Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 307

"Von Balthasar reminds us that what is most fitting is not what is most current."

Anne M. Carpenter, a doctoral student at Marquette University who authors the "Catholic Kung Fu" blog, has a new post titled, "Redeeming Hans Urs von Balthasar" (ht: Christopher Blosser). Carpenter summarizes a number of the common criticisms made of von Balthasar (it's a very good list!) and then writes that "it is true that the majority of his most vocal detractors don't really understand what he was trying to say. (There are others, quieter, who know him well and who begin to slide apart the broken seams in his work.) But being difficult is not the same as being wrong, and certainly not the same as being unworthy of consideration." She then writes:

No, there is something worthy in von Balthasar. I do not mean merely that he wanted beauty to return to theology. In a post-Balthasar world, the worthiness of such a task is taken too much for granted to have much weight. I mean that his attempt to give beauty its due credit manages on the whole to avoid the two major dangers that most theologies succumb to in one way or another. The first danger is straying into a love of logic that ends in a love of mere coherence, with no room at all for God; the second is using beauty to avoid complex and demanding metaphysical inquiry, as if beauty could compel us beyond the traps that already sit before us. Beauty cannot save us from logic; it places logic, and gives it fullness. This means theology must be more rigorous, not less; it must have more room for mystery, not less. There must be both. That is what beauty tells us, and what von Balthasar for the both part manages to defend.

During the time of its writing, Glory of the Lord was a lightning-bolt that could return to theology old categories such as what is most fitting, which means that we could once again think in terms of what was best and not what seemed most useful. It was a lightning-bolt that let us begin to mend the tragic divorce between theology and spirituality. Reason no longer needed to be reasonable in so narrow a sense.

With these books, feeling returned to numb fingers.

But now, decades after its completion, Glory of the Lord stands at the long end of another spectrum. When theologies of art and beauty now begin to threaten to descend into a loose sentimentalism, Glory reminds us that beauty has its logic. Von Balthasar reminds us that what is most fitting is not what is most current.

It is not enough merely to have feeling; we must also know obedience

It's a post certainly worth reading for anyone with any interest in von Balthasar. Personally, I have benefited tremendously from reading several (fifteen or so) of his books, but I also readily confess that there is so much of his work that I've not read and so many of his ideas that I don't fully comprehend. I, of course, don't think he is infallible or perfect; but I also think that saying, as some do, that "he was too liberal" (false) or "he believed that no one will go to hell" (again, false), is not helpful in the least. In fact, in some cases, it is almost slanderous. He is a great thinker and brilliant theologian whose huge corpus demands a lot of time and effort, and few people have the time, the energy, and the ability to do it justice.

In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, who knew him well: "The example that von Balthasar has given us is, rather, that of a true theologian who in contemplation had discovered a consistent course of action for giving Christian witness in the world. We remember him on this important occasion as a man of faith, a priest who, in obedience and in a hidden life, never sought personal approval, but rather in the true Ignatian spirit always desired the greater glory of God."

For further reading, on Ignatius Insight:

• Biography of Hans Urs von Balthasar
• All Ignatius Press books by Hans Urs von Balthasar
• Excerpts from the writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar
• Ignatius Insight Articles about Hans Urs von Balthasar
• Pope Benedict XVI Praises Hans Urs von Balthasar (Oct. 2005)

The State of Catholic Schools in the U.S.

The State of Catholic Schools in the U.S. | Jeff Ziegler | Catholic World Report

Signs of hope despite a bleak prognosis

The Church worldwide is in the midst of a Catholic education boom. Between 1997 and 2008, the number of Catholic primary schools rose from 86,505 to 93,315—an increase of a dozen schools every week—to keep pace with a 20 percent increase in enrollment in the same period. Likewise, the number of Catholic secondary schools grew from 34,849 to 42,234—an increase of 13 schools each week—alongside a 28 percent rise in enrollment. These gains outstripped the growth in overall Catholic population (16 percent) and world population (15 percent) during the same period.

In the midst of this Catholic education boom worldwide, the Church in the United States has suffered a dramatic decline in its education apostolate. According to the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA), the number of Catholic schools fell from 8,146 to 6,980 between 2000 and 2010—a loss of 117 schools every year. Combined primary and secondary school enrollment also declined 22 percent, from 2,647,301 to 2,065,872.

