An Integral Faith for Today

...3. Church statements are not put into practice...

...In the United States, civil rights and peace activities tended to take up the physical and psychic energies of many of the most explicitly committed Catholics, lay, religious and clerical...

...By this I mean a tendency to focus on personal renewal or one-to-one charity without attending to the socioeconomic injustices which mark our society structurally...

...Indeed, they appear to mark much of the American community at large...

...It is not overly dramatic or rhetorical to assert that the United States will face some profound political, social and economic upheavals before the end of this century...

...Such an integration is necessary in order to meet the test of credibilitym both for ourselves and for others...

...Many social activists, wearied by disappointments and failures in their efforts, became discouraged or cynical...

...The public dimension, however, includes the projections of individual and interpersonal existence into the institutions, structures and processes of society...

...Missing Mass, disobedience to those in authority, failings in chastity (of many different varieties), anger within one's own family: these and other personal sins were proposed as the subject for examination...

...On the one hand, social involvement, the commitment to change unjust social structures, continues to occupy the attention of many...

...These contradictions undercut effective Christian life...

...Questioning the unquestionable could make disjointed and skeptical Sophists of us all...

...A faith which satisfies itself on the level of personal morality is simply truncated and unreal in today's world...

...Certainly the growing charismatic movement in the American Catholic community offers another strong sign of search for interior renewal...

...These are questions which inevitably arise when we look around at the contemporary awareness growing in the American Catholic community of the need for a faith which both enables us to believe and demonstrates the reality of our belief...

...And my reflections are enriched as the result of sharing for the past year with a Task Force which specifically studied this topic...

...Integration What is increasingly needed, it seems to me, is a faith perspective which integrates religious experience and social involvement...

...Among other things, it might show that the basic indictment against the moral theologian of the recent past is that he was so un-Catholic...

...First, a very clear call has been coming to Catholics in the past ten to fifteen years, the call to action on behalf of social justice...

...Thus a very understandable reaction has set in during recent years...

...Such a failure is in a way more serious than simply not caring about the injustices and oppressions of our contemporary world...

...4. Values are not supported by structures...

...The 1971 Synod statement, "Justice in the World," provides a case in point...

...Meeting several times over a period of six months earlier this year, the Task Force produced a book-length series of articles entitled Soundings...

...The renewal programs going on in many religious communitiesuincluding directed retreats, houses of prayer, spiritual counselors, discernment workshops-are one set of manifestations of this new emphasis on matters of the spirit...

...And episcopal residences and clerical lifestyles have by-and-large not been appreciably modified...

...But at least we may more readily be inclined to acknowledge that for the values of justice to be realized in our society, we must work to change unjust structures...

...Such a faith perspective emphasizes social morality, perception of structural problems, institutional practice of social teachings and structural support of values...

...The call also has come in the form of repeated statements in major church documents from John XXIII, Paul VI, the Second Vatican Council, and the 1971 Synod of Bishops...

...Women remain second-class citizens in our church-in many other areas besides the better-known one of ordination...

...An integral faith, by taking seriously the Christian's relationship to social structures, aims at resolving the contradictions which destroy credibility today...

...I am not saying that the obvious breath of the Spirit blowing today in the church in this country is to be disdained...

...This is really not such a radical position, after all, since Leo XIII emphasized just such a right back in 1891...

...Today it appears to be gaining a new meaning--and consequently becoming a new source of strugglemin the evolving understanding of authentic Christian faith...

...The phenomenon of many good people giving up on the church appears to be disturbing evidence of this alienation...

...And although the statements tend to maintain a rather general level of abstraction, nevertheless they have been quite specific at times in making judgments on current socio-economic practices and in recommending particular responses by individual Christians and by the church community itself...

...For one thing, this call comes as a result of deepening insight into the biblical concept of the Kingdom of God...

...FATHER PETER J. HENRIOT, S.J., is a Staff Associate at the Center of Concern in Washington, D.C...

...In recent years there has been no area of church teaching so repeatedly emphasized in major statements and documents as the call to act for social justice...

