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LODE WOSTYN, CICM

BEYOND VATICAN II: OUTSIDE THE POOR NO SALVATION

John XXIII opened Vatican II fifty years ago. The unavoidable question got at the center stage during the last decade because of the apparent backpedalling of the Pope and the Roman Curia: Did anything happen?1 Has the Vatican Council II been a mere ressourcement or did it realize the dream of Pope John’s aggiornamento (“bringing up to date”). When he opened the Council in 1962, he expressed his conviction that “the Christian, Catholic, and apostolic spirit of the whole world expects a step forward….”2 Pope John Paul II apparently did not read this sentence when he introduced the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994) by affirming that “the principal task entrusted to the Council by Pope John XXIII was to guard and present better the precious deposit of the Christian doctrine.”3

The debate concerning the interpretation of Vatican Council II was triggered off by a talk of Benedict XVI in his Christmas address to the members of the Curia in 2005.4 He presents a dilemma: the interpretation uses a hermeneutics of continuity (what Ratzinger called “reform”

1 John W. O’Malley, Vatican II: Did Anything Happen? (New

York: Continuum, 2008). 2 “Pope John’s Opening Speech,” in The Documents of Vatican

II, ed. Walter M. Abott (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 715. 3 Catechism of the Catholic Church (Manila: ECCCE, 1994), 3. 4 Benedict XVI, “Interpreting Vatican II,” Origins 35, no. 32

(January 26, 2006), 534-9. See Lieven Boeve and Gerard Mannion, eds., The Ratzinger Reader (London: T & T Clark, 210), 257-79; Richard P. McBrien, The Church (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 198-204.

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or “novelty in continuity”) or a hermeneutics of discontinuity (what Ratzinger called “rupture”). Benedict is apparently also not interested in “a step forward” of John XXIII when he instead uses John’s distinction between “the substance of an ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith…and the way in which it is presented.”5 He believes that the doctrines or principles remained the same; but in a changing situation, we have to develop new applications of the doctrines. Such a distinction between unchangeable doctrines and new applications leads to the dead-end of “non-historical” orthodoxy. Benedict’s fear of “relativism” makes him defend an unchangeable doctrinal tradition.

The result of Benedict’s intervention led to a polemic and polarization. Theologians had to make an option: spirit versus letter, rupture versus continuity, dissent versus loyalty. Those who made the wrong choice were not kindly treated by the Roman magisterium. Why can we not use “the shyning word and”?6 Vatican II was a renewed remembrance of the richness of its history (ressourcement) and at the same time a critical re-engagement (aggiornamento) with our present-day world that called Christians to be Church in a very different way.7 Theologians who affirm that Vatican II is a real aggiornamento are not “relativists” who intend to discard the doctrinal tradition. They know that a Council is not a

5 “Pope John’s Opening Speech,” 715. 6 Richard Rohr, The Naked Now (New York: Crossroad

Publishing Co., 2009), 180-1. 7 Nicholas Lash, “The Struggle for the Council,” Japan

Missionary Journal 62 (208): 154-60; 247-72; Lieven Boeve, “Revelation, Scripture and Tradition: Lessons from Vatican II’s Constitution Dei verbum for Contemporary Theology,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 13, no. 4 (October 2011), 431-3. See also Gerard Mannion, Ecclesiology and Postmodernity (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 207).

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session of a senate or congress in which the majority wins and can reject traditional doctrines. It has to arrive at a consensus; hence, an “exegete” of Council texts will have to uncover some new affirmations which are surrounded by time-bound traditional teachings. Consensus and compromise belong together. A perfect example is the Mariology of Lumen Gentium which proposes a new paradigm to express Mary’s role in the history of salvation: Mary as a woman of faith and as such a model of the Church. There is only one Mediator, and hence Mary is not Mediatrix, which means she only “intercedes.” And yet, she can be invoked under the titles Advocate, Auxiliatrix, and Mediatrix (LG, n. 62). Why this compromise which is in fact a contradiction? The Marian bishops who wanted a new dogma, Mary Mediatrix, had to be appeased and for this purpose the Council added some traditional titles from recent Marian devotions.

This example shows that the substance of a doctrine cannot be separated from its historical context. All theologies, including doctrines formulated by the Councils, are contextual and therefore need to be rethought and formulated, starting from new experiences of faith in a new context. Such “new teachings” will be accompanied by re-affirmations of the tradition. Richard McBrien presents a list of conciliar teachings that represent innovations.8 They are the results of the 20th century movements of renewal which survived the disciplinary actions taken by Pius X (Modernism) and Pius XII (“The New Theology”). The historical vision of the Church, for instance, as people of God and charismatic community, is as old as the New Testament. It got re-interpreted during the Middle Ages with focus on the Church as Body of Christ. It disappeared in the

8 McBrien, The Church, 200-2.

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post-tridentine theology and only re-appeared in the biblical renewal before Vatican II. However, Vatican II’s salvation-historical vision of the Church as people of God and charismatic community in Lumen Gentium received a neighbor: Trent’s hierarchical society with its monarch, the Pope of Vatican I. Vatican II had to settle for a compromise.

