Day 18: A dogma of love.

                                                 Bergoglio, in  his pre-pope days, washing his people's feet.

   

Dogma: There’s a word that triggers many reactions in many Catholic circles today! However, with all the intensity that this word carries it in our communities, there are many who either have a wrong understanding of what it is (by interpreting it as something that restricts or dictates how one can live one’s faith), or avoid speaking about it completely. As for me, it’s not necessarily a term I have much love for.  I’ve watched too many people over the years justify intolerance and closed mindedness by hiding behind what they interpreted as ‘Church Dogma’.  The way Francis is portrayed in the media, many –including some conservatives- have assumed that this aversion to the concept of Dogma basically summarized the pope’s opinion as well.

In point 36 of Evangelii Gaudium, we discover that nothing could be further from the truth. There’s no question that the emphasis of his ministry is on the pastoral care of his people (especially the marginalized). Nevertheless, he remains committed to Church doctrine. As he expresses it here, he is faithful to the idea that some of our divine revelations are more important than others, as we strive to give a ‘direct expression of the heart of the Gospel’. Francis even goes as far as to speak of a ‘hierarchy of truths’.(EG 36)

 This is not an image that helps me embrace the importance of the Dogmas of our Church. I am after all, a product of a culture that has a lot of difficulties with hierarchies, or the idea that one truth is more valuable than others. Despite my resistance, Pope Francis wins me over by bringing us back to the basics: When he speaks of truths that are more valued than others, he speaks of fundamental things that define not only what we believe but how we ought to live. More specifically, he speaks of the saving love of God manifested in Jesus. This to him is the basic core of our lived faith. (EG 36) If we can live our faith through love (EG 37) and not through rules of moral conduct or a limited interpretation of certain passages of scripture…well, then people start paying attention! They realize ‘maybe there’s more to this Jesus guy than I thought!’.

This is an especially important theme for us as we journey through the season of Lent. So many people out there are giving up Facebook, or meat or sweets, or really anything under the sun that they love. This is an important act as we seek to enter into the sacredness of this season. However, as many have discovered over the years, perhaps it’s not just about what we sacrifice during this season, but what we take on, what we do differently, for ourselves, and for others.   Francis echoes the importance of this, saying that “our works of love …(directed to another).. are the most perfect external manifestation of the interior grace of the Spirit.” (EG 37) He uses this as a springboard to discuss Thomas Aquinas’s take on mercy, but I feel that this is inserted rather strangely in this segment. It’s the first time in the entire document so far that he quotes a Church father, and I’m not 100%  certain how Aquinas’ reflection helps us appropriate the need for a loving faith that does justice during this season. Perhaps some of you more scholarly types out there that stumble upon my reflections can pipe in!  I will end it here, eager to see where Francis goes from here in points 38-39. I hope this eagerness will translate itself in me becoming more regular in my entries, but only if it is God’s will!

36. All revealed truths derive from the same divine source and are to be believed with the same faith, yet some of them are more important for giving direct expression to the heart of the Gospel. In this basic core, what shines forth is the beauty of the saving love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ who died and rose from the dead. In this sense, the Second Vatican Council explained, “in Catholic doctrine there exists an order or a ‘hierarchy’ of truths, since they vary in their relation to the foundation of the Christian faith”.[38] This holds true as much for the dogmas of faith as for the whole corpus of the Church’s teaching, including her moral teaching.

37. Saint Thomas Aquinas taught that the Church’s moral teaching has its own “hierarchy”, in the virtues and in the acts which proceed from them.[39] What counts above all else is “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6). Works of love directed to one’s neighbour are the most perfect external manifestation of the interior grace of the Spirit: “The foundation of the New Law is in the grace of the Holy Spirit, who is manifested in the faith which works through love”.[40] Thomas thus explains that, as far as external works are concerned, mercy is the greatest of all the virtues: “In itself mercy is the greatest of the virtues, since all the others revolve around it and, more than this, it makes up for their deficiencies. This is particular to the superior virtue, and as such it is proper to God to have mercy, through which his omnipotence is manifested to the greatest degree”.[41]