Below is a talk Mary Ann Glendon gave to Assumptionist educators during the recently-concluded Education Congress.
July 25, 2016
World Congress of Assumptionists
Assumption College
Worcester, Massachusetts
PUTTING OUT INTO THE (NEW) DEEP
Challenges Facing the Church and Catholic Educators in the Globalized World
Mary Ann Glendon
- Introduction: Putting Out into the “New Deep”
- Challenges of the “New Deep”
- A (social) environmental crisis
- A perfect storm: faith illiteracy and indifference, militant secularism, relativism
- Formation for “The hour of the laity”
- Meeting the Challenges: How are Our Boats and Nets?
- The Catholic intellectual heritage
- Catholic Social Teaching
- Truth and Beauty
- Globalization: Friend or Foe?
- “Making a difference”
- INTRODUCTION: Putting Out into the “New Deep”
I am greatly honored to have been asked to address you today, especially since it gives me the chance to express how much I appreciate the work that Assumptionist educators do in transmitting the Catholic faith to the next generation in every corner of the world. I am also grateful for this opportunity to exchange ideas with you about my assigned topic: “Challenges Facing the Church and Catholic Educators in the Globalized World.” It seems to me that those challenges are much the same whether we teach in religious schools or in secular settings. Indeed, they are much the same for Catholic parents who are, after all, the first teachers of children. And in fact they are the same for every Christian who takes seriously his or her baptismal vocation to “profess before men the faith they have received…and participate in the apostolic and missionary activity of the People of God.”[1]
Whether we like it or not, we are all religious educators. We are all in the same boat. Like Peter, James, and John, we’ve all been called by Our Lord to take our boats and “put out into the deep.”[2]
- CHALLENGES OF THE “NEW DEEP”
- A (SOCIAL) ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS
As I understand it, the purpose of this World Congress is to help each other steer our boats through the challenges ahead. Many of those challenges are not very different from challenges Christians have always faced. But others seem genuinely new, at least in their scale and in the speed with which they are advancing around the globe. If I were to try to put a name to what makes the “new deep” different, I would say that we are in the midst of an environmental crisis. No, I am not referring to climate change. I am referring to a deterioration in our social ecology that is every bit as serious as, and a good deal further advanced than, the threats to our natural habitats. Pope Francis recognized this in Laudato Sì when he said:
We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental (Pope Francis, Laudato Sì, 139).[3]
All three of our most recent Popes, in fact, have warned us that we are in a social crisis. Pope Saint John Paul II called it “the culture of death.”[4] Emeritus Pope Benedict spoke of “a dictatorship of relativism.”[5] Pope Francis often refers to what he calls the “throwaway” culture, characterized by materialism, instant gratification, relativism, and “rampant individualism.”[6] Put that all together and it means our little boats are in a perfect storm.
- A PERFECT STORM: faith illiteracy and indifference, militant secularization, relativism
Each element of this furious storm accelerates the others. A relativistic mindset fosters an atmosphere where more and more people feel free to “do their own thing”–regardless of the effects on others or on society as a whole. Relativism acts as a kind of moral anesthetic; it numbs the conscience and provides a rationalization for all kinds of behavior at variance with time-tested moral norms. Faith illiteracy and indifference encourage an increasingly militant secularism. This deadly combination of bad ideas with bad practices is hammering away at the rule of law, the marriage-based family, and every religion that makes strong truth claims and strong moral demands. No wonder that when we “put out into the deep” we often feel like the terrified disciples on the Sea of Galilee.
These changes in our social ecology are most advanced in the Western countries where they originated. But they are being carried everywhere on the winds of globalization, with the aid of mass media and international organizations. Cardinal Robert Sarah has forcefully denounced the spread of moral pollution from the West, saying, “At the risk of shocking some people, I think that Western colonialism continues today, in Africa and Asia, more vigorously and perversely through the imposition of a false morality and deceitful values.”[8]
Hardly anyone has remained untouched by the effects of living in what Pope Francis calls the “throwaway society.” The ripple effects have spread from the fraying of family ties, to the weakening of the traditional support systems that families once relied on in times of need, and to all the mediating structures of civil society–schools, churches, and workers’ organizations. The cost of unlimited personal liberties for some has fallen mainly on the poorest and most vulnerable.
