Tag Archives: Gospel

the Gospel in the age of AI

This article is adapted from a workshop presented at the Twelfth Philippine Conference on New Evangelization (PCNE), hosted by Cardinal José F. Advincula and the Archdiocese of Manila. The annual conference brings together bishops, clergy, religious and lay leaders from across the Philippines and beyond to explore the Church’s missionary response to the challenges of the contemporary world.

It is a great privilege to be with you here in the Philippines. It’s my first visit to Manila and I am struck by how deeply the Christian faith has shaped the life of this nation for generations.

In fact, the Philippines can proud as one of the most Catholic countries in the world and one of only two countries in Asia where Christians form the majority of the population. If the Catholic faith were an Olympic sport, you would be competing for gold.

In my home country of Australia, we are blessed by more than 450,000 Filipinos and without their presence and faith our parish ministries, prayer groups and communities would simply not be what they are today.

Here in the Philippines, the Gospel is not only believed and professed in the pews but also woven into the rhythm of daily life – in families, schools, neighbourhoods, fiestas, devotions and communities.

The Philippines is also one of the most digitally connected societies in the world. There are around 142 million active mobile connections, more than the number of people in this country, some 116 million. The Gospel dwells in the hearts of this culture while smartphones fill its hands. Filipino’s live between the altar and the algorithm.

So, the question is no longer whether technology will shape our lives – it already does. Every time you book a Grab, order through Foodpanda, stop at 7-Eleven or work in a call centre, AI is quietly making decisions alongside you. So the future isn’t coming – it’s already here.

The question is: what kind of people will we become in the age of AI or artificial intelligence?

It is to this question that Pope Leo has written his first encyclical, or letter to the world and the Church: Magnifica Humanitas – On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. It runs to more than 42,000 words, so you’ll be relieved to know I’m only giving you the highlights!

In this truly 21st century document, the Holy Father recognises that the digital world is no longer simply another place where we search or spend our time. It is radically reshaping the way we think, relate to one another, learn and understand ourselves.

Increasingly, artificial intelligence or AI is becoming one of the primary ways people seek information, make decisions and make sense of the world. That is why safeguarding the human person has become one of the defining challenges of our age.

It’s important to say from the outset that the Church is no stranger to new technologies. In every age, she has proclaimed the same Gospel in new circumstances. The apostles preached Christ in the cities and marketplaces of the Roman Empire. The missionaries who brought the faith to the Philippines crossed oceans, learned new languages, and entered a new culture so that people might know and love Jesus Christ.

Later generations embraced the printing press, radio, television, and the internet, each becoming a new opportunity for evangelisation. Every generation has taken up new ways to proclaim the unchanging Gospel, knowing the Church’s greatest gift – the Gospel – is the world’s greatest need. 

Today, AI presents another such moment in the story of God’s mission, a new frontier to which Pope Leo has offered a profound response. As the successor of St Peter and leader of the worldwide Catholic Church, he is not only speaking to Catholics but in this encyclical addresses the whole world, naming the challenges of our time as well as offering the Church’s vision of the human person. And it is safe to say that the world is listening.

The Age of AI

It is obvious to most of us that we live in a new age. In only a few years, artificial intelligence has moved from being a technological curiosity to an everyday companion for millions of people. Like the Trojan Horse in the world of The Odyssey, it didn’t arrive by force; it was invited in.

AI helps us write emails, plan holidays, complete assignments, answer questions at work, even seek guidance about our relationships, our health and our broader lives.

We are beginning to trust, seek advice from, and even confide in intelligent machines in ways we once reserved for other people. Before someone speaks to a priest, visits a parish, or opens the Scriptures, they might reach for their phone. Before turning to a parent, friend, or mentor for advice, they might consult ChatGPT, Gemini or CoPilot. AI is fast becoming the world’s busiest youth minister!

For the first time in human history, many people are bringing the deepest questions of their lives to a machine before they bring them to another human being.

AI is different from almost every technology that has come before it. We might use a hammer to extend the strength of our arm. A microscope can extend the power of our eyes. AI does something far more profound: it shapes the way we think, judge and relate to one another. It is not merely a tool we use; it is a technology that can end up using us.

We are already seeing the consequences. In 2024, a 14-year-old boy in the United States died by suicide after developing an intense emotional attachment to an AI chatbot that, that failed to discourage him, and at times appeared to reinforce, his suicidal thoughts.

Elsewhere, AI-generated deepfakes have been used to exploit and humiliate young people, sophisticated scams have deceived families into handing over life savings by cloning the voices of loved ones, and algorithms increasingly reward outrage, division and misinformation because these capture our attention most effectively.

In the face of these dangers, Pope Leo is not writing to the world as an expert in technology. But he is writing from the Church’s expertise in humanity. His question is not so much what AI can do, but what AI is doing to us – the kind of people we are becoming as we use it.

At the very beginning of his letter, Pope Leo confronts us with a decision to make. In doing so, he turns to two cities from Scripture. He asks each of us, what kind of world are we are building? He writes, “The primary choice is not between a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to technology, but rather between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem” (MH 9).

You might recall that in the Book of Genesis, the people of Babel build a great tower “with its top in the heavens” to make a name for themselves (Gen. 11:1–9). It is a project driven by pride, self-reliance and the desire for power, and it ends in division, the scattering of humanity and alienation from God and one another.