Vatican II not only changed “the substance” of our doctrinal tradition by responding to new faith experiences in a new historical context. John O’Malley points out that the Council also created a new style of being Church. He illustrates this style by analyzing its vocabulary: “from commands to invitations, from laws to ideals, from threats to persuasion, from coercion to conscience, from monologue to conversation….9 A style, which is how we behave, expresses what we are in our truest and deepest self. The Council embodied an implicit but insistent call for a change in style, “a style less autocratic and more collaborative, a style willing to listen to different viewpoints and take them into account…, a style committed to fair play and to working with persons and institutions outside the Catholic community…, a style that eschews secret oaths, anonymous denunciations, and inquisitorial tactics.”10

This is the style that was manifested by Pope John in his sense of humor and suggested by him in his opening address to the Council. Among the many stories of John’s papacy is a “dialogue” with Cardinal Ottaviani who presented a preparatory document of Vatican II, containing a long list of condemnations. Pope John did not argue with the cardinal. He just picked up a ruler, measured the length of the document, and said: “Look, cardinal,

9 O’Malley, 81. 10 Ibid., 83.

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there are thirty centimeters of condemnations here.”11 It is a pity that John’s sense of humor was not assimilated by his successors who added another thirty centimeters with a list of condemned theologians. Our Church apparently wants the chosen people of God to become a frozen people by returning to traditional doctrine, law, and Latin liturgy. The only valid expression of being Church seems to be the Western Roman Church which was exported to East, West and South during the conquest and colonization. We got the confirmation of this suspicion in the recent “reform” of the liturgy, producing a “new” translation of the age-old Latin liturgy.

The vision of Vatican II, however, will not allow the Church to withdraw again into the Roman fortress of the Councils of Trent and Vatican I. Notwithstanding all its ambiguities, Vatican II started an aggiornamento that cannot be undone. The Church declared itself ready for a renewed dialogue with the modern world that has been becoming a global village through the development of new socio-economic-political structures, science, technology, communication, education, and so on. Today, this world continues ever more to be in a process of rapid change. The world of modernism, based on human reason, is being challenged by a post-modern vision that questions the former’s structures of liberal capitalism, its political ideologies, its educational system, and so on. We are in an age of suspicion and deconstruction. We need a new kind of world, based on a new consciousness.12 One of the most important contributions of the Council is its renewed

11 James Martin, Between Heaven and Myrth (New York:

HarperOne, 2011), 112. 12 See Lode Wostyn, In Search of a Human Jesus and a Human Church

(Quezon City, PHL: Maryhill School of Theology, 2010), 19-30 (ch. 1).

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vision on the role the Church must play in the development and “salvation” of the present-day world. The dialogue between Church and world was re-started in Gaudium et Spes and some other Vatican II documents. While learning from the world, the Church can also contribute to the creation of a more humane world by offering its Christian vision of liberation, justice, compassion, and peace. Its vision of “salvation” urges the Church to join “in the ecumene of suffering humankind.”13

The use of the theological term “salvation” evokes a lot of questions. Can we describe “salvation” in new terms such as humanization, liberation, justice, empowerment, love and care? The answer to this question would need an extended study of the Christian doctrine of “salvation” in the Church’s tradition. For our purpose, it may be sufficient to affirm that the word “salvation” in recent doctrinal catechisms14 stands for the ultimate fulfillment of humanity and all creation. This ultimate future accomplishment of God’s purpose of creation, however, is the final step in a gradual realization of “salvation” within the present-day lives of human beings, of the human community, and of the cosmos. The understanding of salvation in our present time returns to the Biblical tradition in which salvation was a piece of land, a happy family, a long life, a nation in peace. Salvation is God’s gift of life; and within this gift, our human response is to live our lives to the full (“eternal life” in John) within a community and a world in search of greater humaneness, meaning, happiness, love, caring, and forgiveness.

13 Edward Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God (New

York: Crossroad, 1990), 189. Schillebeeckx mentions J.B. Metz as the source of this phrase.

14 See Catechism of the Catholic Church, question 1060.

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In the Church’s doctrinal history, this concept of “salvation” has often been narrowed down only to describe the future aspect of salvation: a life in the “beyond.” Its understanding also suffered from a dualism which honored only the soul and wrote off the human body as basically evil. God’s gift of salvation and grace has often been defeated in the Christian tradition by a story of sin and the belief in the depravity of the human condition.

The Church’s role in supporting this gift of life and salvation has also been conceived in various ways. As Christians, we believe that the gift of salvation was fully manifested in the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, the man of Nazareth. Jesus’ master symbol to describe this gift was the Reign of God. “The Reign of God is at hand” (Mk 1:14-15) meant that God cared for people and wanted them to become fully alive. When God reigns, people start to live in another kind of society where they experience equality, justice, forgiveness and love. The ministry of Jesus fleshed out this coming of the Reign of God. Jesus cared for people, broke all the barriers that divided people, and was committed to bring about a countercultural community in which freedom, justice, compassion and love reigned. His commitment to “humanization” in an egalitarian community wherein people empowered one another led to his execution by the priestly leadership of the Law and the Temple.

