Denver Catholic

22 OCTOBER 26-NOVEMBER 8, 2019 | DENVER CATHOLIC W ith his liturgical memorial (October 11) falling on the fourth full day of the Special Synod for Amazonia, which sometimes seems bent on recycling every tried- and-failed nostrum from 1970s, it was inev- itable that certain portside Catholic commenta- tors would continue their e… ort to spin Pope St. John XXIII into a smiley-face, chubby Italian grandpa whose approach to the future of the Church was some- what Maoist: "Let a thousand fl owers bloom!" If, however, the spinners had both- ered to read the excerpt from Pope John's opening address to Vatican II in the Divine O ce for October 11, they might have been given pause. For after some opening words of thanks to divine providence for having brought the Council to its solemn opening, the Pope had this to say: "[The] critical issues, the thorny problems that wait upon man's solution, have remained the same for almost 20 centuries. Why? Because the whole of history and of life hinges on the person of Jesus Christ…." He then continued: "In these days….it is more obvious than ever before that the Lord's truth is eternal. Human ideologies change. Successive generations give rise to varying errors, and these often vanish as quickly as they came, like mist before the sun. The Church has always opposed these errors, and often condemned them with the utmost severity. Today, how- ever, Christ's Bride prefers the balm of mercy to the arm of severity. She believes that, present needs are best served by explaining more fully the purport of her doctrines, rather than by publishing condemnations…. "The great desire, therefore, of the Catholic Church in raising aloft at this Council the torch of truth is to show herself to the world as the loving mother of all mankind; gentle, patient, and full of tenderness and sympathy for her separated children. To the human race oppressed by so many di culties, she says what Peter once said to the poor man who begged an alms: "Silver and gold I have none; but what I have, that I give thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise and walk. (Acts 3:6)." Insofar as it's remembered today, Pope John's epic opening address to the Council is cited for the brush- back pitch it threw at the "prophets of gloom" who see nothing but ruin in modernity. That was certainly said — and meant. But there was far, far more to Gaudet Mater Ecclesia [Mother Church Rejoices] than eccle- siastical smackdown. As I explain in a pivotal section of my new book, The Irony of Modern Catholic History (Basic Books), Gaudet Mater Ecclesia was actually the fi rst trumpet call summoning the Church to what Pope St. John Paul II would call the "New Evangelization" — the recovery of the Church's core identity as a commu- nion of disciples in mission, dedicated to converting the world. And as those excerpts from Gaudet Mater Ecclesia in the Divine O ce make clear, John XXIII knew that that evangelical mission would only meet the needs of the day if it were anchored in the ancient, abiding truths bequeathed to the Church by divine revelation: truths manifested in the life and teaching of the Lord Jesus himself, and developed through the Church's doctrinal refl ection as guided by the Holy Spirit. To be sure, John XXIII understood that evangelization was not an exer- cise in logic-chopping; most modern men and women were unlikely to be converted by the proclamation of syl- logistic proofs. So the Church needed a contemporary way of expressing ancient truths. But as Pope John insisted in Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, those truths must be expressed "with the same meaning and the same judg- ment" (in some translations, "…with the same meaning and import"). That was a direct quote from St. Vincent of Lerins, a 5th-century monk who wrote an important treatise on what we know as the "development of doc- trine." And it stands in sharp contrast to, and critique of, the bogus image of John XXIII as a pope unconcerned with doctrinal solidity and continuity. It took the Church more than 20 years to grasp the full meaning of Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, as I also explain in The Irony of Modern Catho- lic History. Today, however, the living parts of the Catholic Church are those committed to a truth-centered evangelization that manifests itself in compassionate witness as well as compelling proposal. The dying parts of the Church are those still misread- ing John XXIII. I grew up hearing stories about life in the coal mines. They were delivered in my grandfather's heavy Italian accent, and often con- cluded with a punchline I didn't entirely understand. ("Can't a guy make a u-turn in this place?") But other sto- ries were delivered in a more somber tone. They were stories about strikes and cave-ins, about brutality in the streets. One character loomed large — literally and fi guratively — in Grand- pa's stories. His name was Shorty Martinez, and he was seven foot six, or six foot eight, or however tall Grandpa felt like making him on any given day. Shorty carried a white-han- dled revolver, which he used to pis- tol-whip strikers, or to poke in the backs of recent immigrants relieving themselves outdoors. Which was how young Dante Bonacci fi rst made Shorty's acquaintance. Like most kids, I only half under- stood the stories, and thought of them more as fairy tales than actual events. I started to take his stories a little more seriously when I took a Colorado history class in Junior High. "Wait a minute!" I remember think- ing. "My grandpa was there. Only he tells it better!" Grandpa got another credibility boost recently when I discovered Upton Sinclair's novel King Coal. Sin- clair wrote King Coal to expose con- ditions in the coal mines of Southern Colorado. He traveled to Huerfano County three times during 1913-1914, just as my grandfather was arriving, to learn fi rsthand of the conditions there. Turns out Grandpa wasn't exaggerating at all. Every story he told was verifi ed in Sinclair's book. Most of the mines were controlled by John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s Colorado Fuel and Iron. CF&I recruited heav- ily overseas, convincing poor young European men like my grandfather that they could make a fortune in Col- orado. But when they arrived, gener- ally penniless, they discovered condi- tions signifi cantly less rosy than they had been led to believe. Men worked deep underground, constantly risking injury or death. They lived in rickety tar-paper shacks provided by CF&I, and they were paid not in U.S. cur- rency, but in "scrip", redeemable only at the company store. CF&I acted in loco parentis, providing the miners' health care, their schools, their meager shopping and their saloons. Voter fraud was rampant. Citizen miners were blocked from voting, or told who to vote for, or camp o cials simply fi lled out their ballots for them. My grandfather told me that if there weren't enough votes for CF&I's preferred candidates to win, the camp mules were registered to vote. Essentially, these young Perspectives The Catholic Di™ erence George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. GEORGE WEIGEL The ideological hijacking of Pope St. John XXIII King Coal and the dignity of workers Guest Column Mary Beth is a Denver- based real estate agent and syndicated columnist. She is the author of We're on a Mission from God and Real Love. She can be reached via her website at www.mblovesdenver.com. MARY BETH BONACCI

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