Most pro-lifers know that Roe v. Wade made abortion legal throughout the 40 weeks of pregnancy in this country. What many pro-lifers don’t know is that there are very, very few doctors who will perform late-term abortions, which is typically defined as abortions after 20 weeks. [Update: see this post.] George Tiller was one of the few, but he was killed last year. Another is LeRoy Carhart, who is based in Nebraska and tried unsuccessfully to revive Tiller’s Wichita practice. He has recently run into problems in Nebraska, as they have implemented a law to make late-term abortions illegal.

In response Carhart has announced that he will be opening two late-term abortion clinics in Iowa and the Washington, D.C. area.

The D.C. clinic will be in Germantown, MD – only minutes from my house. Carhart will be using an existing abortion clinic – Reproductive Health Services – for his practice. For the past few years my wife has organized the only prayer group that goes to this clinic to protest, and usually that group only consists of her and my five children. I hope and pray that more people will now join her to plead with heaven to stop this barbaric practice from continuing here in the D.C. area.

If you are interested in joining her in praying regularly in front of this place of murder, please let me know.

A new Catholic news aggregator has been launched with an awesome URL. From its founder:

I’ve launched a new Catholic Newsite that distinguishes itself from other Catholic news aggregaters in that it offers only the best in Catholic punditry. From Father Zuhlsdorf to Mark Shea and from George Weigel to Ross Douthat and everything in-between.

We scour the Catholic blogosphere for the most insightful and well written articles that affect us as Catholics.

It is called “The Pulpit” and its URL is…

thepulp.it.

Check it out!

Today is the feast of St. Andrew, the brother of St. Peter and the patron of Constantinople and thus the Christian East. Often the union of East and West is represented by the icon of the two brother-apostles – who represent Rome and Constantinople – embracing:

In the spirit of today’s feast, here are two Eastern-related news items:

Patriarch’s meeting with Pope getting nearer – Metropolitan Hilarion

Moscow, November 26, Interfax – The meeting between the Moscow Patriarch and the Pope is getting nearer each day, the Russian Orthodox Church said.

“Each day brings us closer to this meeting between the Pope and Patriarch,” head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, told journalists in Moscow.

“Right now we are not prepared to make known the date, nor are we engaged in any concrete preparations for the meeting, but we are certainly getting closer to it. It is a calendar and astronomical fact,” he said.

The work carried out by the Russian Church with the Catholic Church is aimed “improving the general climate and achieving a higher level of mutual understanding,” he added.

This is great news. We have seen rumors for years that this meeting would take place, but now it looks like it might really happen. Let us pray for unity!

Also, many Catholics who frequent blogs do not know any good Eastern Christian blogs – but now there is a solution to that problem: the Eastern Christian New Media Awards! They have just announced their 2010 winners, so I recommend going there to find the best in the Eastern Christian blogosphere.

St. Andrew, pray for us!

One of the dangers of being knowledgeable about Church history and the lives of the saints is that you can cherry-pick just about any action or words used by some saint at some time in history to justify your own actions.

Don’t feel like evangelizing? Just quote the apocryphal St. Francis quote, “Preach the Gospel always. When necessary, use words.”

Feel like smacking a co-worker that annoys you? Just remember that jolly ol’ St. Nick once hit the arch-heretic Arius.

In other words, take some event or quote out of context and (mis-)apply it to justify just about any action you take or any attitude you might have.

One of the most common historical phrases used by certain Catholics is “Athanasius contra mundum” or “Athanasius against the world”. This phrase is referring to the fact that St. Athanasius almost single-handedly held off the Arian heresy in the 4th century. When vast numbers of bishops capitulated to the Arians, Athanasius alone strongly defended Nicene orthodoxy, and in the end was successful (although after five exiles). St. Athanasius is a great example of perseverance and standing strong for the Faith even in the face of great adversity.

However, I have often seen this phrase used as the motto of those who do not want to put in the hard work necessary to be charitable to others and to change hearts and minds. For example, when a parish priest says something that doesn’t jibe with this person’s personal theology, he will attack the priest and accuse him of heresy. And when he is ostracized by the parish, he will take heart that he has joined the ranks of saints like St. Athanasius in defending the Faith in the face of persecution.

