VATICAN CITY, APRIL 7, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address given April 1 by Monsignor Livio Melina, international president of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family, at the presentation of Carl Anderson's book "
Anderson is the supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus.
* * *
“The principle of enriching the faith must be set as the basis of carrying out the Second Vatican Council, that is, of conciliar renewal. […] Enrichment of the faith is nothing other than the ever fuller participation in divine truth.” With these words, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, in his 1972 study of the implementation of Vatican II, indicates the fundamental significance of the conciliar event and the key for its authentic realization in the life of the Church.
Reading Carl Anderson’s book on the civilization of love brought to mind the archbishop of Krakow’s interpretation and pastoral commitment to the realization of conciliar renewal. For Karol Wojtyla, in fact, it wasn’t about introducing new truths, or about breaking with a millenary tradition according to that "hermeneutic of discontinuity" which unfortunately prevailed in some sectors of the Church, bearing bitter post-conciliar fruit. Rather it was about rendering the faith a true experience of life, of surpassing any sort of detachment between faith as professed and daily life, which the Fathers of the Council indicated in the pastoral constitution "Gaudium et Spes" as one of the gravest errors of the time, moreover as the gravest scandal which has impeded the diffusion of the Gospel among men in our time (No. 43).
For this reason they desired the formation of a “vital synthesis” of temporal duties and religious life, “under whose supreme direction all things are harmonized unto God's glory.” One such necessary synthesis was then entrusted especially to the laity, who have the distinctive role in the Church of “penetrating the world with the Christian spirit”.
In that sense Karol Wojtyla, in his volume offered as a synod booklet in his diocese of Krakow, spoke of an indispensible “integration” which at the same time implicated a deeper interiorization of the faith, and its wider expansion, nearly indicating the two movements of systole and diastole with which the heart pumps blood throughout the entire human organism.
Upon ascending to the Papal chair, John Paul II, continuing this pastoral perspective on the universal level, resumed and broadcast with noteworthy analysis the formula already proposed by pope Paul VI on occasion of the closing of the Holy Year of 1975: It is necessary to undertake the construction of “a civilization of love.” Responding almost immediately to the skeptics’ objections he explained that it is not about an utopia, but a possible ideal to be realized, moreover it is an authentic vocation to be taken seriously.
Not withstanding such insistence and stress on the part of the supreme authority of the Church it must be recognized that such a perspective has remained more or less on the margins of theological reflection and even more so of pastoral practice, possibly because it has been carelessly and unjustly perceived as too abstract and spiritualistic.
Carl Anderson, in his nimble volume, takes it up again in an organic way and systematically develops it, offering us that which I would define as a comment on the second part of "Gaudium et Spes," developed in the perspective of John Paul II, and with the concreteness of a married layman engaged in the work-world and in business. Confronted with new, global scenarios and unedited challenges of that which some interpret as inevitable “conflicts of civilization”, in serried dialogue with the philosophies and ideologies that influence the contemporary mentality, Anderson revisits the conciliar Constitution, touching its nodal points: culture, family, work, civil and political community, peace and relations between the peoples of the world. This he does with clear and profound language that is always careful to reach the practical dimension, speaking not only in concepts but also with concrete examples.
Thus he offers us a volume that is at the same time idealistic, realistic, and practical. I would like to briefly illustrate these three characteristics that make up its singularity and quality.
1) First of all this is an idealistic book, which has the courage to propose a great positive vision as the horizon of existence and of action for Christians and men of good will. It is a text, which, while not concealing present difficulties and problems, is profoundly optimistic, and rich in abandon. George Weigel justly speaks of it as “a bracing call to a new American revolution: a revolution of virtue,” a revolution founded upon a great and organic vision of a possible ideal to be realized.
