God isn't a science experiment

From Zenit

Pope Benedict XVI Explains He Is a Subject Who Relates Person-to-Person

VATICAN CITY, JULY 1, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Is the classic definition of theology -- "the science of faith" -- actually a contradiction in itself? Does faith not cease to be faith when it becomes science? And does not science cease to be science when it is ordered or even subordinated to faith?
These are the questions that Benedict XVI proposed Thursday when he presented the first three Ratzinger Prizes. The prize, called the Nobel of theology, was issued for the first time by the new Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation, founded last March.
The awards went to an Italian layman, Manlio Simonetti; a Spanish priest, Olegario González de Cardedal; and a German Cistercian, Father Maximilian Heim.
The Holy Father spoke briefly about the careers of each of the winners, but then offered a reflection on the nature of theology itself.
He proposed that Christianity was revolutionary in that it broke with ancient religions' focus on religious customs, and proposed instead love of the truth. This concept is found in the Gospel of John, which speaks of Christ as Logos, he noted.
"If Christ is the Logos, the truth, man must correspond to Him with his own logos, with his reason. To arrive at Christ, man must be on the path of truth," the Pontiff explained. Man must open himself to creative Reason, from which his own reason is derived.
"In this way," Benedict XVI said, "we see that Christian faith, by its very nature, must give rise to theology, must question itself on the reasonableness of faith."
2 types
The Pope went on, however, to speak of two different types of reason: one that is irreconcilable with faith, and the other that belongs to the very nature of faith.
The first, "violentia rationis, the despotism of reason," attempts to be "the supreme and ultimate judge of everything," the Holy Father said.
This is a type of reason that wants to subject even God to experiment. Citing Psalm 95, the Holy Father explained how the people sought to subject God to questioning, to submit him to a procedure of experimental testing.
With this kind of reason, "what cannot be scientifically verified or falsified falls outside the scientific ambit."
Now, the Pontiff said, this approach has led to great accomplishments, "and no would dare to seriously deny that this approach is right and necessary in the realm of knowledge of nature and of its laws."
"However," he continued, "such a use of reason has a limit: God is not an object of human experimentation. He is Subject and manifests himself only in the person to person relationship, which is part of the essence of person."
Hence, the need for a second type of reason -- one that is valid "for the great questions regarding man himself."
This is a reason that seeks knowledge because of love. "Love wants to know better the one it loves. Love, true love, does not make one blind but seeing. Part of it is a thirst for knowledge, true knowledge of the other," the Pope said.
Without this type of reason, the "great questions of humanity" are left without reason, "left to irrationality."
"Because of this, authentic theology is so important," Benedict XVI affirmed. "Right faith orients reason to its openness to the divine, so that, guided by love for the truth, it can know God more closely."
The Pope lastly noted how the initiative for this path comes from God himself, "who has put in man's heart the search for his Face."
"Hence," he said, "part of theology, on one hand, is humility that lets itself be 'touched' by God, and on the other hand, discipline that is linked to the order of reason, which preserves love from blindness and which helps to develop its strength for seeing."
Access to God
Cardinal Camillo Ruini, president of the Ratzinger Prize committee, presented the winners, speaking of how the prize is "a contribution to the promotion of the awareness and study of theology in an age in which ... the priority above every other priority is to make God present in this world and open men to the access of God."
Monsignor Giuseppe Antonio Scotti, president of the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Foundation, echoed the same thought, affirming that "God is not a danger for society" and "should not be absent from the great questions of our time."
Abbot Heim spoke on behalf of the prize winners. "As theologians," he said, "we can seek the truth without fear." He noted that theologians don't make truth, "but rather it's the truth that forms the theologian."