In his encyclical, Pope Leo contrasts this confusion of Babel with a very different vision: the rebuilding of Jerusalem. After decades of exile in the Persian Empire following Babylon’s conquest, Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem and led the people in rebuilding its walls, with each family taking responsibility for its own section (Neh. 2–4). Their work is not about human glory but about restoring a community under God. There is true unity and communion, and the builders discover the beauty of God’s design for human life.

We can say that every technological advance, including AI – and our engagement of that technology – lays another stone in one of these two cities. Will our technologies become towers that elevate power, efficiency and control while leaving us more isolated from God and one another? Or will they help build a civilisation where human dignity, solidarity and communion flourish? That is Pope Leo’s question, and it is ours.

Pope Leo is reminding us that our deepest identity is not found in our digital footprint, our online persona, or the prompts we type into artificial intelligence. We are more than our profile, more than our data, and more than what any algorithm or chatbot can predict. Our dignity does not come from being seen, measured or optimised, but from the God in whose image we are created.

And so, our vocation is not to spend our lives building towers of success, walls of protection, or carefully curated digital personas. We are called to build the Kingdom of God. We can only do that when we know who we truly are: uniquely loved, utterly irreplaceable, created in the image of God, and made for communion with him. That truth must remain the foundation of every technology we create, every decision we make, and every digital space we inhabit.

One of the sad truths we see every day on social media is that there is often a deep longing to be seen, yet not always a desire to be truly known. We chase views, likes, followers, and exposure, while often remaining fearful of genuine human intimacy and vulnerability. Some even seek substitutes for authentic relationship through technology as we have already seen, or through the vice of pornography where the illusion of intimacy is offered without the vulnerability, self-gift and love that make communion possible. 

These are not only sins because they offend God; they are also wounds to our own humanity. They diminish our human capacity to love and be loved, obscuring the dignity for which we were created and our vocation to greatness, to holiness, to human friendship and divine love, that lies at the heart of every one of us. This is why Magnifica Humanitas is not so much about AI, but a guide for Christian witness in the age of AI.

Consider a deeply human example. Imagine a twenty-four-year-old woman asking AI, “Should I marry this man?” AI can analyse the messages. It can identify unhealthy patterns. It can even suggest what to say.

But it cannot know the people involved. It cannot love and it cannot discern God’s will. The most important decisions in life are not problems to be solved by computation; they are vocations to be discerned in truth, freedom and love.

Used well, AI can help us think more clearly and be a good servant of our human judgement, but it can never become its master and we ought not let a machine make our most human decisions.

A Response: Who is the Human Person?

So, this brings us to Pope Leo’s fundamental question. If AI cannot answer the deepest questions of our lives, then what is it missing? The answer is not more information or greater intelligence. The answer lies in understanding what it means to be truly human. We are not called to be makers of smarter machines but called to holiness, to be saints.

I sometimes think the defining crisis of the first millennium was the question of who Jesus is, expressed in the great Christological heresies and debates. The second millennium was marked by a crisis over where the Church is, seen in the Great Schism and the Protestant Reformation. I believe the defining crisis and question of this third millennium is: who is the human person?

Until we know who we are, we cannot know whether our technologies are helping us flourish or quietly diminishing or even corrupting us. This is why Pope Leo starts Magnifica Humanitas by addressing not the machine but the human soul.

As way of background, I came to faith at the age of twenty, from a Buddhist and Taoist heritage. One of the great consolations of the Christian life I came to discover is that God never wastes our experiences. I can see now that even before I became Catholic, He was quietly preparing me for the work He would one day call me to do.

Before working for the Church, I studied marketing and economics. At the time I was largely agnostic. My world revolved around audiences, campaigns, advertising budgets and communication strategies. Every day we asked the same question: How do we capture people’s attention?

I remember sitting in a meeting after a campaign that everyone considered a great success. Millions of people had seen it. The engagement figures were outstanding. There was a real sense of satisfaction around the table. But I found myself asking a simple question: “Yes… but has anything actually changed?” That question cut through all the excitement. We had measured clicks but not conversion. I doubt a single life had changed.

That question has stayed with me ever since because I came to realise it wasn’t just a question for advertisers. It is a question for all of us. Artificial intelligence can help us write faster, answer more questions and reach more people. These are remarkable gifts. But if all that changes is the speed of our communication and not the depth of our humanity, then we have mistaken efficiency for transformation. Technology can change what we do, but only Jesus Christ can transform who we are.

The Christian faith has always proclaimed that the deepest transformation of the human person comes not through technology, but through grace. We become truly human only through an encounter with Jesus Christ. He entered our world, conquered sin and death through His Cross and Resurrection, and offers each of us a new life through the Holy Spirit – a life that no machine can generate and no algorithm can imitate.

As the Second Vatican Council teaches and Pope Leo affirms with us from the outset of his letter: “It is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of humanity truly becomes clear” – Christ not only fully reveals God but also reveals us to ourselves (Gaudium et Spes 22).

It is in Jesus, where the divine and the human meet perfectly, that we discover who we truly are: created in the image of God, called to communion with Him, and destined for eternal life. It is Christ, not technology, who shows us who we are, what we are made for, what friendship means (to lay our lives down for others) and the destiny for which every human heart longs.

