Church capable of warming hearts?”

Cardinal Martini on Faith and the Postmodern Youth

• Postmodernity, according to Cardinal Martini, is a way of thinking and feeling:– It keeps its distance from a former world where

there was primacy of truth and values over feelings

– There is a spontaneous preference for feelings over will• For impressions over intelligence• For an arbitrary logic and the search for pleasure over

an ascetic and prohibitive morality

Cardinal Martini on Faith and the Postmodern Youth

– This is a world in which sensitivity, emotion and the present moment come first.

– Human existence, therefore, is a place where there is freedom without restraints, where a person exercises, or believes he can exercise, his personal empire and creativity.

Cardinal Martini on Faith and the Postmodern Youth

• He says: “ I recall a young man who said to me recently: “Above all, don’t tell me that Christianity is true. That upsets me, blocks me. It’s quite something else to say that Christianity is beautiful . . .”

• Beauty is preferable to truth.

• “The mystery of an unavailable and always surprising God acquires greater beauty.”

• “Christianity appears more beautiful, closer to people, and

yet more true.”

Fr. General Adolfo Nicolas on the Need to Understand Reality in Depth • Fr. General expressed that his major concern

was how to educate Jesuits to a growing capacity to understand reality, a reality that is complex and multi-faceted and in constant change:– Historical reality, their own culture– Social reality, social structures– Psychological reality, as we grow through

relationships

Faith & Reason in Depth

– The culture and context in which our much of courses in Philosophy and Theology were developed was in the world of Greek Thought and of Scholasticism. Their main tools of knowing were analysis, reflection and logic.

– The empirical and quantitative ways of knowing, that emerged

since the 16th century and which are dominant today, were not accessible to the earlier period. They did not have the technology to do empirical research nor the mathematical tools to organize them.

-- These “ways of thinking and knowing” have diverged to a point where it is hard even for those of good will to bridge the gaps.

Faith and Culture: In Depth

-- Buddist cultures in Thailand and Myanmar, Islam in Indonesia and Malaysia, Confucianism in China, Taiwan, Vietnam – are not just different belief systems. -- They are a different way of life – like a biological species that differentiated over a long period of time.•Secularism is also becoming a separate culture and way of life.

Understanding the World of Science and Empirical Thought

•A course like the Ateneo Science 10 (Science and Society). For those in Theological Studies, these can engage questions from : a) Evolution of Humankind, b) Neuroscience c) Origin of the Universe. •They do present questions regarding first parents and original sin, the soul, creation. •Questions that the Church addresses, which involve science or economics and business: a) Mining Issues, b) When does life begin, etc.

Walking with People in Community

– The older Catholic culture and context has broken down or is breaking down. In the areas of:• Practice – sacramental life: regular mass, communion,

confession, etc. • Knowledge of the faith – When I was handling Jesuit

formation, I found that for many of those applying, their only significant encounter with Catholic life was a “Life in the Spirit” seminar. • Community – above all – the rituals and practices that

bring us together and bind us as a community of faith .

Faith is Born and Nurtured in Community

– When we look at the Early Church, the apostles, the early missionaries they began by building community – a community built around faith in Jesus Christ, the Scriptures, sacramental life, preaching of the Word, service and sharing with one another.

– When we look at the success of Pentecostalism – they are doing something similar. They build community – around faith in Jesus Christ.

– Someone said that in places in Latin America, people go to the Catholic Church for social services. But they go to the Pentecostals for the Scriptures and Spirituality.

Learning How to Build Communities of Faith

• The world where our future ministers will seek to form communities will have many subcultures. We have to prepare them to understand and to be able to enter into these subcultures: – Whether it be the culture of the urban poor with Pope

Francis in the villas of Argentina or the favelas of Brazil– Or the culture of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Islam – Or the culture of minorities, (Karens for example, in

Myanmar or Thailand)– Or the postmodern youth

Learning from Charismatic Groups• Pope Francis on Charismatic Movements: ”Back at the end of the

1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, I had no time for them. Once, speaking about them, I said: “These people confuse a liturgical celebration with samba lessons!” I actually said that. Now I regret it. I learned. ”

• “Now I think that this movement does much good for the Church, overall. In Buenos Aires, I met frequently with them and once a year I celebrated a Mass with all of them in the Cathedral. I have always supported them, after I was converted, after I saw the good they were doing.”

• We should learn from Charismatic groups, whether Catholic or Pentecostal. In Latin America and in the Philippines, they provide some of the best examples of forming Christian communities.