The roots of this decline stretch back decades. "School enrollment reached its peak during the early 1960s when there were more than 5.2 million students in almost 13,000 schools across the nation," according to the latest NCEA school data report. In 1990, some 2.5 million students were enrolled in 8,719 schools. The 1990s saw the loss of 573 schools, even as enrollment grew by 150,000. The enrollment gains of the 1990s, however, were wiped away by the steep declines of the last decade.

According to statistics published in the 2011 Catholic Almanac, the 10 dioceses with the highest combined primary and secondary school enrollment are Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Cleveland, St. Louis, Cincinnati, St. Paul-Minneapolis, and Boston. On the other hand, 10 dioceses—Juneau, Anchorage, Lubbock (Texas), Fairbanks, Baker (Oregon), Las Cruces (New Mexico), Amarillo, Pueblo (Colorado), and Cheyenne—have total enrollments of under 1,000 students.

The dioceses with the highest and lowest numbers of students, however, are not necessarily the dioceses where Catholic schools are proportionately strongest and weakest. The 15 dioceses with the highest ratio of Catholic school students to overall Catholic population are Covington (Kentucky), Memphis, Louisville, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Wichita, Jefferson City, Omaha, Mobile, Evansville (Indiana), Jackson (Mississippi), Kansas City-St. Joseph, St. Louis, Lexington (Kentucky), and New Orleans.

Conversely, the 15 dioceses with the weakest culture of Catholic education—the dioceses with the lowest ratio of Catholic school students to overall Catholic population—are Brownsville, Texas (which has the lowest ratio), Las Cruces, Las Vegas, Fresno, Lubbock, El Paso, San Bernardino, Laredo (Texas), San Angelo (Texas), Pueblo, Corpus Christi, Anchorage, Fort Worth, Juneau, and Dallas. Catholic school culture, in general, is thus strongest near the Ohio River, the central Mississippi River, and parts of the Gulf Coast; it is weakest in portions of Texas, California, and in Alaska.

Read the entire article at www.CatholicWorldReport.com...

"Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life..."

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, June 26, 2011 | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16a
• Psa 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20
• 1 Cor 10:16-17
• Jn 6:51-58

In my late teens I began to have questions about the beliefs and practices of the small Fundamentalist Bible chapel—co-founded by my parents—I had attended most of my life. Many of these questions were only half-formed at the time, but later came into sharper focus, causing me to critically rethink much I had been taught.

Why was it, I wondered, that I had heard several sermons about Rahab the harlot (Josh 2 and 6), but only one about Mary, the mother of Jesus? Why did we celebrate Easter and the Resurrection of Christ, but ignored Good Friday and the commemoration of Jesus' death? And why did we celebrate the Lord's Supper each Sunday, but always emphasized that our communion service was only "symbolic" in nature?

This latter topic was especially vexing. And it became even more troubling after I attended an Evangelical Bible college for two years. I heard sermons and lectures about the miraculous gift of the manna (Ex 16; Num 11), but I don't recall ever hearing a sermon or lecture about the final twenty verses of the sixth chapter of John. That passage fascinated and troubled me. I read it again and again, mulling over the stunning words, heard in today's Gospel reading, uttered by Jesus: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you."

John 6, especially verses 51-71, was the most bothersome passage in the Bible for me as a Protestant. That section of Scripture played an essential role in the decision my wife and I made to become Catholic, entering the Church together in 1997. Yes, there were many other important issues, including Church authority, history, Mary, and the other sacraments. But at the heart of our hunger was a desire for the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

"For my flesh is true food," Jesus told his disciples and the others listening to him, "and my blood is true drink." I became convinced of what the Church taught—and had taught for two thousand years—about the Real Presence: "In the Eucharist Christ gives us the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he 'poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.'" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, par 1365).

Four times in John 6 the words "Amen, amen" (or "Truly, truly) are uttered by Jesus (vs 26, 32, 47, 53). Each signifies a transition and a teaching of great importance; each is a deeper revelation into the person and work of Christ. First, Jesus rebuked the people for seeking only after earthly, temporal food—they instead should believe in him (v. 29). Secondly, Jesus emphasized that it is his Father, not Moses, who gave the manna in the desert. Third, Jesus strongly stated that belief in him is eternal life (v. 47) and that he is "the bread of life" (v. 48).  He then announced, to the amazement of those present, that the bread he referred to is his flesh. "This is the bread that came down from heaven," Jesus stated, "Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever."