Well, no – he’s just been a jerk and treated accordingly.

We are required as Christians to treat everyone charitably and with the best possible intentions. St. Bernard said,

Even though you see something very bad about your neighbor, don’t jump immediately to conclusions, but rather make excuses for him interiorly. Excuse his intention, if you cannot excuse his action. Think that he may have acted out of ignorance, or by surprise, or accidentally. If the thing is so blatant that it cannot be denied, even so, believe it to be so, and say inwardly: the temptation must have been very strong. (Sermon on the Canticle of Canticles 40).

In other words, don’t go looking for errors and problems in others, but instead pray for them and assume the best. That does not mean that we do not resist heresy, it just means that we always do so charitably – and even reluctantly, in the sense that we hope and pray that the other person is simply being misunderstood or talking out of ignorance.

A more accurate way to describe the 4th century would be to say that it was “the world against Athanasius”. In other words, Athanasius did not go around looking for problems and people to offend. Instead he charitably and forcibly stood up for orthodoxy and then the world attacked him. We should do the same today. We don’t need to pursue persecution; simply living the Faith usually means that persecution will come to us.

Yesterday I had a book signing at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and I was pleased that another OSV author, Greg Jeffrey, who wrote Why Enough Is Never Enough: Overcoming Worries About Money –A Catholic Perspective, shared a table with me:

Greg Jeffrey and me at the National Shrine

I highly recommend Greg’s book. When I first heard about it, I thought it was another financial planning book, but instead it is more of a spiritual look at finances: how money makes us anxious (no matter how much – or how little – we have), and how our attitude – and our anxiety – towards money affects our entire lives. I have often realized that it is amazing how much energy we spend on thinking about money – not actually spending and using money – but just thinking about it. This book is a great resource to put that part of our lives in proper perspective.

Also, we both start our books with stories that take place on a subway – but his is far more hair-raising!

A few more reviews of my book Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew have recently been posted.

First, Jennifer Fitz over at Riparians at the Gate gives 7 Reasons You Should Buy “Who is Jesus Christ? by Eric Sammons:

This is a top notch, can’t-go-wrong book .   I had a hard time writing a review because everything I had to say sounded so trite and trivial and fluffy, and this book is none of those.  I finally just decided to gush away in a nice neat top-7 list (no biblical allusions intended).  So here you go:

Jen’s Top 7 Reasons You Should Buy This Book

1. It is interesting! When I picked this book for my Catholic Company book review item, I thought it would be boring-but-good-for-you. I was so wrong. Not boring. Not at all. The book is packed with interesting perspectives on Jesus – how he was seen by his contemporaries, how Jesus fits into the Old Testament prophecies of a messiah, and how the Gospel impacts our lives today. Loaded with details, and never slow and belaboring. (But I was right about the good-for-you.)

Continue reading…

Next, Marcel over at Aggie Catholics says I’m in big trouble:

Eric Sammons, the author of the new book Who Is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew, is in big trouble. Why? Because I have a bad habit of reading anywhere from 4-15 books at a time. I generally pick one up and read it for a while. The next time I read, I pick up a different book from the book pile. Once in a while, esp. when reading fiction, I read a book cover-to-cover and can’t put it down. Eric’s new book has been one that I can’t put down and this means the stack of other books has been neglected since I starting reading Who Is Jesus Christ?

Continue reading…

Julie over at Happy Catholic recommends my book for Advent reading in her “pre-review”:

Today, I bring you a book that I haven’t yet finished because I am finding myself almost forced to read it slowly and meditatively in order to consider the wealth of information.

Who is Jesus Christ? by Eric Sammons takes an interesting tack in answering the question that Jesus him self put to the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” We all have our favorite and comfortable concepts about Jesus. They are not necessarily wrong but they also are not all that Jesus Christ is. It is in contemplating those areas outside our comfort zones that we most often meet God. Or so it seems in my experience.

Continue reading…

And finally, Jeff Miller, a.k.a. “The Curt Jester,” happily recommends my book:

Catholic blogger Eric Sammons of The Divine Life has written a book now released titled Who Is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew.  Eric was kind enough to send me a copy.

