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Gainful reappraisal - Presenting the Issue

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Winter, 2003 by David Bossman

The Second Vatican Council, in its decree on the adaptation and renewal of religious life (Perfectae caritatis, October 28, 1965), drew attention to revisiting the "founder's spirit and special aims" ([paragraph]2b) as key to the revitalization of religious communities, in response to Pope John XXIII's call for aggiornamento in the Catholic church. Aggiornamento was a word often spoken at the Council and thereafter, since it encapsulated the spirit that John XXIII breathed into the Catholic community following the long and painful pontificate of Pope Pius XII coupled with the disastrous effects of the Third Reich in Europe and beyond. The Church needed to be refreshed, aired out, modernized.

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The Council attempted to set the course for this renewal, and Catholics around the world greeted the invitation with hopeful enthusiasm. Religious communities of men and women in the Church typically had long histories of accretions that witnessed the adaptations these communities made to local circumstances throughout their histories. The accretions had become complex, cluttering the constitutions and customs, often more burdensome than effective. As a guiding principle, reference to the founder's spirit and special aims became the starting point. What did the founder intend when he or she set the direction of the religious community? How did that initial founder's charism affect the early followers? How might that charism be rekindled today, in the modern world, in new contexts? The founder's "spirit and special aims" was a good start for reform. Often, centuries of overlay needed to be removed before the founder's spirit and special aims could once again see the light of day.

Having gained a fresh view of the founder's spirit and aims, religious communities thereupon embarked on a process of renewal in ways suited to present-day needs. On a parallel track, following other pastoral initiatives of the Council, national conferences of Catholic bishops initiated renewal programs that accommodated to the needs of their communities in a pluralistic world.

Now, almost forty years after the Council, the beneficial effects of Vatican II have begun to wear off. Old habits are re-emerging, old centers of power are repossessing control from the national conferences of Bishops. Moreover, scandals have arisen within the Church's clergy and hierarchy, attributed by many to powerful institutional ideologies overriding realistic pastoral needs. Bill Keller, in a column published in the May 4, 2002 NEW YORK TIMES, Is the Pope Catholic? asserts that the clerical scandal in the Church is attributable to "a hierarchy that is intolerant of dissent, unaccountable to its members, secretive in the extreme and willfully clueless about how people live." It clearly is time to revisit the openness of the Council to pastoral needs in order to keep alive its spirit of vitality and hope. Toward this end, and now with heightened awareness of religious diversity, the Church may well return to its formula for aggiornamento, by re-examining the "founder's spirit and special aims."

It is worth noting that today Catholics have an improved vantage point for revisiting the founder's spirit and special aims. Advances in the social sciences and historical biblical criticism, already outlined in the Pontifical Biblical Commission's 1994 document, Interpreting the Bible in the Church, can and should provide valuable insights for better separating what was purely circumstantial in the biblical tradition from what contributed to better the human condition.

In the trajectory between the founder's world and our own, it is useful to take account of how the founder's vision was applied and adapted over time. A respectful but critical eye can discern when the founder's spirit and aims were lost sight of, misappropriated, of misunderstood. This critique can work, however, only if the founder's real life setting is well understood. Similarly, the real life needs of people today require close attention. Only then can a realistic biblical theology emerge for the present. Church leaders must make informed decisions based not on faulty and antiquated assumptions but on full awareness of present-day resources for understanding and interpreting biblical thought today.

The editors of BIBLICAL THEOLOGY BULLETIN have selected authors who inquire into the social world of the biblical writers, examining closely what moved the writers to characterize key biblical figures and issues as they did. This social world analysis is an essential starting point, whether for historical, literary, or theological criticism. In each instance, the goal is to decipher what vision and meanings the biblical communities derived from their founding principles.

The current issue of BTB advances this real-world examination as an aid for biblical theologians today. In her article, Of Eunuchs and Predators: Matthew 19:1-12 in a Cultural Context, Carmen Bernabe examines the wife-husband relationship that Jesus attempted to replace. In this study, Bernabe insightfully contrasts the model of marriage that Jesus taught in opposition to that current in his society.S.

Gainful reappraisal - Presenting the Issue

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Winter, 2003 by David Bossman

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