The early Christian communities understood themselves as “people of the way” (Acts 9:2), announcing and living the gift of God’s Reign. Their assembly (Church) of disciples was a “sacrament”15 of the presence of the Reign, a sign they wanted to share with their fellow human

15 Pope Paul VI paraphrased the word “sacrament” (mysterium) as being “a reality imbued with the hidden presence of God.” See “Lumen Gentium,” art. 1, fn. 1, in The Documents of Vatican II, p. 15.

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beings. In contrast, what would become the Western Church developed within Roman society which was in a process of total disintegration. Alongside this, Christians started to consider the Church as the only way of bringing about salvation and humaneness in this situation of decadence, cruelty and injustices. They came to believe that the Church was the only “mediator,” “the” sacrament of God’s gift of salvation. In fact, the traditional axiom “no salvation outside the church” was already taught by such early Church Fathers as Irenaeus (d. ca. 200) and Origen (d. ca. 254) and reached its classic expression in Cyprian (d. 258).16 Christianity and its Roman Church claimed to be the only religion in which people could receive the gift of salvation. We take the history of this axiom “no salvation outside the Church” as a prime example to show that Vatican II did not simply clarify previous doctrines because of a changed context. It also corrected, enriched, and at times overruled doctrines that were considered “infallible statements” of the papal teaching authority.

In the next sections, we will first briefly describe the history and context of the traditional axiom “no salvation outside the Church,” focusing on the papal declaration of Pope Boniface VIII. Then, we will study the turning point at the Vatican Council II which explicitly rejects this teaching. And lastly, we will show how the rejection of this axiom brought about a new vision about the role of the Church in the world, with special attention on its commitment to the poor.

16 Encyclopedia of Catholicism, s.v. “Salvation outside the

Church,” ed. Richard P. McBrien (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 1159-60. There is a detailed treatment of “No Salvation Outside the Church” in Jacques Dupuis, Towards a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997), 84-109.

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1. “No Salvation outside the Church” (extra ecclesiam nulla salus).

“No salvation outside the Church” has been a traditional axiom which was commonly taught by the Church Fathers. It also appeared in some Church Councils. The contribution of Pope Boniface VIII is unique because of the ruthlessness of its proclamation.17 The origin of Boniface’s Bull “Unam Sanctam” (1302) is to be found in his conflict with the French monarch, Philip the Fair. A disagreement about clerical taxation led to a first Bull, Clericis Laicos (1296), in which the pope threatened with excommunication anyone taxing clerical property without authorization from the Holy See. Philip went for a compromise solution but was resolved to break the power of the Church. After arresting a bishop, Philip started a smear campaign against the pope. Boniface responded with Unam Sanctam18 and decided to take the final step of excommunicating the king. Philip, however, anticipated this step and found a way to capture the pope. The people of Anagni, the pope’s native city, rescued Boniface but the eighty-five-year old man did not survive the trauma and died within a month (1303). With Boniface’s death, the period of papal greatness and Western “Christendom,” started by Gregory VII (1073-1085), came to an end. Philip had the papacy transferred to Avignon (1305) which led to the Western Schism and the definition of Conciliarism at the Council of Constance (1414-18). Conciliarism asserted the (or a certain) supremacy of the Council over the pope.

17 Thomas Bokenkotter, A Concise History of the Catholic Church

(Doubleday, 2004), 179-82. 18 J. Neuner & J. Dupuis, eds., The Christian Faith in the

Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church (Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 1982), 218 (n. 804).

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Unam Sanctum is a declaration of the highest teaching authority of the pope and would be considered infallible if we follow the norms of infallibility, formulated by a later Council, Vatican I (1869-70). Boniface’s text reads: “Furthermore we declare, state and define that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of all men that they submit to the Roman Pontiff.” The Church in this Bull is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. “This one and unique Church has not two heads, like a monster, but one body and one head, viz., Christ and His Vicar, Peter’s successor, for the Lord said to Peter personally: ‘Feed my sheep’.” (Jn 21:17). Boniface, as Peter’s successor, expected submission to the Roman Pontiff as necessary for salvation which meant, in this historical context, that the king’s temporal power was under the pope’s spiritual power. In a later context, the Council of Florence (1442) repeated the same doctrine when it told the Greek patriarchates that they had to submit to the pope’s authority.

The severity and exclusivity of the absolutistic statements about salvation in past Councils started to be questioned by Pius IX and Pius XII. The Leonard Feeny case19 rebuked the literal interpretation of extra ecclesiam nulla salus and clarified that people, in order to be saved, must in some way have a relationship with the Church, but actual membership is not absolutely required. This relationship is then described as “a desire or longing,” even implicitly. The “relationship with the Church in desire” was further elaborated by Karl Rahner who proposed the concept of “anonymous Christianity.”20 Humanity has a fundamental trancendental orientation. Any choice for the

19 Ibid., 240-2 (n. 854). 20 Encyclopedia of Catholicism, s.v. “anonymous Christianity,” ed.

Richard P. McBrien (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 62.

