Another old essay from seminary days...
On
Charity and Indifference
Dcn. Robert Miskell
…Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind…And…Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.[i]
Our
Lord, in answering the query posed by a Pharisaic scholar, defined the two
great, over-arching commandments of the Christian life. Man is called firstly, by his very nature, to
love God above all things, and with his entire being. He is called, secondly, to love his neighbor
as himself. Love is the heart of the
Christian Faith, for in its truest and purest form, charity, it is the essence
of God Himself. Indifference thus
becomes an enemy of the good, Christian life, being that vice whereby one fails
to reflect upon God and neglects the love that he properly owes Him. Today’s world is plagued by
indifference. It lies at the heart of
the problems faced by the Church in Her evangelical mission. To restore faithfulness to God and His
Church, the priest must strike out ever more bravely to combat this problem,
laboring diligently as that herald of truth and love which his vocation calls
him to be.[ii]
Charity
is the greatest of the theological virtues, the end toward which all other
virtues are directed. As St. Thomas
Aquinas teaches us, it flows from the relationship between the Persons of the
Holy Trinity. Divinity finds its ingenerate
source in the Father. From Him proceeds
His knowledge of Himself as God; this is the Word. Being in God, the Word is God. The Father loves His Son, the Word, and the
Word loves His Father. This love, being
in God as well, is also divine, as the Holy Spirit. This third Person is distinctively the infinite
love between the Father and the Son, proceeding forth from both as a third
divine Person. This divine love is
charity: the love of, and in, perfect goodness.
Charity cannot be separated or distinguished from God’s nature, for it
is inherent to His very being. As Man
grows in conformity to Christ, he develops a deeper participation in the loving
of God for God, and thus enters into the mysterious life of the Trinity, which
is charity.[iii]
The
Ten Commandments offer man a path to follow toward entry into this life of
divine loving. The first three are perhaps
the most important for our consideration here.
First, there is the divine self-revelation and the prohibition against
the honoring of other spirits or idols as gods:
I am the Lord thy God, who brought
thee out of the land of Egypt…Thou shalt not have strange gods before me…Thou
shalt not make to thyself a graven thing…Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve
them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous…[iv]
With this commandment, the
Lord lays down the fundamental law of existence and the ultimate responsibility
of all men: to love and serve Him as the only true God. As He reveals in Genesis, He created the whole
world from nothing. Even more, He made
Man in His own image, and gave him dominion over the earth, and all within
it. Man is thus ordered by the very form
of his being, and by gratitude for the gift of material lordship, to love his
Creator. With original sin, men fell
away from the proper observance of this grateful loving, this worship. At Sinai, the Most High reminded His people
Israel of their sacred duty.[v]
The Second Commandment
reiterates the reverence that is owed to God, particularly in speech. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy
God in vain.”[vi] This commandment is a natural consequence of
that which precedes it. God’s name is
sacrosanct. Like any name, it signifies
the identity of one. In this case, it
identifies the Creator of heaven and earth.
In invoking or considering God’s name, Man is called to the greatest
care and respect. To do violence to His
name, or misuse it profanely, is gravely sinful.[vii]
The Third Commandment
complements the First and Second.
“Remember that thou keep holy the sabbath day.”[viii] God is Creator and Lord, and His sacred name
is to be honored. The Sabbath day is a
holy time, set aside in the week for rest from worldly labors to permit
concentration on leisurely worship of the Lord.
Josef Pieper notes this true meaning of leisure, the freedom from
everyday concerns and responsibilities to pursue the cultic devotions proper to
men. God, in establishing His holy Sabbath,
gave Man a respite from the pains and strivings of his daily life so that he
might rest for a short while in the arms of His Lord. The Jewish observance, which we can still
witness, finds its perfection in the Sunday obligation of the Christian
Faith. The commemoration of the
historical Exodus gives way to the anamnesis
of the greater liberation of the Paschal Mystery. It is only right for Man to put aside his
lesser concerns and spend one day in reflection and worship of his God, and in
thanksgiving for the great gifts He has given us, not the least of which are
life and the Holy Eucharist, which itself is a gift unto perfect, eternal life.[ix]
The first three
Commandments give ultimate order to the life of Man. They reveal the identity of God as the one
divine Creator, and establish the essential attitudes or habits that are to be had
with regard to Him. Man is called to
love and worship the Lord, for He is the very source of existence. The remaining Commandments could be seen as
proceeding from the First, Second, and Third.