Full text of the Pope's address

New Abortion Numbers in England

From Zenit
Handicapped Babies Extinguished

By Father John Flynn, LC
ROME, JULY 10, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Disturbing information about late-term abortions and the elimination of handicapped babies was released this week by the British government.
It showed that for England and Wales there were a number of abortions carried out on babies suffering from cleft palates, club feet, and Down syndrome.
The statistics didn't come easily, as the BBC explained in its July 4 coverage of the matter.
In 2003 the Department of Health decided to stop publishing information on late-term abortions following a widespread outcry when it became known that abortions were being carried out on babies with a cleft palate.
Subsequently the ProLife Alliance made a request under the freedom of information laws for the details on these abortions to be released. The Department of Health refused to do so and it was only as a result of a High Court order that the data is now public.
The tables that are now on the Department of Health's Web site cover cases of abortions carried out for reasons of genetic defects or handicaps and also abortions carried out on girls under the age of consent, which is 16 years of age in England and Wales.
In a press release dated July 4 the ProLife Alliance welcomed the release of the information, following what it described as "a David and Goliath legal battle." The organization made its request in February 2005.
A sentiment not shared by Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which provides abortions. "The publication of these statistics after a campaign by the anti-abortion lobby reveals little more than their own vindictiveness," the BBC reported.
Discrimination against the disabled
In 2010, 482 babies with Down syndrome were aborted. Ten of these were over 24 weeks old. Another 181 were aborted due to a family history in inherited disorders. In total, there were 2,290 abortions in 2010 for reasons of some handicap or genetic problem. Of these 147 were performed after 24 weeks of gestation.
In a public statement the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) expressed its concern over the abortion data.
Anthony Ozimic, SPUC's communications manager, commented: "Between 2001 and 2010, the number of abortions on the ground of disability rose by one third, 10 times that of abortions generally."
"It is clear that legal abortion is a system which discriminates, fatally, against the disabled," he added.
Of course England and Wales are hardly alone in this selective elimination. Currently around 6,000 children affected with Down syndrome are born each year in the United States. The number has dropped since the widespread introduction of prenatal screening.
There was an 11% decline in the period 1989 to 2006, at a time when the number would have otherwise been expected to rise significantly, according to a June 12 report by the Associated Press on the topic of prenatal testing.
There were also significant numbers of abortions carried out on girls under the age of consent in England and Wales. In 2010 there were 3,718 abortions among those aged under 16. Broken down this shows 2,676 abortions to those aged from 14-15, 906 to 13-14 years old, 134 to 12-13 years old, and two to girls aged 12 or under.
In total there were 35,262 abortions performed on girls aged under 16 in the period 2002-10.
The latest information is not the only cause for concern about abortion in England and Wales. The number of abortions has risen by 8% during the last decade. In a press release dated May 24 the Department of Health said that the total number of abortions in 2010 was 189,574 -- 8% more than in 2000 (175,542).
The abortion rate was highest at 33 per 1,000 for women aged 19 and 20. Single women accounted for 81% of the abortion total. Overall, 91% of abortions were carried out at under 13 weeks gestation, with 77% at under 10 weeks.
Medical abortions, in other words those done by taking pharmaceuticals, accounted for 43% of the total, a notable increase compared to a decade ago, when they were only 12% in 2000.
Michaela Aston, from the campaign group Life, said she was concerned about the trend for women rushing in to have earlier abortions.
"It is vital that women are given time to think through their options, especially since data from other countries suggests that the introduction of 'cooling off' periods before abortion can play an important role in reducing abortion rates, as women and their partners or families have more time to look at all their choices," the Telegraph newspaper reported May 24.
Repeats
The report by the Department of Health also showed that more women are having multiple abortions. In 2010, 34% of women who aborted had already had an abortion. This is up from 30% in 2000.
The dangers of having a high number of abortions at a young age, or having multiple abortions, was highlighted in a study recently published. Research carried out on more than a million pregnancies in Scotland over a period of 26 years demonstrated that women who have had an abortion are more likely to give birth to a premature baby and to suffer other complications.
According to a report on the study published in London's Times newspaper on July 5 women who have had one termination are 34% more likely to have a premature birth than those pregnant for the first time.
This rises to 73% higher than for women having a second baby, who normally have a lower risk of a premature birth.
Sohinee Bhattacharya, of the University of Aberdeen, led the research, which is still at the preliminary stage and has not yet been published.
Moreover, the risk of giving birth before term rise notably if a woman has had more than two abortions. One in five women who has had four terminations will give birth before 37 weeks, compared with fewer than one in 10 women who have had only one, the Times reported.
Bhattacharya explained that the risk of a premature birth is about 6%, while for women who have had one abortion it rises to 10%.
Even though the numbers of women who will be affected by this are relatively small, Josephine Quintavalle, of the ProLife Alliance, told the Times that it provided solid evidence of the impact of abortion on health.
"Whatever one's position on the ethics of abortion, it is more than obvious that alerting patients to the very real and incremental risks of future miscarriage should now be an essential part of informed consent protocols," she said.
Moral conscience
On Feb. 26, Benedict XVI addressed the members of the Pontifical Academy for Life, who were gathered for their annual meeting. One of the topics discussed was the trauma suffered by women who have undergone abortion.
The Pope pointed out that the psychological distress that women who have aborted experience "reveals the irrepressible voice of the moral conscience and the most serious wound it suffers every time that human action betrays the innate vocation to the good of the human being, to which it bears witness."
He also criticized the fathers who leave pregnant women on their own.
Benedict XVI commented that we are in a cultural situation where there has been an eclipse of the sense of life, which has weakened the perception of the gravity of abortion. No clearer evidence could be provided than the recent news from Britain.