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good, in this view, implies some already operative understanding of, and an assent to the reality of divine revelation and salvation.

Rahner’s “anonymous Christians” was not well received because it implied the superiority of Christianity in a dialogue with members of other religions. In the context of the Second World War, superiority had created a lot of devastation. Christianity’s elder sister, Judaism, became the victim of the Holocaust. As Christians, we would probably not appreciate to be called “anonymous” Jews, Muslims, or Buddhists. At the time of the Council, the expression “anonymous Christianity” was dropped. However, theologians in past centuries found another solution – limbo – to avoid that “no salvation outside the Church” would send all the “pagans” into eternal hellfire. Limbo was described as a place or state where unbaptized persons enjoy a natural happiness, though they remain excluded from the Beatific Vision in heaven. This doctrine created a lot of anxiety and remorse among Christian mothers who lost their child during pregnancy or in child birth. Limbo did not enter into the Vatican II documents and it was officially “closed” and abrogated by the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith some years ago.

2. No Salvation outside the World (extra mundum nulla salus).

During the preparatory face of the Council, Pope John XXIII invited Christians to look beyond the boundaries of the Church and to read “the signs of the times.”21 He formulated three challenges for the Church: (a) dialogue with the world; (b) promotion of unity of all

21 “Pope John Convokes the Council,” in The Documents of

Vatican II, 704.

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Christian people; and (c) option for the poor. The Roman Curia, however, had very different plans: to re-affirm the traditional Church’s doctrines. They established commissions that had to prepare seventy schemata or proposals on a wide variety of subjects. The preparatory document on the Church repeated the traditional doctrine of a hierarchical church, instituted by Christ, and necessary for salvation. During the first session, only the document on the liturgy survived. The downfall of the document on the Church became famous because of the address of Bishop Joseph Desmedt. He described the document under three headings: clericalism, juridicism and triumphalism. After the rejection of the preparatory documents, it looked as if the Council would end in a debacle. It would receive, however, a new agenda through the intervention of Cardinal Leon-Joseph Suenens, supported by Cardinal G.B. Montini, the future Paul VI.22 Suenens proposed the following agenda for the Council: to start with a description of the “mystery” of Christ’s Church, to be followed by a twofold reflection on the “ad intra” and “ad extra” problems of the Church. He blamed the Curia for having focused on “ad intra” problems. The challenge to consider the “ad extra” issues not only changed the perspective of the preparatory documents that had to be reworked, but also resulted in a completely new document, Gaudium et Spes (The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) in which a dialogue was started between the Church and world.

Such a dialogue is only possible when the Church abdicates its triumphalistic conviction that it is in charge of salvation. The Council Fathers took care of it in the reworked document on the Church, Lumen Gentium. The

22 See Alberigo, Giuseppe, A Brief History of Vatican II (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2009), 29-30.

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first two chapters proposed “a new ecclesiology” by returning to the salvation-historical perspective of the Bible. The New Testament “models” of Church were re-instated: the Church as people of God – body of Christ and temple of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit was again in charge of the Church, although “She” (the Spirit) had to make compromises and was warned not to overrule the hierarchy; hence, “He (the Spirit) furnishes and directs her (the Church) with various gifts, both hierarchical and charismatic” (LG, art. 4). In baptism, the Spirit takes care of the rebirth of people into Christians, but this ontological change does not really mean that they are a priestly people because “in essence” only those belonging to the hierarchical priesthood are really priests (LG, art. 10 and 11).

The two examples of compromise can serve as a warning in studying the two decisive texts in Chapters 1 and 2 about our relationship with other Churches and world religions. Article 8 apparently proposes a new doctrinal position in our relationship with other Churches. After declaring that the Church has a visible structure, and hence can be “compared to the mystery of the incarnate Word,” the text states that “this unique Church of Christ… subsists in the Catholic Church.”23 This word subsists became the most controversial statement of the Council. “Subsists” instead of “is” seems to imply that the Church of Christ is also represented by other Churches. This idea is supported by Article 15 which maintains that other Christian communities “recognize and receive other sacraments (baptism being the first) within their own Churches or ecclesial communities.”24 The way towards an ecumene of Christian Churches appears to be opened because we are

23 Emphasis added. 24 Emphasis added.

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equal partners. The Decree on Ecumenism supports this conviction, recognizing that in the separation of Churches, “both sides were to blame” (art. 3). And yet, the CDF25 decided that subsists in fact means “is.” The declarations of 1973 and the longer repeat performance of 200726 explain that subsists means that “the one sole subsistence of the true Church only exists, is contained in the Catholic Church.” The 2007 statement adds insult to injury by asserting that “the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them (the separated Churches) as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from the fullness of grace and truth that has been entrusted to the Catholic Church.”

Article 16 of Lumen Gentium escapes from the triumphalism and exclusivity of the CDF which succeeded in undoing the ecumene of Christian churches that was formulated by Article 8 of LG and supported by Article 15 and the Decree on Ecumenism. The Council rejected the axiom “No Salvation outside the Church” by stating: “Those also can attain to everlasting salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, yet sincerely seek God and, moved by grace, strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience” (LG, art. 16).27 Salvation and grace can be met outside the Church; hence, the door of our fortress Church was opened to start a dialogue with the world and its many religions.