This book uses the Gospel of Matthew as a guide, but it is not a sequential reading of themes and passages from this Gospel.  The book is arranged into groups of  major themes  which included incomplete perceptions of Jesus as shaped in the Old Testament, major roles Jesus fulfilled, fulfillment of Old Testament types, and finally his role as Son.

Eric is quite a capable writer who presents information in a way that is easily readable while also passing more technical information in that same easily accessible manner.

Continue reading…

Thanks everyone for the kind words!

As Julie mentioned, my book would make great Advent reading, as you could read one chapter every day in the month of December leading up to Christmas. Also, the Sunday readings for the upcoming liturgical year come from the Gospel of Matthew, and Who is Jesus Christ? can prepare you to encounter our Lord in Matthew’s Gospel during the next year.

The NY Times recently ran another breathless article which pits the big, bad Catholic Church (a.k.a. The Evil Galactic Empire) against a group of plucky men and women (a.k.a. a small band of rebel freedom fighters) who just want to sit around and sing kumbaya in peace. I have to wonder: has the Times ever written an article about the Catholic Church that didn’t sound like the plot for Star Wars?

Here it is, with my comments in red:

Catholics in Belgium Start Parishes of Their Own

BUIZINGEN, Belgium — Willy Delsaert is a retired railroad employee with dyslexia who practiced intensively before facing the suburban Don Bosco Catholic parish to perform the Sunday Mass rituals he grew up with.

“Who takes this bread and eats,” he murmured, cracking a communion wafer with his wife at his side, “declares a desire for a new world.” [Well, so much for performing "the Sunday Mass ritual he grew up with" - this sounds like something you'd hear at a Unitarian service.]

With those words, Mr. Delsaert, 60, and his fellow parishioners are discreetly pioneering a grass-roots movement that defies centuries of Roman Catholic Church doctrine by worshiping and sharing communion without a priest. [I don't know how you can call them "pioneers" since Protestants have been doing this for centuries. Sounds more like they are late to the game to me.]

Don Bosco is one of about a dozen alternative Catholic churches [=non-Catholic churches] that have sprouted and grown in the last two years in Dutch-speaking regions of Belgium and the Netherlands. They are an uneasy reaction to a combination of forces: a shortage of priests, the closing of churches, dissatisfaction with Vatican appointments of conservative bishops and, most recently, dismay over cover-ups of sexual abuse by priests.

The churches are called ecclesias, the word derived from the Greek verb for “calling together.” [Rule #1 for dissenting Catholics: use NT Greek words to sound authentic.] Five were started last year in the Netherlands by Catholics who broke away from their existing parishes, and more are being planned, said Franck Ploum, who helped start an ecclesia in January in Breda, the Netherlands, and is organizing a network conference for the groups in the two countries.

At this sturdy brick church southwest of Brussels, men and women are trained as “conductors.” [At least they don't try to convince everyone that they are "priests".] They preside over Masses and the landmarks of life: weddings and baptisms, funerals and last rites. Church members took charge more than a year ago when their pastor retired without a successor. In Belgium, about two-thirds of clergymen are over 55, and one-third older then 65.

“We are resisting a little bit like Gandhi,” [a very little bit, I'd say] said Johan Veys, a married former priest who performs baptisms and recruits newcomers for other tasks at Don Bosco. “Our intention is not to criticize, but to live correctly. We press onward quietly without a lot of noise. [Considering the rapidly declining circulation of the NY Times, that might be true.] It’s important to have a community where people feel at home and can find peace and inspiration.”

Yet they appear to be on a collision course with the Vatican and the Catholic Church in Belgium. [Yes, I'm sure the big, bad Vatican will issue a fatwa and make sure these people are killed for their blasphemy...O wait a minute, Catholics don't do that...] The Belgian church has been staggering from a sexual abuse scandal with 475 victims, and the resignation of the bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, who last April admitted to years of molesting a boy who turned out to be his nephew.