Muslims slaughter hundreds of Christians in Nigeria

From Catholic Culture

Muslim gangs attacked three villages in central Nigeria and killed up to 400 Christians in pre-dawn attacks on March 7. “The shooting was just meant to bring people from their houses, and then when people came out they started cutting them with machetes,” said one witness. Another added, “We saw mainly those who are helpless, like small children and then the older men, who cannot run, these were the ones that were slaughtered.”

Some 300 Christian churches have been destroyed in the area around Jos during the past four years. In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos described his efforts to have friendly relations with Muslims, the effects of the local imposition of Sharia, and the caution with which he catechizes potential Muslim converts, some of whom “come just because they want to infiltrate.”

The nation of 142.5 million is 15% Catholic.

Forward in Faith Anglicans in Australia Unanimously Vote to Become Catholic

From Catholic Online

By Deacon Keith Fournier
2/18/2010
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

They will come into full communion with the Catholic Church while maintaining aspects of their liturgical distinctives and Anglican Ethos.

SYDNEY, Australia (Catholic Online) – It has been an historic week for the Church in Australia and around the world. The move of many Anglican Christians into full communion with the Catholic Church has taken a decided move forward.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Bishop David Robarts OAM, the chairman of Forward in Faith Australia, explained that members of that Anglican association in Australia have decided they could no longer move forward in faith as a part of an Anglican Church in Australia which was not being faithful.

The Bishop explained that the Anglican Church was moving away from orthodox Christian belief and practice and leaving them behind: "In Australia we have tried for a quarter of a decade to get some form of episcopal oversight but we have failed… We're not really wanted any more, our conscience is not being respected."

The Bishop continued, "We're not shifting the furniture, we're simply saying that we have been faithful Anglicans upholding what Anglicans have always believed - and we're not wanting to change anything, but we have been marginalized by people who want to introduce innovations. We need to have bishops that believe what we believe."

So, on Sunday, February 13, 2010, Forward in Faith Australia voted unanimously to accept the invitation extended by Pope Benedict XVI in his historic Constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus. They will now take the next step in entering into the full communion of the Catholic Church.

The entire process of following the directions set forth in the Apostolic Constitution is being presided over by Catholic Bishop Peter Elliott. This Anglican group will now make Church history. They will come into full communion with the Catholic Church while maintaining aspects of their liturgical distinctives and Anglican Ethos.

Bishop Elliott explained the process in a recent article he wrote for the publication of the Traditional Anglican Communion:

"The Pastor of the nations (Pope Benedict XVI) is reaching out to give you a special place within the Catholic Church. United in communion, but not absorbed – that sums up the unique and privileged status former Anglicans will enjoy in their Ordinariates.

"Catholics in full communion with the Successor of St Peter, you will be gathered in distinctive communities that preserve elements of Anglican worship, spirituality and culture that are compatible with Catholic faith and morals. Each Ordinariate will be an autonomous structure, like a diocese, but something between a Personal Prelature (as in Opus Dei, purely spiritual jurisdiction), or a Military Ordinariate (for the Armed Forces).

