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About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 21, 1985)
Poge 2 • Faith Today Ecumenical Acumen By Katharine Bird NC News Service “The whole ecumenical scene has changed its color” thanks in large part to the efforts of Car dinal Augustin Bea at Vatican II, said Paulist Father Thomas Stran- sky, director of priesthood can didates for the Paulist Fathers in Oak Ridge, N.J. For Catholics today, Cardinal Bea’s work shows up most in the mutual understanding and respect Catholics and Protestants have for each other, Father Stransky said. They treat each other “as brothers and sisters in Christ. ” A German Jesuit who became a biblical scholar, Cardinal Bea also had been Pope Pius XII’s con fessor. When the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity was founded in I960, Pope John XXIII asked Cardinal Bea to serve as its first president. Putting the new secretariat in the charge of “a respected biblical scholar meant that it gained respect quick ly,” Father Stransky said. Cardinal Bea had served as rector of the prestigious Pontifical Biblical In stitute from 1930-1949. Father Stransky added that Car dinal Bea was a confidant of Pope John XXIII. Both men were the same age and shared an interest in ecumenical matters. Cardinal Bea “was my boss for eight years until his death” in November 1968, Father Stransky said. A “young, energetic priest then,” Father Stransky served as liaison between the secretariat and the world’s Protestant churches and groups. Recalling the excitement and tension of the council era, Father Stransky admitted he “was a little intimidated about working” for Cardinal Bea at first. But the car dinal was “patient and kind and never treated me like some flunky,” he said. The cardinal “knew how to handle staff and to remain calm in a crisis.” In promoting causes dear to his heart, Cardinal Bea was very skillful, Father Stransky stated. “In all the people I ever met I’ve never known anyone with a better sense of timing, of when to push for what.” Asked what led Cardinal Bea to take a personal interest in ecumenical relationships, Father Stransky said it developed gradual ly over his lifetime. Born of poor parents in a small Catholic Ger man town, he attended the Univer sity of Berlin as a young Jesuit stu dent. Here he mingled with Protes tant faculty and students. Some of Memories of o Dialogue In this 1963 photo, Cardinal Bea, right, greets an Eastern-Rite bishop. his Protestant “peers became great scripture scholars,” Father Stransky added. The cardinal’s promotion of ecumenical relationships and Christian unity grew “from the biblical side” as he pursued his career, Father Stransky said. The cardinal’s work often brought him into contact with Protestant scholars. Before World War II, for instance, he sought for and ob tained permission from the pope to participate in an international Bible congress that was usually at tended only by Protestants, the Paulist priest said. Cardinal Bea also was “the main drafter” of the papal encyclical titled “Divino Afflante Spiritu,” which opened the world of modern biblical scholarship to Catholic scholars, Father Stransky reported. Then, in the 1950s, the cardinal was the Vatican’s con- suitor on ecumenical affairs. At the council, during his many addresses, Cardinal Bea made it his business to point out “the ecumenical impact” of documents under consideration, and to discuss whether they reflected Scripture faithfully, Father Stran sky said. Cardinal Bea was the presenter and defender of the documents on ecumenism and on the relationship of the church with non-Christian religions. The cardinal, who always spoke and wrote tactfully, was quite per suasive on the council floor, Father Stransky recalls. Hearing the cardinal, people usually con cluded that “he had thought things out and wasn’t taking sides. He was a reconciler” who could get things accomplished. (Ms. Bird is associate editor of Faith Today.) By Monica Clark NC News Service It happened one Christmas season in the early 1960s, recalled Rita Semel. Her two young daughters were invited by Catholic neighbors to help decorate their tree. In turn, the Semel children asked their playmates to join them for their family’s lighting of the Hanukkah candles. Holiday excitement permeated both households. Then the Semels’ phone rang. Their Catholic neighbor was calling to say her pastor had opposed this sharing in the Jewish festival. A few years later Mrs. Semel received another call, again from the Catholic mother. She was ask ing whether the Hanukkah invita tion was still open. Mrs. Semel said that event is her most poignant memory of developments in Christian-Jewish relations after the Second Vatican Council, especially its Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions. Mrs. Semel