The Washington Post “On Faith” blog recently had a post by a non-practicing Jew named David Plotz who decided to actually read the Bible. Plotz’s inspiration to do so occurred after reading the story of Dinah’s rape as recounted in Genesis 34. He was so surprised by the inclusion of such a scandalous story in the Bible, especially in Genesis and not one of the “minor-league books” like Obadiah or Nehemiah, that he realized that he had no idea what the Bible really said. Plotz ended up writing a book about his excursion into the Bible.

I have no idea if the book Plotz wrote is any good, but I do commend him for at least realizing he is an “ignoramus” when it comes to the Bible. That is a step further than most. Since our country has predominantly Christian roots, most people believe that they are knowledgeable about the contents of the Bible but in fact don’t know even the basics. I remember Stephen Colbert telling John Cougar Mellencamp (both Biblical scholars par excellence) that Jesus said he came to bring not peace, but division to the world, and Mellencamp responded, “Really? That’s in the Bible? Is it in red letters?”And don’t even get me started on the misapplication of Scripture by politicians.

Of course the problem with Plotz’s approach is that he has divorced the Bible from the communities which produced it, originally Israel and now the Church. Contrary to Luther’s view, the Bible is not “perspicuous”, meaning it is so clear that anyone can simply pick it up and understand it. The centuries-long debates within the early Church regarding the divinity of Christ are proof of that. The Bible cannot be truly understood outside of the context in which it was written, but God in His love and wisdom has given us an institution that can authoritatively interpret the Bible.

Of course, this is not to say that individual Catholics shouldn’t be reading their bibles; quite the contrary, we should all be extremely biblically literate (at least more literate about the Bible than, say, “American Idol” or “24″). And over the past decade a virtual deluge of books have come out to help us with that task. Books by Fr. Mitch Pacwa, Scott Hahn, Jeff Cavins and others are available to help Catholics to know their bibles in the context of the life of the Church. Frankly, we have no excuse anymore. The more we know our Bibles the more we will know Jesus Christ. And the more you know someone, the more you can love him.

I’ve posted my reflections on this Sunday’s readings, in which I discuss the implications of our being created in the image of a Triune God.

According to this story, an Orthodox bishop in Russia is leading a contingent to search for a “bigfoot.” I can just see the exchange:

Bishop: What jurisdiction are you in?
Bigfoot: Rarr!
Bishop: I’ll take that as Russian Orthodox.

One of the beautiful aspects of studying Church history is seeing how God always provides for His Church. When things appear to be deteriorating within the Body of Christ, He raises up new men and women to restore the Church. One thinks of saints like St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius of Loyola, or St. Teresa of Avila starting new religious orders to respond to the corruption, laxity or heterodoxy (or all three!) in existing orders.

Our own time has seen a number of new orders rise up as well to respond to the problems in the Church. For example, the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and the Sisters of Life are both great examples of orders which have recently been formed and have worked vigorously to renew the Church.

Another new order, less well-known in the United States, is the Community of Maria Sedes Sapientiae, a Benedictine Order based in Norcia, Italy, the birthplace of Sts. Benedict and Scholastica. This young order is still small, but growing. They are striving to live an authentic monastic vocation, and have members from all over the world. One of my good friends from my days working for a pro-life group in the 90′s is a priest of their order.

Of course, chanting the Divine Office is one of their daily duties as Benedictine monks, and they have graciously uploaded mp3s of some of their beautiful chants to their web site. Here is a sample:

Communionem- Semel iuravi

Other mp3′s are available for download on this page of their website (scroll to the bottom of the page).

Please pray for this order and all new orders. Also consider donating to them, as they are growing rapidly and in the process of building a new monastery.

Recently I was at Mass and the Gospel reading was the “Great Commission” from Matthew 28. The priest’s homily was focused on evangelization, and the need for everyone to participate in this apostolate. He mentioned favorably preaching on the street-corner, but noted it was not for everyone. Yet he emphasized how everyone meets a number of people each day – at work, on a soccer field, at the grocery store, etc. – and each one can be evangelized in a natural way.

He gave a great example of practical evangelization. Let’s say you are in line at the grocery store:

You: Boy, with the economy like it is, I’m not sure how I’ll continue to afford all this food.
Person: That’s for sure.
You: Well, I’ll just have to trust in God and know that He provides for me.

That’s it! Of course, personal evangelization must be natural, so no one should repeat this conversation exactly, but it is a good example of how evangelization can be done each and every day.

