The Church’s social teaching will get across when people practice itFr. Enrique Colom lectures in moral theology (justice and the social teaching of the Church) at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome. He first met St Josemaria in October 1960, a few months after joining Opus Dei.Over the following ten years he met St Josemaria almost every year, taking part in gatherings with him when St Josemaria visited Spain. In 1971 Colom moved to Rome to continue his theology studies. He was ordained in 1974 and remained in Rome for the next two years. During this time he saw St Josemaria more often, usually in gatherings or get-togethers, up until St Josemaria’s death in June 1975. Starting in 1976, Colom spent several years doing pastoral work in Chile, South America, and then returned to Rome to teach theology. He is a Consultor to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and was contributing editor of their Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church. In the following interview he talks about St Josemaria as he knew him through personal encounters and through his writings. Interviewer: Did you ever think that you were in the presence of a saint? Fr. Enrique Colom: My personal contact with St Josemaria was limited. I think I knew him better through his writings, his guidance of Opus Dei, and the spirit he passed on to us. From what I learned of him in those ways I always thought he was a saint, because what he was really concerned about was our union with God and our service to others, for love of God. This was always clearly noticeable when you met him, in the things he said and did. His awareness of being in God’s presence, and his attention to people, showed in the ordinary little indications he gave, or ordinary things he did. He had the very deep-rooted idea that holiness on this earth does not mean being free from defects. He said in Christ is Passing By (no. 76): “I have never liked biographies of saints which naively – but also with a lack of sound doctrine – present their deeds as if they had been confirmed in grace from birth. No. The true life-stories of Christian heroes resemble our own experience: they fought and won; they fought and lost. And then, repentant, they returned to the fray.” Int: What were the most striking features of his character, in your view? EC: Love for God and other people, shown in self-giving. The natural way he treated you, which did away with any possible barrier. And cheerfulness. Int: What about his teachings? EC: The practical, specific way to aim for holiness in one’s own situation, one’s own family circumstances, job, etc. In short, he taught people how to fulfill God’s will in their own ordinary work. Int: Does St Josemaria have an influence on your study and work on the Social Teaching of the Church? EC: The Church’s magisterium has reminded us, and Pope John Paul II often repeated this, that the Church’s social teaching will get across when people practice it, rather than because of its inner consistency and logic. At the same time, John Paul II underlined the importance of work and the family in building up a society that is worthy of human beings. “Human work is a key, probably the essential key, to the whole social question, if we try to see that question really from the point of view of man’s good” (Laborem Exercens, 3). “The future of humanity passes by way of the family!” (Familiaris Consortio, 86). So everything that makes work and family life more human and more Christian contributes to the development of the Church’s social teaching even more than profound speculation about it – though that is also necessary. The teaching and practical help that St Josemaria gave on the sanctification of work (including the importance of working well both technically and morally, as a service to one’s neighbour done for love of God) and family life, undoubtedly made a significant contribution to the Church’s social teaching. Int: How did St Josemaria practice charity and solidarity with the poor? EC: St Josemaria taught us that Opus Dei must be present “where there is poverty, where there is unemployment, where there is sadness, where there is suffering: to help people to bear suffering gladly, to make poverty disappear, to banish unemployment by educating and training people so that they can get jobs, and to bring Christ into everyone’s lives in so far as they want, because we are all in favor of freedom” (St Josemaria, speaking on October 1, 1967, cited in Una mirada hacia el futuro desde el corazón de Vallecas, Madrid 1998, p. 135). In this area, as in all others, he asked us for “unity of life”, meaning that we were to allow no separation between our faith and our life. That is why his teachings have inspired so many people to set up projects to help the poor, to enable them to achieve a decent standard of living and education. Int: Can you give an example St Josemaria’s contribution to the social teaching of the Church? EC: Something I heard him say several times was that he would like to see Catholic catechisms include points showing that social action is a Christian duty, compatible with pluralism of ideas and methods in this field. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, do now include such points, and I hope this may become universal practice in the catechisms published at diocesan level. Then people will learn right from the start that they need to take part in social affairs, in order to make them more human and more in accordance with the teaching of Jesus Christ. St Josemaria also stressed the political freedom all Catholics have within the moral order. Specifically, he used to say that the whole life of the faithful of Opus Dei is – and I quote – “a service with exclusively spiritual aims, because Opus Dei is not, and will never be – nor could it be – a tool for temporal ends. But at the same time, it is also a service to mankind, because all you are doing is trying in an upright way to achieve Christian perfection, acting most freely and responsibly in all the areas of civil life. It is a self-sacrificing service that is not degrading, but uplifting; it expands the heart (making it more Roman, in the most noble meaning of the word) and leads you to pursue the honour and the good of people of every nation – to try to see that every day there are fewer people who are poor and uneducated, fewer souls without faith, without hope; fewer wars, less uncertainty, and more charity and peace” (St Josemaria Escriva, letter dated May 1, 1943, cited in Pedro Rodriguez et al., Opus Dei in the Church, Four Courts Press, 1994, p. 107). I could quote plenty more examples, but I think that what I have just quoted summarizes the social teaching of the Church. Int: In his recent Encyclical, Pope Benedict XVI refers to the faith in progress that characterizes present-day society – a limitless confidence divorced from Christian hope. According to St Josemaria’s message, what is the relationship between work and progress? EC: I have seen St Josemaria’s teachings compared to the Calvinist mentality which, according to Max Weber, led to the birth and development of capitalism and therefore of social progress. Such a comparison shows total ignorance of what St Josemaria actually taught. Calvinism aims at worldly success, which it sees as a sign of divine predestination. St Josemaria aimed for “success” in the spiritual and transcendent sphere, achieved by, among other things, working well. But even so, that does not necessarily bring worldly success or worldly progress. What matters is integral human development: the development of the whole person, and of all people. Worldly progress is not despised, but it is put in its right place. And that is done by sanctifying ordinary work, which does aim for worldly development, but subordinating it to spiritual growth. St Josemaria recalled this fact repeatedly. For example, he wrote in Christ is Passing By (no. 123): “Progress, rightly ordered, is good, and God wants it to take place. But people seem to value more another kind of progress, a false progress that blinds them, so that they fail to realize that, in some of its movements, the human race goes backward and loses some of the ground previously gained.” And in The Forge (no. 702) we read: “Professional work – and working in the home is also a first-class profession – is a witness to the worth of the human creature; a chance to develop one’s own personality; a bond of union with others; a fund of resources; a way of helping in the improvement of the society we live in, and of promoting the progress of the whole human race... For a Christian, these grand views become even deeper and wider. Because work, which Christ took up as something both redeemed and redeeming, becomes a means, a way of holiness, a specific task which sanctifies and can be sanctified.” http://www.josemariaescriva.info/article/the-church92s-social-teaching-will-get-across-when-people-practice-it |