 The
Battle Is Round The King
Raniero Cantalamessa OFM Cap, the preacher to the papal household, stresses the primacy of the person of Jesus Christ as the key unifying factor for all Christians in the face of the challenge of religious pluralism
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If you go into St. Peter’s Square in Rome, your eye is immediately drawn to the obelisk at the centre. From whatever point you take in the view, the obelisk always draws the eye. Like the mainmast of a yacht, it gives balance to the whole. Jesus Christ is the obelisk at the centre of the Church; it is to him that all eyes should always be turned and to him that all Christians should be attentive. He is the mainmast giving stability to everything in the Church. I will try to explain why it seems to me important that we should be especially mindful of this fact today. The crucial issue at the beginning of the third millennium is no longer the same that led to the separation of the East and West at the beginning of the second millennium, nor is it the same that later on led to the division within Western Christianity between Protestant and Catholic. The controversies between East and West were about the doctrine of the Filioque (whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, or from the Father and the Son), whether to use leavened or unleavened bread for the Eucharist, and whether to omit the Alleluia or sing it during Lent. Can we say that these are still problems of vital concern among those to whom we need to proclaim the Gospel today? The questions that provoked the separation from Rome of the Churches that issued from the Reformation during the sixteenth century were chiefl y those of indulgences and how sinners are justified. But again, can we really say that these are problems by which our faith will stand or fall today? At a conference held at the Pro Unione Centre in Rome, Cardinal Walter Kasper very rightly drew attention to the fact that, whereas for Luther existential problem number one was how to overcome the pervading sense of guilt and gain God’s benevolence, today the problem is exactly the opposite: how to give back to the people of today that true sense of sin that they have totally lost. In an age in which everyone, starting from the New Age, speaks of salvation as something human beings must find in themselves, how are we to proclaim once more Paul’s message, “that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3: 24) and that we have need of a Saviour? I am a Catholic (and an Italian at that!), but I have to say that there are times when I wish that Germany would give another Luther to the world of today because, certain particular doctrines and controversial points aside, Luther for me is the man whose faith in Jesus Christ was more rock-solid than granite. It was he who said, “To lose Christ is to lose all. To possess Christ is to possess all: if Christ is mine, I possess all and can find all”. “In the 3rd millennium it is the person of Jesus Christ himself that is the real point of issue” In the tales of medieval battles, there always comes a moment when the orderly ranks of archers and cavalry and all the rest are broken and the fighting concentrates around the king. That is where the final outcome of the battle will be decided. For us too, the battle today is taking place around the king…. It is the person of Jesus Christ himself that is the real point at issue. The question that was asked at the beginning is being asked once more: “And you, who do you say that I am?” (Mt 16: 15). Similar social situation to the early Church Our situation, in the post-Christian world, is in many aspects similar to the situation of the early church in the pre- Christian world, and we should be able to draw some light from that. At that 13 time there was no Christian philosophy or Christian art or literature that made it possible to be “Christian by culture” and nothing else; there were no “concordats” with states to protect the interests of the Church. There was only the power of a name, Jesus Christ, and that was enough to change the world. We need to rediscover the unique power power of that name. What does Jesus Christ mean to us Christians in the era of mass communications? Faith in Jesus Christ, over the last three centuries, has overcome the great challenge of historical criticism; will it overcome today’s no less formidable challenge of religious pluralism? Today we tend, and rightly, to recognise in other religions their own dignity and their own role in the divine plan of salvation. The Council (in the decree Nostra Aetate) acknowledged the acknowledged the Aetate elements of goodness and truth present in other religions and makes it clear that God doesn’t merely “tolerate” what is good; rather, rather he “wants” it and makes the most of it, even if it is accompanied by elements that are not good. The Old Testament too contains elements which are passing and morally unacceptable, but this doesn’t prevent us from recognising its immense religious value. We need to rediscover the “unique” power of that name The crucial point is to know whether the recognition of the proper dignity of other religions constrains us to see them as having no link at all to Christ Incarnate or to his paschal