It particularly struck me when he said that each person who comes to faith in Christ probably meets 150 people who bring him or her along that path, and it is only the 150th who is the one who might see the conversion actually happen. So you might be the 116th person the convert meets, but you are as necessary as the 1st or the 150th.

Remember that as you interact with your co-workers, friends, family and even strangers today.

North Dakota House Passes Abortion Ban

I realize that it still has to pass the North Dakota Senate and get signed by the governor and then pass through the courts, but I still find it encouraging when politicians actually pass a worthwhile bill.

Good job North Dakotians! (Is that the proper term for people from North Dakota?)

One of my favorite theological interests – as can be seen from the topic of my book Who Do You Say That I Am? – is Christology, the study of the person of Jesus Christ. The identity of Jesus is at the heart of the Gospel message, and if you distort his identity, you distort the whole message of salvation. This is why the early Church spent hundreds of years and numerous ecumenical councils debating exactly who Jesus is.

This is also why the Church is so concerned when a theologian appears to be distorting the identity of Christ in his teachings. Back in 2004, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued a notification condemning some of the teachings of Jesuit theologian Roger Haight. The concern was primarily over Haight’s book Jesus, the Symbol of God, which attempted to make Jesus “relevant” to the modern world by watering down the reality of his divinity. The CDF at that time told Haight that he could not publicly teach Catholic theology, so he left the Jesuit-run school he was at and moved to a non-Catholic university.

Last month the CDF announced that their concern over Haight’s teaching was so great that they ordered him not to teach theology anywhere. The Church realizes the damage that can be done by a Catholic priest distorting the teaching on Jesus, even if he is not working at a Catholic university.

In striving to make Jesus “relevant” many theologians turn him into a caricature of themselves. As a professor once said to me: “When they read the Gospels, it’s like they are looking in a mirror.” I especially liked the quote by Gerald O’Collins, one of the premier authorities on Christology and another Jesuit:

I wouldn’t give my life for Roger Haight’s Jesus. It’s a triumph of relevance over orthodoxy.

And this is the standard to which any Christology must be judged. Christ’s closest followers gave their lives for Jesus, and have continued to do so for 2,000 years. If someone invents a new “Jesus” who no one is willing to die for, you can be sure that it is not the Jesus of the Gospels.

A good friend of mine is one of six children in a faithful Catholic family. All six of these children are adults now (one is still in college) and all six are practicing Catholics. While raising my own children, I have often looked to his parents as models of how to raise your children Catholic in today’s world. One policy of their family is that they will allow their children to go to any college they choose, but they will only help pay for the tuition of colleges of which they approve. Thus, Franciscan University of Steubenville is in, University of Maryland is out. Each child, being smartly raised, chose to forgo crushing debt and go to one of the “acceptable” colleges, and I think each would confirm that their choice of college helped form them into better adult Catholics. A while back my wife and I decided to adopt the same policy for our children.

Well, imagine my excitement when I read today that most faithful Catholic colleges are also the most affordable. The Cardinal Newman Society commissioned a study in which they compared the tuitions of faithful Catholic colleges vs. those not so faithful. The results:

The research, led by Andrew Gillen, PhD, a leading expert on college affordability issues found that average tuition for students at the recommended faithful Catholic colleges is nearly $3,000 less than at other Catholic colleges and about $1,000 less than the average private college. In addition, the Newman Guide colleges provide a larger percentage of financial aid (39%) than the average private college (29%).

Booya!

The list of faithful Catholic colleges, according to the Cardinal Newman Society:

Ave Maria University
Aquinas College (Tenn.)
Belmont Abbey College
Benedictine College
The Catholic University of America
Christendom College
The College of Saint Thomas More (Texas)
DeSales University
Franciscan University of Steubenville
Holy Apostles College & Seminary
John Paul the Great Catholic University
Magdalen College
Mount St. Mary’s University
Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy
St. Gregory’s University
Southern Catholic College
Thomas Aquinas College
The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts (N.H.)
University of Dallas
University of St. Thomas (Texas)
Wyoming Catholic College

I just found out that Olivier Clément, a French-born Russian Orthodox theologian, died last month at the age of 87.

Olivier-Maurice Clément was born on November 17 1921 at Aniane in southern France, where the Cathar sect had been persecuted in the 12th century. His was a non-religious family, which left him to find meaning in life in his own way.

He encountered the Christian East among the Russian émigré community in Paris, particularly through the theologian Vladimir Lossky, and later said that he was attracted to the Orthodox union of “a sense of mystery and a sense of liberty”.