...That brief line from -!- the second chapter of the Epistle of James has been the occasion of many a struggle in the history of the Christian community...

...This is a kingdom of peace and justice, a kingdom "already here but not yet," which we all have a part in building up...

...Catholic educational institutions, spoken of so highly in other church pronouncements, pay surprisingly little attention to communicating this social message...

...Faithful response here relates of necessity to the social-political-economic arrangements which are extensions of a person's existence...

...Even more puzzling and disturbing, however, is the failure to put into practice this message...

...Or it could, as it did for Socrates, lead us to deeper appreciations of the mystery of humanness which is unfolding helter-skelter about us...

...But I was surprised to see that this fine explanation was followed by an "examination of conscience" of the sort which focused entirely on individual morality...

...It appears that for many persons an increased involvement in prayer groups, religious community renewal, etc., results in removal from much of the swirl of the FATHER JOSEPH A. FITZMYER, S.J., is a professor o/ New Testament and Biblical Languages at the School o/ Theology at Weston College, Massachusetts, and the editor o/ the Journal of Biblical Literature...

...We are badgered today by untrammeled questioning in all areas...

...any moralily based on responsibility must take them into account...

...The movement toward love of God of necessity involves the love of our brother and sister (1 John 4:21) and love, in the words of the t971 Synod, "implies an absolute demand for justice...

...Response to this call has been lively and strong in recent years...

...Here the faith which results in charity is operative...

...Closely related to a lack of understanding of social morality is the failure to perceive the structural complexity of social problems...

...Because there is a public dimension to human existence, then, the faith life of the Christian must encompass that dimension...

...This was occurring at the same time that traditional forms of piety were being fractured by the changes of the Council...

...Integral faith, today, then, must include a critical consciousness of our own mindsets...

...The early 1970s in this country have been marked by what Peter Steinfels, writing in Commonweal a year and a half ago, called the "new interiorism" (April 27, 1973...

...This might help to explain the instance of the failure of many American Catholics to understand the significance of the current struggle to organize marginal workers in this country, many of whom are engaged in the agricultural sector...

...This has meant a general mood of inwardness and self-examination, a re-emphasis on the traditional religious symbols, and a search for a deeper inner strength and personally rich vision of reality...

...The individual dimension is the realm of the private, the unique...

...A faith which is alive must be deeply conscious of the significance of the structures of society...

...One theme which repeated itself throughout the discussions of the Task Force was that it is only possible to speak of the reality of a human person today by taking into full account the three dimensions of human existence: the individual, the interpersonal, and the public...

...For the contemporary American Catholic, only such an integral faith can link religious experience and social involvement and thereby provide meaning in a time of change...

...Not even a hint was given of social sin--the existence of structural injustice and our own involvement in its continuance...

...This triadic framework of human existence has profound implications for the faith life of the Christian...

...For example, one of the great difficulties of living out Christian family values in this country is the fact that children are very costly, abortion is now legal, and divorce is increasingly common...

...We seldom hear them spoken of in Sunday homilies--the only real occasion that the majority of American Catholics have to receive any religious instruction...

...This "new interiorism" has meant for many, whether religious professionals or lay-persons, a significant shift in priorities...

...It briefly emphasized the best in both sacramental theology and sound psychology...

...Very pointed remarks were made, for example, about the treatment of women and about the identification of the church with the rich and the powerful...

...This vision embodies values and is prior to our judgment of what we should do morally in any particular situation...

...But until I perceive the problem of a laborers' organization such as the United Farmworkers in terms other than simply efficiency and productivity, I may never grasp the relevancy of support for seemingly unsophisticated causes like boycotts of lettuce and grapes...

...social turmoil around them, or at least does not impel them into action for justice...

...The ability of our governmental system and traditional institutions to meet these challenges is at least not to be accepted as inevitable...

...To become operational, to have an impact, it must be supported in the processes, institutions and structures of society...

...Yet it often appears that the church's social teachings remain merely words on paper...

...These are not trends unique to Catholics...

...We tend to judge persons and situations in terms of these values...

...For example, for most Americans, "efficiency...