But as Pope Leo shares, we have a responsibility and each of us has a choice to make. His fellow American, the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, puts this choice well when he writes: “The trees and animals have no problem. God makes them what they are without consulting them, and they perfectly obey Him by not being anything else. We alone seem to have the ability to refuse our own identity. Man is the only creature who can fail to be what he is”.

What Merton is saying in concert with Pope Leo is that becoming truly human is never automatic. We can spend our lives becoming either our true self or our false self. Every decision we make, every habit we cultivate, every technology we adopt, is helping to shape us as true to God’s design or false.

In one of the most beautiful passages of Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo goes so far as to suggest that our true humanity does not exclude weakness but embraces it. He writes that “building for the common good means accepting the limits and weakness of humanity without considering them an error to be corrected” (MH 12).

What does this mean? It means resisting the temptation to believe that technology can liberate us from every limitation or perfect the human person. People are not problems to be solved or projects to be optimised; we are persons created for love, relationship, and communion.

Our inevitable human weaknesses, Pope Leo suggests, are not simply a defect to be eliminated. In Christ, this sheer humanity becomes the very place where grace is received and God’s power is revealed. As St Paul preaches: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).

Our human limitations makes us vulnerable, and that vulnerability in turn opens us up to dependence on God but also on one another. It is often through our limitations that we learn trust, receive love, and discover the communion for which we were created. As our spiritual tradition has noted, when power meets vulnerability there is domination; when power meets power there is conflict; when vulnerability meets vulnerability there is friendship and communion.

That, I believe, is one of the deepest lessons of the Christian life. Grace can do what no technology or man-made invention can do – grace restores us to the people God created us to be. Technology may help us overcome certain limitations, and for that we should be grateful.

But it can never accomplish what only grace can do. It cannot convert the heart, heal the wounds of sin, transform selfishness into charity, pride into humility, fear into trust, or isolation into genuine communion. Our Christian life, as Pope Leo has shared, is not about escaping our humanity but allowing God to redeem and perfect us from within.

Pope Leo warns us against an “anti-human vision” in which “the fullness of life is equated with having more, reducing weakness, eliminating uncertainty, and exerting total control” (MH 112).

The Christian vision is different: our humanity is not perfected by escaping our limits, but by allowing God’s grace to transform them into places of encounter, dependence, and love.

Take St Francis as an example. Before his conversion, Francis pursued comfort, status, and pleasure with extraordinary intensity. He was excessive in his love of luxury, material possessions, and human acclaim. After encountering Christ, that same intensity was not destroyed but transformed. Francis remained excessive – but no longer in greed or ambition. Instead, he became excessive in radical poverty, joyful simplicity, and complete self-giving.

God did not erase Francis’ humanity; He transfigured it. His passions were not extinguished but reoriented. His desires were not silenced but sanctified. That is the work of grace. At every Mass the Church invites us: Sursum corda – “Lift up your hearts”. God does not ask us to become less human, but more fully human in Christ. Grace does not compete with our humanity; it brings it to perfection.

The question, then, is not whether you will be passionate, ambitious, or driven, not whether you will desire love, happiness, recognition or belonging. We will all seek these things. The question is whether those desires will be turned inward upon ourselves or upward toward God and outward in love for our neighbour.

It is a question of whether our desires see us build the towers of Babel to exalt the self, to grasp, control, and make a name for ourselves. Or if we will rebuild Jerusalem and lift every human desire towards the rebuilding of communion with God and our neighbour. So, the deepest question is not whether we desire, but where our desires lead us.

Christian Witness in the Age of AI

So how do we live this vision? Let me suggest six simple practices for every Christian living in the age of artificial intelligence.

First, pray before you prompt. Before asking AI an important question, ask God first. If you’re preparing for a difficult conversation, making a career decision, discerning a vocation or searching for meaning after a loss, don’t let your first instinct be to open ChatGPT, Gemini or your preferred tool. Let it be to open your heart to God and to the wise, prayerful friendship of those who know and love you. Read the Scriptures, sit in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom. AI may offer information; only God can offer give the gift of discernment and good counsel.

Second, let AI assist your thinking, but never replace it. It is a great supplement but a poor substitute. AI can help you summarise an article, draft an email, translate a document, prepare a lesson or organise your ideas. Use those gifts gratefully. But don’t outsource what only you can do. Write the first draft and let AI refine your own ingenuity and gifts. Let it suggest possibilities for things that can save you time, but don’t let it choose your spouse, raise your children, resolve a conflict, or tell you what is right and wrong. God entrusted those decisions to a human conscience like yours, formed by truth and grace, so that, as St Paul says, we might come to have “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16).

Third, become AI literate, and even more deeply human. Don’t fear these technologies or ignore them. Learn how they work, where they can help, and where they can mislead. Teach your children not simply how to use AI, but how to use it critically and wisely. Yet spend even more time cultivating what no machine can learn – prayer, wisdom, humility, patience, compassion, prudence, courage, and the ability to listen deeply to another person. Character is formed by practice, not prompts. Those are the capacities that will matter most in the future.