25 Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith (CDF). 26 CDF, “Responses to some Questions regarding some

Aspects of the Doctrine of Faith,” June 29, 2007. See Origins 37, no. 9 (19 July 2007): 134-9.

27 Emphasis added.

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Edward Schillebeeckx is one of the theologians who showed the importance of this shift of understanding of the gift of salvation and grace for our vision about the Church.28 For centuries, the Church considered itself as the triumphant possessor of truth and salvation. Beware of possessors of truth – they are destructive. Our Church is at the same time justified and sinner (see Luther and Lumen Gentium, art. 8). It may be necessary to be reminded from time to time that we are sinners. The Church that created the marvels of Western culture also committed the unspeakable crimes of the Crusades and the Inquisition. Our present-day Church which challenges the conscience of our capitalist world with its social encyclicals is also the Church which has been hiding financial mischief and sex-scandals of its bishops and priests. It supports participatory structures in society, yet makes “democracy” into a forbidden word within its own hierarchical pyramid. Schillebeeckx faces our present-day context and proposes to move beyond the triumphalistic “no salvation outside the Church” to a new axiom: “no salvation outside the world.”

We live in a global, postmodern and pluralistic world. In this context, we need some “negative ecclesiology,” abandoning our intra-ecclesial concerns by reaching out in dialogue and cooperation with all people of good will. The Church has to explore its role in the context of the ecumene (“inhabited world”) of the world religions and suffering humankind. We are confronted in our world with oppression and exploitation and have to search for the empowerment and liberation of all peoples in our village earth. As Christians, we can only bring this liberation if we abandon our claims of exclusivity and

28 See Schillebeeckx, op. cit. and Wostyn, 75-90.

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affirm God’s presence within this ecumene. It presupposes that we abandon our claims of the past.

Schillebeeckx focuses on five claims. First, we are not the broker of salvation but only a sign, a sacrament of salvation. Grace is loose in the world. The Church can only be a support group for transcendent experience. Second, we are not the broker of truth. The Church has a tradition of meaning which has to be preserved. It has to keep alive the memory of Jesus in a creative way (anamnesis), offering the living recollection of Jesus within constantly new situations. At the same time, we have to recognize the traditions of meaning of other religions. Third, the structures of the Church were not “instituted” by Jesus. He left us a countercultural movement which has to constantly recreate itself in changing contexts through the active presence of Jesus’ Spirit. The Church should consist of communities of inculturation and dialogue, searching to be present where Jesus’ God is present: in the ecumene. Fourth, the Church does not have an unchangeable essence (or “subsistence”). We should not separate “what is mystery” (“the essence”: God’s gift) from “what is secular and social reality” (the “appearance”). The image of a hierarchical Church as “a reflection of the heavenly hierarchy” has to be abandoned while searching for the work of the Spirit in a variety of democratic structures of participation and co-responsibility. Finally, the Church should not claim uniqueness and universality. Jesus’ God can never be claimed by a particular group. While pointing to the uniqueness and universality of Jesus for us, Christians, we should remain aware that we are pilgrims in search for truth, translated in a praxis inspired by the man of Nazareth and his message of the coming Reign. Salvation can never be given in a speculative, theoretical way, but

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through fragments of salvation, brought by Christians but also by other religious traditions.

This “negative ecclesiology” is not the last word. We have to avoid to being caught in a destructive, negative attitude. Negativity is the cholesterol of the Spirit. It clogs the arteries of Christian practice. One of my favorite authors, Marcus J. Borg, tells us not to worry if we abandon the idea that we are the only way towards salvation. In the present-day context, seeing the similarities between Christianity and other religions adds to the credibility of Christianity rather than threatens it. Borg explains: “When Christianity is seen as one of the great religions of the world, as one of the classic forms of the primordial tradition, as a remarkable sacrament of the sacred, it has great credibility. But when Christianity claims to be the only true religion, it loses much of its credibility. The similarities, it seems to me, are cause of celebration, and not for alarm.”29

The implications for our understanding of mission30 are a much discussed issue. As Christians, we continue to believe that the mission of sharing Jesus’ vision of the Reign of God with non-Christian remains a challenge to our discipleship. And yet, the manner of mission has to undergo a radical shift: from proclamation to dialogue, from bringing people into our “institution” to sharing life in a community, from communicating doctrines to telling the story of Jesus. Borg reports: “When a Christian seeker asked the Dalai Lama whether she should become a Buddhist, his response which I paraphrase, was:

29 Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity (Harper: San

Francisco, 2003), 221. 30 Wostyn, 91-106.

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No, become more deeply Christian.”31 Has the Church still a future? Christians should remain optimists, believing that they have a contribution to make by refocusing their understanding of Church and mission. We have to join humankind in its efforts to create a better world to live in. We need a common search for co-humanity and co-creatureness.