...Without this, we are subject to whatever cultural biases we have been socialized to, and are in danger of blindness to the full dimensions of the social reality we are called to respond to...

...Commonweal: 149...

...Gaps between teaching and practice strain credibility...

...They then called on the church to examine its own practice of justice in how it treated others, how it held property, and what its lifestyle manifested...

...The impact of inflation promises to precipitate severe economic dislocations at home, with potential for frightening political consequences...

...Our place in the wodd--"Number One," as a recent President liked to remind us--is being increasingly challenged not only on pragmatic political grounds but on serious moral grounds...

...But we American Catholics are understandably confused when we fail to see the working out of these statements in practice...

...I think that the critical faith challenge in the immediate future will be the task of integrating religious experience and social involvement...

...The interpersonal dimension, on the other hand, is constituted in the relationships by which one individual deals with another in either the limited sense of an I-Thou encounter or in an extended sense of ordinary social dealings...

...The faith perspective I am speaking of has to relate to some of the contradictions experienced in our contemporary Catholic community...

...So it seemed during the decade of the 1960s, a period of intense social action...

...No longer are institutional change, political reform and structural renewal high on the list of many who might have engaged in these activities a few years ago...

...The plight of the farmworkers must be perceived as the structural problem that it is, related to wider issues such as corporate agri-business...

...1. Social morality takes second place to individual morality...

...DANIEL C. MAGUIRE, an associate professor in the Theology Department at Marquette University, is the author of Death by Choice (Doubleday...

...Papal encyclicals, letters of national hierarchies, documents from the Council and the Synods: all have reiterated the message of the Christian's obligation to be involved in the great tasks of peace, justice and development...

...I have referred frequently in my reflections here to the structural aspects of social reality and hence of human existence...

...Social responsibility--which implies an appreciation of and relationship to the structural and institutional aspects of realitywmust be central to an integral faith...

...And yet for many, has not commitment to action for social justice frequently appeared to con15 November 1974:146 Rict with commitment to prayer and spirituality...

...Thus no matter how much I may profess my moral commitment to better the lot of the poor, unless I perceive the operation and impact of certain economic systems which make it impossible for the poor (individuals or nations) to control their own destiny, I merely am moralistic and not political-that is, I am not effective in bringing change...

...In fact, it frequently can coexist with a very strong concern for social justice, a deeply felt moral responsibility for social change...

...My thoughts on this theme grow out of my own experience of tension where there is lack of integration...

...Another example: the value of simplicity in wants, a safeguard against an enslaving materialism as well as an effort at greater sharing of the earth's goods, is in conflict with the structural emphases on consumption and competition...

...In getting a sense of what is moving in the Catholic community in the United States today, it does not take much sophistication to note two strong trends...

...These are social sins wh.ch involve persons in terms of responsibility...

...Is it possible to be a person of faith without at t h e same time being a person committed to the work of social justice...

...Our innocence is spent and confusion mounts...

...They are tensions which, if allowed to go unrelieved, destroy credibility...

...Yet both of these movements, it seems to me, have a marked tendency to be a-political, a-social in their orientation...

...A value, whether individual or social, cannot be disembodied if it is to be effective in the real world...

...And what does involvement in social change mean in terms of one's faith, prayer and religious response...

...I simply do not see the reality of structural injustice...

...It appears to me that Catholics are coming to appreciate the importance of social structures and the fact that these structures are not value-free...

...Thus it is critical to ask whether we American Catholics are cultivating a faith which can relate to the radical social challenges coming upon us in the immediate future...

...What this means in a pluralistic society, in working out the details relating to structures supportive of particular values, is neither clear nor easy...

...An integral faith, therefore, sees the necessity of making its values real in the social structures which make up our milieu...

...Yet the importance of emphasizing social structures when speaking of faith experiences became very clear during the course of the Task Force mentioned at the outset of this article...

...These aspects are difficult for most of us to understand and appreciate...

...The value of life protected before birth is less than effective if the structures of society do not support that value...

...I may moralistically profess, and be genuinely committed to, the rights of workers to unionize...