In the view of Rome [and Jesus and the apostles and the saints and the Fathers and 2,000 years of Catholic teaching], only ordained priests can celebrate Mass or preside over most sacraments like baptisms and marriage. “If there are persons or groups that do not observe these norms, the competent bishops — who know what really happens — have to see how to intervene and explain what is in order and out of order if someone belongs to the Catholic Church,” the Rev. Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, said. [with some measure of exasperation, I'm sure]

[Oh, I give up - this is like shooting fish in a barrel. If you want to read more of this inanity, click here - but don't say I didn't warn you.]

When I was in college, I was an enthusiastically devout Evangelical Christian (until I became an enthusiastically devout Catholic Christian). One day I met with the campus leader of Navigators, an Evangelical “para-church” organization in which I had been involved. This leader was in his thirties and had been a devout Christian since his teens and he was worried about me. He thought I was a little too enthusiastic about my faith and feared that I would soon burn out. He advised me that I needed to “settle down” a bit and not be so intense in my Christian walk; according to him, the Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint, and therefore I needed to pace myself. I responded that the Christian life was a marathon but one in which we are supernaturally given grace to run it as a sprint.

Now I am much older, and hopefully wiser; in fact, I am now older than that campus leader was at the time of his advice. I have been a practicing Christian for over 23 years, 18 of them as a Catholic. Over the years I have often thought about this piece of advice and whether or not I now agreed with it.

My conclusion? I still think I was right.

It is true that we must be prepared for the long haul in our Christian life and that this involves patience. It might take years to overcome certain weaknesses and sins in our lives, and our goals for our Christian life might take decades to accomplish. But I do not think we are ever to “settle down” in our Christian walk and pace ourselves. That would be like the man who was given one talent and buried it in the ground; we are to use our talents to further the Kingdom of God at every opportunity.

Look at the lives of the Saints – did St. Francis of Assisi ever settle down? Did St. Catherine of Sienna pace herself? Did St. Ignatius of Antioch live life carefully? Not at all. These saints intensely followed our Lord with every fiber of their being every single day of their life. Although they were running a long race, they – with the help of God’s grace – ran it like a sprinter on steroids.

So if we are ever tempted to settle down for the long haul, let us remember that we should treat each day as if it is our last here on earth and run the race with intensity and fortitude. We can trust that God will always be there to give us the strength we need to last until the finish line, and we can say with St. Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

Attention my fellow Washington, DC-area residents! I have two book signings scheduled in the coming weeks here in DC.

First I will be at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception bookstore on November 28th from 11:30am to 3pm. That day the Shrine is hosting a thanksgiving Mass for Cardinal-designate Wuerl’s appointment to the college of Cardinals, so you don’t want to miss it!

On December 14th at 5:30pm I will be holding a signing at the Catholic Information Center bookstore in downtown DC. This event will also include a short presentation before the signing.

If you live in the DC-area, please stop by to say hi (and get your copy of my book signed)!

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Verbum Domini:

We can deepen our relationship with the word of God only within the “we” of the Church (VD 4).

The realist is the one who recognizes in the word of God the foundation of all things (VD 10).

Just as the word of God comes to us in the body of Christ, in his Eucharistic body and in the body of the Scriptures, through the working of the Holy Spirit, so too it can only be truly received and understood through the same Spirit (VD 16).

As the word of God became flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, so sacred Scripture is born from the womb of the Church by the power of the same Spirit (VD 19).

In the dynamic of Christian revelation, silence appears as an important expression of the word of God (VD 21).

The Bible is the Church’s book, and its essential place in the Church’s life gives rise to its genuine interpretation (VD 29).

Approaches to the sacred text that prescind from faith might suggest interesting elements on the level of textual structure and form, but would inevitably prove merely preliminary and structurally incomplete efforts (VD 30).

The person of Christ gives unity to all the “Scriptures” in relation to the one “Word” (VD 39).

The “literalism” championed by the fundamentalist approach actually represents a betrayal of both the literal and the spiritual sense, and opens the way to various forms of manipulation, as, for example, by disseminating anti-ecclesial interpretations of the Scriptures (VD 44).

The most profound interpretation of Scripture comes precisely from those who let themselves be shaped by the word of God through listening, reading and assiduous meditation (VD 48).

