Retrospective on München: The Homily at the Neue Messe

This is the second of a series of posts reflecting back on the Holy Father's talks in München, considering them in light of the recent controversy over the lecture at Regensburg, and placing them in the context of his earlier homilies, writings and other statements.  On the morning of Sunday, September 10, he gave a homily at an outdoor Mass at the Neue Messe.  Introducing his theme, drawing from all three readings from that Mass, he said:

"All three readings speak of God as the center of all reality and the center of our personal life. "Here is your God!", exclaims the prophet Isaiah in the first reading (35:4). In their own way, the Letter of James and the Gospel passage say the very same thing. They want to lead us to God, to set us on the right road in life. But to speak of "God" is also to speak of society: of our shared responsibility for the triumph of justice and love in the world."

The theme should evoke memories of his Encyclical, Deus Caritas Est.  In that Encyclical, he spoke meditatively on what it means to say that God is Love, and then drew practical implications of how the Church should exhibit God's love in the world.  The implications, set out in detail in Part II of the Encyclical, consider the history of Church charitable actions and efforts to meet the needs of the community for charity and justice, from the fourth century to the present. 

In Part II of the Encyclical, two issues were mentioned in the association of charity and justice, which entails a discussion of what the State must do that the Church should not do, and also a discussion of the roles of both love and reason in the Church's role within the State.  In the following quotes from the Encyclical, I have omitted footnotes and added boldface and italics for emphasis:

"In order to define more accurately the relationship between the necessary commitment to justice and the ministry of charity, two fundamental situations need to be considered:

"a) The just ordering of society and the State is a central responsibility of politics. As Augustine once said, a State which is not governed according to justice would be just a bunch of thieves: “Remota itaque iustitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia?" Fundamental to Christianity is the distinction between what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God (cf. Mt 22:21), in other words, the distinction between Church and State, or, as the Second Vatican Council puts it, the autonomy of the temporal sphere. The State may not impose religion, yet it must guarantee religious freedom and harmony between the followers of different religions. For her part, the Church, as the social expression of Christian faith, has a proper independence and is structured on the basis of her faith as a community which the State must recognize. The two spheres are distinct, yet always interrelated. . . .

"The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible.  Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church. Yet the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply.

"b) Love—caritas—will always prove necessary, even in the most just society. There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man as such. There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbour is indispensable. The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person—every person—needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. The Church is one of those living forces: she is alive with the love enkindled by the Spirit of Christ. This love does not simply offer people material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something which often is even more necessary than material support. In the end, the claim that just social structures would make works of charity superfluous masks a materialist conception of man: the mistaken notion that man can live “by bread alone” (Mt 4:4; cf. Dt 8:3)—a conviction that demeans man and ultimately disregards all that is specifically human."

To summarize those points on Church and State from the Encylclical: (1) the State must allow freedom for religion, allowing different faiths to flourish; (2) the Church must play a role in charitable actions within the State and also a role of rational argument seeking to bring about just policies; and (3) it is fundamental to Christianity to recognize a distinction between Church and State such that the Church must not try to replace the State but rather must recognize the distinction in its role.

To read those words now, the implications for the predominantly Muslim countries should jump out at most of us, and the implications for secular countries should also jump out at us.  At the time when the Encyclical was first released, however, some of the commentaries expressed disappointment that the Encyclical did not seem to be saying anything very pragmatic, and that it did not contain the kind of activism that people expected from Benedict XVI.  Yet the demand for freedom for the Church to flourish in China, in the Muslim countries, and elsewhere throughout the world was repeatedly stated, and the importance of people of Christian and other faiths in the secular countries was also repeatedly stated.  What was also stated is that the Church must work toward charity and must work toward freedom for religions, including Christianity and other religions, to flourish.  Thus, there are repeatedly stated implications for the Church in the West, suggesting that the Church must work through rational argument for religious freedom and charity.  The State never reaches a point where it does not need the Church. 

The role of the Church toward both love and justice are there presented as working together.  The Church must not try to become the State.  The Church must not try to impose Christianity on people of other faiths through force.  There is an insistence that we support justice for people of other faiths as well as for Christians, in our own countries and elsewhere, and that insistence is supported from Scripture, Church history, the documents of Vatican II, and a consideration of the present situation of the Church and the world.

Returning to similar themes at the Neue Messe, the Pope thus said that "to speak of "God" is also to speak of society: of our shared responsibility for the triumph of justice and love in the world."

In his  homily at the Neue Messe, the subject of the Muslim countries was never specifically mentioned.  Instead, his concern was secularism and its impact on faith in the western world, as well as the fear of that secularism when the west interacts with the rest of the world.  His message was one of the importance that the West not impose its secular reason on the Church and on other parts of the world, and that Catholics recognize the importance of their faith within those secular societies, and that we seek justice and love.

Early in the homily at the Neue Messe, he applied the Lord's Prayer to that effect, saying:

"Love of neighbour, which is primarily a commitment to justice, is the touchstone for faith and love of God. James calls it "the royal law" (cf. 2:8), echoing the words which Jesus used so often: the reign of God, God's kingship. This does not refer to just any kingdom, coming at any time; it means that God must even now become the force that shapes our lives and actions. This is what we ask for when we pray: "Thy Kingdom come". We are not asking for something off in the distance, something that, deep down, we may not even want to experience. Rather, we pray that God's will may here and now determine our own will, and that in this way God can reign in the world. We pray that justice and love may become the decisive forces affecting our world."