3. No Salvation Outside the Poor (extra pauperes nulla salus)

The context of Schillebeeckx’s axiom “no salvation outside the world” is the Church within the Western world. After Vatican II, this Church developed into a world Church. The local Churches were challenged to enter into a dialogue with their own contexts and cultures. Schillebeeckx focuses on the enormous change that happened in our world in the decades after the Council, transforming it into a global, pluralistic network of mega-cities. The Church can only meet this changing world when it sheds its triumphalistic stance and takes an unassuming stance, open for dialogue. A “negative ecclesiology” and a new axiom are needed to respond to the agenda of Gaudium et Spes. A dialogue with the world presupposes that we meet “salvation” and grace in this world. The “political theology” of J.B. Metz has shown the way to make the connection between faith and the “polis” (the city).

During this same period, the Latin American Church was confronted with a very different context: the reality of poverty. The first Celam meeting in Medellin in 1968, guided by the early writings on the “Theology of Liberation,” proposed to follow a course that was elaborated in the subsequent meetings of Puebla (1979), Santo

31 Borg, 223.

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Domingo (1992), and Aparecida (2007): “the preferential option for the poor.” These words did not yet appear at Medellin, but the idea did.32 This same option was adopted by the African (Secam) and Asian (FABC) Churches. The FABC added to this option for the poor the dialogue with culture and religions. Pope John Paul II extended officially this option for the poor to the whole Church in his Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987): “the Church feels called to take her stand beside the poor…” (39, 2).

John Sobrino captures this development towards the option of the poor in a short essay that goes even beyond the call addressed to the Church. 33 He believes that this is an option for the whole of humanity. The new axiom expressing the search for salvation should be: “no salvation outside the poor.” Sobrino omits the word “preferential,” a word used by Gutierrez and the Latin American Church documents. Our own Filipino “Plenary Council” of 1991 insisted on “preferential” and still added “a not exclusive or excluding love”(art. 127). For Sobrino, it is simply the opinion that everybody should take; hence, nobody has to be excluded. Before following the thought of Sobrino, it may be helpful to discard the word “preferential” and “exclusive” by turning to another important liberation theologian, the South African Albert Nolan. 34

Nolan points out that Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, the 1987 encyclical of Pope John Paul II, made a great contribution

32 Gustavo Gutierrez, The Density of the Present: Selected Writings (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999), 59-134.

33 John Sobrino, The Eye of the Needle (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2008).

34 Albert Nolan, Hope in an Age of Despair (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009). We abbreviated a passage of the essay, “Structures of Sin,” on pp. 150-67.

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by introducing the category of “Structures of Sin” to describe the situation of the contemporary world. It is a better term than the previously used “social sin.” In formulating the “option for the poor,” however, the encyclical keeps using “the preferential option for the poor” or, as the encyclical expresses it: “a love of preference for the poor.” Nolan believes that this causes confusion. The option for the poor has nothing to do with loving the poor more than the rich. The virtue that would be directed more especially to the poor rather than the rich is not love but compassion. Important as this is in itself, it is not what is being referred to when we speak about taking an option for the poor. The option for the poor is an option for the cause of the poor. It means taking side against the cause of the rich. Poverty is a structural problem. The poor are the victims of sin. The economic structures discriminate against them. Those who want to change this will side with the poor, and the poor themselves will have to take up their own cause. The option for the poor is an option that both the rich and the poor are challenged to make. Both need to be “conscienticized” to take an option for the poor, which is to say, to opt for justice. Taking this option, however, is not enough. Alternative structures will have to be created. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis proposes “solidarity” (38-40), but solidarity will need to be structured. Alternative structures are also been described “as structures of the common good” or “structures of sharing.”

We now turn to Sobrino’s essay which elaborates these thoughts within the Latin American context of the first decade of the new millennium. The axiom “no salvation outside the poor” is based on the conviction that we must change the course of history. Sobrino recognizes

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that he received this conviction from his mentor, Ignacio Ellacuría who was the rector of the Central American University in El Salvador. Ellacuría was murdered, together with five other Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter by the Salvadoran military in 1989. Sobrino updates Ellacuría’s ideas for today’s world. He himself describes the central theme of his essay: “in order to heal a civilization that is very sick, we need in some form, the input of the poor and the victims.”35 How does this very sick civilization look like? It is a capital civilization which Ellacuría also called a wealth civilization. A world, driven by the dynamic of capital and wealth, condemned to poverty the majority of people who lack the basic needs to survive in our world. We need a counter-dynamic which can be called a work- or poverty- civilization. We are on a course of self-destruction, notwithstanding some important achievements of our present-day world. The progress of dehumanization can only be stopped by a struggle to become and to be instead of the all-out pursuit to have. The poor can show us the way towards an authentic humanization.36

A lot of positive things have been said about the process of globalization.37 Many believe that globalization will lead to a world of change and progress where everybody will have the possibility to succeed in life. Without denying these positive elements of globalization, Sobrino believes that it shows more clearly that we live in a very sick world, dominated by wealth and capital. Globalization created the “wealth/capital civilization” that divides people into winners and losers, excludes and impoverishes people, and ultimately leads to