Holiness in the Church constitutes an interpretation of Scripture which cannot be overlooked. The Holy Spirit who inspired the sacred authors is the same Spirit who impels the saints to offer their lives for the Gospel (VD 49).

A faith-filled understanding of sacred Scripture must always refer back to the liturgy (VD 52).

Word and Eucharist are so deeply bound together that we cannot understand one without the other: the word of God sacramentally takes flesh in the event of the Eucharist (VD 55).

Ours is not an age which fosters recollection; at times one has the impression that people are afraid of detaching themselves, even for a moment, from the mass media. For this reason, it is necessary nowadays that the People of God be educated in the value of silence…Only in silence can the word of God find a home in us, as it did in Mary, woman of the word and, inseparably, woman of silence (VD 66).

Jesus of Nazareth is, so to speak, the “exegete” of the God whom “no one has ever seen” (VD 90).

[The proclamation of the word of God] is not a matter of preaching a word of consolation, but rather a word which disrupts, which calls to conversion and which opens the way to an encounter with the one through whom a new humanity flowers (VD 93).

We need to help young people to gain confidence and familiarity with sacred Scripture so it can become a compass pointing out the path to follow (VD 104).

The proclamation of the word creates communion and brings about joy (VD 123).

See also:

• An early Christmas gift from Pope Benedict XVI
• Verbum Domini and the challenge of Catholic Scripture interpretation
• Overview of Verbum Domini
• Major themes of Verbum Domini

Verbum Domini covers a large number of topics, but what are the major themes of this document? Broadly, I would say that there are four:

1) The life-changing reality of the “Word of God”
One of the most common misconceptions about Christianity is that is a “religion of the book”, i.e. that the Bible is the basis for our entire religion. The Catholic Church has always denied this, and does so explicitly in this document:

While in the Church we greatly venerate the sacred Scriptures, the Christian faith is not a “religion of the book”: Christianity is the ‘religion of the word of God’, not of ‘a written and mute word, but of the incarnate and living Word’ (VD 7, quoting St. Bernard of Clairvaux).

The “Word of God” cannot be limited to simply Sacred Scripture, as it encompasses far more than that. Verbum Domini breaks it into three separate – but interrelated – realities:

• Jesus Christ: First and foremost, the Word of God is the eternal Son of God who became incarnate as Jesus Christ
• Word preached by the Apostles, i.e. the Church’s living Tradition
• Sacred Scripture

This is not just an obscure theological point, but is foundational for everything the Church teaches in regard to a proper understanding of the Scriptures. We must understand that the Word we follow is Jesus Christ, and we are drawn to him by both Tradition and Scripture. Trying to isolate only one part of the multifaceted Word – like “sola scriptura” does – ends up ultimately deforming the Word and making it more susceptible to misinterpretation.

2) Scripture should lead us to an encounter with Christ
Anyone who is familiar with Pope Benedict’s pontificate knows the emphasis he has placed on “encountering Jesus Christ”. He has emphasized again and again that an encounter with Christ is the central mystery of the Christian faith – everything, literally everything, revolves around it. As Benedict wrote in Deus Caritas Est, “being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a definitive direction” (DCE 1, quoted in VD 11).

Verbum Domini reiterates this emphasis and notes the importance of Scripture in instigating and deepening our encounter with our Lord. As the beginning of the document explains, we believe in a God who speaks a Word, and we are responsible to respond to that Word in our own lives. Scripture is a primary way to hear that Word spoken by God.

3) Scripture must be read and interpreted within the context of the Church
The key difference between Catholic and Protestant Scripture interpretation is that Catholics are insistent that the Bible can only be truly understood within the context of the living Church. The Bible was written within the Church, for the Church and was compiled by the Church, so trying to understand it outside the Church is simply infeasible. The same Spirit which inspired the Sacred writers and guided the Church to gather together those writings into one “Bible” also directs the Church in her interpretation of the Scriptures.

