The Splendor of Faith: The Theological Vision of Pope John Paul II by Avery Cardinal Dulles

Author:Avery Cardinal Dulles [Avery Cardinal Dulles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Crossroad Publishing Company
Published: 2018-09-18T16:00:00+00:00

The Church Penitent

As already mentioned, John Paul II maintains that sin, properly speaking, is always the deed of individual persons. But there is a corporate dimension to sin, since all of us are inclined to participate in the sins to which the social structures of our group incline us. The devaluation of life in contemporary society, as we have noted, disposes people to tolerate the killing of the unborn, the weak, and the aged.

Can this kind of structural sin affect the Church? Some would argue that because the Church is the Body of Christ, it is inalienably holy and hence impervious to sin. This is true if one considers the Church simply in its formal elements—its apostolic heritage of faith, sacraments, and ministry. But the Church consists also in a “material” component—namely, its membership. Every individual member is subject to sin, and at certain times groups of members engage in collective actions that are objectively opposed to the gospel and the moral law. Just as a nation can engage in an unjust war, so too the Church can corporately involve itself in wrongful deeds.

John Paul II in his speeches and writings regularly avoids predicating sin of the Church as such, but he repeatedly acknowledges the sins of its members, including popes and bishops.6 An Italian journalist has collected no fewer than ninety-four statements of John Paul II dealing with corporate misdeeds for which Christians and Catholics must repent.7 These statements range over a vast territory, including sins against Christian unity, religious wars, the burning of suspected heretics, anti-Semitism, racism, colonial oppression, black and Indian slavery, discrimination against women, and opposition to new scientific discoveries. While we are not in a position to assess the subjective culpability of our predecessors, we may and should acknowledge that some of their acts were objectively wrong. These collective faults, which have tarnished the moral prestige of the Church, require a “purification of memories.” To rid ourselves of this heavy historical burden, we must repudiate the attitudes that gave rise to these sins and ask forgiveness from those that have been injured, while at the same time forgiving those who have injured our own religious community.

The pope first proposed his plans for the great jubilee in an unpublished memorandum sent to the cardinals in the spring of 1994, in preparation for the consistory that met that year.8 More succinctly he presented the issues in his apostolic exhortation On the Coming of the Third Millennium. Conversion, he there points out, is the precondition for reconciliation with God on the part of individuals and communities. It is therefore appropriate that, in preparing for the great jubilee, the Church should become more fully conscious of the sinfulness of her children, recalling the time when they have given scandal and counterwitness to the gospel. The Church, incessantly pursuing the path of penance and renewal, encourages her children to purify themselves by repenting their past errors and infidelities, such as actions that have contributed to Christian division, intolerance and violence

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