Fourth, make every technology a bridge, never a destination. Don’t settle for digital encounters when they can become real ones. If someone watches your parish livestream for several weeks, invite them to Mass. If AI helps you prepare a Bible study, use the time it saves to accompany people more personally. If you receive a prayer request online, don’t simply type “I’m praying for you”, stop and pray immediately, then follow up with a phone call or visit if you can. Technology has fulfilled its purpose when it leads people into deeper communion – with God, with the Church, and with one another.

Fifth, choose presence over convenience. We live in a culture that increasingly prizes efficiency over encounter. Yet love is rarely efficient – no Filipino gathering has ever lasted “just ten minutes”. AI can answer questions, but it cannot sit beside someone whose marriage has collapsed, hold the hand of a person who is grieving, welcome a stranger at the parish door, accompany a catechumen to Baptism, or kneel beside a friend in prayer. It cannot celebrate the Eucharist. It cannot absolve sins. These are not transactions to be optimised; they are acts of self-giving love. In the age of AI, your attentive, faithful presence may become one of the most convincing witnesses to the Gospel.

Finally, ask one simple question every time you use AI: Will this help me, and others, become more fully human in Christ? Will it deepen my faith, strengthen my hope, and enlarge my capacity to love? Will it draw me closer to God and to other people, or make me more distracted, impatient and self-absorbed?

Will it help build Jerusalem or Babel? If the answer is yes, receive it with gratitude. If the answer is no, have the courage to set it aside. Not everything that is technologically possible is spiritually beneficial. Wisdom is knowing the difference.

Conclusion

Let me conclude where Pope Leo begins. The deepest question before us is not what kind of technology we will build, but what kind of people we will become. Every civilisation eventually reflects the hearts of those who build it.

Artificial intelligence can generate words, analyse patterns and imitate conversation. It may even point someone towards Christ. But it cannot do what the Blessed Virgin Mary did. It cannot freely receive the Word of God. It cannot say, “Let it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). It cannot trust, surrender or love.

It is Mary who reveals humanity as God intended it to be. Where the builders of Babel grasped for heaven, Mary received heaven with humility. Where the builders of Babel sought to make a name for themselves, Mary simply said “yes” – and the Word became flesh. The future belongs not to those who seek to master the world, but to those who allow themselves to be transformed by the love of God.

So, as we enter more deeply into the age of artificial intelligence, let us protect what is most deeply human within us: our capacity for wonder, conscience, compassion, freedom and love. Technology may change what we do, but only Jesus Christ can transform who we are.

May we, like Mary, first receive Christ into our hearts and then carry Him to the world. For even in the age of AI, the world will not be saved by machines but by saints who reflect the living presence of Jesus Christ – God’s divine word which has become fully and beautifully human.

synod on the family 2014

synod2The Extraordinary Synod on the Family concluded over the weekend in Rome (5-19 October, 2014), bookended by the beatification of Pope Paul VI. It proved to be an eventful, even enthralling journey for the Church, two weeks of discussion, passionate debate and prayerful discernment about the way in which the Church can best bring the Gospel to bear on the lives of millions of families as diverse as they are complex.

Given the multidimensions of family life, the issues canvassed by the bishops and participants were also broad. They included the plight of refugees, the care of children with special needs, the situation of migrant workers and the unemployed, the impact of the internet on family bonds, and then there were the distinctive concerns of African bishops whose concerns differ in striking ways from those in the affluent West (e.g. the practice of polygamy and conditions of extreme poverty).

However, and perhaps inevitably, the focus of media and popular attention ultimately fell on two specific matters: the question of Eucharist for the divorced and remarried, and the Church’s pastoral response to homosexual persons.

Controversies of the Synod

synod3As the first synod of bishops to meet under the leadership of Pope Francis, and affirming as it did many diverse views on the way in which Catholic faith speaks to human lives, the synod attracted not only generous media coverage for a Catholic get-together but wide-ranging interpretations of what was said, by whom and for what intent.

Of course, the synod discussions were pre-empted and almost overshadowed by Cardinal Kasper of Germany who in February 2014 advocated for access to communion for Catholics who have divorced and remarried. This was followed by a strong critique of his position by several other cardinals, including in the book-length reply, The Gospel of the Family, which contained a foreword by our own Australian prelate Cardinal Pell (the text of the Cardinal’s introduction is available here).

(For those interested in the pre-history of the synod, preparations began in earnest in November 2013, with a survey distributed by national bishops’ conferences to glean the opinions of Catholics on a number of Church teachings. The survey was a commendable initiative and expressed a sincere desire to be consultative though it clearly suffered from limitations, including the formulation of the questions which could be difficult for the Catholic in the street to say the least e.g. ‘How is the theory and practice of natural law in the union between man and woman challenged in light of the formation of a family?’ This survey was followed in June 2014 by the lineamenta or preparatory document for the Synod which presented the results of the November consultation and set a platform for the synod discussions to begin in earnest).

midtermreportAs the synod officially got underway this month, one of the major causes of controversy was the mid-term or post-discussion report known as the relatio post disceptationem. This was intended as a provisional snapshot of the views of the bishops thus far. However, many bishops objected to the content of this summary, noting that it was not only insufficiently grounded in Scripture and Catholic tradition but that it seemed to present the views of one or two particular bishops as the consensus of the whole assembly, which they were not.