They reveal the sacred order of Creation, forged by divine Wisdom. The Fourth Commandment commands honor and
obedience to parents and other earthly authorities. Through the Fifth, Man is reminded of the
great sanctity of life itself. With the
Sixth, God’s moral plan for the continuity of human life and the unity of man
and woman is made clear. The Seventh
preserves justice among men in their dominion over the material world, whilst
the Eighth upholds the indispensability of truth. The Ninth and Tenth Commandments reiterate
the need for temperance in relation to things of this world. As the Catechism teaches us, the Decalogue
forms a unified whole. Through
reflection, we can see the wisdom and verity of this. The Commandments, being forged in the mind of
God, reflect the Son, Who is the eternal law.
Just as the eternal law unfolds in an exitus-reditus pattern, so too does the Decalogue. Beginning with God and descending through the
orderly unfolding of the Christian life, it also serves as a path to return to
God. The latter Commandments can be
deduced from the former, while one can discern the former through inductive
reflection upon the latter. Just as love
of God leads to love of neighbor, so also does the just and temperate love of
neighbor blossom in love of God. Through
both—the meeting of caritas and justitia--Creation reaches that perfect
peace and harmony which we know as the divine order, the existential expression
of the eternal law.[x]
Indifference militates
against this sacred order. It draws Man
away from loving God, and by extension, loving anything. Pieper, in meditating upon the theological
virtues, helps us to understand the genesis of this vice. As he explains, it is born from sloth, particularly
acedia. Acedia
is that sloth, or laziness, of the spiritual order. It is a particular vulnerability of those
committed to a life of contemplation.
Those dedicated to a life of prayer may, in moments of dryness or
desolation, submit to the temptation of acedia. This manifests itself initially in the
neglect of prayer, but if left unchecked, will spawn despair, the lack of
hope. This turning against hope becomes
a turning against love: this is indifference.
The one laboring under indifference neglects or refuses to
contemplate. He fails to recognize and
act upon his obligations both to love and to follow the wise and caritative
plan of God for his life.[xi]
Modernity has suffered
greatly from indifference, primarily through the development of indifferentism. Bound up historically with the heresy of
Modernism, one can trace it back to the early roots of rationalism and the centrifugal
individualism born of the Protestant Revolt.
Indifferentism, at heart, is a rejection or ignorance of objective
truth. Rationalism and skepticism
produced an abandonment of Scholastic ontology, and resulted in strange
metaphysical visions that would turn the order of Creation inside-out. Modern and contemporary philosophy would come
to proffer worlds existing more in the mind than in distinct reality. True knowledge of external things accordingly
became impossible. All sensed things
thus become shadows of the individual consciousness, rather than real things existing
in themselves with real natures that can be understood by the intellect.[xii]
Protestantism contributed
its own challenges to objective truth through its inherent individualism. Departing from the immemorial marriage of
Scripture and Tradition, the leaders of the “Reform” embraced a new approach to
worship and belief. Authority, rather
than being received from God hierarchically through His Church—and invested
primarily in the sacramental successors of the Apostles, the bishops—was now
born(e) in the conscience of each of the baptized. The Protestant was called to read the Bible
afresh for himself, and allow his own private conscience to dictate the final terms
of belief and religious practice. Without
a distinct, single Petrus to give
direction and unity, the Protestant heresies were fundamentally
centrifugal. In championing private
interpretation of the Word and electing it as a new magisterium, they tore
apart Christian unity at its very heart: truth.
Truth was no longer an objective reality to be discerned and received,
but rather a determination of the human individual.[xiii]
From these roots,
indifferentism burst forth upon the modern scene. Rooted in the vice of indifference, it was a
rejection of the exclusivity and objectivity of religious truth. Theologically, one can see how this error
turns one away from the path of salvation itself. Of the three Persons, the Holy Spirit is most
properly understood to be Love. As
observed earlier, the Third Person proceeds from the Father and Son as the
personified love of each for the other. Indifference,
as the abandonment of love, draws one away from the Spirit. As the Third Person is the Spirit of the Son,
indifference deprives one of communio
with Christ, Who is Truth. Thus, the
indifferent reject not only Love, but also Truth. In the end, if not converted, they lose their
only pathway to the Father, and thus Beatitude.
This is the true evil of indifferentism.