35 Sobrino, 19. Emphasis in the original. 36 Ibid., 17-9. 37 Ibid., 20-39.

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dehumanization. While the rich and powerful countries call for the elimination of poverty, and this is a positive element, they practice a savage capitalism that condemns the poor people to suffer injustice, cruelty and death. We live in a world that gets dehumanized by its selfishness, ostentatious abundance, and silence in the face of wretched poverty. Sobrino gives some recent examples: (a) the money spend on arms and armies; (b) the massive corruption; (c) the obscene large fortunes of the rich; (d) the money bandied about in European football and US basketball; (e) the forgotten countries of Africa; (d) and the total disregard for ecology. He qualifies his assessment with the following ironical observation: “What is most dehumanizing of all is that, even though such terrible poverty exists, we can go on living normally in such a world.”38

We are confronted with the task of creating a new civilization: a civilization of poverty. A radical conversion and change of lifestyle will be needed in order to make the participation of the “crucified people,” of the poor possible. We have to begin with the modest formula extra pauperes nulla salus. This does not mean that with the poor salvation already exists automatically, but that without them it cannot exist at all. Only the poor can lead humanity to a new civilization of poverty/work. Sobrino proposes “the option to let salvation come from the poor.” It is an option that is not easy to accept and requires a new logic, a new way of looking at and immersing oneself in the world of the poor. 39

First, we should not idealize poverty which remains an evil. We meet a lot of violence in the world of the poor, a violence created by the hopelessness of surviving in a

38 Ibid., 39. 39 Ibid., 44. Emphasis in original.

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capitalist world that exploits the lack of power of the poor. Sobrino advises: “First and foremost – to avoid the accusation of naivety – we recognize the mysterium iniquitatis that is present in the world of the poor…. But don’t let us have any hypocrisy either.” The rich can hardly avoid “taking their own atrocities seriously: Auschwitz, Hiroshima, the Gulag, Vietnam, Iraq, national security regimes.”40

Second, people, who live in solidarity with the poor and immerse themselves in the struggle of the poor, will discover the human qualities we need to recreate the world. They will find “something” new and unexpected.41 Seen from within, the world of the poor has vitality. The poor struggle to survive – (a) they invent “informal” work, they find new ways of getting food (a new Filipino word: “pagpág”);42 (b) they build a different civilization of solidarity; (c) they recognize each other as equals; and (d) they develop their own forms of expression, including their own art and poetry as well as their own religion and devotions. Seeking a “humane humanity,” many elements will be found in the world of “the poor with spirit”: joy, creativity, patience, art and culture, hope, solidarity. Sobrino mentions experiences of different countries where the poor with spirit can be met. A new logic is generated. The poor enable us to see that salvation cannot just be identified with progress and development. As Sobrino notes: “It make us see that salvation can come from the

40 Ibid., 80-1. Emphasis in original. 41 Ibid., 45-6, quoting Jose Comblin (interview in 2005).

Emphasis in original. 42 See Daniel Franklin Pilario, “Human Suffering and the

Eucharist” (a talk during the World Catholicism Week 2012, De Paul University, Chicago – not yet published). The Filipino word pagpág (to shake) stands for the food that the scavengers find on the dumpsite. They shake it to take the dust off, heat it, and it becomes their meal.

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poor. For us who are not poor, it is an experience of grace. The option for the poor is not just a matter of giving to them, but of receiving from them.”43

Third, the nucleus of the new logic is already present in the Biblical-Christian tradition. The Old Testament shows Yahweh’s preference for the poor and oppressed people. In Jesus, “the Most High came down into our history and he did so in two ways: he came down in to the human, and within the human, into what is humanly weak.” For Jesus, the poor of the earth are salvation and good news (Mt 11:25). He felt grateful for the faith of these simple people. Jesus’ ministry and his martyrdom contain a countercultural thesis: “Only a suffering God can save us” (Bonhoeffer). God is revealed in the suffering servant who joined the world of the poor. This is a great affront to reason. “But it is necessary. Left to itself the world of abundance does not save, it does not produce life for all and it does not make for humanity.”44

Fourth, after presenting the kinds of salvation (liberation) and the various aspects of the lives of the poor, Sobrino describes the salvation that comes from the poor in three forms: (a) as a way of overcoming de-humanization; (b) as positive humanizing factors we already mentioned; and (c) and as an invitation to universal solidarity.45 He adds a reflection on the way the liberation process happens. The poor are the victims of a capitalist unjust “civilization” and we may expect that liberation will not come without paying a price, without “redemption.”46

43 Sobrino, 49. Emphasis in the original. 44 Ibid., 51-3. Emphasis in the original. 45 Ibid., 54-66. 46 Ibid., 66-72.

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Violence has to be fought in different ways: from the outside with ideas, negotiations, and in extreme cases with counter-violence. But to redeem violence, it also has to be fought from within. We must be ready to take it upon our shoulders. The Latin American Church has many “anonymous” martyrs. They do not have tombs. The disappearance of their bodies witnesses for their belief in the resurrection. Among them is Conrado de la Cruz, my Filipino CICM confrere, who disappeared in Guatemala City in 1972. The case of Archbishop Romero is paradigmatic. His martyrdom led to “the resurrection” (liberation) of the Salvadorian people. God does not order us to suffer. As Sobrino points out, “[s]eeking suffering in order to find salvation would be blasphemy. But in the face of the victims’ suffering, it is arrogant not to acknowledge its saving power and allow these victims to welcome us.” 47

