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Intimations of the New Evangelization

Pope John Paul II conquering this Jubilee for Christ JesusI believe in the mission of the new evangelization. This website represents my work and desire to see the Gospel of Jesus Christ rekindle the flame of faith in the "frozen chosen" scattered about in pews all across America. I have often reflected on what the new evangelization looks like. In this post I am not going for exhaustive analysis. What I want to do is toss out a brief sketch of what I think are 4 elements of the spirit of the new evangelization.

First, the new evangelization is about the "art of living" and of finding the path to happiness, which is Jesus. Cardinal Ratzinger in an address to catechists that he gave in the year 2000, taught that the new evangelization was necessary today because, in our joyless world, there is little room for God in the secularized and de-Christianized nations. In such a world that still yearns for happiness, the new way to preach the gospel must be provided that communicates this art of living.

Spirituality, TheologyMichael GormleyOctober 26, 2010Lectio Divina, New Evangelization, St Therese

Biblical Interpretation: Catholic Response

Biblical fundamentalism fails the Catholic Church’s vision of Scripture and exegesis because it is anti-science, anti-authorship and ahistorical. As an ideology, fundamentalism rejects any science as a force undermining the Christian faith. The natural sciences refute the ancient cosmology and Creation stories, while historical criticism demonstrates the development of the inspired text, denying their doctrine of strict verbal inspiration, and consequently, of total inerrancy. And so, despite its ability to bear good exegetical fruit, it is rejected from root to tip as valid tools for the biblical fundamentalist.

The Catholic Church, on the other hand, has never rejected the ability of human reason to know truth, affirming reason and faith, being neither rationalist nor fideist. Within this appreciation of human reason, comes the legitimization of the sciences: natural, social, and literary. Historical criticism was rejected initially by the Church in Pope Leo’s encyclical Providentissimus Deus, because it was attached to a “much too intrusively dogmatic liberalism” that was buttressed by rationalism and modernism (IBC: 28). Through Catholic exegetes making careful use of these critical methods, the Church, in freeing the methods from unacceptable presuppositions, fifty years later allowed her exegetes to make use of this criticism wisely in the papal encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu. In her cautious approach to ‘higher criticism’, she was able to avoid many of the abuses of liberal Protestant exegetes that the fundamentalists reacted against so strongly.

Scripture, TheologyMichael GormleyOctober 21, 2010Bible, Catholic, Interpretation

Biblical Interpretation: Fundamentalism

Many Christians view the use of scientific methods in the interpretation of Scripture with hesitation or even hostility because they see such criticism undermining the traditional authority of the Bible. Rejecting the scientific methods altogether, some turn to biblical fundamentalism in order to safeguard their understanding of the Bible as inspired and inerrant. This post addresses the claims of biblical fundamentalism, what it is and why is it inconsistent with the Catholic approach to the Bible itself and to biblical interpretation.

This post deals first with a brief treatment of the fundamentalist ideology, followed by their conception of inspiration and inerrancy. The reader will understand how the fundamentalist, operating within their ideological world view, must reject diachronic methods of interpretation. Finally, the next post that I will do will treat the Catholic vision of the Bible and its interpretation in order to show biblical fundamentalism is inconsistent with the Church’s model of exegesis.

Scripture, TheologyMichael GormleyOctober 21, 2010Bible, Fundamentalism, Interpretation

Christian Morality: Happiness

Is there such a thing as "Christian morality", as in, a morality that is shaped by the Christian faith? If morality is universal, how can any religion or sect or belief claim to have a morality all to themselves, or claim that their morality is morality as such? As Catholics we have a strong belief in what is known as the moral law, or the natural law, or, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, the "natural moral law", that is written on the hearts of every human person and is echoed in each conscience. Is Christian morality, then, an extra superimposed or added on to the already existing super-structure of natural law morality?

These are questions that have bothered me over the years. I think this is what drove the Enlightenment project of Immanuel Kant. He sought to remove from morality any supernatural basis and ground everything in the individual's practical reason, that is, in the capacity for rational thought about human action.

Morality, TheologyMichael GormleyOctober 20, 2010Morality, beatitude, happiness

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