The Primacy...Over the Culture War...of Peace, Joy, Communion

My son John told me that his professor-mentor David C. Schindler does not favor "culture war" as the defining metaphor of our Catholic participation in society. This gave me pause. Schindler is possibly the smartest philosophical mind in the Western Hemisphere. He must be on to something. But for my entire adult Catholic life I have defined myself as a culture warrior. In my 75th year, I was facing an identity crisis!

It took me a while, but then it hit me! He is right! Sure, we are all, from our confirmation, soldiers of Christ, in a relentless spiritual battle between the two Kingdoms, and the Culture War is ALWAYS with us. But that is not primary! What is primary? Our baptismal union with Christ...the indwelling of the Holy Spirit...our communion with the holy ones...the final victory of life over death, of good over evil...our perpetual, invulnerable Peace and Joy and Love. So...yes we wage persistent, intense warfare...we do so out of a more profound serenity, confidence, restedness, fortitude, patience and hope.

What I see in Dr. D.C.Schindler (and his father and their school) is the quintessential Christian philosophical mind: wonder before the splendor, gratuity, superabundance, radiant goodness-truth-beauty of Being in all of Creation as willed by the Creator. He seems to be advocating a "politics of abundance"...that the errors, evils, dysfunctions, pathologies of our society are all so real...but pale in comparison to the raw, innate, inexorable Splendor of the Real. Such is an economics/politics/culture, not of scarcity and competition, but of super-abundance. Such a posture of trusting-grateful-hopeful-reception allows for an interior serenity, a decisive confidence, an energetic exuberance.

Such hyper-positivity flows inexorably from the Event of Jesus Christ, properly understood. From his death-rising-ascending-sending-eventual-returning surges the flaming-gentle-powerful Holy Spirit overflowing with joy-comfort-guidance-fortitude-prudence. In light of this, everything...economics, politics, culture...is transformed.

Yesterday's Magnficat profiled St.Otto of Bamberg in the early 12th century who somehow maintained good relationships with the feuding kings and popes but is particularly known for advancing the Truce of God and the Peace of God in the violence of the time. By the Truce the Church declared that certains times, feasts and seasons, were to be free from warfare. By the Peace, certain places, such as Churchs, were designated as free of violence. These strong initiatives created places of peace that allowed business, culture and society to flourish. This is the politics of abundance; the primacy of peace.

In our own time, to put flesh on this we need only consider John Paul II, the iconic cultural warrior of our age. He combated Nazism, Communism, and Cultural Liberalism with a ferocity and steadiness emanating from the deepest serentiy, calm, and confidence. He radiated joy, love and hope as he engaged with the evils and errors of our age. In a more quiet register, his partner Joseph Ratzinger did the same. These two embody the primacy, above and within the Culture War, of the Peace, Joy and Communion of the Holy Spirit.