This is true beyond just the obvious “biblical interpretation cannot contradict Church teaching”. Another example that Verbum Domini emphasizes is the importance of the liturgy for interpreting Scripture. Many of the New Testament documents were originally written to be read within a liturgical setting (for example, Paul addressed most of his letters to “the church in…”, thus assuming that they would be read when the local church gathered, i.e. in the liturgy). As Verbum Domini notes, the liturgy is the “privileged” setting for reading the Bible. It is not just one of many settings, but should be the primary place where Scriptural interpretation takes place. This goes against most modern thought, which believes the only place to interpret the Bible is either in an academic ivory tower or in the confines of one’s own home. Like everything related to the Faith, the Church understands that Scriptural interpretation is a communal affair.

4) Scripture should inform and be foundational to all aspects of the Church’s ministry
The entire third section of this document goes into some detail of the importance of Scripture permeating every aspect of the Church’s work. This begins with evangelization, which is the preaching of the Word. I loved this description of evangelization that Verbum Domini offers:

“It is not a matter of preaching a word of consolation, but rather a word which disrupts, which calls to conversion and which opens the way to an encounter with the one through whom a new humanity flows” (VD 93).

Evangelization is not teaching the Faith or explaining the Faith or defending the Faith – it is preaching the Word and allowing that Word to lead the other to an encounter with Him who is the Word. How can the Word be preached without recourse to the written Word of God? Thus, Scripture forms a foundation for all evangelical work of the Church.

In my next post, I’ll list a few of my favorite quotes from Verbum Domini.

See also:

• An early Christmas gift from Pope Benedict XVI
• Verbum Domini and the challenge of Catholic Scripture interpretation
• Overview of Verbum Domini

I’ve finished Verbum Domini, the new papal document on Sacred Scripture, and it is quite impressive. There were no surprises in it for those who are familiar with the Church’s teaching on Scripture, but it ably reiterated and explained the proper way a Catholic must approach the Bible.

One thing to note is that this is NOT an encyclical, but a “post-synodal apostolic exhortation”. Why does that matter? Because an encyclical will usually be almost exclusively theological and leave practical applications to other forums. But this exhortation, which was written as a response to the 2008 Synod of Bishops on the Word of God, tackles both theological issues as well as practical applications of those issues. This is one reason the text is so long (over 40,000 words, or about equivalent to a 150-page book).

The document is divided into three major sections, along with an introduction and conclusion:

Part I: Verbum Dei
The first section lays the theological foundations of the Church’s understanding of the Word of God. It stresses the multiple meanings of “Word of God” (which I’ll detail in another post) and emphasizes that Scripture can only be properly understood in the context of the living Church. If you are intimidated about reading this long document, I would recommend just reading this first section – it is beautifully written and gives a great explanation of the overall context in which the Church approaches the Bible.

Part II: Verbum in Ecclesia
The second part of Verbum Domini details how Scripture is to be read, interpreted and prayed in the life of the Church. It emphasizes the role of the liturgy for a proper interpretation of the Scriptures, something that is sorely forgotten in our post-Reformation era. Most Christians think that the Bible is something to be primarily read alone in one’s home, but the Church has always emphasized that the “privileged” setting for reading and interpreting the Scriptures is in the context of the worshiping Church, i.e. the liturgy. And Scripture should infuse every liturgical action, not just the Mass.

Also in this part is a wonderful explanation of lectio divina (sections 86-87). “Divine reading” is considered the proper way in which a Christian should approach the biblical text when doing personal study and reflection of the Scriptures, and it would be great if more Christians – whether priests, scholars or laypeople – used this ancient method when reading the Bible.

Part III: Verbum Mundo
The final part of Verbum Domini applies everything discussed above to the “real world”, i.e. how can our interaction with the Sacred Scriptures further the Church’s mission to the world? The document applies this to every conceivable arena, from evangelization to supporting the poor to interreligious dialogue. While much in this section is worthwhile, I would also say that some of it reads like a committee bullet point document which wants to make sure it addresses every member’s pet project (a consequence of being a response to a worldwide Synod of bishops, no doubt). But the overall emphasis of this part is evangelization: one must be in constant contact with the Word of God in order to preach and proclaim that Word to the world.

In my next post, I’ll review the major themes of Verbum Domini.