It falsely and selfishly treats all religions as spiritually equal, so
as to allow the individual to determine his own path to eternal happiness. Treating truth as a personal decision, it actually
denies truth any reality.[xiv]
Indifferentism
has had a toxic effect on the life of the Catholic Church over the past two
centuries. The Magisterium has striven
to fight this error. Pope Gregory XVI,
in Mirari vos, saw in the Modernist
vision of religious liberty the real threat:
Now We consider another abundant
source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted…indifferentism. This
perverse opinion is spread…that it is possible to obtain salvation of the soul
by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained.[xv]
Gregory’s judgment would be reconfirmed by
numerous successors, notably Bl. Pius IX and St. Pius X. They saw in the freedom(s) of conscience and
religion the Protestant ethic, and the destruction of true religion. The Second Vatican Council would seek to
pastorally address the question of salvation for those not enjoying full
communion with the Catholic Church in this world. Although acknowledging the importance of the
free embrace of the Catholic Faith, the Council’s teachings have been construed
by many as a rejection of the dogmatic principle of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.
This cast new fuel on the fires of indifferentism that were blazing.[xvi]
In
the wake of the Council, the Church has experienced remarkable challenges to
Her traditional teachings and ways of living out the Catholic life. The Holy See opened the way to engaging the
till-then Protestant efforts at ecumenism.
Although this has had some positive effects, it has also been the source
of considerable theological mischief. Liturgical
reform efforts, likewise, opened the spiritual lives of the faithful to
widespread abuses in the name of creativity, pastoral charity or generosity,
and (archaeologist) originality. Individualism
has undergirded many of these efforts, and, as a result, indifferentism has
followed. Ecumenism has led many to
believe that the schismatic sects are equal in dignity and truth with the
Catholic Church, and so the importance of remaining in communion with Her has been
seriously undermined in the hearts and minds of the faithful. At the same time, the loss of the sense of
the sacramentality and universality of Catholic worship has weakened the faith
of Catholics, and contributed to a critical decline in active worship.[xvii]
Indifferentism
is, sadly, alive and well amongst Catholics.
The clearest sign of this is the empty naves of parish churches on any
given Sunday. With the virtual collapse
of Catholic Sunday worship well underway in the West, Bl. John Paul II
contributed to its revitalization with his apostolic letter Dies Domini, meditating upon the
tradition and obligation of Sunday worship.
Holy Mass on the Lord’s Day bears living witness to our continuity with
our Jewish forbears, who held the Sabbath holy on Saturday in commemoration of
the Exodus. Catholics have fallen away
from observance of this obligation. In
pondering the reasons for this, we can only cite the varied causes we have
examined. In the end, they all lead back
to indifferentism, and thus indifference.
The cynical and scientistic mindset that prevails in today’s society has
given rise to an unprecedented popular agnosticism and atheism. For those who still recognize the reality of
God’s existence and rule, the question of ordering one’s life to His singular
road to Beatitude—the Catholic Faith—has become an uncertain one. Catholics have been adrift in an ocean of
poor catechesis and outright heresy for decades. There is grave uncertainty as to the real
responsibilities of the faithful, the trustworthiness of clergy, and the
fundamental truths, and reality, of sacra
doctrina.[xviii]
It is into this
environment that the priest must today daily enter. The evangelical mission of the priest is as
crucial today as it was in the days of the early Church and the past, historical
struggles with popular heresy. The presbyter is called to be Christ to
other men, to be an alter Christus. This is perhaps a more difficult task today
than in past centuries, due to the heavily atheistic tenor of the culture and
the considerable anticlericalism that has erupted in the wake of the
revelations of clerical sexual abuse. No
longer simply derided as a medieval anachronism, he is treated as a potential pedophilic
predator and a mouthpiece of moral and cosmological regressivism. Although he will not likely, by himself, be
able to overcome these misperceptions for all, he must not let them deter him
from exercising his ministry. The priest
must live the life of chaste love and truth that he is called to preach, and
thus lead both the baptized and unbaptized to Christ. He must recognize the challenge that he
faces. At its root, he faces a world
beset by indifferentism. It permeates
everything, from notions of freedom and morality—as Fr. Servais Pinckaers
explains—to questions of which religious community, if any, to attend on a
given weekend. Evangelization today,
whether it be a matter of first incidence or recovery, must recognize and
utilize all the possible means of communication available, particularly
Internet resources. Pope Benedict XVI
himself has advocated this approach. Information,
whether real or fictitious, travels with far greater speed and impact than in
any other century. This has so far
served the cause of indifferentism and cultural decline better than the cause
of the good. Reversing this trend will
take serious work on the part of Christians, and especially priests. The time of hiding in rectories is behind
us. Priests must engage the world. Homilies are not enough. The homily will only be heard by those who
already make the effort to worship God.