"In some ways, the Ordinariate will even be similar to a Rite (the Eastern Catholic Churches). You will enjoy your own liturgical "use" as Catholics of the Roman Rite. At the same time your Ordinaries, bishops or priests, will work alongside diocesan bishops of the Roman Rite and find their place within the Episcopal Conference in each nation or region."

These members of Forward in Faith, Australia, will be accompanied on the journey to full communion by members of the Traditional Anglican Communion and others from the Anglican Church in Australia.

They have established a "working group" which, under the supervision of Bishop Elliott and the direction of the Holy See, will establish the process of establishing an Anglican Ordinariate in Australia. It may become a prototype for similar Anglican Ordinariates in other parts of the world.

Bishop David Robarts told the Daily Telegraph, "I love my Anglican heritage, but I'm not going to lose it by taking this step."

After the release of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, the Anglican Bishops of Ebbsfleet and Richborough issued a call for a Day of Prayer and Discernment on Monday 22nd February. February 22d is the Feast of the Chair of Peter.These are historic times.

- - -

Deacon Keith Fournier asks that you join with us and help in this vital mission by sending this article to your family, friends, and neighbors and adding our link (www.catholic.org) to your own website, blog or social network. Let us broadcast, we are PROUD TO BE CATHOLIC!

Pope to Youth: Return to the Father This Lent

From Zenit.org

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 17, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is encouraging young people to live Lent with a truly penitential spirit, as a return to the Father.

The Pope said this today at the end of the general audience in Paul VI Hall, with his customary greeting to youth, the sick and newlyweds.

"Dear young people," he said, "I exhort you to live Lent with a genuine penitential spirit, as a return to the Father, who awaits all with open arms."

The Holy Father continued: "Dear sick people, I encourage you to offer your sufferings together with Christ for the conversion of those who still find themselves far from God; and I hope you, dear newlyweds, will build your families with courage and generosity on the solid rock of divine love."

Happy Nativity and Merry Christmas

Disturbing Trends

Taken from First Thoughts via Gallup



What are we to make of these trends? A 2009 Gallup Poll shows that Protestant and Catholic levels of church attendance are converging. But the Catholics who attend mass weekly are getting older, while an increasing proportion of young Protestants are attending church services. Thoughts from readers who have studied these trends would be appreciated.

Click here to see more graphs. According to Gallup’s summary:

The increasingly spare attendance at regular mass has been of considerable concern to the Catholic Church in the United States for some time. Theologians and other observers have variously offered the cultural upheaval of the 1960s, changes to the church brought about in the 1960s by the Second Vatican Council, and national publicity in 2002 over sexual abuse lawsuits against Catholic priests as possible contributors to the trend.

Whatever the causes, it is clear that U.S. Catholics’ once-nearly uniform obedience to their church’s requirement of weekly mass attendance has faded, and Catholics are now no different from Protestants in their likelihood to attend church. This has occurred among Catholics of all age categories, but is most pronounced among those under 60. The good news for the Catholic Church is that the drop in attendance seems to have slowed or abated altogether in the last decade, spanning a most difficult period for the church around 2002, when attendance did suffer temporarily.

U.S. Protestant church attendance has also been steady over the past decade, but is actually higher now than it was in the 1970s and 1980s, in part the result of a resurgence of regular attendance among young adults.

See Also: More Hispanics Leaving Catholicism for Evangelical Protestantism

In immigrant communities across the United States, a battle is being waged for the souls of Hispanics – and a distinctly American style of worship is beginning to take hold.

According to a landmark study, as many as 600,000 Hispanics in this country leave the Catholic Church every year in favor of Protestant evangelical churches.

Furthermore, of the approximately 30 percent of Hispanics nationwide who identify themselves as non-Catholic, the vast majority are affiliated with an evangelical or “born-again” church.

Catholicism remains by far the largest religious denomination for U.S. Hispanics, but because Hispanics are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States, any shift in the way they worship promises to make a huge impact on America’s religious landscape. Examples of this trend can be seen in the Santa Maria Valley as small storefront churches pop up in shopping centers and some Catholic priests report the loss of some members of their flocks.