After being baptised as an Orthodox in 1951, he made his mark at the St Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, where he started to lecture in moral theology.

What I know of Clément is mostly from reading his book “You Are Peter.” This book was in response to Pope John Paul II’s invitation in Ut Unum Sint for non-Catholic Christians to propose how they believed the office of the papacy could best be exercised in the modern world. To my knowledge, it was the only significant response to the invitation, and while not agreeing with many of its conclusions, I found Clément’s book a sincere attempt to engage the doctrine of papal primacy. I only wish more non-Catholics, especially Orthodox Christians, would have taken the Pope’s request more seriously.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Sometimes I think that Bible Commentaries were invented to obfuscate the Scriptures rather than illuminate them.

I have been studying Scripture for over 20 years, the last 15 of which have been from a more scholarly angle, and I’m constantly struck by how inadequate – and even awful – many commentaries are. It doesn’t seem to me that it should be so hard to have a good Bible commentary. I have just three qualifications as to what makes a quality commentary:

1) Faithful to the Church’s teaching. As the Holy Spirit both inspired the Scriptures and guides the Church, to think that the Scriptures teach something that contradicts Church teaching is faulty interpretation from the get-go.

2) Scholarly in nature. I want a commentary that takes into consideration the latest in scholarly research, while balancing it with traditional exegesis. A huge amount of information about the people and cultures of biblical times has been discovered in the past 100 years, and can help us to understand the Bible more deeply.

3) Open to the possibility of the supernatural. So many “scholars” reject a priori the possibility of the supernatural that much of their interpretation of the supernatural events of the Bible border on the comical. Every supernatural occurrence becomes an allegory, myth or just down-right editorial invention. If you reject the supernatural as even possible, you can’t understand the Bible.

(An aside: many scholars reject that you can have all three. To be “scholarly,” according to them, you cannot accept the supernatural or accept Church teaching as infallible. I would say that is a false dichotomy [trichotomy?]).

My own experience is that many Protestant commentaries are superior to Catholic ones because while they might not accept all of Catholic teaching, they are in line with (2) and (3) above, whereas most Catholic commentaries reject the supernatural and do all they can to undermine Church teaching.

Two Examples:

The New International Commentary on the New Testament: This is a great Protestant commentary published by Eerdmans. It has serious scholarship but accepts that the Scriptures are the infallible Word of God. Of course, being the work of Protestant scholars, it does not see the Bible in the context of the life of the Church, so it does have its (at times serious) flaws.

New Jerome Biblical Commentary: This is considered the height of modern Catholic biblical scholarship, but frankly, I find it very lacking on many counts. It seems that the authors are embarrassed by any supernatural scenes and attempt to discount or even dismiss them without accepting the possibility that they might be true. And although this book has an Imprimatur, I find that it goes to great lengths to avoid or diminish the distinctively Catholic aspects of the Bible.

I do like both the Navarre Bible and the Ignatius Study Bible, but both are not completely adequate to real research. The Navarre Bible is more devotional in tone, and the Ignatius Study Bible is very good, but limited and mostly apologetical in nature.

With all this said, you can imagine my excitement about the new Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture. This is a new series which combines all three elements I mentioned above. I also have some personal connections to the series. The general editor is Dr. Mary Healy, who is a friend of mine and a faithful intelligent Catholic. She is also the author of the volume on Mark (to which I made a very minor contribution) and co-author of the volume on Hebrews. My former professor Dr. Scott Hahn is the other co-author of the volume on Hebrews and the author of the volume on Romans. The co-author of the volume on the Gospel of John is Fr. Francis Martin, who is a Professor of New Testament at the Dominican House of Studies in DC and who lives down the street from me. I often learn more from a daily Mass homily from him than dozens of books and I eagerly anticipate his work on John, which is such a “Catholic” Gospel.

All of the contributors look to be first-rate scholars and I have high expectations for the entire series – I just wish it would be released quickly!

My daughter recently received the sacrament of confession for the first time, and it reminded me of the beauty of this gift given to us by Jesus. I am very fortunate to belong to a parish which emphasizes the importance of confession; the sacrament is available here every day and twice on Saturday, and our pastor never tires of emphasizing the value of this great means of repentance and reconciliation.

Yesterday, the Pope urged us all to frequent this sacrament, noting how our sins separate us from God like leprosy separated one from his community in Jesus’ time. And as yesterday’s readings showed, it just took the touch of Jesus to heal this man and restore him to fellowship with others.