THE WORLD OF POVERTY AND GROWING INEQUALITY: THE CALL OF POPE FRANCIS,

-- Recall the remark in the favela, Varginha, in Brazil: Only the gangs and the Pentecostals enter here. And the hope that Pope Francis’ “walkabout” gave. • Historically, the Church has put the blame on Science,

Anti-Clericalism and the Enlightenment for the Western world’s alienation from the Church.

• However, if we look back in history, the Church lost the poor and the working class, because, for the most part, the Church was seen as on the side of power and wealth.

The Absence of the Church from the World of the Poor

– In the 1980s, I asked Fr. Jack Schumacher to put together a book of readings about the Philippine Social Problem.

– Most of us had forgotten the peasant revolutions of the late 19th and early 20th century, the beginnings of the socialist/communist movement – the land problem and the alienation of the farmer and worker class.

– So there is need for future ministers to understand the

history of the social problem in our country. We need to teach honestly that the alienation of many people from the Church has also been due to our absence, our not walking with them in their time of darkness.

Cardinal Martini onTeaching the Faith to the Postmodern Youth

• Do not be surprised by diversity.• Prove that you can listen to things quite different

from what we usually think, but without immediately judging the speaker;

• Young people are very sensitive about an attitude of nonjudgmental listening.

• This attitude gives them the courage to say what they really feel and to begin to distinguish what is really true from what only appears true.

Cardinal Martini on Teaching the Faith to the Postmodern Youth

• Take risks. Faith is the great risk of life. “Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but the one who loses his life for my sake will save it” (Mt 16:25).

• Befriend the poor. Put the poor at the center of your life because they are the friends of Jesus who made himself one of them.

• Nourish yourself with the Gospel. “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (Jn 6:33).

Achieving Depth: Faith and Truth in Lumen Fidei

• Faith without Truth does not save, it does not provide a sure footing. . . . It remains prey to the vagaries of our spirit and the changing seasons, incapable of sustaining a steady journey through life (#24)

• We often tend to consider the only real truth to be . . . Truth that we succeed in building and measuring (#25)

• Yet at the other end of the scale we are willing to allow for subjective truths of the individual (#25)

Truth and Love in Lumen Fidei

• St. Paul: “One believes with the heart.” (Rom 10:10)

• Faith transforms the whole person precisely to the extent that he or she becomes open to love. (#26)

• “Believing can be compared to the experience of falling in love.’(Wittgenstein)

• “Love requires truth. . . . If love is not tied to truth, it falls prey to fickle emotions and cannot stand the test of time.”

Faith and Theology in Lumen Fidei

• “Theology is more than simply an effort human reason to analyze and understand . . . God cannot be reduced to an object.” (#36)

• Challenge to our Teaching and Learning: How do we bring Faith and Love, thinking and loving together in the process of formation?

• Our faith is a historical faith and our God is a God who entered human history (Lumen Fidei #50 onwards)

POPE FRANCIS TO THE CARDINALS AND BISHOPS OF BRAZIL

•I had thought of writing something about the Context and Perspectives from the point of view of Teachers and Learners. •But Pope Francis puts it so powerfully in his talk to the Cardinals and Bishops of Brazil. So I invite us to reflect on some of his key points. •Recall that he uses the story of the disciples walking away from Jerusalem to Emmaus after Good Friday and Jesus walking with them as the dominant image of his call to the Church today.

How Do We Teach Future Priests and Religious to Walk at People’s Side

• “Today, we need a Church capable of walking at people’s side, of doing more than simply listening to them; a Church which accompanies them on their journey;

• a Church able to make sense of the “night” contained in the flight of so many of our brothers and sisters from Jerusalem;

• a Church which realizes that the reasons why people leave also contain reasons why they can eventually return.

• But we need to know how to interpret, with courage, the larger picture.

How Do They Learn to Warm People’s Hearts

• Dear brothers, unless we train ministers capable of warming people’s hearts, of walking with them in the night, of dialoguing with their hopes and disappointments, of mending their brokenness, what hope can we have for our future and present journey?

• It isn’t true that God’s presence has been dimmed in them.

• Let us learn to look at things more deeply. • What is missing is someone to warm their heart,

as was the case with the disciples to Emmaus.

What do these Challenges tell us about Teaching and Learning

• That is why it is important to devise and ensure a suitable formation, one which will provide persons

• able to step into the night without being overcome by darkness and losing their bearings,

• able to listen to people’s dreams without being seduced and to share their disappointments without losing hope and becoming bitter,

• able to sympathize with the brokenness of others without losing their own strength and identity.