Deer in the Headlights
Much like a deer caught in headlights, so was my reaction upon reading “Are You the Catholic Answer Man?” (September 2002). My pride had been hiding my triumphalism until it was exposed and blinded by the double blaze of truth and self-realization. Thank you, Mark Brumley, for giving me a reality check. Now I must pray that my ego will step aside before it runs me over.
Zonarose Roland
Tolhouse, California
Too Tough on the Laity
Fr. Ray Ryland takes the mission of evangelization away from the bishops, priests, and monks, who traditionally carried out that mission, and says it belongs “primarily” to the laity (“The Great Omission,” September 2002). He adds the following emphasis in quoting Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) 33: “The laity . . . are given this special vocation: to make the Church present and fruitful in those places and circumstances where it is only through them that she can become the salt of the earth.”
This emphasis is wrong. What should be emphasized is the entire phrase “in those places and circumstances where it is only through them.” Such places would be in nations enduring persecutions where the bishops and clergy have been separated from the laity by jail, exile, or death.
Fr. Ryland quoted Vatican II’s Decree on the Laity as saying, “A member who does not work at the growth of the Body [of Christ] to the extent of his possibilities must be considered useless both to the Church and to himself.” But then he seemed to miss the implications in the Church’s limiting phrase “to the extent of his possibilities.” Clearly, the Church is not saying that a layman with a family should be expected to be another St. Patrick (who single-handedly converted Ireland) or St. Paul. Paul himself said that those who were celibate were more concerned with the things of God, and “woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor. 9:16).
I never heard Paul encourage Timothy to leave the task of furthering the kingdom of God to the laity. Nor does it appear from the lived tradition of our Catholic Church that anyone believed that interpretation until Fr. Ryland.
Mary Horey
Via the Internet
Fr. Ryland replies: “The Great Omission” does not take the mission of evangelization away from the clergy. The article clearly states that evangelization “is the responsibility of the bishops.” Or, again, “The task the clergy and religious is to help quip the laity for this awesome responsibility.”
Vatican II said the places where the Church can “become the salt of the earth” only through the laity are the home, the community, the marketplace, the factory. The laity are there, in great numbers, on the front line, where the work of evangelization has to be done. The clergy are not there.
Neither the Church nor my article says the layman must leave his family and carry on a full-time work of evangelization. Rather, each person is called in his or her state in life by word and example to witness to Christ and to his Church to all persons whom his or her life touches.
Give Parents Credit
I am new to This Rock, and I have to tell you after reading one little article (“Distorted Mirror Image,” September 2002) I have made the early decision to not renew. I saw What Does A Priest Do? What Does a Nun Do? at my conservative Catholic Church book sale. Instead of “put[ting] the book down and step[ping] away from the display” as the reviewer, Tim Ryland, suggests, I purchased it.
So here is my opinion: I LOVE it.
Yes, parents realize that nuns and priests do different things. There is a distinct difference between the two. But the fact remains that they have some things in common too. And guess what? We parents also have the ability to talk about the differences with our youngsters after we read the book. What a good discussion you could have.
“Noxious”? I think not. Over the edge this review is, I think definitely, yes. Please give parents a little more credit. I know my faith. My children are learning this faith through me. They are not learning the liberal, women-should-be-able-to-be-priests. They are learning the conservative view. And this conservative Catholic felt the book to be an excellent one.
Renee Warrington
Via the Internet
Nuns Are Not Laymen
There is an error of fact in Tim Ryland’s review (“Distorted Mirror Image,” September 2002) of Susan O’Keefe’s book What Does a Priest Do? What Does a Nun Do? He writes, “A nun, though she takes religious vows, remains a layman, albeit one with a special duty.” But the Code of Canon law states, “In itself, the state of consecrated life is neither clerical nor lay” (canon 588 §1).