The most strident and vocal objector to this interim report was the American cardinal Raymond Burke who argued, ‘[this document], in fact, advances positions which many Synod Fathers do not accept and, I would say, as faithful shepherds of the flock cannot accept’. Controversially, the interim report had included praise for the ‘positive aspects’ of what the Church has long considered ‘irregular’ situations, including civil unions and cohabitation, and even spoke of ‘accepting and valuing’ people of homosexual orientation  (though with the notable disclaimer ‘without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony’).

Criticism was particularly focused on the General Secretariat of the Synod which handled the information flowing out of the bishops’ discussion, with accusations that its members, including Cardinal Baldisseri, had manipulated, or at the very least swayed considerably, the content of the relatio to reflect a personal and permissive agenda.

Interpretations of the Synod

synod4As is customary, and was the case following the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the major media outlets interpreted the discussions and debates of the bishops through a political lens, with reports of ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ camps pitted one against the other (of course, Pope Francis was read as ensconced within the latter and undermined by the former, taken to be the majority).

Without denying the political nature of all human discourse, including the ordinary desire to influence outcomes and press one’s case, the heart of a synod is not the political motivations that underlie the bishops’ views but the theological arguments that are raised in accounting for those positions. Of course, the media is generally not interested in actual arguments, only assertions, and for the most part lack a theological background or concern.

In cherry-picking lines from the disputed interim report we have mentioned, as well as Pope Francis’ powerful concluding address to the Synod Fathers, the Daily Mail and even the BBC were able to run histrionic headlines such as “Massive Vatican shift on gay sex” and “Pope Francis set back on gay policy”.

The BBC coverage focused on Francis’ critique of ‘hostile inflexibility’ among so-called traditionalists and intellectuals, and implied that these adversarial forces had undermined or ‘setback’ the Pope’s more ‘progressive’ agenda on homosexuals and the remarried. Conspicuously, the report made no mention whatsoever of the pontiff’s critique in the self-same address of those who have ‘come down from the cross’ to ‘bow down to a worldly spirit instead of purifying it and bending it to the Spirit of God’ (you can read the complete address here).

More locally, broadcasters tapped into the local response to the synod, including SBS which while perpetuating the BBC caricature of a Pope Francis opposed by backward bishops, at least tried to seek out a Catholic view of things.

sbsIn my fifteen seconds in the spotlight, I shared the view that the synod represents a healthy and vital discussion for the global Catholic Church and that the Catholic bishops are mindful of the lived situations of people from across the world and mindful also of what the Gospel can bring to those contexts. I tried to underscore that the range of issues being discussed by the synod as they relate to the family were broad and that the synod represents the Church’s ongoing and sincere discernment of how best to accompany people in their life journeys, including divorcees, the civilly remarried, single parents, and gays and lesbians to whom the Gospel also speaks. (Other voices in the report included Paul Collins who can always be relied upon to express more than a healthy scepticism about Church matters).

Discernment is Not Division

The key to an interpretation of the synod and its events is given to us, I think, in Pope Francis’ closing address to the Synod Fathers which is a profound and striking statement (you can read it here). He provides us with ‘the eyes of faith’ to continue talking about these issues with confidence.

Firstly, Pope Francis is not at all unnerved by the differing views expressed in the preceding fortnight and accepts the rigorous debates in faith as an expression of the Church discerning how to enter ever more deeply into the heart of the Gospel by the sensus fidei, the sense of faith of the faithful. As he shared,

Many commentators . . . have imagined they see a disputatious Church where one part is against the other, doubting even the Holy Spirit, the true promoter and guarantor of the unity and harmony of the Church – the Holy Spirit who throughout history has always guided the barque, through her ministers, even when the sea was rough and choppy, and the ministers unfaithful and sinners.

9954008What Francis is affirming by valuing debate over the silence of ‘a false and quietist peace’ is the capacity of the Church to receive God’s revelation faithfully and meaningfully by attending, together as people of faith in the Spirit, to tradition, including the teachings of the Magisterium, and the experience of Christian families in the world (I have written about the Church’s discernment of the Spirit here, in relation to the 2013 papal conclave).

To teach and evangelise the Church must first listen, receive time and again the deposit of faith which constitutes our living tradition and attend to the complex realities of contemporary family life which too can be a source of theological knowing.

The guarantor of the Church’s ongoing faithfulness to Christ in this multidimensional process is the Holy Spirit, as Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium affirms and which Pope Francis cited in as many words,

The universal body of the faithful who have received the anointing of the holy one cannot err in matters of belief. It displays this particular quality through a supernatural sense of the faith in the whole people when ‘from the bishops to the last of the faithful laity’, it expresses the consent of all in matters of faith and morals (Lumen Gentium 12).

This discernment of the sensus fidei, a sense of the faith and the Church’s sense for the faith, should not be a ‘source of confusion and discord’, as Francis remarked in his address, but should be entered into with confidence, trust and utmost faith in the Holy Spirit’s capacity, through diverse and even imperfect people (like you and me) to lead God’s people to the truth and mercy of God (you can read more about this connection between the deepening of tradition and the divine assistance of the Holy Spirit in Dei Verbum 8 as well as the Catechism of the Catholic Church n.892).