In speaking about the need to listen to God amid the increasingly secular West, he said:

"The Fathers were speaking to and about the men and women of their time. But their message also has new meaning for us modern men and women. There is not only a physical deafness which largely cuts people off from social life; there is also a "hardness of hearing" where God is concerned, and this is something from which we particularly suffer in our own time. Put simply, we are no longer able to hear God - there are too many different frequencies filling our ears."

In Evangelism, he emphasized the central role of faith and the Gospel, which must be part and parcel of the Church's charitable efforts.  Those efforts to work for justice in the world must be rooted in the Gospel of salvation and not in political philosophies.  This too was a point made in the Encyclical, which would set Catholic charitable and social action throughout the world in the context of faith.  The risk of violent efforts at social change is here mentioned in the homily, and the importance of reconciliation, the importance of allowing the Gospel (faith) to set reason on the right path, avoiding the mechanisms of violence:

"Social issues and the Gospel are inseparable. When we bring people only knowledge, ability, technical competence and tools, we bring them too little. All too quickly the mechanisms of violence take over: the capacity to destroy and to kill becomes dominant, becomes the way to gain power - a power which at some point should bring law, but which will never be able to do so. Reconciliation, and a shared commitment to justice and love, recede into the distance. The criteria by which technology is placed at the service of law and love are then no longer clear: yet it is precisely on these criteria that everything depends: criteria which are not only theories, but which enlighten the heart and thus set reason and action on the right path."

The central issue raised in that opening homily in Germany, speaking to Western Catholics, was most clearly stated in the following paragraph, addressed to the risks posed by secular Western reason as it interacts with the people of Africa and Asia:

"People in Africa and Asia admire, indeed, the scientific and technical prowess of the West, but they are frightened by a form of rationality which totally excludes God from man's vision, as if this were the highest form of reason, and one to be taught to their cultures too. They do not see the real threat to their identity in the Christian faith, but in the contempt for God and the cynicism that considers mockery of the sacred to be an exercise of freedom and that holds up utility as the supreme criterion for the future of scientific research. Dear friends, this cynicism is not the kind of tolerance and cultural openness that the world's peoples are looking for and that all of us want! The tolerance which we urgently need includes the fear of God - respect for what others hold sacred. This respect for what others hold sacred demands that we ourselves learn once more the fear of God. But this sense of respect can be reborn in the Western world only if faith in God is reborn, if God become once more present to us and in us."

In the paragraph just quoted, a key theme was stated that should be viewed as supportive of the Church, and also supportive of people of other faiths, outside of the Western world.  The fear of "the contempt for God and the cynicism that considers mockery of the sacred to be an exercise of freedom" brings to mind the very concerns of the Muslim world for the mockery of their faith in a cartoon earlier in the year.  In their protest against the mockery of their faith, the Holy Father here stood with them and supported their opposition to secular mockery of their religion.  This paragraph, central to his opening homily, was virtually ignored by the press who wrote about the lecture at Regensburg, and yet even that very lecture spoke more to the Western people who were there present, again highlighting the risks of secularism.  In placing the Regensburg lecture in context, part of that context should be the Holy Father's support for the people of faith in African and Asia in his homily at the Neue Messe.

Rather than presenting Christianity in opposition to Islam, he told the German Church that the West must regain its own faith in order to interact respectfully with people of other faiths.  This last portion of that paragraph bears repeating, in the wake of the controversy that later arose, because it most correctly states his position on inter-faith dialogue, consistently with his earlier writings such as the essays collected in Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions:

"The tolerance which we urgently need includes the fear of God - respect for what others hold sacred. This respect for what others hold sacred demands that we ourselves learn once more the fear of God. But this sense of respect can be reborn in the Western world only if faith in God is reborn, if God become once more present to us and in us."

He then assured his listeners that he would not support the imposition of Christianity on those who do not want it -- something that should assure anyone with concerns about the Crusades that his intent is on making room for faith in the secular Western world and elsewhere, not imposing it on others:

"We impose our faith no one. Such proselytism is contrary to Christianity.  Faith can develop only in freedom. But we do appeal to the freedom of men and women to open their hearts to God, to seek him, to hear his voice."

The importance of respect for people of other religions, and the need for faith in the secular West, are again mentioned in his final paragraph of that homily, summarizing and concluding.  There, he mentions the opposition to violence that he had recently raised in a series of messages, particularly as he spoke out for peace repeatedly during the recent conflict in Lebanon (see here, here, here, and here).  As an example of those earlier messages, there is his statement on July 23, so recently before his trip to Germany, “I entrust all humanity to divine love, while urging everyone to pray so that the beloved peoples of the Middle East may be capable of leaving the path of armed conflict to build, with the bravery of dialogue, lasting and just peace. Mary, Queen of peace, pray for us!”  In the context of such repeated statements in favor of dialogue and peace from a few weeks before he arrived in Germany, and in the context of the Encyclical, we should better understand his conclusion to the homily, speaking of the message of the prophet Isaiah:

"The world needs God. We need God. But what God do we need? In the first reading, the prophet tells a people suffering oppression that: "He will come with vengeance" (Is 35:4). We can easily suppose how the people imagined that vengeance. But the prophet himself goes on to reveal what it really is: the healing goodness of God. And the definitive explanation of the prophet's word is to be found in the one who died for us on the Cross: in Jesus, the Son of God incarnate, who here looks at us so closely. His "vengeance" is the Cross: a "No" to violence and a "love to the end". This is the God we need. We do not fail to show respect for other religions and cultures, we do not fail to show profound respect for their faith, when we proclaim clearly and uncompromisingly the God who has countered violence with his own suffering; who in the face of the power of evil exalts his mercy, in order that evil may be limited and overcome. To him we now lift up our prayer, that he may remain with us and help us to be credible witnesses to himself. Amen!"