ARTICLES

How to Gut the Pope

Father Baldovin's Complaint and Our Response

By Christopher Zehnder

"It was with considerable distress that I read your article 'Sunday is About Community' in your November [2002] issue. Through the incompetence of your reporter (or perhaps worse) my presentation was dreadfully misrepresented." So ran an e-mail note sent to me by the Rev. John Baldovin, S.J. Father Baldovin, who teaches liturgy at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was one of the speakers at a liturgical conference hosted by the diocese of Oakland in August. His talk focused on Dies Domini, Pope John Paul II's 1998 apostolic letter on the Lord's Day, Sunday. Our November article said that Baldovin's talk emphasized that "Eucharist is more than a memory. Sunday is about community."

In his December e-mail to me, Father Baldovin wrote, "I wonder if you would do me the courtesy of printing my talk in its entirety. I am sure that you realize that calumny is a sin" -- and he cited as an authority the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Concerned lest we had misrepresented his talk, I replied to Father Baldovin, suggesting that I read his talk and interview him on its content. His response was swift: "thank you very much for your kind and rapid response," he wrote. "I will attach a copy of my talk. If you would like to interview me by phone, that would be fine."

Yet, it seems, that over Christmas, Father Baldovin had gotten cold feet. When I contacted him by phone on January 14, he said that, given our journalistic style as represented by the November article, he preferred not to be interviewed. I was, of course, disappointed; I had read his talk and Dies Domini as well; I had written up a number of interesting questions to ask him. Yet, even though I offered to let him see and approve the interview before it went to press, it was no use. Father Baldovin had made up his mind. There would be no dialogue.

I must admit that I felt as if I had been left standing at the altar; but, rather than disappoint my guests, I figured I would let the ceremony go on, with or without the bride. Here, then, is my take on Father Baldovin's talk. I confess, that without Father Baldovin's clarifications, I have concluded that "Eucharist is more than a memory; Sunday is about community," is an apt, if somewhat incomplete, summary of his presentation. Further, from my reading, Father Baldovin's talk is a good example of how to gut a papal document of its meaning.

In his talk, Father Baldovin said he would follow Pope John Paul's outline in Dies Domini. The pope first treats of Sunday as Dies Domini -- the Lord's Day, "the Celebration of the Creator's Work." Commenting on John Paul's reflections on Genesis 1, where it is written, "God saw that it [creation] was good," Baldovin states that "the world that God makes is fundamentally good" and that "John Paul has his own version of creation theology -- a theology that can remind us of liturgical blessing." And Baldovin continues: "You know that we Christians have often struggled with thinking that this world is a vale of tears, filled with temptation to evil, a snare and a delusion, a potential sin at every turn." The pope, however, is more positive than that; for as the he recognizes, says Baldovin, sin arises "when we fail to acknowledge God as the source of creation. In just this way the Jews understood a theology of blessing -- of Berakah -- created things aren't good or bad in themselves but they can only be holy when we appreciate them for what they are: gifts of God. I can't emphasize this enough."

I wanted to ask Baldovin why he could not emphasize enough the notion that "created things aren't good or bad in themselves" and that they can "only be holy" when we properly appreciate them as gifts of God. It is a strange statement, since, just a few lines earlier, Baldovin stated that the world made by God is "fundamentally good." How could it be fundamentally good and created things be neither "good or bad in themselves"? And how does our appreciation of them as gifts of God make them holy?

The pope's "creation theology," at least as laid out in Dies Domini, does speak of the fundamental goodness of creation. "Coming as it does from the hand of God, the cosmos bears the imprint of his goodness," writes the pope. "It is a beautiful world, rightly moving us to admiration, but also calling for cultivation and development." The pope here squarely roots the goodness of the world in the fact that it is created by God. And, it is interesting that John Paul does not speak of the world as holy, but as good. Yet, he says, even the world's goodness is compromised by the fall of man, "which unleashes on the world the darkness of sin and death." Thus, it does not seem Pope John Paul contradicts the traditional notion, characatured by Baldovin, that the world is "a vale of tears, filled with temptation to evil" -- though, in itself, it is not "a snare and a delusion, a potential sin at every turn." Further, the world's redemption, for the pope, is a matter for grace, not a matter of man's right appreciation. Writes John Paul: "the world is good insofar as it remains tied to its origin and, after being disfigured by sin, it is again made good when, with the help of grace, it returns to the One who made it."