Jesus had fed the people real bread (Jn 6:1-14). He then offered real, eternal life to those who believed in him. And then he offered his real flesh as food and his real blood as drink. Natural food, of course, sustains natural life. And the manna, although given in a miraculous manner, was still natural food for natural life. But the new manna, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, is supernatural food given for supernatural life. This new manna, the Eucharist, is "the source and summit of the Christian life" (CCC 1324). It is, as Paul wrote the Corinthians, participation in the blood and body of Christ.

It is, for me, no longer bothersome, but still stunning.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the May 25, 2008, edition of Our Sunday Visitor.)

Related Articles on Ignatius Insight:

• The Eucharist and the Rule of Christ | Fr. James T O'Connor
• Benedict and the Eucharist: On the Apostolic Exhortation, Sacramentum Caritatis | Carl E. Olson
• Abbot Vonier and the Christian Sacrifice | Aidan Nichols, O.P.
• The Meaning and Purpose of the Year of the Eucharist | Carl E. Olson
• The Doctrine (and the Defense) of the Eucharist | Carl E. Olson
• The Eucharist: Source and Summit of Christian Spirituality | Mark Brumley
• The Sacraments | Peter Kreeft

Guides to the Early Church Fathers

From a National Catholic Register review by John Grondelski,  of Jimmy Akin's most recent book, The Fathers Know Best: Your Essential Guide to the Teachings of the Early Church:

The Orthodox and Eastern Catholics know the Fathers well, but Western Christians are largely unaware of the rich heritage of Patrology..

Jimmy Akin, a Protestant convert, Register blogger and devoted apologist with Catholic Answers, set out to remedy this deficiency.  Akin even sees the ecumenical potential of this project: If classical Protestantism sees itself as recovering pure, unadulterated Christianity free of Catholic dross, then how does one discover what primitive Christianity looked like and believed?  How does one begin to probe "the many other things" that Jesus did and taught, for which the whole world might not suffice to keep the record (John 21:25)? 

"A large majority of Christians today believe that all one needs to know about the early Church can be gleaned from the Book of Acts," Akin writes. "But if the inspired words of the New Testament do not contain all that the apostles taught the early Christians, then how does one discover the rest of what these early Christians believed?  The answer to this — at least for hundreds of modern Protestant ministers who have found their way home to the Catholic Church — is in the writings of the early Church Fathers."

The author calls his work a "handbook — you do not have to read it from beginning to end."  As in: Pick it up and see what interests you.

Read the entire review. Akin's book is available through Ignatius Press.

Here are some Ignatius Press books on patristics that might also be of interest:

• The Teachings of the Church Fathers , by John Willis, is a topical collection of numerous selections from the writings of early Church Fathers.
• Four Witnesses: The Early Church in Her Own Words , by Rod Bennett, is an guide to the writings of Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus of Lyons.
• Church Fathers From Clement of Rome to Augustine , by Pope Benedict XVI, contains general audiences that reflect on the lives and work of the Apostolic Fathers, the Cappadocian Fathers, John Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, and others.
• Church Fathers and Teachers From Leo The Great to Peter Lombard , by Pope Benedict XVI, looks at the lives and writings of fathers and theologians living in the fifth to twelfth centuries.
• Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers: A Manual of Preaching, Spiritual Reading, and Meditation , compiled by Fr. M.F. Toal, D.D. An extensive, four-volume collection of sermons from Church Fathers for each Sunday and Feast Day of the year.

The essence of Christian discipleship: "He must increase, but I must decrease."

First, here are the propers for the Feast of the Birth of Holy Prophet, John the Baptist, in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom:

Tropar:

O Prophet and Forerunner of the Coming of Christ,
in spite of our honor and devotion,
we are unable to give you worthy praise.

Through your glorious and noble birth
your mother's childlessness was ended,
your father's tongue was freed,
and the Incarnation of the Son of God
was proclaimed to the world.

Kontakion:

Today, she who was once barren
gives birth to the Forerunner of Christ,
the Fulfillment of all prophecy.

In the Jordan, John laid his hand upon Him Whom the prophets foretold
showing himself to be the Prophet,
The Herald and Forerunner of the Word of God.