See also:

• An early Christmas gift from Pope Benedict XVI
• Verbum Domini and the challenge of Catholic Scripture interpretation

I’m reading through Verbum Domini now and it is a serious challenge not to race through it. For a Scripture geek like me, this is a real page-turner. But I’m pacing myself so that I can really digest what is in this document (although I’m sure I’ll read it multiple times anyway). Yesterday I mentioned that it would be helpful to read other Papal documents on Scripture from the past century in order to better understand Verbum Domini. I think it would also be very helpful to understand the context in which all these documents were written; i.e. the current debates and challenges within the world of biblical interpretation that these documents address. I’ll give a high-level overview here.

There are two major, and opposing, currents in modern biblical interpretation (“modern” meaning the past 200 years or so). They are historical-criticism and fundamentalism.

Historical-criticism is the dominant method of biblical interpretation in the academic world. Historical-critics look at the Bible as simply a human document and study it as such. They want to answer questions such as: “Who wrote this?” “When was it written?” “What is the history of its development?” “How was the text handed on through the centuries?” They are not concerned with topics such as inspiration or inerrancy, nor do they look at how one’s life might be impacted by reading the Bible. To historical-critics, biblical interpretation is a purely scientific affair that attempts to uncover the origins of the biblical text. Anything beyond that is seen as superfluous. In the academic world, whether Protestant or Catholic or secular, this is almost the only biblical interpretation that exists.

Fundamentalism is a reaction to historical-criticism that became widespread in the early 20th century and is most commonly found among conservative Protestants. It is the viewpoint that takes every word completely literally and at face-value. For example, a fundamentalist will count the years noted in Genesis and then determine how old the earth is. Fundamentalism grew because many faithful Christians believed that the historical-critical method denied the divine authorship of the Bible and they wanted to recover that.

Unfortunately, the world of biblical interpretation has become very political and advocates of these two methodologies keep each other at a distance. Anyone in the academic world who suggests divine authorship of the biblical text is immediately branded a “fundamentalist” (the worst insult in modern academia) and any Christian who suggests that perhaps certain biblical texts are not to be read as a newspaper account is labeled by fundamentalists as a godless heathen.

But which method does the Church consider the proper method of biblical interpretation? Neither…and both. While it is willing to take whatever is true and useful in both these methods, the Church does not embrace either one wholeheartedly. Many of the methods used in the historical-critical method are accepted as helpful, but the Church does not believe that the divine Word of God is only a human text that can be examined under a microscope to fully understand it (just like putting a Eucharistic host under a microscope would not reveal its reality either). And although the Church embraces the divine authorship of the Bible and does not believe it is just a human document, but it does not embrace fundamentalism as a proper method for understanding the Scriptures’ true meaning.

Proper Catholic biblical interpretation has two main pillars it bases itself on. The first is the belief that the Bible must be read in the context in which it was written, i.e. within the Church. If a historical-critic rejects the Virgin Birth because it is not “historical”, then a Catholic can be sure that this critic’s interpretation is invalid, because the same Spirit that inspired the writing of the Bible led the Church to accept this doctrine as true. Likewise, if a fundamentalist believes the earth is only 6,000 years old and thinks that rejecting that belief is “contrary to the Bible”, then a Catholic can be sure that the fundamentalist is going beyond the text, since the Church has made clear that the age of the earth is a scientific, not theological, question.

The second pillar of proper Catholic biblical interpretation is the concept of multiple “senses” of Scripture. Just as there are two authors of every biblical book – the human and the divine – so there can be two or more possible meanings of a Scriptural passage: the literal and the spiritual (often the spiritual is broken into three levels, but I’ll keep it simple for this analysis). The literal meaning is what the human author intended by the passage. Note carefully that this is not the same as the “literalism” of the fundamentalist. The human author might have intended a passage to be poetic and not a historical account. He might have intended to be making a theological point and not been reporting on events as a newspaper reporter. The literal meaning is always the first meaning of a text and it allows us to know exactly what the original author was trying to say to his original audience.