In the law we see reflected an earlier shift in the teaching of the Church as promulgated in Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church): “The religious state of life is not an intermediate state between the clerical and lay states. But, rather, the faithful of Christ are called by God from both these states of life so that they might enjoy this particular gift in the life of the Church and thus each in one’s own way, may be of some advantage to the salvific mission of the Church” [43].
In 1996, Pope John Paul II wrote in his apostolic exhortation Vita Consecrata (The Consecrated Life): “For the mission of the lay faithful . . . the consecration of baptism and confirmation common to all members of the people of God is a sufficient foundation. In addition to this basic consecration, ordained ministers receive the consecration of ordination in order to carry on the apostolic ministry in time. Consecrated persons, who embrace the evangelical counsels, receive a new and special consecration which, without being sacramental, commits them to making their own-in chastity, poverty, and obedience-the way of life practiced personally by Jesus and proposed by him to his disciples. Although these different categories are a manifestation of the one mystery of Christ, the lay faithful have as their specific but not exclusive characteristic activity in the world; the clergy, ministry; consecrated men and women, special conformity to Christ chaste, poor and obedient” (31).
Thus there are not two but three states of life in the Church: the laity, those in consecrated life, and those in sacred orders (i.e., the clergy).
This technical error does not affect Mr. Ryland’s perceptive analysis of the serious flaws in O’Keefe’s non-so-subtle feminist leveling of the ecclesiological playing field. I bring this to your attention as I have seen similar errors pop up from time to time in This Rock. That having been said, keep up the good work. I look forward each month to reading your fine journal
Brother Arsenius
Monastery of Annunciation Hermitage
Baker, Oregon
Man The Poet, The Maker of Myth
I recently read James Akin’s article “How Odd of God” (“Brass Tacks,” September 2002). I am a retired science teacher, and I used to love to describe the nature of matter to my classes, including the vast amount of space contained within even the smallest of the building blocks similar to your discussion in the article. I am writing is to share a paragraph from chapter seven of C. S. Lewis’s book Miracles. He is writing about our fascination with the vastness of the universe (mostly space, but with a very special twist). I thought of his words when I read your article:
“We are inveterate poets. When a quantity is very great we cease to regard it as a mere quantity. Our imaginations awake. Instead of mere quantity, we now have a quality – the Sublime. But for this, the merely arithmetical greatness of the galaxy would be no more impressive that the figures in an account book. To a mind which did not share our emotions and lacked our imaginative energies, the argument against Christianity from the size of the universe would be simply unintelligible. It is therefore from ourselves that the material universe derives its power to overawe us. Men of sensibility look up on the night sky with awe: brutal and stupid men do not.
“When the silence of the eternal spaces terrified Pascal, it was Pascal’s own greatness that enabled them to do so; to be frightened by the bigness of the nebulae is, almost literally, to be frightened at our own shadow. For light years and geological periods are mere arithmetic until the shadow of man, the poet, the maker of myth, falls upon them. As a Christian I do not say we are wrong to tremble at that shadow, for I believe it to be the shadow of an image of God.”
Fred Girondi
Via the Internet
How Many Sinless Humans Did the Incarnation Take?
While I enjoyed the anecdote offered by Mike Johns (“The Bible Answer Man Comes Close,” “Letters,” September 2002), the case he developed for the Immaculate Conception is a weak one. The miraculous breaking of the inheritance of fallen nature had to take place once-given. If God solves this with the Immaculate Conception of Mary, it does not need to repeat again from Mary to Jesus-okay.
But since God is accomplishing the Incarnation with the conception of Jesus, adding to this the block of fallen nature inheritance could just be a part of that package, absent other information. The fact of Jesus’ lack of sin no more argues for the Immaculate Conception than Mary’s lack of sin would argue for the immaculate conception of Anne and Joachim. Also, the mystery of mechanism pondered by the Bible Answer Man is no less for Mary-indeed, perhaps more-than for Jesus.
Gerard Jensen
Brea, California