Then there is Baldovin's strange formulation of the pope's nuptial imagery (which was pointed out in our November issue). Speaking of the divine gazing upon creation, the pope says "it is a gaze which already discloses something of the nuptial shape of the relationship which God wants to establish with the creature made in his own image, by calling that creature to enter a pact of love." Further on, the pope speaks of the "nuptial intensity which marks the relationship between God and his people." In Baldovin's turn of phrase, John Paul, "with the passion of a mystic. names the erotic dimension of God' s love for us represented by Sabbath rest." No doubt, if I had asked him what he meant by "erotic," Baldovin would have noted that Church father (pseudo) Dionysius the Areopagite, in his Divine Names, refers to God' s love with the Greek term eros, or "yearning." Yet, though Dionysius makes it clear that eros, when referring to God, is shorn of its grosser connotations, such subtlety would probably escape the audience to whom Baldovin spoke of the "erotic dimension of God's love." Why did he not further explain what he meant by the phrase?

I also hoped Father Baldovin would explain more fully his preference for the title of Sunday, the Eighth Day. In his talk, Baldovin said this title serves "to stretch us toward becoming the people the Lord wants us to become. It is, as we say, eschatological -- not so much because there's a date in time that we're waiting for as because the goal of true life is what God wants for us -- it is that end, that experience of God's reign that we're called to celebrate every time we come together for the Lord's Day." Why does Baldovin, here, seem to downplay the "date in time that we're waiting for," when Pope John Paul states that the sabbath's "definitive fulfillment will not come until the Parousia, when Christ returns in glory"? Indeed, the pope says that "Sunday is not only the first day, it also the 'eighth day', set within the sevenfold succession of days in a unique and transcendent position which evokes not only the beginning of time also its end in 'the age to come.'"

But most troubling of all, Baldovin does not treat of Christ's presence -- body, soul and divinity -- in the Blessed Sacrament. Baldovin does quote the pope (in the section, Dies Ecclesiæ -- Day of the Church) as saying: "The eucharist is not only a particularly intense expression of the reality of the church's life, but also in a sense its 'fountainhead.' The eucharist feeds and forms the church. 'Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.' (I Cor. 10:17) Because of this vital link with the sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord, the mystery of the church is savored, proclaimed and lived supremely in the eucharist." But Baldovin goes no further to explain the pope's rich theology on how the mystery of the Church arises from the sacrament.

Baldovin rightly notes that, "for John Paul, contrary to much of the individualism of the modern world -- and so much in line with his own expression of Christian social teaching -- we're not saved as individuals alone, but as member [sic] of the Body of Christ;" yet, he fails to note that, for the pope, the communal character of the Eucharist arises from its aspect, where "Christ himself becomes our nourishment." John Paul says, "the communal character of the Eucharist emerges in a special way when it is seen as the Easter banquet, in which Christ himself becomes our nourishment. In fact, 'for this purpose Christ entrusted to the Church this sacrifice: so that the faithful might share in it, both spiritually, in faith and charity, and sacramentally, in the banquet of Holy Communion. Sharing in the Lord's Supper is always communion with Christ, who offers himself for us in sacrifice to the Father.' This is why the Church recommends that the faithful receive communion when they take part in the Eucharist, provided that they are properly disposed and, if aware of grave sin, have received God's pardon in the Sacrament of Reconciliation." (Emphasis in original) For the pope, communion with the presence of Christ in the sacrament "is deeply tied to communion with our brothers and sisters," and makes the Sunday Eucharist "an experience of brotherhood" [emphasis the pope's].