As well, in the process of spiritual discernment that will continue until the General Synod on the family in 2015, Francis warns of temptations or polarities. The first temptation is to be fossilised in our faith, exhibiting a ‘hostile inflexibility’ which would in fact impede the ability of the Church to bring the Gospel to new and developing circumstances. This kind of fundamentalism or rigorism can manifest a lack of faith and trust in the Spirit that guides the Church (the Marian dogmas of the 19th and 20th centuries standout as instances in which the Church has developed a deeper appreciation of her own faith). ‘Traditionalism’ is in fact not traditional at all for the pilgrim Catholic Church understands development as a perennial and necessary deepening of her self-understanding in light of the Gospel, and never a departure from it (“Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life”; John 6:68)

Christ Mosaic Cefalu Sicily 12th CenturyThe other risk named by Francis, the one that media outlets were less enthusiastic to report, was the capitulation or accommodation of the Church, and the Gospel it bears, to ‘a worldly spirit instead of purifying [the world] and bending it to the spirit of God’.

The Church must engage the world, as Francis has so often stressed, but it engages the world and contemporary culture with a view of what the world really is in Christ, a world of men and women made in the image of God and called to conversion or ‘likeness’ in Christ in whom we find our origin and destiny. Thus, Pope Francis critiques outright in his concluding address,

a destructive tendency to do-gooding, which in the name of a false mercy binds the wounds without first curing them and treating them, that treats the symptoms and not the causes and the roots

with the phrase ‘false mercy’ a nod to no less than St John Paul II. What does Francis mean by this? He means that we cannot truly serve people in their wounds and in their growth through crisis if we disregard the truth, if we cover over the truth with superficial or cheap dressings. As American Archbishop Kurtz put it, ‘Mercy without truth is not mercy’.

While the concrete solutions to the contemporary challenges that confront the family will be the subject of discussion over the next twelve months, the synodal process has already recalled two principles for our view of Church and mission. The first, that all people are called to Christ and the Church – as all are called to the King’s banquet in the parable of Matthew 22 – and second, that all people are called to conversion in Christ who is the source of true life  – as was the guest at the banquet called to change before approaching the table. The Church must both open wide its arms to the sinner and invite a new creation in each one of us, no matter what our state of life or circumstances may be. This is the universal hope and universal challenge of the Gospel.

Much more will be said on family and life issues in the coming year, by each of the local churches (dioceses), episcopal conferences and the observing media. As Catholics, we are being invited by Pope Francis explicitly and the debates of the synod implicitly to trust in the Spirit-filled capacity of the whole Church, all of us together, to know what the faith is and to better accompany all people in their journeys with the promise and joy of the Gospel.

 

Peter among the Apostles

papal-conclaveWith the imminent election of a new pope, the role of the Bishop of Rome has come into focus in popular and religious media. It struck me that the many formalities and traditions that accompany a papal election, as interesting as they might be, have had the effect of putting into the shade the bases of the papacy in Catholic faith. This seems a lost opportunity to provide ‘reasons for our hope’ (1 Pet. 3:15)

In short, little attention has been given to the ‘why’ of the papacy, a ‘why’ which is significant not only for Catholic believers in their own understanding of the Church but also for non-Catholic Christians who are often, and it must be said not always unreasonably, ‘put off’ by an apparent obsession with ceremonial fanfare over and above the simplicity of biblical discipleship.

Indeed, Paul VI lamented in 1967 that ‘the Pope . . . is undoubtedly the most serious obstacle on the path to ecumenism’. His eventual successor, John Paul II, was to take a more positive view in regards to the ecumenical significance of the papacy, asking how the Petrine Office could accomplish a service of love and unity recognised by all. As the Oxford theologian Fergus Kerr notes, the Polish pontiff even appealed to Christians who are not now, and perhaps never likely to be in full communion with Rome, to help in reshaping the papal ministry (see Ut Unum Sint 4). This recognised not only the possibility of papal reform but situated the task of the papacy within an ecumenical context, within a communion of faith that was ‘already but not yet’.

peter-iconFor Catholics, of course, the pope is understood to be the successor of the apostle Peter and so has ‘full, immediate, ordinary and general jurisdiction’ or primacy over the college of bishops and indeed over the whole Church. What does this rather foreboding statement mean? It means he has a distinct, ecclesial responsibility to proclaim and preserve the faith in its purity and plenitude as well as uphold the unity of the communion of faith, with personal, and not merely delegated, authority to intervene in the workings of another bishop and local churches in service of that ecclesial communion.

Contrary to ‘ultramontanists’ who confuse the papacy with the Church, it should be kept in view that the pope is not the only principle of the Church’s unity (lest we forget the Holy Spirit, for one, and the worldwide episcopate to name another). The Petrine Office is firmly embedded within the Church, in service of the Church’s unity and not above it.