Speaking of ecumenism, I was reading an article in a recent L’Osservatore Romano by Bishop Brian Farrell, the Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (unfortunately not available online). In the article Bishop Farrell gives a report on ecumenical progress in recent decades. One thing he wrote near the end of the article struck me (emphasis added):

The dialogues are not capable, by themselves, of guaranteeing, the fulfilment of the final goal of the ecumenical movement, that is, unity in the Eucharist as the sign of full visible communion.

This sentence sums up the reason for my own dual sense of optimism/pessimism regarding ecumenism. On the one hand, I am optimistic about the possibility of corporate reunion with the Churches of the East: the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox. I recognize that it might take centuries, but discussions with these Churches can be fruitful because we share the same “final goal” of Eucharistic communion.

However, I am more pessimistic about ecumenical dialogue with the “Eccesial Communities of the West” (as the Church often calls Protestant bodies), as they are hamstrung from the beginning since Eucharistic Communion is not the final goal for most of them. How can two people reach a destination of which they disagree on its location? As Protestants do not believe in the sacramental nature of the Church (and thus do not view the Church as an essentially visible structure), their “final goal” is more pointed towards a common confession on the “essentials” of the faith (the details of which vary from body to body).

The Church, however, believes that “the Eucharist makes the Church” (CCC 1396). Without the Body of Christ in the Eucharist, we would not have the Body of Christ, the Church. Thus, Eucharistic communion is a necessary component of a unified body.

I do not mean to disparage those Catholics who are working valiantly in the field of ecumenism with Protestants; there can be much fruitfulness that can come from those discussions. However, until we share the same “final goal” I do not see how such discussions can reach their destination.

Most Western Christians (Catholic or Protestant) know little about the Eastern Orthodox Churches. Even fewer know about the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The OO Churches are apostolic Churches (i.e. their sacraments are valid), primarily located in Egypt and the Middle East, and are not in communion with either the Catholic Church or any of the EO Churches. Whereas the split between the Catholic Church and the EO Churches occurred due to various issues and over a length of centuries (with the events of 1054 being a convenient marker), the OO Churches are the result of a schism after the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Since that time there has been little contact between those Churches and the Catholic Church – until recently.

Over the past few years, the International Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox (that’s a mouthful) has been meeting to discuss the possibility of union between the Catholic Church and the OO Churches, and according to this report of their most recent meeting, things look promising.

Although the rift has been longer in duration, in some ways a reconciliation between Rome and the OO Churches should theoretically be easier to achieve than reconciliation with the EO Churches. The 451 schism was over one issue in particular – the relationship of the human and divine in Christ – and many scholars today believe that the original split was much more an issue of different language and culture than different theology.

It seems to me that the critical issue will be more the development of Western theology after 451 than the issues that originally spawned the schism after Chalcedon. Will Rome require the OO to incorporate Western developments such as purgatory, the Immaculate Conception and transubstantiation? Even more importantly, what will Rome require from the OO in regards to Papal Primacy, and how do the OO currently regard the status of the bishop of Rome?

These are all important questions, and prayers are needed for this attempt to heal one of the oldest ruptures in the Body of Christ. For more information about the OO Churches, I recommend Father Ronald Roberson’s excellent overview of all the Eastern Churches at the CNEWA website.

Well, tomorrow is February 14th, and as usual, it seems everyone is excited again about the Feast of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. I have to admit, these two brothers are favorite saints of mine, but I wonder each year what all the fuss is about. Why all the red hearts? Why all the talk of romance? It is true that their hearts were on fire in love for the Lord, but you could say that about all the saints – so why the connection between romantic love and the Apostles to the Slavs? Frankly, these guys don’t exactly look like the romantic types to me:

Interestingly, whenever I ask my wife these questions (which is about every year), she just rolls her eyes. Obviously I’m missing something…

Over at the Catholic Answers Forum, someone asked people to recollect on innocent childhood misconceptions they had about Catholicism. Most related stories of misinterpreting a priest’s words or certain prayers. I had a slightly different misconception when I was a child:

I grew up Protestant, and there was a large Catholic family who lived down the street from me. I knew absolutely nothing about Catholicism growing up, but I remember once mentioning to my parents that this family had a lot of kids. My mom just said, “well, they’re Catholic.” Like that explained it.

Since I didn’t even know yet how children were conceived, I remember thinking that Catholics must have some inside track on how to get the stork to come to their house!

Unfortunately today too many Catholic families have blocked the way for the stork to enter their houses, but demographics will eventually win out: if orthodox Catholic families are the only ones having 4, 5, 6+ kids, we will soon be the only ones left!