The Kontakion touches on a simple truth, but one easily forgotten or fought against: the Christian is known and revealed for who he really is—and who he really should be—by following Christ, pointing to Christ, reaching for Christ, touching Christ, going into the waters with Christ. Any and all turning away from Christ diminishes who we really are and, if not corrected, destroys us. It brings to mind one of the most famous (and beautiful passages) in Gaudium et spes:

The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear.

Or, in the words of St. John the Baptist:

"No one can receive anything except what is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice; therefore this joy of mine is now full.

He must increase, but I must decrease." (Jn. 3:27-30)

On Ignatius Insight:

"It is clear, then, that John the Baptist's mission was essential: ..."

... Jesus' own mission needed it. In his Gospel, St. John interrupts his breathtaking Prologue about the Incarnation of the Word (which we Catholics read as the Last Gospel at Mass) to say: "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him." So that the Light of the World, the Light which of all lights could surely not be hid, needed someone to give testimony to him, needed John to give testimony to him!

Little is said in the New Testament to show why John's work was thus essential. Our Lord praises him indeed: "Amongst

those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist" (Luke vii.28): and he was not lavish of praise; pause a moment and try to think of anyone else he praised. But although Jesus says (you will find it in the verse before) that John was to prepare his way, it is hard to find any hint from him as to why any preparation at all was necessary for a mission as powerful in word and as studded with miracles as his. We are not shown in the Gospels mighty things flowing from John's work into Christ's. And in the rest of the New Testament nothing much is made of St. John's mission either. St. Paul never refers to it at all, though he must have known about it, since the only description we have of John's origin is given by Paul's companion and disciple, Luke.

Thanks to Luke, all the same, the Church has been intensely aware of John ever since. He is one of that small and immeasurably select band to whom we say the Confiteor at every Mass and daily in our own prayers. Great saints have been named after him—St. John Baptist de la Salle, for instance, who founded the Brothers of the Christian Schools in the seventeenth century; St. John Baptist de Rossi, the eighteenth-century saint whose own instincts were rather like those of his namesake; in the nineteenth century the Cure of Ars, Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianaey, who would have loved a desert but was never allowed by God to go to one. The number of not spectacularly saintiy persons. who bear his name is, of course, beyond counting—the great French writer of comedy, Moliere, for instance, was Jean-Baptiste Poquelin.

But all that this means is that the parents of the saints, to say nothing of the parents of the dramatist and of the unnumbered others, had a great devotion to the son of Zachary and Elizabeth, not that they had any clear understanding of why it was essential that Our Lord should have him for a Forerunner, or why be should have anybody for a Forerunner. What herald could he possibly need? Their devotion was almost certainly not to the prophet without whom Christ's mission would have lacked an essential element: it was to the child whose birth had been foretold by Gabriel, the child who had leapt in his mother's womb at the sound of Mary's voice as she entered the house of his parents with the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity in her womb: it was to the man who had paid with his head for telling the truth about Salome's mother.

From Frank Sheed's To Know Christ Jesus. Read the longer excerpt on Ignatius Insight:

Praise for "a brilliant new book on natural law from Ignatius Press..."

From a review by Jeff Mirus of CatholicCulture.org of J. Budziszewski's book What We Can't Not Know: A Guide, published recently in a revised edition by Ignatius Press:

One of the clarifying points in a brilliant new book on natural law from Ignatius Press is that we do not come to know the natural law by being taught it by others. The book is J. Budziszewski's What We Can't Not Know; it is a revised and expanded edition in 2011 of a work first published in 2003. The author rightly insists that the natural law is not impressed on us by others, or by this or that interest group. Rather, it is something we recognize instinctively, like the concept of "fairness". Moreover, it is something which people always refer to even when they are trying to deny it, as when they try to justify their deviation from one part of the natural law by appealing to something else in the natural law that their contemporaries more easily recognize.

Indeed, recognition is the key. While we all respond to the most basic principles of natural law as first principles that do not need to be proved, we don't always formally recognize that we know these principles, nor can we always elaborate their subsidiary principles accurately. In this sense, good teachers—and especially those who mine the hard-won and enduring insights of previous generations as carried forward by tradition—can draw out of us a fuller recognition of the natural law, even though they are not properly speaking teaching it to us in the form of an argument or even a bald assertion.

J. Budziszewski, a recent convert to Catholicism from an Evangelical background, a professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and a frequent contributor to First Things, has a particularly keen ability to help us recognize the natural law, and to elucidate both how we know it and how we may gain additional moral knowledge by reasoning from its deepest principles.