Put in terms of an ecclesiology of communion, the pope is for Catholic faith the visible point of communion of the local churches and cannot, and should not, act as an absolute monarch. Why? This is because it is the college of bishops as a whole that is understood to be of divine law (ius divinum), a college that the pope could never abolish or do away with and of which he remains a member. So the Pope is a head of a college of bishops, belonging wholly to this college while never being simply its delegate. ‘Peter’ remains an ‘apostle’ while the ‘apostles’ do have Peter as their head. Indeed, ‘papal infallibility’, that ability of the pope to proclaim what the faith is, cannot be understood apart from the faith of the college of bishops and so is intrinsically linked to the faith of the whole Church (and anything but an autonomous or private opinion).

greekorthWhat do other denominations make of all of this? Many non-Catholic Christians reject the entire notion of the papacy and its theological or biblical foundations. Closer to home, the Orthodox – whose bishops the Catholic Church does recognise as legitimate, sacramental bishops, of genuine apostolic succession – while not strictly or necessarily objecting to a place of honour for the Bishop of Rome among the world’s bishops, do not believe that the Bishop of Rome should have any juridical claim over a local bishop. In other words, they reject the idea that the Bishop of Rome can actually interfere with another bishop in the governance of his own diocese.

johnsgospelSo, to return to what I think has been a missed opportunity in recent weeks, what are the bases of the papacy in Catholic faith? The most basic approach is to reflect on the biblical warrant for the Petrine Office and to offer this in conversation to other Christians of goodwill. Specifically, how might we understand Peter’s role among the apostles, a role in the primitive Church that underpins, at least in part, Catholic faith on this subject?

The biblical and theological literature concerning Peter’s role in the early Christian community is vast and includes important contributions by Rudolf Pesch, Martin Hengel, Christian Grappe, Raymond Brown and the Australian theologian Gerald O’Collins.

The classic Scriptural texts which have been understood to establish Peter’s primacy among the apostles are well-known and have been well covered in apologetic debates. They are:

  • Matthew 16:18-19 (‘And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven) Note to conclave enthusiasts: This passage is traditionally read to the newly-elected Pope and cardinal-electors prior to the pontiff’s first appearance at the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica;
  • Luke 22:31-32 (‘Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers’)
  • John 21:15-18 (detailing Jesus’ repeated command to Peter, ‘feed my sheep’).

However, beyond these familiar texts, there are others which I think disclose Peter’s distinctive role and authority within the first community of disciples. We know, for one, that the Gospel of Mark was written not long after Peter’s martyrdom in Rome (c.60-70) and that it transmits the witness of Peter himself to Jesus’ life and ministry. This testifies to the importance of Peter’s witness for the early Church community.

Peter_the_apostleAs Gerald O’Collins avers, Peter stands out as well among the apostles as the first witness to the resurrection, and therefore one whose Easter faith and proclamation of that event is central to the Church’s life. This witness to the Risen Jesus is, as O’Collins points out, a much neglected dimension of the figure of Peter.

I suspect many Catholics would be surprised by this claim and would more likely name ‘Mary Magdalene’ as the first witness to the Risen Jesus and for good reason. After all, in all four Gospels she is present at the empty tomb. However, an empty tomb is not Jesus himself and Mary Magdalene is named as first witness to the Risen Jesus only in Matthew 28:1-10 and John 20:11-18.

The alternate, and likely earlier, tradition names Peter as the first witness to the Resurrection and can be found in St Paul’s writings which, of course, pre-date the four Gospels. In one of Paul’s letters to the community at Corinth we find an ancient formula (perhaps creed) which names Peter as first witness to Jesus risen from the dead. Paul writes,

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accord with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1 Cor. 15:3-8)   [My emphases]

Paul is clearly transmitting an already-existing tradition. This same Petrine tradition can be detected in Luke’s Gospel, on the road to Emmaus, where the evangelist emphasises that this ‘Emmaus’ encounter with the Risen Jesus is not the primary one. Luke writes of the disciples on the road,

That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon (Peter)!’ Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he has been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.   [My emphases]

It becomes apparent from such New Testament texts, in addition to reference to the ‘keys to the Kingdom’, Peter as shepherd of the flock and as the ‘rock’ on which the Church’s life will be supported, that ‘the fisherman from Bethsaida’ assumes a special leadership role among the apostles that was actual, grounded in his primary role as witness and messenger of Easter faith, and subsequently recognised in the writings of the early community of faith, that is, in its Scriptures as such.

sanpietropenitenteIt is interesting to note, as a final remark, that Peter’s leadership of the apostolic community is as a repentant sinner (cf. Luke 5:8, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord’). Peter, of course, would go on to deny Jesus three times, a betrayal foretold. However, this ‘shadow side’ of Peter does not rule out his leadership but grounds his task of leadership in his own conversion and in service and proclamation of God’s love and compassion to others. Again, we hear Jesus’ words in Luke’s Gospel, expressing this exemplary role that Peter is to play in service of the Church’s faith as a whole, ‘I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers’ (Lk 22:32). St Peter emerges, as ever, an unworthy servant, entrusted to proclaim the plenitude and unity of faith in Him who first showed him mercy.

While the papacy has been subject to reform throughout the centuries, shaped not only by internal factors but also by the dramatic circumstances of the world, the continuity between the role of Peter among the apostles and the Pope among the college of bishops and the universal Church is a most positive and biblically-shaped principle of Catholic faith. While the reports on the conclave continue to roll in and as the announcement of a new ‘Peter’ looms, we remember the first Peter as leader, teacher, witness of Easter faith, repentant sinner, evangeliser and, above all, disciple to Christ who alone can ‘make all things’, including his Church, anew (Rev. 21:5).

praying in faith

”Pray without ceasing’ (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

The season of Lent brings renewed focus to the significance of prayer for growth, a practice supported by fasting and that leads us to almsgiving.

