Cardinal Francis George weighs in with a new book centered around the "evangelization of America" (as always, read "Catholicization" in place of "evangelization"). In the following interview, George parses his work and fleshes out a vision for dialogue both with American culture and the Islamic world. Especially interesting is his targeting of "secularized Calvinist Protestantism" as one of the church's prime enemies, his odd belief that sharia law is compatible with peaceful coexistence, and his recognition that many pro-lifers have a less than charitable attitude toward those who receive abortions.
The article comes from the Catholic Herald (UK).
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‘Dialogue with Islam is vital and possible’
Edward Pentin
25 December 2009
In his first book, The Difference God Makes - A Catholic Vision of Faith, Communion and Culture, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago aims to bring together some of his most influential writings on the Catholic vision - "not just of the Church herself, but also of all the peoples of the world", according to the book's synopsis. The publication contains the author's observations of Catholicism in cultures around the globe, as well as many theologians' perspectives, with a special emphasis on the teachings of Pope John Paul II. Cardinal George sat down with Edward Pentin in Rome to discuss the book, as well as give his assessment of the conscience clause and healthcare debates in the United States, and recent discussions about the approach of the pro-life movement.How would you sum up the book's contents? It struck me as a kind of handbook for the evangelisation of America.
I'm glad you see it that way. I was afraid that it wouldn't be useful, but that's what I have in mind and consequently it's something of a polemic against individualism in the culture, and against a specialisation that prevents us from seeing things whole. We tend to identify ourselves by individual choices, but the argument is no, they are secondary to relationships that are given.
Secondly, we tend to see things in parts, or at most from a national perspective, and so are at a loss to see things globally, therefore universally, in Catholic communion. Those two cultural proclivities are hampering us from living as Catholics.
You talk a lot in the book about evangelising culture and also the point about divorcing freedom from truth. Could you unpack those for those who may be unaware of them?
Both of those are from the papal Magisterium of John Paul II. Freedom from truth comes out very clearly in John Paul II's and Benedict XVI's writings, and he [Benedict XVI] spoke in the Czech Republic about that very point. The cultural point is that we do divorce freedom from truth in our culture because we see objective truth as a threat to subjective freedom. And subjective freedom is seen as of primary value, that which must be safeguarded at all costs even if we have to sacrifice objective truth and the search for it.
The danger and difficulty of that is that you cannot live free unless you know the truth, if you're enslaved to falsehoods of one sort or another. So if you want to be truly free you have to keep searching for the truth, or else you'll end up in traps of your own making.
You seem to suggest in the book that tackling secularism isn't so much the challenge as overcoming a Calvinist/ Hobbesian, individualist mindset in American society.
I think our culture is highly influenced by a conversation with Christianity and its Calvinist expression. So when it secularises itself it's not so much a rejection of God or religion, although that's part of it to some extent, although it's a very minor part. It's rather secularisation of Calvinist Protestantism. So you keep all the attitudes and the proclivities and even the virtues of that kind of faith while you divorce them from God. So there's this sense of responsibility to oneself, not before a God who judges us, but before ourselves. So you keep all the virtues of Calvinism - and they are virtues - but divorce them from the life with God, and you have secularised virtues. That explains the hierarchy of values in American culture. It didn't start as secular, it started as Christian, and a lot of those values remain even when the Christian support for them isn't dependent upon them anymore.
What would you say is the best way of going about correcting that?
Be Catholic, that's all. Since Protestantism split into liberal and conservative, you have had a danger of isolation on the part of fundamentalism and conservatism, and you have had a danger of assimilation on the part of liberals. Assimilation means the culture is the last word, not the faith. Isolation means that the faith has no influence at all. Either way you have secularisation of the culture. Whereas in Catholicism we say "we know who we are": it's a religion that's deeply religious, but it's also open to the culture. And so, if we are who we are, living our life together, in parishes, in families, etc, we will be a leaven that will transform the culture into ways that are more friendly to the Gospel than what you've got right now. There's no formula for that. It's a question of living the life thoroughly, authentically, not as an individual choice but as a gift to a community, and doing that long enough so society eventually makes changes and is transformed. And since we are very sensitive to popular opinion in the United States, that's very effective if it's done well.