Unlike Pope John Paul, Father Baldovin consistently uses metaphorical language and metonymy when referring to the Blessed Sacrament. In Dies Domini, the pope speaks very specifically and fully about Christ's presence in the sacrament. He does this before he speaks of communion, as if to forestall any misunderstanding that communion in the Body and Blood of Christ is not merely metaphorical. "The Mass," says the pope, "in fact truly makes present the sacrifice of the Cross. Under the species of bread and wine, upon which has been invoked the outpouring of the Spirit who works with absolutely unique power in the words of consecration, Christ offers himself to the Father in the same act of sacrifice by which he offered himself on the Cross. 'In this divine sacrifice which is accomplished in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once and for all in a bloody manner on the altar of the Cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner.'" Father Baldovin, on the other hand, speaks only of "the gifts," "breaking of the bread," "Christ broken and poured out," the "Lord's banquet."

Baldovin's order of presentation is also interesting. In treating the pope's Dies Ecclesiæ section of Dies Domini, Baldovin appears to follow the pope's order: "The Eucharistic assembly," "The Sunday Eucharist," "The day of the Church," "The table of the word"; but then Baldovin does not treat specifically the sections "The table of the Body of Christ" and "Easter banquet and fraternal gathering," where appear the passages, quoted above, about the nature of the sacrifice and how the communal character of the Sunday Eucharist arises from communion. Instead, Baldovin jumps directly to the sections of Dies Domini: "From Mass to "mission" and "The Sunday obligation."

For Baldovin, it seems, the sacrament and communion have no privileged place in the eucharist which, for him, appears to be the entire celebration itself. "The eucharist is what makes Sunday more than a memory of a mighty act God performed 2000 ago or a recalling of the first day of creation," writes Baldovin. "The eucharist makes the present moment, the here and now an experience of that same salvation." And how does it do this? "By attending to the word of God proclaimed boldly and preached prophetically, by blessing God for creating us and redeeming us in Christ, by invoking the Spirit to enliven the gifts and us for true communion with Christ, by sharing in Christ broken and poured out we experience now what true life is and give it a name: paschal mystery." Here is no sense of a hierarchical relationship between parts, where the sacrament and communion, above all, work salvation.

Father Baldovin, like the pope, rightly stresses the communal character of Sunday worship. But Baldovin's apparently studied attempt to avoid too specific language when referring to the Blessed Sacrament leaves one wondering what he thinks the most central aspect of Sunday worship is. His statements about the effect Sunday worship should have in our daily lives -- in our concerns for social justice and human dignity -- are right and important. What they lack, however, is a clear sense of that rooting in that union of God and man in the Blessed Sacrament.

Finally, one other of Father Baldovin's statements gave me pause. In speaking of the pope's treatment of Mass celebrations in the absence of priests, Baldovin says: "although the Pope recognizes the inevitability of Sunday celebrations at which no eucharist can be celebrated, he emphatically insists that the goal is always the celebration of the eucharist as the full realization of the celebration of the paschal mystery. (Obviously this remains a problem to be solved -- and were I to be asked by the Pope I could provide a few suggestions.)"

Sadly, Father Baldovin doesn't here spell out his "few suggestions" for us. I think, though, that I have discovered what at least one of his "suggestions" might be. In an article, "Decoding the future of worship," in the February 1, 1999 Anglican Voice, author Doug LeBlanc mentions some statements made by Baldovin at a conference, "Unbound! Anglican Worship Beyond the Prayer," held in January 1999 at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley. Baldovin, then of Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, covered a number of topics, including fundamentalism, which, as "restorationism," he said, dominates "some influential circles of Roman Catholicism." "Pausing to laugh," wrote LeBlanc, Baldovin noted "he was using code language because 'this [lecture] is going to be published.'" But, at least, at one point, Baldovin's code language broke down. According to LeBlanc, "he asked that Episcopalians 'not lose heart in persuading Roman Catholics' to ordain women to the priesthood."

TOP