Chapter 1: Foundations and Context
As our own country (USA) is experiencing ever greater and more violent expressions of political extremism, it has given me pause to consider the need to find a more unifying, non-violent way of relating to others from the perspective of the Catholic faith and our practice of our faith in this World. The Catholic Church is not immune to this extremism. Pope Francis gave voice to this problem a number of times, and singled the Church in the United States as an example of it.
In an interview published by La Civiltà Cattolica (2022), he said,
Restorationism has come to gag the Council. The number of groups of ‘restorers’—for example in the United States— is very strong. An attitude of closure can be born from fear. I want an open Church that knows how to engage dialogue.
While I would disagree that this is an accurate depiction of all American Catholicism, I have had friends who did fit this description well. At times, during my first fervor after my conversion to the Catholic faith and initiation at the Easter Vigil, I fit this description. In my desire to defend the faith, I became defensive about the faith, and this can easily become a substitute for a saving and sanctifying relationship with God, through Christ, in the Church.
Earlier in his papacy, Francis used the occasion of an address to the US Congress to highlight the problem of violence in the name of God. He said,
Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred, and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind.
To give context to this quote, in 2015, ISIS controlled large swathes of Iraq and Syria. They carried out massacres, enforced brutal Sharia interpretations, and publicly executed prisoners, including hundreds of Assyrian Christians, and a genocidal enslavement and killing of Yazidis. Boko Haram pledged allegiance to ISIS in 2015 and carried out bombings, massacres, and kidnappings, often targeting Christians and moderate Muslims. The Baga massacre (January 2015) killed as many as 2,000 people in northern Nigeria, making it one of the deadliest terror attacks in modern history. In mid-November 2015, the Paris attacks took place, where ISIS gunmen and suicide bombers attacked six locations, including the Bataclan concert hall. Hundreds of people were injured, and 130 were killed. The attackers shouted Allahu Akbar.
2015 was also the year of the Charlie Hebdo attack, where two Islamic extremist stormed their offices, killing 12 people. They claimed to be avenging Muhammad for caricatures that Charlie Hebdo published. In Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, there were ongoing sectarian killings and war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. In Pakistan, the Taliban attacked Christians in Lahore, killing at least 14. In Kenya (April 2015), the Garissa University attack took place. Al-Shabaab militants (affiliated with al-Qaeda) killed 148 people, separating Christians from Muslims and killing the Christians. This was the context of that papal address to Congress.
Some, both Protestant leaders and Catholics, criticized the pope for not using the name Jesus or Jesus Christ, or Christ, during the address. Some were disappointed that it was more moralistic and political than Christian. Though these are fair criticisms, they also made it easy not to seriously consider what the pope was saying about violence and religious extremism. Additionally, the pope drew on biblical references in his speech to illustrate how we should behave (i.e., Exodus, Deuteronomy, and the Gospel of Matthew).
It was the pope’s teaching in Evangelii Gaudium (2013) where he emphasized a point that is integral to my own argument. He said,
It is not advisable for us to be obsessed with disjointed transmission of a multitude of doctrines to be insistently imposed. When we do so, what interests us is not Jesus Christ, but what interests us is to be right
Some people saw this as yet another example of the late pope being soft on Christian doctrine. But, again, this is an easy way to evade his teaching, considering how it is true. As an American Catholic and convert to the faith, I have experienced this more than once, and as I pointed out above, at times I could have fairly been accused of it. For myself, it was an example of a still immature faith in Jesus Christ and an overemphasis on faith in the Church as the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church. Catholic belief in the role and nature of the Church in communicating salvation is an article of the Apostle’s Creed and a vital element of Catholic identity. However, it is subordinated hierarchically to prior beliefs. So if it in a sense replaces faith in God the Father, in Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit, it can become a form of idolatry that substitutes for a saving and sanctifying relationship or communion with Jesus Christ, who is consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
This leads to what I identify as the first principle for Ecumenical and Interfaith Dialogue that is Catholic:
Principle One
To be ordered according to the Catholic faith, Ecumenical and Interfaith Dialogue that is Catholic takes as its ultimate aim the glorification of God as understood in the fundamental creeds of the Church (e.g., the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed).
Said another way, its object is none other than the Holy Trinity and the living out of his wisdom and will for man as communicated by the Word of God in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.
This means that these are the primary sources for understanding how to go about this dialogue, with Sacred Scripture, understood in the context of Sacred Tradition (i.e., the Catholic faith) as the primary reference.