grew up in New York City. She says she is “one of the few Jews who can honestly say I never experienced anti-Semitism as a child or young adult.” Her Bar nard College training as a jour nalist and employment at one of San Francisco’s major dailies gave her opportunities to interact with people of diverse backgrounds. But it was her appointment by Congregation Emmanuel as its Representative to the San Francisco ■conference on Religion, Race and Social Concerns that thrust her into a position of helping formulate how Catholics and Jews would in teract in light of the council document. Today she is the conference’s ^ coordinator and a member of the board of directors of Catholic Social Services, in addition to her position as associate director of the local Jewish Community Relations Council. In the first years after the council Mrs. Semel saw the ecumenical climate change for the better. With -Catholic colleagues she spearheaded an annual Catholic-Jewish Thanksgiving service, developed an interfaith Seder hosted by her synagogue and advocated numerous social justice agendas. Today she says: “Hardly a week goes by when the Jewish communi ty isn’t cooperating with Catholics on some issue — integration, hunger, famine relief in Ethiopia, aid for our city’s homeless.” ► “When something comes up,” she explained, “my immediate response is to call the archdiocesan ecumenical officer. He does the same toward me.” She admits there is not always' agreement on issues, “but we can talk through our differences with sensitivity and respect.” Because of her position in the Jewish community, Mrs. Semel has often been a guest lecturer in Catholic classrooms when com parative religions are studied. She has observed significant develop ment in awareness among Catholic students of the spiritual heritage they share with Jews, a point em phasized in the council document. A good deal of this awareness, she thinks, comes from the return to biblical study after the council. Another benefit of Catholic sen sitivity to Jewish belief is played out each month when Mrs. Semel attends the Catholic Social Service board meetings. Board members are sensitive to the fact that she is a Jew. “We always begin our meetings with a prayer. Whoever is leading it invokes the one God we both worship.” Mrs. Semel is eager for the inter faith cooperation she’s experienced since Vatican II to permeate the Jewish and Christian communities. “We need more involvement among all those who sit in our pews,” she thinks. “Ecumenical dialogues, annual worship services are fine but it’s limited. We need to stretch people more, to tackle together the serious social problems in our cities.” (Ms. Clark is a writer for the Catholic Voice in Oakland, Calif.) Catching Up on Biblical Scholarship By Father John Castelot NC News Service It is no secret that Catholic biblical scholarship has changed since the Second Vatican Council. But perhaps it is more accurate to say that since the council peo ple have become increasingly aware of the developments in biblical scholarship. For these developments preceded the coun cil. In many ways they were responsible for the attitudes mark ing that historic assembly.* All through the 19th century and into the 20th, intensive studies were carried on in both the Old and New Testaments. But these studies were regarded with suspicion in the church. Then, in 1943, a landmark papal encyclical titled “Divino Af flante Spiritu” exploded on the scene. Pope Pius XII urged church scholars to catch up in the field of biblical scholarship. He encouraged scholars to utilize the methods of literary and historical research which had pro duced such fruitful results in the understanding of Scripture. Perhaps the single most impor tant point was the practical recognition that, while the sacred books of the Bible were indeed " God’s word, they were the word of God coming through the words of humans. One needed to go back to the thought world and the literary world of the biblical authors, trying to grasp what they wanted to communicate. Permission now was given to translate the biblical books from their original languages. This was a giant step. Up to that time, all Catholic translations were made on the basis of St. Jerome’s fourth-century translation, the Latin Vulgate. All this was quite revolutionary and took time to be implemented. When I studied at the Pontifical Biblical Institute from 1948-1949, riis I now recall, the encyclical had little observable effect on the courses I took. But gradually its effect on Catholic scholarship grew. The impact on Vatican II “was immeasurable! It is not easy to change or to question long-held assumptions. (Jne feels threatened not only in tellectually but emotionally. When I began teaching in 1949, fortified by long years of hard preparation, the changes in biblical scholarship