Fifth, Sobrino adds a short reflection on the role of the non-poor: “What salvation can arise in the world of the non-poor?” They can cooperate in healing a very sick world, “but only on one condition: that they share really and historically, not just spirituality with good intentions, in the world of the poor” He gives the examples of Archbishop Romero and University Rector Ellacuría. They went down into the world of the poor; they themselves received salvation and the poor were empowered as saviors. There is no evidence that our present-day world of abundance can bring salvation. What we experienced is ambiguous. Salvation can only happen when the non-poor actually enter into the world of the poor and work on its behalf.48

47 Ibid., 72. 48 Ibid., 72-4.

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Conclusion: Was Vatican II a break? (caesura)49

I find it very improbable that 2,400 intelligent bishops, the Church’s magisterium, needed three years to only repeat and “clarify” the traditional doctrine of the Church. It is more probable that Vatican II responded to “the signs of times” and put the Church on a new trajectory, notwithstanding the many ambiguities and compromises of its documents. The question of “salvation” is perhaps the most important issue that led to a break with a tradition that goes back to the very early Church. In a defense reaction against the corruption of the Roman Empire, the Church Fathers, while keeping a salvation-historical perspective, reserved the gift of salvation to the Christian religion: “no salvation outside the Church.” The corruption of the Church’s Empire and its papacy in the fifteenth century led to the critique by Luther and the birth of the Reformation Churches. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation created an either or situation: Bible versus Tradition, faith/grace versus works, a believing Church versus a possessor of truth and salvation. In the Counter-Reformation theology, the salvation-historical perspective disappeared and salvation became an “it”: “supernatural life,” mediated by the Roman Catholic Church.

49 Ibid., 75-8. Sobrino uses word caesura (break) in his

affirmation that Vatican II was an aggiornamento by inviting the Church to enter into a new engagement with a present-day world. We followed Nicholas Lash and Gerard Mannion in affirming that Vatican II is the same time aggiorrnamento and ressourcement. Gerard Mannion, quoting Lieven Boeve, points to the danger of using the word “rupture” because it could imply that the Council somehow rejected the Christian tradition. Lieven Boeve proposes the use of the epistemological category of “interruption” for here “both continuity and discontinuity are held together in tension” (see Mannion, 155-9).

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During Vatican II, the decisive change in perspective happened in the revision of the two “dogmatic” Constitutions: Dei Verbum (Revelation) and Lumen Gentium (The Church). The Council Fathers restored the historical and dialogical character of revelation and placed the birth of the Church within a biblical, salvation-historical perspective.50 The Church re-entered into a history and world where we can meet God. It is the Council of Jerusalem all over again: salvation was possible for the Gentiles without having to become Jews or to become Christians. Vatican II dropped the extra ecclesiam nulla salus. The Church was ready for a renewed dialogue with the world because grace has been at work in the whole of reality. Dialogue with the world became the new locus theologicus, the new theological context for re-reading our tradition. Gaudium et Spes was a totally new document that challenged to start this dialogue. After the Council, Schillebeeckx reformulated the axiom “no salvation outside the Church” into extra mundum nulla salus. He used the Council’s break (caesura) with the traditional axiom to re-interpret the formula for a globalizing world. The Latin American Church made still a more radical break or caesura by relating the message of salvation not to the world, but to the poor: extra pauperes nulla salus. All the content of theology has to be seen in relation to the poor. Then at a crowning moment for theology, Archbishop Romero reformulated Irenaeus’ phrase as Gloria Dei vivens pauper, the glory of God is to see the poor fully alive. Jesus’ counter-cultural disciples in our present-day world created a new axiom. It is counter-cultural, since the rich world thinks it

50 See Boeve, “Revelation, Scripture and Tradition”; and Lieven Boeve and Gerard Mannion, eds., The Ratzinger Reader (London: T & T Clark, 210), 13-17; 259-63. J. Ratzinger and K. Rahner played an important role in the revision of Dei Verbum.

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already possesses “salvation” and the means to get it, precisely because it is not the world of the poor. Ellacuría expresses it in the following words: “a poverty-civilization is an expression of God’s Kingdom.” The Church, joining the world, will hopefully meet the Spirit by being present to “the poor with spirit.” Such a meeting will be “an antidote to a society (and Church), suffering from “moral and humanitarian failure”of the wealth/capital civilization. The fact that the mysterium iniquitatis is also present among the poor does not discredit the formula: extra paupers nulla salus. The Fathers also called the Church casta meretrix, the “chaste whore.”51 The poor and the Church’s option for the poor are the setting for salvation not because there is no sin in them, but because of Christ’s presence and the presence of his Spirit in them.

51 Ibid.,78. Emphasis in the original.