Here we meet a decisive point in the thought of Carl Anderson, which is at the same time a constant coordinate of the Church’s social doctrine, from "Rerum Novarum" of Leo XVIII to "Spe Salvi" of Pope Benedict XVI: “The right state of human affairs, the moral well-being of the world can never be guaranteed simply through structures alone, however good they are” (No. 24). The real error of Marxist materialism, the cause of innumerable tragedies and sufferings of many peoples, was that he “forgot that man always remains man” (No. 21), he forgot his liberty, that liberty by which “in fundamental decisions, every person and every generation is a new beginning” (No. 24). It was well noted by the American poet T.S. Eliot in his Choruses from “The Rock”: “They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within by dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.”
Because of this, Anderson holds that the basic problem is ethical and therefore educational. Not however in the reductive moralistic sense. That which he proposes is an ethic rooted in an amazement for the singular human dignity revealed in Christ; an ethic founded upon a personalistic anthropology which recognizes at the same time the unique and unrepeatable value of each human being and his call to the communion of persons in love; an ethic that is not satisfied in the private sphere, but which wants to transform man, his relations and the world.
Because of this, against the antipodes of this concept is charged the error of neo-Palagian imprint condemned by pope Leo XIII known as “Americanism” which, wanting to adapt Christianity to the American spirit, exalted the natural, active virtues opposing them to supernatural virtues, ignoring the primacy of grace. In the proposal of the volume which we are presenting the primacy is instead recognized exactly as faith, which with amazement contemplates the work of God and accepts the calling of grace: a faith which nonetheless “works through love” (Galatians 5:6) and which is therefore always practical.
2) As such we arrive at the second characteristic of Anderson’s book: the realism of the proposition that it contains. The dramatics of the present situation and gravity of the challenges posed to Christianity are observed with seriousness and placidness which only faith makes possible. The concreteness of the ideal of the good life hinges on the consideration of the two fundamental dimensions of existence which Sigmund Freud held as essential to psychic health: affections and work, family and business.
The pages dedicated to family and to work show forth more than others the indebtedness to first hand experience. More than a discourse, it provides testimony. Splendid pages are dedicated to the way of love, of the captivation upon recognizing the other, even as far as the self-gift in love and openness to fruitfulness, which render love between a man and a woman, and the family which springs forth from it, an image of Trinitarian love. The questions of divorce, regulation of birth, and abortion are confronted with seriousness and rigor, but always in the positive perspective of conversion to the civilization of love.
Those still tempted to consider such a vision of the civilization of love as merely abstract I strongly urge to read the seventh chapter, which is dedicated to ethics in the business world. There it is shown how, contrary to common opinion, ethics is not opposed to the demands of the market, but rather constitutes the presupposition of an enterprise’s enduring success. What is documented with impressive certainty, discretion and boldness, founded upon the experience of the Knights of Columbus and emerging from the charism of its founder, the Servant of God Father Michael J. McGivney whose heroic virtues were recently approved in view of his beatification, is that attention united with concrete need has permitted the development of an entrepreneurial initiative of first level insurance, known for its attention to rigorous ethical parameters while at the same time valued as a sector leader by the most authoritative rating agencies.
3) Finally, this volume is characterized by a practical treatment. Not only is the text dense in examples of saints, great personalities as well as simple and common men, disseminated by precise citations, each chapter also concludes with original “suggestions for contemplation and action.” It could be said that this book constitutes a modern handbook of “spiritual exercises” that update the Ignatian spiritual exercises for the lay Christian of our day. It is concerned with the practice of seeing reality with new eyes, thinking with new criteria, and acting according to new perspectives.
Giuseppe Giusti, a 19th century Italian poet, wrote a famous epigram: “To make a book is less than nothing if the book made does not remake the people,” thus indicating practice as the authentic criterion of publication. It is my conviction that Carl Anderson’s book will brilliantly surpass this arduous criterion of verification to which the majority of published books succumb.
Because of the richness and soundness of its propositions, the timeliness of its reflections, the limpid expressiveness of its language, and the concreteness of its examples, this book is an exceptional contribution to that enrichment of faith and to that new vital synthesis of temporal duty and spirituality which constitutes one of the principle aims of the Second Vatican Council.
ZE08040710 - 2008-04-07
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The Persuasive Realism of the Christian Ideal
Monsignor Melina Presents Book by Knights of Columbus Leader
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