Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

 

Benedict XVI has completed JPTG’s final catechetical cycle and this last Wednesday began the first of his own on a new theme.   In this new series B16 is addressing the relationship of Christ to the Church.

B16 is motivated to refute the radical individualism that arose from errant philosophical ideas, made its way into Christianity through the Protestant Reformation and has in the last century taken its hold on most Catholics.  Here I am talking about the “Jesus and me” mentality that allows one to deceive himself into thinking that the Church is extraneous, an optional add-on, or perhaps an infinitely elastic institution that has more to do with human desire than the Truth.   What is left depends upon your upbringing.  For Protestants and some Catholics all that is really important is a “personal relationship with Christ.”  For other Catholics, it is just knowing that Jesus is love so I can do whatever I want because Jesus loves me just the same. 

Separating Christ from His Church is not a new idea.  St. Cyprian of Carthage combated this false notion as early as the 3rd century.  Some probably recall his famous dictum:

No one can have God as Father who does not have the Church as Mother (St. Cyprian, De unitate. 6: PL 4, 519).

What is new is that these views are now much more strongly reinforced by the individualism of Western culture than they have been in the past.  That is one reason why many Catholics have adopted this line of thinking.  It provides justification for Catholics not evangelizing because faith is just a personal thing; it allows them to justify their decision to quit going to Mass because ‘God knows that they love Him’, and a host of other fallacious ideas.

B16’s point of departure is JPTG’s Novo millennio inuente, in which the latter exhorts the faithful to seek the face of Christ.  B16 shows why the face of Christ is reflected in the face of His Church.  The Church is the extension and prolongation of the Incarnation.  It was established by Him as the vehicle of salvation.  In other words, rather than being an optional opportunity for an attenuated “fellowship,” the Church is the sacramental means by which we are saved through a real and substantial communio, a koinonia, a communion with Christ.

B16 shows that the novelty of individualism is contrary to the gospel and is a foreign importation into Christianity.  It is a modern hermeneutic imposed upon Judeo-Christian thought.  He uses covenant theology to show the covenantal nature of God’s relationship with His “people.”  The Hebrew which “people” translates is ‘am, a term with familial connotations. 

Covenant theology has found that in the Old Testament, covenants were the means by which one could extend family bonds beyond biological ties.  The inspired authors of the Old Testament used this social structure to convey the meaning of the relationship of God to His people.  God has always had a covenant, a family relationship with His ‘am, His people.  Scott Hahn has done an excellent job in popularizing this covenant theology and showing how the Old Covenant was actually a series of covenant renewals which pointed to and were fulfilled in the universal Covenant–the Catholic family of the New Testament.

This Catholic family, established by Christ upon the Rock of St. Peter cannot be reduced to its constituent parts whereby one might select some parts of it and reject others.  For example, one might hear ‘I like the people but not the Pope, or the hierarchy, or the morality, etc.’  This cafeteria style of Christianity reflects a fragmented view of the Church and its essence as an extension of the Risen Christ.   

B16 says that there is no opposition between Christ and His Church regardless of the many failings of Her members, even failings among some of Her leaders.  He warns:

Therefore, there is no way to reconcile Christ’s intentions with the slogan that was fashionable a few years ago, “Christ yes, the Church no.” The individualist Jesus is a fantasy. We cannot find Jesus without the reality that he created and through which he communicates himself. Between the Son of God, made man and his Church, there is a profound, inseparable continuity, in virtue of which Christ is present today in his people.

Fantasy though it is, there are still all too many who in one way or another, make this categorical mistake.  It underlies the spirit of dissent, the spirit of Protestantism and the spirit of individualism.  It seems that those who go astray from Church teaching begin in a confused ecclesiology abetted by a poor philosophical foundation.  We are so blessed to have two excellent theologian Popes back to back, who are so well versed in the philosophical errors of our times.  Pay close attention to this series, we will…