Denver Catholic

22 JANUARY 28-FEBRUARY 10, 2017 | DENVER CATHOLIC Perspectives Theology isn't math; but it is theology D uring the heyday of the Sol- idarity movement, a famous Polish slogan had it that, "For Poland to be Poland, 2 + 2 Must Always = 4". It was a quirky but pointed way of chal- lenging the communist culture of the lie, which befogged public life and warped relation- ships between parents and children, husbands and wives, colleagues and neighbors. For Poland to be some- thing other than the claustrophobic Soviet puppet-state it had been since 1945 — for Poland to be itself, true to its character and history — Poland had to live in the truth: it had to be a country in which 2 + 2 always equaled 4. That Solidarity slogan harkened back to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. In Orwell's dystopian novel, a totalitarian state maintains social control by obfuscating reality, using what the British author called "Newspeak and doublethink" to compel its subjects to acknowledge as true what they know is false. Thus one of the more odious of the char- acters in the novel, a regime stooge whose job is to break the will of "thought criminals," explains that if Big Brother and the omnipotent Party say so, two plus two doesn't necessar- ily equal four: "Sometimes they are fi ve. Sometimes they are three. Some- times they are all of them at once." Which brings us to a tweet earlier this month from Father Antonio Spadaro, SJ, a prominent fi gure on the current Roman scene. I don't use Twitter, so its syntacti- cal wonderland is a bit foreign to me. And having had previous experience of Father Spadaro's capacity for prov- ocation-via-Twitter, I'm prepared to think that, in this case, he may have been trying to say something other than what he seemed to be saying. But as his tweet rang ominous bells for anyone familiar with Orwell or Soli- darity, it's worth refl ecting upon. Here's what Father Spadaro tweeted (in linear, rather than Twit- ter, format): "Theology is not Mathe- matics. 2 + 2 in Theology can make 5. Because it has to do with God and real life of people." Now that was not, so to speak, a tweet in a vacuum. It was a message projected into an already-overheated Catholic conversation about the proper interpretation of the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. In that context, the charitable reading of the tweet is that Father Spadaro was reminding us of the obvious — that pastoral care is an art, and that the priest dealing with complicated and messy human situations is not like a fi rst-grade teacher drilling six-year olds in addition. But then the question inevitably arises, what is the relationship of truth to pastoral care? And why sug- gest, even in Twitter-world, that there are multiple "truths" — a convention of the post-modern academic playpen that leads by a short road to the chaos of "your truth" and "my truth" and nothing properly describable as the truth? As for theology, the word means speaking-of- God, which in Christian terms speaking of the One who is Truth — the Truth Who makes us free in the deepest meaning of human liberation. There are many ways of doing theology, and not all of them are strictly syllogistic; St. Ephrem the Syrian and St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Doctors of the Church, were not logicians. But if theology decays into illogical forms of Newspeak, it is false to itself. It was providential that Christi- anity had its fi rst "inculturation" in a milieu — Greco-Roman antiquity — where the principle of non-con- tradiction was well-established and something couldn't "be" and "not be" simultaneously. That cultural environment was where Christianity found the conceptual tools to turn confession and proclamation – "Jesus is Lord" — into catechesis and Creed. Suppose the fi rst "inculturation" had been in a setting where it made per- fect sense to say "Jesus is Lord" and "Jesus is not Lord" at the same time — like the culture of India two millennia ago? It made a great deal of diŠ erence that the fi rst formative centuries of Christianity took place in a culture where 2 + 2 always equaled 4. Applying the truths of the faith to the complexities of life is not a matter of logic alone. But if attempts to do so are illogical, in that they stretch truth to the breaking point, they're unlikely to be pastorally eŠ ective. Because the soul needs truth to be free. The Catholic Di© erence George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. GEORGE WEIGEL Scorcese's Silence and the seaside martyrs I have long been an ardent fan of Martin Scorsese's fi lms. Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, The Last Waltz, Casino, etc. are among the defi n- ing movies of the last forty years. And The Departed, Scorsese's 2007 crime drama, was the subject matter of the fi rst YouTube commentary that I ever did. It is certainly the case, furthermore, that the director's Catholicism, how- ever mitigated and confl icted, comes through in most of his work. His most recent oŠ ering, the much-anticipated Silence, based upon the Shusaku Endo novel of the same name, is a worthy addition to the Scorsese oeuvre. Like so many of his other fi lms, it is marked by gorgeous cinematography, outstanding performances from both lead and supporting actors, a gripping narrative, and enough thematic com- plexity to keep you thinking for the foreseeable future. The story is set in mid-seventeenth century Japan, where a fi erce perse- cution of the Catholic faith is under- way. To this dangerous country come two young Jesuit priests (played by Adam Driver and Andrew Garfi eld), spiritual descendants of St. Francis Xavier, sent to fi nd Fr. Ferreira, their mentor and seminary professor who, rumor has it, had apostatized under torture and actually gone over to the other side. Immediately upon arriv- ing onshore, they are met by a small group of Japanese Christians who had been maintaining their faith under- ground for many years. Due to the extreme danger, the young priests are forced into hiding during the day, but they are able to engage in clandestine ministry at night: baptizing, cate- chizing, confessing, celebrating the Mass. In rather short order, however, the authorities get wind of their presence, and suspected Christians are rounded up and tortured in the hopes of luring the priests out into the open. The single most memora- ble scene in the fi lm, at least for me, was the sea-side crucifi xion of four of these courageous lay believers. Tied to crosses by the shore, they are, in the course of several days, buŠ eted by the incoming tide until they drown. Afterwards, their bodies are placed on pyres of straw and they are burned to ashes, appearing for all the world like holocausts oŠ ered to the Lord. In time, the priests are captured and subjected to a unique and terrible form of psychological torture. The fi lm focuses on the struggles of Fr. Rodrigues. As Japanese Christians, men and women who had risked their lives to protect him, are tortured in his presence, he is invited to renounce his faith and thereby put an end to their torment. If only he would trample on a Christian image, even as a mere external sign, an empty formality, he would free his colleagues from their pain. A good warrior, he refuses. Even when a Japanese Christian is beheaded, he doesn't give in. Finally, and it is the most devastating scene in the movie, he is brought to Fr. Fer- reira, the mentor whom he had been seeking since his arrival in Japan. All the rumors are true: this former master of the Christian life, this Jesuit hero, has renounced his faith, taken a Japanese wife, and is living as a sort of philosopher under the protection of the state. Using a variety of arguments, the disgraced priest tries to convince his former student to give up the quest to evangelize Japan, which he charac- terized as a "swamp" where the seed of Christianity can never take root. The next day, in the presence of Christians being horrifi cally tortured, hung upside down inside a pit fi lled BISHOP ROBERT BARRON Guest Column Bishop Robert Barron is the founder of the global ministry, Word on Fire, and Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles. He is the creator of the award winning documentary series "Catholicism."

• Cover