...S o c i a l j u s t i c e v s . t h e new Juteriorism AN INTEGRAL FAITH FOR TODAY PETER J. HENRIOT ~AITrt without works is dead...

...Rummaging in the Catholic past is not useless...

...Karl Mannheim, in his Ideology and Utopia, observes that the Sophists grew out of a world in which "previous unambiguity" had been shattered...

...And on the other hand, deep experience of religious realities, prayer, meditation, spirituality, is stirring ever-growing numbers of people...

...Just as we incarnate values in structures and institutions, so in turn we are influenced by, socialized to, the values of these structures and institutions...

...We should be very wary of this...

...Mention of four of these contradictions will throw light on some of the dimensions of an integral faith...

...The life of the spirit often was dry in the community of activists...

...However wise or unwise is the effort of some American Catholics to support a specific constitutional amendment to forbid abortions (I personally would judge it to be unwise), such a movement does indicate a recognition of the key significance of political and legal structures...

...The person is an individual inasmuch as he or she is unique, standing before the Creator in moments of lonely faith...

...A community which would promote integral faith must of necessity strive to narrow those gaps...

...More about the outcome of that Task Force later...

...The call to work for structural change for justice becomes more and more imperative...

...Also fruitfully explorable within the Catholic tradition would be the sense of law and its relationship to morality, the institutionalization of prophecy attempted in religious orders, the relationship between contemplation and action, the priestly tradition with its stress on the value of personal symbols...

...But above all, the call comes most strongly from humankind, our brothers and sisters suffering from structural injustices and oppressions in our own country and around the globe...

...success," "measurability," "productivity," are elements of our mindset...

...But the difficulty is not one of moralism but of perception...

...Open marriage, genetic manipulation, psychosurgery, civil religion, multi-national power, atomic proliferation, etc...

...We have been well trained in the categories of personal responsibility and personal sin, but find it difficult to grasp the meaning and implications of social responsibility and social sin...

...What will be the human meaning of our affluent lifestyle in a world where millions are starving to death...

...In an effort to explore the relationship between religious experience and social consciousness, the Center of Contern in Washington, D.C., brought together fourteen persons with varied backgrounds in theology, psychology, spiritual direction, retreat work, social sciences and social action...

...This "integral faith" will not mean a substitution of action for prayer, but neither will it allow for a spirituality which avoids commitment to justice...

...As a controlling vision, it must be examined before we can adequately understand why some peopie--morally good and socially concerned--simply lack any ins,ght into the components of social problems around us...

...The bishops of the Synod made a strong remark to the effect that those who 15 November 1974:148 ~vould speak justice to others must first be just themselves...

...Hopefully, it will be a "faith with works" which is truly alive...

...Racism in the institutions of American society, economic hardships imposed on the poor in this country and in the Third World because of inequitable business practices, waste of scarce global resources through affluent consumption patterns, dominance of the powerless through political manipulation, the increasing danger of annihilation because of the arms race: these are evils just as real in our world as marital infidelity or dishonesty in speech...

...Perception is basically a matter of mindset, of the controlling vision we have of "the way things are...

...It contributes nothing to a mature person's ability to relate to a world where justice is the major issue in human affairs...

...Paulo Freire has spoken of the "alienated and alienating blah" of words which lack any action component...

...2. Social problems are not adequately perceived...

...Moreover, the theology of secularization was challenging notions of a distinct spirituality, and prayer in the Secular City became "being where the action is at...

...What many Catholics in the United States have felt in recent years, however, is that the values inculcated by their church do not in fact find support in the surrounding social structures...

...Commonweal: 147 Recently I picked up a widely used hand missal (they do still exist and are widely used[) and was pleased to note an excellent and up-to-date explanation of the Sacrament of Penance...

...An integral faith takes seriously the nexus between word and deed...

...But I really do question whether the movement toward religious experience has been insufficiently grasped by some of us, with the unfortunate result of a social insensitivity, a lack of commitment to structural change for social justice...

...There are some recent historical dimensions to these trends...

...It has become increasingly evident that our traditional catechesis in the formation of conscience has been seriously deficient...