It is not novel to suggest that prayer belongs to the essence of Christian life and is essential to the integrity of Christian leaders. Curiously, however, we find few opportunities in our parishes, schools and beyond where prayer is taught and can be learned.

prayerAlthough a life of prayer grows principally through its practice, that is by praying, it is also nourished by an understanding of what prayer involves and awakens us to as we do it. When we understand what we are doing when we are doing it, a new intentionality and fresh desire is brought to our prayer, not only in the setting of the Church’s liturgy but throughout the breadth of our Christian life.

Indeed, in the Gospels we find the disciples eager to learn the way of prayer after being drawn into its circle by Jesus’ example. ‘Lord, teach us to pray’ they ask (Lk 11:1). In the Catechism we find recognition as well of prayer as a practice that is learned, with a call for formation and education in ongoing ‘schools of prayer’ (CCC#2689). While always a gift of the Spirit, prayer presupposes effort by the disciple (CCC#2725) for ‘we do not know how to prayer as we ought’ (Rom. 8:26).

While it can be approached in so many ways, I have come to experience prayer most powerfully as an expression of our radical dependence on God as the source of our life. What is more, it is because of this dependence on God, and not despite of it, that prayer is at the same time the overwhelming (even confronting) experience of our own humanity at its depth, in its fundamental orientation towards God.

mosaicWe learn this much from ‘the master of prayer’, Jesus of Nazareth who is, as St Paul describes, ‘the revelation of the children of God’ (Rom. 8:19). It is Jesus who unveils in his own filial piety our destiny in God, revealing communion with ‘our Father’ not simply as a ‘religious’ venture, an extrinsic performance detached from ourselves, but a calling in accord with the imperatives of our own nature. In short, prayer is not only entry into the divine life but also the discovery of our authentic humanity by that encounter.

As Christians it is essential to note as well that we do much more than merely ‘follow’ or imitate Jesus in prayer. In the act of prayer we, in fact, enter into Jesus’ own prayer to the Father as the Gospel makes powerfully clear: ‘God has sent into our hearts the Spirit of his Son who cries ‘Abba, Father’ (Gal. 4:6, Rom. 8:15). It is the Spirit of Christ who prays within the heart of each disciple.

Hence, in the person of Jesus we come to see not only the extent to which prayer shapes the heart we bring before God but discover our prayer as an entry into His communion with the Father. Prayer is, as the Eucharistic doxology proclaims, ‘through Him, with Him and in Him’. To pray is to allow ourselves to be ‘caught up’ in the prayer of Jesus who is alive in us through the Spirit to the Father.

In coming to an appreciation of prayer’s meaning and possibility, the reflections below might further shape your own imagination and practice of prayer. They are generously provided by a friend, a monk, who has dedicated his life to this ceaseless communion with God.

gospel1.  Prayer rises in our hearts when we listen to the words of the Gospel, meditate upon them, and strive to live as faithful disciples of Christ. In the ‘Life of Antony’, we catch a glimpse of the way the early Christians prayed. Every day, they would go to their local church in order to listen to the Scriptures and pray together. On Sundays, they would celebrate the Eucharist. Then they would go back to their homes, carrying in their minds the words of Scripture they had heard read in the church.

Throughout the day, whether they were walking along the road, working in the fields, preparing a meal, or conducting business, they would recall the texts and meditate on them. This was for them a ‘school of prayer’: the continuation of the liturgy in their daily lives.

2.  When we attend to God’s Word in the context of our daily lives it has the power to speak to our hearts and lead us in the way of discipleship. It also has the power to keep the fire of prayer and love burning in our hearts. Abba Joseph, one of the early Egyptian Desert Fathers, used to say: ‘If you will you can become all flame’.

It is important that we see prayer as very much part of our daily living. We need to structure into our lives some time when we can be free for listening to God’s Word, prayerful reading of the Scriptures, and quiet contemplative prayer. However, perhaps the most vital element of our prayer life is the way that prayer overflows and becomes a part of the rest of our lives. Prayer will tend to become stilted and artificial if it is confined only to set times and places.

sb3. Our relations with other people are an intrinsic part of our prayer life. The gentle stirring of love that we feel in our hearts during times of prayer tends to dry up if it is not given scope to reach out concretely to others in our normal, daily contact with the people who share our lives. Love needs to be exercised if it is to grow strong. John in his letter says: ‘How can we love God, who we cannot see, if we do not love our brothers and sisters, who we do see?’ (1 Jn 4:20). We need to trust the love that God places in our hearts and learn to reach out from there to others.

4. Prayer gives us the opportunity to recognise our own limitations: weakness, failure, brokenness, temptation, and even sin. It demands real faith to stand before God and believe in his love. We need the courage to say the prayer of the Eastern monastic tradition which is ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.’  When we allow God to enter the messiness of our lives, then grace is able to act and, finally, growth can take place.

This is sage advice not simply for a life of ‘prayers’ but a more encompassing life of prayerfulness. In listening to the Word, allowing that Word to enter and shape our daily living and intentions, as suggested here, we begin to understand and experience the depth of communion that prayer enables.

As a final note, over the past few years it has struck me that ordained and lay leaders of communities can desire that their people change while they themselves remain the same. The primacy of prayer in the journey towards God and one another applies to all and admits of no exception.

Without prayerfulness there cannot be growth and without growth there cannot ultimately be fullness of life in Him. Our communities will thrive in the Gospel and its mission to the extent that we pray.