were just mak ing themselves felt. For a while I was flabbergasted. Gradually I came to appreciate the bases of the new movement. I was then able to understand that the new approach was not negative. Far from being threaten ing, it was liberating. But having experienced the trauma of change, I am in a posi tion to empathize with people go ing through the same experience. Like many biblical scholars, today I am deluged with requests to give courses in parishes. The response from people is thrilling. The changes in biblical scholar ship have been a great ecumenical plus too. I frequently conduct classes not only in Catholic parishes, but Lutheran and Presbyterian parishes as well. What I discover is that God’s word now is seen as a unifying, not a divisive, force. (Father Castelot teaches at St. John’s Seminary, Plymouth, Mich.) Faith Today • Page 3 FOOD... ...for thought When members of the same family belong to separated Chris tian communions, they get a firsthand glimpse of just how vital the work for Christian unity is. That was Pope John Paul II’s thought in his 1985 letter to Bishop James Crumley Jr., presi dent of the Lutheran Church in America. The pope said members of the same family who belong to separated Christian communions must “live in hope and work for the unity that should exist.” Members of these families, however, “may also experience the confusion or even alienation that can come when individuals in one family confess different, even conflicting, views of Chris tian faith,” said the pope. Such situations lead to “personal awareness” of the ecumenical movement’s importance, the pope indicated. There are times when the ecumenical movement seems dis tant from most people’s daily lives. News reports record the work of professional theologians on important issues of history and faith. But many ecumenical concerns hit close to home today: what to tell children about the faith of other Christian groups; how to respect the faith of others while not giving up respect for one’s own tradition; how to unite the energies of divided Christians for ...for discussion Since Vatican Council II, rela tionships between Catholics and Protestants have developed con siderably. Looking into your own community and the lives of those around you, where do you see evidence of these ecumenical developments? Joe Michael Feist poses a ques tion: Is ecumenism solely the concern of professional theologians? Or is it also a con cern for people in families, in neighborhoods, in local com munities? How would you answer? Who was Cardinal Augustin Bea? What professional background did he bring to his ecumenical work? What is another area in which the Second Vatican Council’s im pact is visible for you? the sake of valuable social action in local areas. A great many people have, by now, attended a wedding in which ministers of more than one church were present as par ticipants in the ceremony. And people know of the ef forts today — at funerals, for ex ample — to make members of other religious traditions feel comfortable and welcome in our churches. In such cases, the impact of the ecumenical movement is felt close to home. In his letter to Lutheran Bishop Crumley, Pope John Paul recognized that one way the need for the ecumenical move ment hits home is when a sense of “anguish” is experienced “because full unity has not been achieved.” Often this happens on the local level, he observed: “I know that at the local level members of Catholic parishes and those of other Christian communities in neighborhoods experience the pressures of disunity since they do not yet confess in the fullness of unity the same faith and therefore can not take part in the fullness of church life together.” How have you experienced firsthand the impact of the ecumenical movement? Why is it vital that the quest for fuller uni ty amoiig Christians continue? SECOND HELPINGS “Ecumenism: Striving for Uni ty Amid Diversity,” by Mark Lowery. A high school teacher, Lowery says his ecumenical in terests grew out of firsthand ex periences with people of dif ferent religious traditions. While working on a justice and peace group “to provide food, shelter and clothing to those in need, I felt the potential for unity that ex isted beneath our divisions," he writes. Lowery says his book is meant to be used as a basic guide in adult discussion groups, for advanced high school students or college students, for private reading, etc. The book presents a history of ecumenism and accounts of other Christian traditions — Orthodox, Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian-Re formed, Methodist and Evan gelical. He is convinced it is “ig norance of history that is respon sible for so many biases and dif ficulties people have in under standing others.” (Twenty-Third Publications, Box 180, Mystic, Conn. 06355. $9.95.)