ANGLICANORUM COETIBUS

ANGLICANORUM COETIBUS: PROVIDING FOR PERSONAL ORDINARIATES FOR ANGLICANS
ENTERING INTO FULL COMMUNION
WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Apostolic Constitution for Anglicans and the Coming Full Communion of the Church

Anglicans welcome offer from Rome

Planned Parenthood Director Quits After Watching Abortion on Ultrasound

From Fox News.com

The former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in southeast Texas says she had a "change of heart" after watching an abortion last month — and she quit her job and joined a pro-life group in praying outside the facility.

Abby Johnson, 29, used to escort women from their cars to the clinic in the eight years she volunteered and worked for Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas. But she says she knew it was time to leave after she watched a fetus "crumple" as it was vacuumed out of a patient's uterus in September.

'When I was working at Planned Parenthood I was extremely pro-choice," Johnson told FoxNews.com. But after seeing the internal workings of the procedure for the first time on an ultrasound monitor, "I would say there was a definite conversion in my heart ... a spiritual conversion."

Johnson said she became disillusioned with her job after her bosses pressured her for months to increase profits by performing more and more abortions, which cost patients between $505 and $695.

"Every meeting that we had was, 'We don't have enough money, we don't have enough money — we've got to keep these abortions coming,'" Johnson told FoxNews.com. "It's a very lucrative business and that's why they want to increase numbers."

A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood told FoxNews.com that it offers a range of services at it 850 health centers nationwide, providing pregnancy tests, vaccinations and women's health services, "including wellness exams, breast and cervical cancer screenings, contraception, and STD testing and treatment."

"Planned Parenthood's focus is on prevention," wrote Diane Quest, the group's National Media Director. "Nationwide, more than 90% of the health care Planned Parenthood affiliates provide is preventive in nature," explaining that a "core component the organization's mission is to help women plan healthy pregnancies and prevent unintended pregnancies."

But Johnson said her bosses told her to change her "priorities" and focus on abortions, which she said made money for the office at a time when the recession has left them hurting.

"For them there's not a lot of money in education," she said. "There's as not as much money in family planning as there is abortion."

Without a doctor in residence, she said, her clinic offered abortions only two days a month, but the doctor could perform 30 to 40 procedures on each day he was there. Johnson estimated that each abortion could net the branch about $350, adding up to more than $10,000 a month.

"The majority of the money was going to the facility," she said.

Johnson said she never got any orders to increase profits in e-mails or letters, and had no way to prove her allegations about practices at the Bryan branch. She told FoxNews.com that pressure came in personal interactions with her regional manager from the larger Houston office.

But she said she got involved with the clinic "to help women and ... [do] the right thing," and the idea of raking in cash seemed to go against what she felt was the mission of the 93-year-old organization.

"Ideally my goal as the facility's director is that your abortion numbers don't increase," because "you're providing so much family planning and so much education that there is not a demand for abortion services.

"But that was not their goal," she said.

A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood refused to answer questions about Johnson's accusations, but released a statement noting that a district court had issued a temporary restraining order against the former branch director and against the Coalition for Life, an anti-abortion group with which Johnson is now affiliated.

"We regret being forced to turn to the courts to protect the safety and confidentiality of our clients and staff, however, in this instance it is absolutely necessary," said spokeswoman Rochelle Tafolla.

It is unclear what made Planned Parenthood seek the restraining order. Johnson said she did not intend to release any sensitive information about her former patients at the clinic.

A hearing is set for Nov. 10 to determine whether a judge will order an injunction against Johnson and the Coalition for Life, which has led protests outside the clinic and joined her in a prayer vigil there last month.

Johnson hasn't found a job since she quit on Oct. 6, but she said she's enjoying the time off to be with her 3-year-old daughter.

"It's been great just to spend some time at home and get a break," she said.

Stanley Hauerwas on Reformation Sunday

This is an interesting sermon, something for Protestant and Catholic alike.