(In the United States, as the early enthusiasts for liberty without responsibility have started to die off, many have requested that the song “I did it my way” be played at their funerals. I must say that if I were their lawyer, I wouldn’t advise that as the best tune to be singing as they approach the Last Judgment.)
“Hello, Saint Peter”
It is strange, is it not, that we hear daily warnings of long-term damage to humanity’s natural environment, while hardly anyone speaks of the deterioration of our social ecology that is taking place all around us, right here and now. And there is no mystery about whether the crisis in our social environments is due to natural or human causes. It is entirely man-made!
What concerns us as Catholic educators is that these are the stormy seas into which we are called to cast down our nets. This “new deep,” this new mission territory is even more challenging than the pagan lands that Christians evangelized in former times, because paganism was at least open to transcendence. St. Paul could stand in a public square crowded with temples to various deities and he could preach to the Greeks about the “unknown God.” But today all religion has been increasingly banished from today’s public square. Pagan wonder and Christian faith alike are increasingly being displaced by a crippling relativism and militant secularism.
And a society that has banished transcendence, as Assumptionist Founder Emmanuel D’Alzon well understood, can be a pretty frightening place. All the developments against which he struggled in post-revolutionary century French society–increasing state control over education, hostility toward religion in some quarters, and a discouraging degree of ignorance and indifference toward the faith among Catholics themselves—have now spread far and wide.
- FORMATION FOR “THE HOUR OF THE LAITY”
At this point, I must acknowledge that many of you have come here today from places where you face far greater challenges than those I have outlined thus far. Having served for four years on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, I am painfully aware that there are parts of the world where Christians live every single day in fear for their lives. I know that many your friends and fellow workers have lost their lives. I am deeply moved by your presence today, and humbled by your courage in putting out into the deepest of deep waters.
There is one challenge, however, that we all share, wherever we find ourselves. It is the challenge of forming a new generation of men and women who can play a leading role in the transformation of cultures that are bringing death and degradation to so many people around the world. We have been told by Church leaders that this is the “hour of the laity.” Ever since Vatican II we have been reminded with increasing urgency that this the time when the laity must “take a more active part, each according to his talents and knowledge and in fidelity to the mind of the Church, in the explanation and defense of Christian principles and in the correct application of them to the problems of our times.”[9] Time and again, we have heard that, where public life is concerned, the job of bringing the principles of Catholic social teaching to bear on contemporary issues belongs primarily to the laity. But so far as I can see, the laity has been slow to respond to that call.
The answer to “Who, me?” was, of course, made clear over 2000 years ago.
YES, YOU.
If we Catholic educators examine our consciences on this matter, I think we have to admit that no small part of the responsibility for the scarcity of laypersons who are ready to answer that call belongs to us.[10] Pope Saint John Paul often emphasized the urgency of training “men and women who, in keeping with their vocation, can influence public life and direct it to the common good.”[11] In Ex Corde Ecclesiae, he addressed himself directly to the role of Catholic universities, urging them to prepare students to “become people outstanding in learning, ready to shoulder society’s heavier burdens and to witness the faith to the world.”[12]
We all know that is easier said than done. But we can take a cue from Father D’Alzon who reminded his congregation that we have to meet people where they are. He told them that we need to teach in words that people can understand and to “be attentive to what is special in each student, …identify what is good in view of developing it, and mold character so as to give each person a certain stamp, while respecting the individuality of each one.”[13]
A century later, Saint John Paul II would give us similar advice. He said: “We must not hide the radical demands of the Gospel, but we must present them taking into account the needs of listeners.”[14] He advised us to try to learn from the example of Saint Paul who said, “I have become all things to all men so that I might by all means save some.”[15] Paul didn’t mean that he had to pretend to be something he wasn’t. He meant that he had to put himself imaginatively in the place of the pagan Greeks and other non-believers. That enabled him to find the openings through which he could begin introducing them to Jesus Christ. Just as St. Patrick used the shamrock to teach the Irish about the Trinity, and just as St. Paul found a small “temple to the unknown God” amidst the pagan temples in Athens, we teachers need to keep our eyes out for openings even in surprising places like the films, music, and literature of modern society.
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to pr