Read the entire review.

Also see my May 2011 interview with Dr. Budziszewski, as well as this excerpt from the book. Oh, and Fr. James Schall's April 2011 review of the book.

Revealing, Truth-Assaulting Sentence of the Day

Perhaps someone with more time and a stronger stomach than myself will take the time to wade through the dark depths of this NPR article, "The End of Gender?", which is the sort of "news piece" that causes me to ask myself: "In the great scope of things, faced with the vastness of the cosmos and the grand mystery of life, how warped must a person be to spend their time obsessing over 'gender' as if it is some sort of Rosetta Stone that will bring everlasting peace, joy, and beatitude?"

In fact, the piece has a sentence that at least hints, in many ways, at some answers to that question; here it is:

"Sex differences are real and some are probably present at birth, but then social factors magnify them," says Lise Eliot, an associate professor of neuroscience at the Chicago Medical School and author of Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps and What We Can Do About It. "So if we, as a society, feel that gender divisions do more harm than good, it would be valuable to break them down. " (emphasis added)

Here is what I see proposed in this short but disturbing sentence:

1. The foundation of reality and moral authority is not God, but "we, as a society". Man is self-made, self-defined, and, well, selfish, and that is not only agreeable but necessary for enlightened transgenderists such as Eliot. If humanity is self-defining, it will only define itself down into inhumanity. And this often is facilitated with an appeal to some vague but intimidating entity such as "society" or "the state" or "the experts".

2. The basis for making subjective but radical decisions about human nature and purpose is emotional; the use of the word "feel" is apt, even if Eliot might insist this is a logical, scientific choice. This is ideology dressed up in science and airbrushed with the rhetoric of choice and self-actualization.

3. The differences between men and women are not, according to the ambitious god-makers, natural and complimentary and benefitial, but are a source of division and discord. But, then, isn't this the very tactic of the serpent, who upon seeing that man and woman have become one flesh (Gen 1:22-25), seeks to sever them from one another and from God (Gen. 3)? The two severings, in fact, always go hand in hand. Always. Take it to the bank. (This, you might recognize, is a key theme in Blessed John Paul II's theology of the body.)

4. Further, the attempt to deny and destroy the created and good differences between men and women is presented as a triumph of unity ('break them down"), while the complimentarity of male and female is presented as harmful. The "logic" of this is frightening, because it is not merely asserting that people should be able to decide what "gender" they are (which is bad enough), but it is insisting that the very realities of male and female are harmful. Ponder the ramifications of that mentality for a few seconds.

Many of the great heresies of the early centuries of the Church sought to force union where distinction were needed (for example, collapsing the divine and human natures of Christ, or rejecting the distictions between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), while tearing apart what should be properly united (as in modalism, for example, or Arianism). Put one way, heresies flow from an incorrect understanding of a particular relationship. The modern assault on traditional sexual morality and human nature is quite similar, I think, in its distortion of right relationship—between man and woman, sex and procreation, love and marriage, etc.—and disregard for proper ends.

As Eliot's remarks about suggest, the "end" is merely whatever seems or feels good for a group of people at a particular time. It is not different, really, than two teenagers deciding to have sex because it feels good or they "love" one another. But taken an infantile, selfish desire and have it wrapped in scientific lingo and presented by a professor and—Ta-Da!—it's taken as a deeply meaningful and intellectually daunting act of inevitable progress.

I'll close what was supposed to be a short post with this great quote from Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week:

The world is "true" to the extent that it reflects God: the creative logic, the eternal reasons that brought it to birth. And it becomes more and more true the closer it draws to God. Man become true, he becomes himself, when he grows in God's likeness. Then he attains to his proper nature. God is the reality that gives being and intelligibility. ... God is the criterion of being. ... The functional truth about man has been discovered. But the truth about man himself—who he is, where he comes from, what he should do, what is right, what is wrong—this unfortunately cannot be read in the same way [as mathematics]. Hand in hand with growing knowledge of functional truth there seems to be an increasing blindness toward "truth" itself—toward the question of our real identity and purpose. (pp. 192, 193).

"Do NYT or WaPo journalists pushing for 'gay marriage'..."

... need to observe any level of accuracy in their claims? Or is any assertion, no matter how plainly wrong, legit, provided it somehow advances the Agenda?

My question is neither idle nor rhetorical.