The second meaning of Scripture is the spiritual. Since the Bible has a divine author, it can have multiple layers of meaning behind each passage. For example, a Psalm which talks about the destruction of my enemies could remind us of our fight against our enemies of pride, vanity and selfishness. This might not have been what the original human author was thinking about when he wrote the Psalm, but it is a legitimate meaning, nonetheless. But the spiritual “sense” of Scripture does not give one permission to go off into flights of fancy; again, biblical interpretation – including the spiritual “sense” – must be done within the context of the Church. So if you think a bible passage’s spiritual meaning gives you permission to leave your parish and start your own church, then you have sadly misinterpreted the Bible.

This is the challenge of Catholic Scripture interpretation today: navigate the Scylla of historical-criticism and the Charybdis of fundamentalism. Verbum Domini is another notable effort by the Church’s magisterium to chart the proper course for Catholics reading the Scriptures, whether they be scholars or laypeople. Let us pray that all those who read and interpret the Bible will follow the wise counsel of the Church in this matter.

For further reading:

• Catholic Scripture Interpretation: Resting on Fundamentals, Resisting Fundamentalism
• Interpreting the Holy Bible: How the “Senses” of Scripture Provide the Foundation for a Proper Interpretive Stance

A man born in Gary, Indiana has been raised to the altars of the Serbian Orthodox Church:

From his childhood in Gary to his death in Yugoslavia, St. Varnava always protected his faith and was dedicated to a Christian life.

St. Varnava is the first American-born Serbian to be proclaimed an Orthodox saint, said the Rev. Thomas Kazich, who also is a Gary native…

Varnava went to Froebel Elementary School while he and his family lived in Gary for about nine years. They moved Yugoslavia in 1923, Kazich said.

When he finished the equivalent of high school, Varnava’s father took him to see Bishop Nicholai Velimirovich to receive the bishop’s blessing to study theology.

“As (Varnava) wrote, ‘Theology is the science of sciences,’ ” Kazich said.

The bishop gave him his blessing, and he started his studies.

Kazich said Varnava’s family was influential in his upbringing in the church. He said everyone in the church has a spiritual guide, and “his spiritual father was his own father.”

Varnava was ordained a priest in the early 1940s, and the Serbian Church elected him to become a bishop in 1947, Kazich said.

Varnava began to preach against the Communist way of life after becoming a bishop, and Yugoslavia’s Communist government arrested him on treason charges.

During his trial, Varnava wasn’t allowed to deliver a final defense plea because “it was feared that he would expose and reveal the government’s criminal, terroristic and tyrannical policies,” according to a report written by Kazich.

In 1948, Varnava was sentenced to 11 years at one of the worst prisons at the time in Yugoslavia, Kazich said.

He spent about three years there, and the government intended to kill him when he was being transferred to another prison, Kazich said. He was placed on a train car with other prisoners, and the government ran another train into the car, he said.

Varnava survived the crash, but his legs were broken.

“And he suffered from that for the rest of his life,” Kazich said.

Due to health problems, Varnava was released from prison in 1951, but he always was under guard by the Communist government until he died in 1964.

Kazich said Varnava died under suspicious circumstances, and many believe he was poisoned. He said an autopsy couldn’t be conducted at the time.

Kazich said Varnava’s family knew he didn’t have a history of illness. He also wrote letters to them about his good health prior to his death.

No matter the circumstances, Varnava always remained “a follower of Christ,” Matic said.

“He became one of the strongest protectors of his faith,” he said.

Continue reading…

We should never forget that saints can come from anywhere – even your own neighborhood, even your own house!

Cam Wollner, who writes the blog A Woman’s Place…, has written a flattering review of my book Who is Jesus Christ?

“Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew” by Eric Sammons is one of the best books that I’ve read in a very long time. At the moment I’m alternating between not letting my copy, which I’ve just finished but already want to read again, out of my sight, and thinking of people who I know who would really enjoy reading it…

Sammons book helps us to take a closer look at our Savior and leads us learn something about Him that we had (very likely) missed when reading the Gospel through on our own. Familiar verses take on new life when the actual meaning of the names, which I had read on my own many times over the years, are studied within the context of the Gospel.

As you can probably guess, I would strongly recommend this book for anyone! From Mom’s like me to theology students like my husband you are bound to learn something new about our Lord and Savior as he is revealed in the Gospel of Matthew.

I hope there are three more books like this one based on the other Gospels being written!

Read entire review

Thanks Cam!