29 October 1995

by Stanley Hauerwas

Joel 2:23-32 – 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18 – Luke 18:9-14

I must begin by telling you that I do not like to preach on Reformation Sunday. Actually I have to put it more strongly than that. I do not like Reformation Sunday, period. I do not understand why it is part of the church year. Reformation Sunday does not name a happy event for the Church Catholic; on the contrary, it names failure. Of course, the church rightly names failure, or at least horror, as part of our church year. We do, after all, go through crucifixion as part of Holy Week. Certainly if the Reformation is to be narrated rightly, it is to be narrated as part of those dark days.

Reformation names the disunity in which we currently stand. We who remain in the Protestant tradition want to say that Reformation was a success. But when we make Reformation a success, it only ends up killing us. After all, the very name ‘Protestantism’ is meant to denote a reform movement of protest within the Church Catholic. When Protestantism becomes an end in itself, which it certainly has through the mainstream denominations in America, it becomes anathema. If we no longer have broken hearts at the church’s division, then we cannot help but unfaithfully celebrate Reformation Sunday.

For example, note what the Reformation has done for our reading texts like that which we hear from Luke this morning. We Protestants automatically assume that the Pharisees are the Catholics. They are the self-righteous people who have made Christianity a form of legalistic religion, thereby destroying the free grace of the Gospel. We Protestants are the tax collectors, knowing that we are sinners and that our lives depend upon God’s free grace. And therefore we are better than the Catholics because we know they are sinners. What an odd irony that the Reformation made such readings possible. As Protestants we now take pride in the acknowledgment of our sinfulness in order to distinguish ourselves from Catholics who allegedly believe in works-righteousness.

Unfortunately, the Catholics are right. Christian salvation consists in works. To be saved is to be made holy. To be saved requires our being made part of a people separated from the world so that we can be united in spite of — or perhaps better, because of — the world’s fragmentation and divisions. Unity, after all, is what God has given us through Christ’s death and resurrection. For in that death and resurrection we have been made part of God’s salvation for the world so that the world may know it has been freed from the powers that would compel us to kill one another in the name of false loyalties. All that is about the works necessary to save us.

For example, I often point out that at least Catholics have the magisterial office of the Bishop of Rome to remind them that disunity is a sin. You should not overlook the significance that in several important documents of late, John Paul II has confessed the Catholic sin for the Reformation. Where are the Protestants capable of doing likewise? We Protestants feel no sin for the disunity of the Reformation. We would not know how to confess our sin for the continuing disunity of the Reformation. We would not know how to do that because we have no experience of unity.

The magisterial office — we Protestants often forget — is not a matter of constraining or limiting diversity in the name of unity. The office of the Bishop of Rome is to ensure that when Christians move from Durham, North Carolina to Syracuse, New York, they have some confidence when they go to church that they will be worshiping the same God. Because Catholics have an office of unity, they do not need to restrain the gifts of the Spirit. As I oftentimes point out, it is extraordinary that Catholicism is able to keep the Irish and the Italians in the same church. What an achievement! Perhaps equally amazing is their ability to keep within the same church Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans.

I think Catholics are able to do that because they know that their unity does not depend upon everyone agreeing. Indeed, they can celebrate their disagreements because they understand that our unity is founded upon the cross and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth that makes the Eucharist possible. They do not presume, therefore, that unity requires that we all read Scripture the same way.

This creates a quite different attitude among Catholics about their relation to Christian tradition and the wider world. Protestants look over to Christian tradition and say, ‘How much of this do we have to believe in order to remain identifiably Christian?’ That’s the reason why Protestants are always tempted to rationalism: we think that Christianity is to be identified with sets of beliefs more than with the unity of the Spirit occasioned through sacrament.

Moreover, once Christianity becomes reduced to a matter of belief, as it clearly has for Protestants, we cannot resist questions of whether those beliefs are as true or useful as other beliefs we also entertain. Once such questions are raised, it does not matter what the answer turns out in a given case. As James Edwards observes, “Once religious beliefs start to compete with other beliefs, then religious believers are — and will know themselves to be — mongerers of values. They too are denizens of the mall, selling and shopping and buying along with the rest of us.”