Providing of course for the judgment and permissions of bishops, priests
must seek out any and all opportunities to preach, to teach, and to dialogue
beyond the walls of the parish church.
Whether this be by blogging, newspaper columns, public lectures, or even
debate series, the Word must be spread to all.
The priest must be pastor of souls.
If he fails to evangelize the world, he will lose it. And if he chooses to lose it, he will answer
for this treacherous negligence before the throne of Jesus.[xix]
Indifference underlies
much of the trouble faced by the Church today.
This vice, this turning away from love, must be addressed and
healed. The only way to do so is to remind
the world of a great truth: God is love.
Pope Benedict XVI’s reign has been most instructive in this regard,
particularly in the choice for his first encyclical, Deus caritas est. Everything
comes from God, the source of being. And
God is love. Creation itself was one
great act of love by Him Who is Love. Everything
comes back to love. This is the
principle that must inform every effort of evangelization in the Church
today. While we must definitely teach
about the true nature of love, we must act with evident caritas. There is no room
left for arrogance in the preaching of God’s love and wisdom. Every priest must live the Gospel with a
heart of charity and fatherly affection.
Only by living love in truth will Christians be able to break the hold
that indifference, and its attendant indifferentism, has on the hearts and
minds of today’s society.[xx]
[i]
St. Matthew, xxii: 37, 39 (Douay-Rheims).
[ii] Catechism of the Catholic Church ed. 2
(Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1997), 2094. This shall hereafter be abbreviated as CCC.
[iii] St.
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. Summa Theologica.
Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Allen, TX: Thomas More
Publishing, 1948), Ia, q. 20, 26-44, IIa IIae, q. 23-27; Brian Davies, O.P. The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford,
England: Oxford University Press, 1993), 288-289. The Summa
shall hereafter be abbreviated as ST.
[iv]
Exodus, xx: 2-5 (Douay-Rheims).
[v] CCC, 2084-2140.
[vi]
Exodus, xx: 7 (Douay-Rheims).
[vii] CCC, 2142-2167.
[viii]
Exodus, xx: 8 (Douay-Rheims).
[ix] CCC, 2168-2195; Josef Pieper. Leisure, the Basis of Culture. Trans.
Gerald Malsbary (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998), 3-60.
[x]
Exodus, xx: 1-17 (Douay-Rheims); CCC,
2052-2557.
[xi] Josef
Pieper. On Hope. Trans. Mary Francis
McCarthy, S.N.D. Faith, Hope, Love
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), 113-123; Josef Pieper. On Love. Trans. Richard and Clara
Winston. Faith, Hope, Love (San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), 227-229.
[xii]
William A. Wallace, O.P. The Elements of
Philosophy (Staten Island, NY: Society of St. Paul, 1977), 288-332; R. R.
Palmer et al. A History of the Modern
World ed. 9 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 265-612.
[xiii]
Hilaire Belloc. The Great Heresies
(Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991), 97-142; Palmer, A History of the Modern World, 77-186.
[xiv] Davies,
Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 288-289.
[xv] Gregory
XVI. Mirari vos. Trans. Bernard A.
Hausmann, S.J. Ed.Anthony J. Minoni, Jr. The
Popes Against Modern Errors (Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc.,
1999), 13 (p. 7).
[xvi]
Bl. Pius IX. Syllabus of Errors. Ed.
Anthony J. Minoni. The Popes Against
Modern Errors (Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1999),
consulted; St. Pius X. Pascendi Dominici
gregis. Ed. Anthony J. Minoni. The
Popes Against Modern Errors (Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc.,
1999), consulted; II Vatican Council. Lumen
gentium. Ed. Austin Flannery, O.P. (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing
Company, 2004), 1-17.
[xvii]
Philip Trower. Turmoil & Truth
(Oxford, England: Family Publications, 2003), 5-199.
[xviii]
Bl. John Paul II. Dies Domini. Trans.
Holy See (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1998), 1-85.
[xix] Servais
Pinckaers, O.P. Sources of Christian
Ethics ed. 3. Trans. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P. (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 1995),327-353; Benedict XVI. Message for 44th World Day of Communications (January
24, 2010). Available: http://storico.radiovaticana.va/en1/storico/2010-01/351480_pope_benedict_s_message_for_44th_world_day_of_communications.html
(Accessed: December 21, 2012).
[xx] Benedict
XVI. Deus caritas est. Trans. Holy
See (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2006), consulted.
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