And you see the liturgy as being central to that?
Sure. The liturgy is the great gift that tells us who we are. We are called to worship God in this life and in the next, and so the worship of God is something that characterises us as Catholics. It opens us up to the world. You move to the Creator of the world and the Saviour of the human race in order to go back and dialogue with the world and everybody else, the human race. So yes, the liturgy is the source and summit of our life as the Council calls it in Sacrosanctum Concilium. That doesn't just mean our personal life; it means our social, political, business life and everything else.
You devote quite a lot of space in the book to dialogue with Islam. Could you explain why you pay it so much attention?
Because even before 9/11, when you looked as a missionary on the world, you saw Islam was growing daily in strength and so was Christianity. So my point in the globalisation argument is that religions are a source of identity more profound than citizenship and nation states. So if that's the case, those who identify themselves as Christians, and those who identify themselves as Muslims, had better enter into dialogue so there is no violence.
That, of course, became far more urgent after the invasion of our country by terrorists in the name of God. So once you make the statement, as I did before, then you better say "here's how you might do it", and that's why there's this chapter on dialogue.
Besides the global scene, there's also the particular scene in the United States where we have large numbers of Muslims coming in as immigrants. Now, they're a very important and integrated part of our social life, so we get down not just to the global reality that these two religions are facing each other, we're facing each other in our neighbourhoods. We work out ways to dialogue and join where we can in transforming the city and respect one another even if we disagree religiously with each other, as we do.
You are quite positive about Sharia law, saying that it doesn't necessarily preclude peaceful co-existence.
It doesn't, but I'm not sure the majority of Muslims would necessarily agree to that. The minority would, so you go with the minority in this case. There is a way of interpreting it and it doesn't have to be an instrument of oppression, as it has been in the past, and as it is often, though not always, in the present.
Overall are you confident that Catholic-Muslim dialogue can effectively move forward, even if it will be a long process?
Yes, I think at this level at the Vatican, the way they're talking in Rome, Cardinal [Jean-Louis] Tauran [president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue] is doing a very fine job in finding dialogue partners. Dialoguing with Islam means talking with political leaders because they're the chief authorities. It started as a political movement and it continues to be that - as a well as religious movement. At the local level, it all depends. There are imams whom you can talk with, and there are those with whom you can't. Nonetheless we're engaged in ways that were unthinkable 20 years ago.
Are there any other reflections would you like to share?
I hope the book is helpful to some people, and they enjoy going through a lot of the things I've written before. Some things are new, trying to see this thread of a relationship running through everything. I've been interested in relationships in general for a long time and especially the relationship of Catholic communion ever since the Council. I began to understand what had changed in our understanding of Church as communion. So I hope it fosters reflection on those lines. You started off by saying it was like a handbook for evangelisation of culture. If it does that, too, then I'm really pleased.
Turning to a few other issues, for various reasons some people have spoken recently about a lack of charity, and a hostility, among some in the pro-life movement. What is your view of that opinion?
Well, it isn't only some pro-lifers who are occasionally disagreeable. There are people who are even more disagreeable. I would be very loath to criticise people in the pro-life movement because a lot of them have given 30 to 40 years of their life to trying to protect unborn children. So if they become overly focused perhaps on that to the exclusion of everything else, if even the Church becomes an instrument to foster this cause, it's because they've given so much of themselves to it with such a good heart. And it's the singly most important issue in front of us. As Mother Teresa used to always say: if you're killing an unborn child, what else can you do? There are no limits to human depravity. So it is of key importance, and these people have carried the burden. So I would be loath to criticise them.
It's also true, however, that we're called to love our enemies, and called to be charitable in all circumstances and there can be, in any movement, a sector that is less concerned about forming allies - however imperfect they might be - than about maintaining the purity of the cause and that can turn upon people, even the bishops. That is not productive and it is more from the goal that is being hampered that I would enter a cautious word of criticism than from any consideration about being charitable to everybody. It's counter-productive.