In contrast, Catholics do not begin with the question of “How much do we need to believe?” but with the attitude “Look at all the wonderful stuff we get to believe!” Isn’t it wonderful to know that Mary was immaculately conceived in order to be the faithful servant of God’s new creation in Jesus Christ! She therefore becomes the firstborn of God’s new creation, our mother, the first member of God’s new community we call church. Isn’t it wonderful that God continued to act in the world through the appearances of Mary at Guadalupe! Mary must know something because she seems to always appear to peasants and, in particular, to peasant women who have the ability to see her. Most of us would not have the ability to see Mary because we’d be far too embarrassed by our vision.

Therefore Catholics understand the church’s unity as grounded in reality more determinative than our good feelings for one another. The office of Rome matters. For at least that office is a judgment on the church for our disunity. Surely it is the clear indication of the sin of the Reformation that we Protestants have not been able to resist nationalistic identifications. So we become German Lutherans, American Lutherans, Norwegian Lutherans. You are Dutch Calvinist, American Presbyterians, Church of Scotland. I am an American Methodist, which has precious little to do with my sisters and brothers in English Methodism. And so we Protestant Christians go to war killing one another in the name of being American, German, Japanese, and so on.

At least it becomes the sin of Rome when Italian Catholics think they can kill Irish Catholics in the name of being Italian. Such divisions distort the unity of the Gospel found in the Eucharist and, thus, become judgments against the church of Rome. Of course, the Papacy has often been unfaithful and corrupt, but at least Catholics preserved an office God can use to remind us that we have been and may yet prove unfaithful. In contrast, Protestants don’t even know we’re being judged for our disunity.

I realize that this perspective on Reformation Sunday is not the usual perspective. The usual perspective is to tell us what a wonderful thing happened at the Reformation. The Reformation struck a blow for freedom. No longer would we be held in medieval captivity to law and arbitrary authority. The Reformation was the beginning of enlightenment, of progressive civilizations, of democracy, that have come to fruition in this wonderful country called America. What a destructive story.

You can tell the destructive character of that narrative by what it has done to the Jews. The way we Protestants read history, and in particular our Bible, has been nothing but disastrous for the Jews. For we turned the Jews into Catholics by suggesting that the Jews had sunk into legalistic and sacramental religion after the prophets and had therefore become moribund and dead. In order to make Jesus explicable (in order to make Jesus look like Luther — at least the Luther of our democratic projections), we had to make Judaism look like our characterization of Catholicism. Yet Jesus did not free us from Israel; rather, he engrafted us into the promise of Israel so that we might be a people called to the same holiness of the law.

I realize that the suggestion that salvation is to be part of a holy people constituted by the law seems to deny the Reformation principle of justification by faith through grace. I do not believe that to be the case, particularly as Calvin understood that Reformation theme. After all, Calvin (and Luther) assumed that justification by faith through grace is a claim about God’s presence in Jesus of Nazareth. So justification by faith through grace is not some general truth about our need for acceptance; but rather justification by faith through grace is a claim about the salvation wrought by God through Jesus to make us a holy people capable of remembering that God’s salvation comes through the Jews. When the church loses that memory, we lose the source of our unity. For unity is finally a matter of memory, of how we tell the story of the Reformation. How can we tell this story of the church truthfully as Protestants and Catholics so that we might look forward to being in union with one another and thus share a common story of our mutual failure?

We know, after all, that the prophecy of Joel has been fulfilled. The portents of heaven, the blood and fire, the darkness of the sun, the bloody moon have come to pass in the cross of our Savior Jesus Christ. Now all who call on that name will be saved. We believe that we who stand in the Reformation churches are survivors. But to survive we need to recover the unity that God has given us as survivors. So on this Reformation Sunday long for, pray for, our ability to remember the Reformation – not as a celebratory moment, not as a blow for freedom, but as the sin of the church. Pray for God to heal our disunity, not the disunity simply between Protestant and Catholic, but the disunity in our midst between classes, between races, between nations. Pray that on Reformation Sunday we may as tax collectors confess our sin and ask God to make us a new people joined together in one might prayer that the world may be saved from its divisions.

(Stanley Hauerwas is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School.)