mystery, and see them as parallel ways of salvation, utterly independent of Christ. Some say that “a particular event, limited in time and space as the Christ of the incarnation was, cannot exhaust the infinite potential for salvation in God and his eternal Word”. That is true, but it can realise enough of that infinite potential for salvation to save a world which itself is limited in space and time! A theological current today holds that Christ came for the salvation of the Gentiles, not the Jews (for whom, they say, it is sufficient to remain faithful to the Old Covenant). Another current says that he is not necessary for the Gentiles either, since they, through their religions, have a direct relationship with the eternal Logos and have no need of any mediation by the Word Incarnate or his paschal mystery. We may well ask, for whom then is Christ still necessary? Have we lost sight of the principal point of the Pauline message? If I stress this point, it is not in order to prove the superiority of our religion above others, rather that we do not betray the central nucleus of the New Testament. I believe that all the hundreds of years of discussion on the question of faith and works between Protestants and Catholics have caused us to lose sight of the principal point of the Pauline message. What the Apostle was above all at pains to proclaim in Romans 3 was not that we are justified by faith, but that we are justified by faith in Christ; not so much that we are justified through grace, but rather that we are justified through the grace of Christ. Christ himself is the heart of the message, at a deeper level than faith and grace. In chapters 1 and 2 of his Letter, Paul had set out to show humanity as universally in a state of sin and perdition. And then he has the incredible courage to proclaim that this universal situation has been radically changed “through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Rom 3: 24). The affirmation that this salvation is received by faith and not by works is certainly present in the text, and in Luther’s day it was the point that needed most urgently to be brought back focus. Yet it remains secondary to the main point. The mistake we have made has been to reduce to a matter of discussion between schools of thought within Christianity something that for the Apostle was an affirmation of much greater and universal importance. Today we have reached fundamental concord on this point that used to divide us (see the document issued in 1999 jointly by the Catholic Church and the World Federation of Lutheran Churches); we are now challenged to rediscover and together proclaim what was the fundamental point in Paul’s teaching. For some, this sudden awareness may provoke the same shock that the famous Turm-Erlebnis, the “Tower-experience”, provoked in Luther. In any case, that’s what it has provoked in me. How to dialogue with other religions and proclaim Christ without compromise The apostle Paul has something important to say to us on how to engage both in dialogue with other religions and in proclaiming Christ without in any way compromising either of the two. He teaches us to base our evangelising on a positive motive, not on a negative one; we do not need to argue that if people do not know Christ they cannot be saved (the old “extra ecclesiam nulla salus”), but rather to proclaim Christ’s love for all humankind. “The love of Christ overwhelms us”, he writes, “when we refl ect that one man has died for all... ” (2 Cor 5: 14). Paul proclaims Christ because he is convinced of the immensity of the gift that Christ is for the whole world. Not to proclaim Christ would have been to him to conceal the gift and defraud the world of something it can rightfully claim – in short, a terrible infi delity and a terrible responsibility. Hence his cry, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor 9: 16). Immensity of the gift of Christ for the whole world “If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen to what the Spirit is saying to the Churches” (Rev 3: 13). The Holy Spirit is most decidedly “monotonous”; he remains true to the truth he has always taught. As this third millennium begins, he continues to say, or rather to shout, what he said on that Pentecost day when he first came down on the disciples: “The whole house of Israel” (today he would say, “the whole world”) (today he would say, “the whole world”) “must know that God has made Lord and Christ this Jesus whom you crucified!” (Acts 2: 36).
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In
the ecumenical dialogue too, Christ is too, Christ is the great blessing.
He is the great blessing. He is the strongest bond that already unites
all Christians. In the dialogue with other religions, Jesus of Nazareth
does not figure. It is not possible even to mention his name without
at once giving rise to confl icts and suspicions. (I once took part
in one of these meetings at an international level, and what I noticed
was that, in a whole day of discussion and debate, his name was not
mentioned even once.) On the other hand, in ecumenical dialogue, Jesus
Christ is everything. He is the reality that unites us, stronger by
far than anything that still divides us. In him we are already “a
single Body” (see Eph 2: 15). 