In the opening paragraph of her essay against Abp. Dolan, Jacoby writes "New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who strongly supports gay marriage, is a Catholic accused by the Vatican of 'public concubinage' for living with a woman to whom he is not married."

What's that you say? The Vatican has accused Cuomo of concubinage?

The Vatican has said no such thing, at any time, in any place. Period. So, whence springs this patently false claim?

Well, Jacoby duly hot-links the phrase "public concubinage" in her essay, but to where, exactly? To (A) the Vatican website; (B) a published speech by the pope or curial cardinal; (C) a low-level Vatican bureaucrat; or (D) an anonymous source Inside the Walls?

The answer, folks, is (E) none of the above.

That is from Dr. Ed Peters' post, "Need journalists advocating 'gay marriage' observe no standards at all?", posted yesterday on his "In the Light of the Law" blog. He is referring to a recent post by Susan Jacoby of The Washington Post, an atheist who likes to use her status as former Catholic to launch rhetorical broadsides that are almost always, in my reading experience, heavy on sour snippiness and light on substance. Like so many others who have gone after Catholic doctrine and practice (Jack Chick! Dan Brown! Maureen Dowd! Etc.!), Jacoby often relies on the dread visage of Powerful, Menacing Vatican, without much concern for specificity or accuracy.

Abp. Fulton Sheen on four false assumptions often made in comparing religions

One of my favorite books by Abp. Fulton Sheen is Philosophy of Religion: The Impact of Modern Knowledge on Religion, originally published in 1948 by Appleton-Century-Crofts (New York). What follows is a short overview, originally published in This Rock magazine, of some points made by Sheen about comparing Christianity to other religions:

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen outlined the problems with the arguments that Christianity was derived from pre-Christian paganism, made in the early twentieth-century by men such as H. G. Wells, H. L. Mencken, and Sir James G. Frazer (author of The Golden Bough, an influential study in comparative folklore, magic, and religion). In Philosophy of Religion: The Impact of Modern Knowledge on Religion, written nearly sixty years ago and aimed at more scholarly works, Sheen lists false assumptions underlying comparative religion that provide a helpful apologetic yardstick for gauging works that claim "all religions are the same" or that "Christianity stole its beliefs from pagan religions."

First false assumption: Religion represents the primitive instincts of man and the "infant stage" of civilization and "progress." Thus, the religion of primitive peoples today (say, the aborigines) represents the religion of ancient man. The mistake here is conjoining "the lowest forms of humanity with the oldest." This is the mythology of inevitable human progress, which assumes that the spiritual insights of the twenty-first-century man must be of a higher order than those of ancient nomadic Hebrews or third-century Christians. It underlies the assumption that either science or "spirituality" (non-Christian, of course) supplants religion as man evolves into a higher state of intelligence, "consciousness," or humanity.

Second false assumption: The true religion must be completely different from all other human religions. Since Christianity and non-Christian religions are not completely different in every detail, "it is falsely concluded that the Christian religion is not divine." Christianity and other religions do resemble each other in certain ways when it comes to natural truths, since those truths "may be known to anyone endowed with reason." These include moral teachings, use of symbols, and certain liturgical themes. Even when it comes to supernatural truths, Christians and pagans still share some general ground, such as the awareness of sin and the need for a redeemer. The key difference is that Christians "know definitely that Redeemer is Christ." The distinctively Catholic doctrine is that God does not ignore or discount our human nature but perfects it through supernatural grace.

Third false assumption: Resemblances between Christianity and other religions are "possible only through plagiarism, or borrowing, or imitation." A distinction must be made between complete and partial borrowing. If the borrowing is complete, then Christianity is not unique nor divine. But "there are some elements in Christianity that are absolutely original," despite some wild and unfounded claims: the historical facts of Christianity and the unique doctrines of the Catholic Church, including the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Eucharist.

Fourth false assumption: Since the supernatural is impossible or cannot be demonstrated, religions and the history of religions "should be studied apart from all intervention of God." But "it is one thing to abstract the supernatural character from religion and quite another thing to deny the supernatural." Since Christianity claims to be supernatural, it should be investigated as if it were so. Failing to consider this claim, upon which all of Christianity rests, reflects a materialist bias, often presented as "scientific."

Also read the accompanying longer article I wrote for the May-June 2006 issue of This Rock, titled, "Jesus and the Pagan Gods".